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This story on converting unused office space to affordable housing is part of The Solutions Effect, a monthly newsletter covering the best of solutions journalism in the sustainability and social impact space. If you aren't already getting this newsletter, you can sign up here. 

All year we’ve seen companies across the United States take their stance on returning to in-person work. We can debate the importance of in-office collaboration and whether remote work boosts or hampers productivity well into next year, and I bet we will. But what if returning to the office doesn't mean people working there?

Downtowns are struggling without office workers. Small businesses built to meet the needs of those commuting to work, like lunch spots and corner stores, cannot survive when their clientele stops showing up. Many companies are requiring their employees to return to in-person work at least part-time, but remote work seems to be here to stay. Around 40 percent of businesses still say the majority of their employees work both from home and in the office, though this rate has decreased significantly since last year, according to a 2023 survey of over 500 business owners and facilities managers by the hybrid workplace platform Robin.

This year, office space is on track to reach a net decline for the first time since 2000 — likely for the first time in history, but the data doesn’t go back further than that — as Bloomberg reported in July. Seventy-five percent of businesses plan to downsize their office space next year, and 82 percent are worried they can’t keep their current space due to underutilization or a recession, according to Robin’s 2023 survey.

Meanwhile, cities are facing a concurrent problem: an affordable housing shortage. The U.S. is 7.3 million rental homes short of meeting the needs of renters with extremely low incomes, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “That is, incomes at or below either the federal poverty guideline or 30 percent of their area median income, whichever is greater. Only 33 affordable and available rental homes exist for every 100 extremely low-income renter households.”

So, the U.S. needs millions of affordable apartments, and downtowns full of half-empty offices need foot traffic to sustain the local economy. You can probably see where this is going.

In the rural part of the Midwest where I grew up, it’s become normal to enter a Family Video building — recognizable by the signature glass pillar out front — with no intention of picking out a movie, as many of them were transformed into entirely new stores when everyone stopped renting DVDs. Our buildings evolve with us. Who’s to say that what we think of as a high-rise building stuffed with cubicles now can’t be a typical apartment building in the future?

Across the country, 45,000 offices are currently under renovation to become rental apartments, according to a 2023 report from the apartment listing service RentCafe. Converting empty commercial and office space into living space offers the opportunity to address both problems with a single solution. Some developers already made this a reality. In Rochester, New York, designers added windows, courtyards, and rooms to an old Sears building to convert it into a 73-unit apartment complex for low-income seniors, Fast Company reported earlier this month. The project was made possible with tax credits for low-income housing and financial support from the city.

In Philadelphia, an office building from 1929 was converted into 206 apartments back in 2014. Buildings from this era were designed with features like opening windows and offices with no more than 26 feet between the outer wall and the central corridor. Thus, they are easier to turn into rental units that get plenty of natural light without having to significantly alter the structure of the building, The New York Times reports.

It’s not impossible to transform modern offices that are wider, taller and further away from the design of a typical apartment building, either. A 457,000-square-foot office built in New York City in 1970 was made into an apartment complex in 2017, The New York Times reports. Still, redesigning buildings like this is an expensive, complicated task. Among other things, the developers had to add a courtyard through the center of the building and replace the exterior walls of inoperable windows to make it work. Laws that require residential units to have windows that open vary across the country, but they are necessary in New York.

Apart from the difficult design process, zoning regulations often limit what’s possible, and the overall cost often pushes rents into the luxury price point so developers can recoup their losses. But like the Sears project in Rochester, cities can make affordable units a feasible part of these projects with economic incentives like tax reductions and subsidies.

Starting in 2024, a new pilot project in Boston will offer reduced property taxes for those who convert their commercial office space for residential use. The mayor of Washington, D.C. also proposed expanding the city’s property tax break program for commercial-to-residential developments this year. Several projects are already underway in D.C., totaling an estimated 2,500 new apartments. At least one — a 1980s office building previously used as the headquarters for the National Association for the Education of Young Children — is set to be completed by next year.

Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all way to utilize vacant downtown spaces and address the housing crisis. This is just one option in the slew of solutions required to address the issues. While office space redesigns aren’t possible everywhere, they are succeeding in some locations, and many other buildings hold the same untapped potential. 

Dive deeper into this solution: 

• This old Sears store is now an apartment building, Fast Company 
• Here’s How to Solve a 25-Story Rubik’s Cube, The New York Times 
• Video: What It Takes to Convert a Multimillion-Dollar Office Into Housing, The Wall Street Journal 

Kelly Bencheghib stands hip-deep in plastic in one of Bali’s most polluted rivers in the heart of Denpasar, the island’s capital city. While volunteer cleanup crews in the United States are picking up pieces of plastic deposited on their favorite beaches, in Indonesia, the plastic onslaught is a tsunami. 

Indonesia is the fifth largest contributor of marine plastic to the ocean, according to a 2021 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances. The country's Ministry of Environment and Forestry says 59 percent of its 564 rivers are heavily polluted.

Bencheghib and her siblings, Gary and Sam, are attacking the issue alongside 120 ”river warriors” they employ to clean rivers and beaches in the province of Bali and beyond. Their environmental organization — Sungai Watch — sees people, not just technology, as the ultimate solution.

The goal: keep plastic from reaching the ocean and beaches by cleaning rivers.

Global interests, from the United Nations to the world’s largest corporations, are grappling with the changes needed to address the ocean plastic crisis. However, some of the best solutions are happening where the crisis hits home, run by people like the Bencheghib siblings.

They grew up in Bali, surfing, going to the beach, and seeing plastic pollution impact their home. “We thought it wasn’t normal and wanted to do something,” Kelly Bencheghib said. “As teenagers, we didn’t have any funds, but we had tons of energy.”

They started a youth-led organization called Make a Change Bali when Kelly was 16, Gary was 14 and Sam was 12. The group cleaned beaches every weekend and generated community interest to help. As they grew older, the three expanded the scope of the organization and renamed it Make a Change World. 

“Our goal was just to get plastic pollution on front-page news by mixing expeditions and adventure with the topic,” Bencheghib said. They used film and social media to reach large audiences. In 2016, Gary and five friends navigated a raft down the Mississippi River while making an award-winning documentary called “Traveling on Trash.”

A year later, Gary and Sam made two plastic bottle rafts and floated down the plastic-polluted Citarum River in Indonesia. “That’s when we realized rivers are the connection point between life on land and life on the ocean,” Bencheghib said.

The Citarum expedition caught the attention of Indonesia’s president. After he saw the videos the siblings produced, he mobilized 7,000 soldiers for the largest river cleanup in Indonesia to date.

After they graduated college, Kelly, Sam and Gary redoubled their efforts. They started by experimenting with various barriers to capture trash in rivers. Even though they weren’t a formal organization, WWF gave them their first grant which allowed them to rent a place to sort trash other than in their parents' garage.

Now, the siblings are the core organizational group at Sungai Watch, where they and their team of river warriors work six days a week to clean 180 trash barriers. 

All of the warriors are paid employees. “It is such hard work. It is a given that they should be taken care of as much as possible and be given job security,” Bencheghib said. Volunteers are also a huge resource, particularly for weekly village cleanups. 

Data is critical to their work. In its 2022 Impact Report, Sungai Watch audited 235,218 individual waste items to identify the source of the pollution to drive conversations with the government and the companies most responsible.

Sungai Watch installed its first trash barrier on October 10, 2020. As of October 30 of this year, 180 barriers are installed, 800 community cleanups were held, and the organization has collected more than 1.5 million kilograms (over 3.3 million pounds) of plastic.

Yet, the organization pointed out in its impact report that no matter how many barriers are installed, plastic continues to enter the rivers at devastating speeds. So, having just passed the three-year anniversary of deploying its first barrier, the group is using what it learned to develop a village-based intervention model to stop the plastic before it reaches the river.

There are three primary sources of the trash that makes its way into Indonesia’s rivers: people throw it into the canals that flow past their homes, it’s dumped in illegal landfills and it’s thrown off bridges.

Changing these practices at the village level is the critical step to stopping the flow of plastic. “We learned that we have to work closely with communities and that it is very cultural,” Bencheghib said. “How you speak to people is super important. You have to be very humble. Community work must be accomplished before the why, the how, and the what needed to move forward.”

While the ultimate goal is to keep the ocean free of plastic and help the people relate more to the river through culture. Stories from the older generation evoke fond memories of being able to swim and fish. Returning a sense of ownership is essential to the villages’ understanding that restoring rivers to a more pristine state is achievable. 

Sungai Watch hopes to finalize the intervention model in the next few months and will share it with “whoever wants to replicate it, get inspired from it and adapt it to their community,” Bencheghib said. The basic elements include removing 100,000 kilograms (just under 220,500 pounds) of plastic per year, installing 15 trash barriers, hosting weekly community cleanups and monthly community outreach sessions, establishing one local sorting and processing station, and employing a local team of river warriors.

The organization’s effort is already showing success. Fish returned to one of the nine villages they work with, as have a community of fishermen who fish in mangroves that were cleaned up by Sungai Watch. “When you clean rivers, the fish life comes back, and we hope to see that replicated in many more rivers,” Bencheghib said.

The scope of its work continues to expand. To better utilize plastic waste, the Bencheghib siblings launched an in-house social enterprise called Sungai Design which creates furniture out of  some of the plastic collected. They are putting together the first catalog of products, and profits will go directly to supporting Sungai Watch. In addition to working with more villages in Indonesia, they plan to expand to the Philippines in 2024. 

In an economy that often pits people against the planet, outdoor recreation retailer REI is trying out a different path with its new distribution center in Lebanon, Tennessee. The center, which ships goods to more than 60 stores in the area, was specifically designed to address both worker well-being and environmental impact simultaneously.

“At its core, if we start with climate, we're solving for a healthy environment, right? A healthy world well into the future that supports all types of ecosystems,” said Andrew Dempsey, senior manager of sustainability at REI. “But it's really the intersection of that in support of people. That's an outcome that we feel is most important.” It all goes back to REI’s core mission, Dempsey said, “which is to get folks outside.”

A changing climate does not bode well for outdoor activity

The future of outdoor recreation is undoubtedly under threat as the climate crisis worsens. With rates of extreme temperatures intensifying, being active outside is hazardous more and more days per year — even for healthy people. It’s not just heat waves or extreme cold that threaten recreation. Increasing wildfire risks put recreational areas and nearby outdoor enthusiasts in danger, while the smoke from those fires further contributes to negative health effects. Bigger storms, longer droughts, and changing rainfall patterns that lead to flooding are all contributing to an untenable situation for those who want to enjoy the great outdoors. And it’s bad for the businesses that supply them with gear, too.

“We do feel it's an existential threat to the future of our business and to the future of life outside,” Dempsey said. REI’s response to this is an all-hands-on-deck approach, which is why the company paid special attention to every aspect of the design for its new distribution center. 

“We really did seek to consider the entire lifecycle carbon impacts of the building, from design through construction and operation,” he said. “We looked at the embodied carbon of a couple of major material types within the building — concrete and steel — and worked with our builder to [source] materials for both of those that have lower embodied carbon than would have been their standard in the area.”

Harnessing renewable energy while increasing efficiency at the new REI distribution center

Normally buildings like this are heated with natural gas. The Lebanon distribution center has a 1.1-megawatt rooftop solar array that meets about two-thirds of its energy needs. The remainder is procured from a renewable energy provider. “We're not burning any fossil fuels on-site. We have electric heat pump heating systems,” Dempsey said. “So 100 percent electric, 100 percent renewable energy.”

Not only is all of the energy renewable, but the building was also designed with efficiency in mind — beating code requirements by over 30 percent. “We feel like we've built a building that sets up a best-in-class sample for warehouses and for this building type in fighting the climate crisis,” he said.

Bringing the outdoors into the workday

Using electric forklifts and conveyor belts with sensors that only run when they are moving product makes the new distribution center much quieter than what's typical, which is better for employees for whom noise can take a toll. The 90 skylights on the roof — twice as many as the company’s last distribution center — are also a big part of creating a more natural environment inside. Adding more windows is a simple thing companies can do to nurture a connection to the outdoors, Dempsey said. 

“When you're in these spaces it feels different. Natural daylight feels different. You have a connection to where the sun is, what time of day it is outside,” he said. “Typically, warehouses are dark, cavernous spaces. Where you don't have a connection to the outside. You have no access to views, no access to daylight. And you're working in a space that, from a basic human level, may not be all that comfortable.” 

A walking and biking trail and habitat restoration are two projects currently in development on the campus to give employees more access to the outdoors. Covered bike racks encourage carbon-free commutes, and the showers and changing rooms in the employee gym make doing so a more comfortable experience for everyone. There are also six charging stations available for workers who own electric vehicles, Dempsey said.

Raising the bar for distribution centers

REI is not immune to the issues like layoffs and employee dissatisfaction that are prevalent across sectors like retail right now. But this new building design is raising the bar for both employee well-being and environmental responsibility at distribution centers. 

Though many retailers may be relatively insulated from the effects of the climate crisis compared to brands that rely on outdoor activity for sales, like REI, eventually all bottom lines will be affected. It would be wise for more distributors to design their buildings to mitigate the climate crisis. Doing so while valuing employee well-being will pay dividends in tenure and productivity.

This story is part of a new solutions journalism series focused on refillable packaging, how refillables are used around the world, and what's holding these systems back from scaling further. Follow along with the series here. 

You'll likely notice something different when you order a Corona in Mexico — and we're not just talking about the taste. If you look closely at the label, more often than not you'll see it's a little faded, evidence of the container being washed and reused dozens of times. Return and refill systems like this are prevalent across Latin America and around the world, and not just for beer. The world's largest soft drink companies, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, sell billions of units in refillable plastic bottles every year across Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe. 

To people in other markets, the news that major bottled beverage brands — among the largest producers of single-use plastic globally — are already operating successful refill systems may come as a surprise. "The refillable bottle is a very common packaging type, but one of the reasons why it's not as visible is that it's not present in the U.S. and the U.K.," said Matt Littlejohn, who leads the refillables program as part of his role as SVP of strategic initiatives at the ocean conservation nonprofit Oceana.

About 14 percent of Coca-Cola's global beverage sales were sold in refillable bottles last year. PepsiCo is around 10 percent. And major beer companies like Heineken and AB InBev, which owns Corona, sell upwards of 30 percent of all products in refillable containers globally, Littlejohn said. So, why don't these companies talk about refill more, and why aren't they selling them in the U.S.? 

How do refillable bottle programs work?

From Mexico to Chile, Germany to the Philippines, millions of people around the world see bottle return and refill as commonplace. But for the uninitiated, it may sound confusing at first. How does that even work? Really, it's pretty simple. 

When people head to their local corner store, they'll see drinks in refillable containers alongside those in single-use bottles. In Mexico, for example, most bottled beers distributed by Grupo Modelo — including Corona, Modelo and Victoria, among others — can be refilled. Customers simply bring their empties back, leave them in a designated place in the store, and pick up new beers for about 15 percent less than what they'd pay if they didn't return the packaging. When the Modelo truck arrives at the store with a new beer delivery, the driver takes the empties back to the bottling plant to be washed, refilled and used again. 

Soda and water brands owned by companies like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have separate containers that are marked as returnable, which are made from a more durable plastic than what's used for single-use. Otherwise, the system is the same: Customers bring their empty returnable bottles back to the store and choose a new product from the shelf.

In Latin America, Coca-Cola products cost up to 25 percent less for customers returning a refillable bottle, said Andres Wainer, chief financial officer of Embotelladora Andina, a major Coca-Cola bottler in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Paraguay. Around 30 percent of all the soft drinks Andina sells are in refillable containers, Wainer said at a panel discussion hosted by Oceana and HSBC last year. In some markets, such as Argentina and Paraguay, it's even higher — around half of all products sold. 

In short: These systems are working, and not just in Latin America. Around half of Coca-Cola's volume in the Philippines is sold in refillable containers, and similar systems are thriving in European countries like Germany, Spain and France, Littlejohn said. 

Each refillable container displaces dozens of single-use bottles, reducing the burden on waste processors around the world as well as the chance for packaging to end up as litter in the environment. Durable plastic bottles can be reused around 25 times, and glass bottles can be refilled 50 times or more, according to Oceana.

Returnable bottles also come with a substantially lower carbon footprint compared to single-use, even taking into account transportation and the water and energy needed for wash and refill. Coca-Cola claims its refillable bottle comes with 47 percent less lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions, and Wainer said he's seen estimates as high as 90 percent for some systems. 

So, why aren't brands using refillables in the U.S.?

"Really there are two things holding this back from coming to the U.S.," Littlejohn said. "The main thing is money. It's expensive. You actually have to invest." 

Bottling plants are typically constructed to move in one direction — sanitizing new bottles, filling them up and sending them out to be sold. Introducing new equipment to process and clean refillable bottles can be costly. Arca Continental, a major bottler in Mexico and Ecuador that accounts for around 12 percent of Coca-Cola's annual refillable sales, says about 20 percent of its capital expenditures go toward the refill system, Littlejohn said. 

Though the price-tag on transitioning a bottling plant to process refillables can be in the billions of dollars, it's not insurmountable considering the size and scale of these companies, Littlejohn told us. And he pointed to a straightforward solution: green bonds, sums of money raised from investors that are specifically earmarked for environmental projects.

While many consumer goods companies have issued green bonds, most have gone to purchase recycled plastic or support plastic recycling initiatives. Leveraging those instruments to support refill can help companies cover the upfront cost until the systems are up and running, Littlejohn said. "And it’s an asset," he told us. "You're investing in trucks and bottles and machines. These are depreciable assets. [Bottlers] book the deposits as a revenue source. This is in line with your business. Yes, you have to invest, but you get the money back and there's money for it." 

Along with cost, the second challenge hinges on the way companies communicate about refill, which is somewhat curious considering we're talking about firms like Coke and Pepsi that have used the magic of marketing to stay relevant for over a century. 

In places like Asia and Latin America, refillables are primarily marketed as a way for customers to save money. In his conversations with leaders at major brands, Littlejohn found that many seem convinced this angle won't work in places like the U.S., particularly as inflation stabilizes.

But even in markets where brands sell reusables on cost, field research from Oceana indicates people can and do recognize the environmental benefit of choosing reusable (check out the video above). 

"This is a way to save money. They could sell that asset in the U.S. They think they can't, but they could," Littlejohn said. "And then in addition, they need to market the environmental benefit of this. The only place they sell it on the environmental benefit is in Germany."

Turning the corner on the rise of refillables  

While refillables are already working in major markets around the world, they're highly under-leveraged and ready to scale, Littlejohn said. Doing so can come with major environmental benefits: Along with reducing lifecycle carbon emissions, every 10 percent increase in refillable bottle use across coastal countries could yield a 22 percent reduction in plastic bottle pollution in the world's oceans, Oceana estimates. 

Brands say they're ready to be part of the transition. Coca-Cola, for example, aims to increase its sales in refillable containers from 14 percent today to 25 percent by 2030. But they have a long way to go when it comes to raising awareness and getting more bottlers and distributors around the world involved. 

"They should be telling people about this," Littlejohn said of brands like Coke and Pepsi. "They’re doing this at such a huge level, and no one really knows it." 

In a small sign of change, Arca Continental, Coca-Cola's primary bottler in Mexico, also serves Texas and started rolling out refillables in select markets last year. After a successful 2022 pilot in El Paso — the first time Coca-Cola used refillable containers in the U.S. in over a decade — Arca expanded the program to San Antonio this year. 

"This is a direction that I think generally a lot of consumer branded companies are going to have to move in, because they're going to have to deal with the waste issue, and this is a way you can do it," Littlejohn said. "It's a simple thing, but it is such a radical simple idea, because it's not single-use." 

The global petrochemical industry continues to expand, adding to concerns that oil, gas, and coal are being consumed at an unsustainable level. Meanwhile, the green chemistry movement has already begun to introduce bio-based plastics, cleansers and other familiar consumer products that don't require fossil fuel feedstocks. Now, a new round of green chemistry innovation is going beyond common household products to decarbonize industrial processes, supply chains and fuels.

Petrochemicals are growing

Fossil fuels are not only used for heat and energy, but also as the building blocks for plastics, chemicals and more. The field of petrochemicals includes compounds made from natural gas as well as petroleum. In some countries, notably China, coal is also used as a chemical building block.

Common household petrochemical products include synthetic fabrics, rubber and detergents, in addition to a wide range of fuels and plastic items.

Plastics are often cited as the main driver of petrochemical growth and pollution. New research by the firm Emergen, though, indicates that global automotive and pharmaceutical sectors have also become powerful growth factors.

“Petrochemicals are set to account for more than a third of the growth in world oil demand to 2030 and nearly half the growth to 2050,” the International Energy Agency warned in a widely cited 2018 report, which also forecast a rise in petrochemical demand for natural gas.

Similarly, Fortune Business Insights predicts the global petrochemicals market will experience strong growth in the coming years, reaching $886 billion by 2030, compared to around $628 billion today.

Spotlight on sustainability

Notwithstanding this activity, signs of change are emerging. Rachel Carson’s influential 1962 book "Silent Spring" motivated new generations of 20th-century chemists to focus on sustainability. Those efforts culminated in the 12 principles for harm reduction outlined in the 1998 book "Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice" by John Warner and Paul Anastas.

The book did not stop the petrochemical industry, but it did lay the groundwork for change. "Green Chemistry" continues to guide the field today, and its full effect is beginning to emerge with new advances in molecular science.

The new wave of green chemistry replicates photosynthesis, the natural process by which plants create new molecules from carbon dioxide.

“We’re accelerating it and doing it in real time,” said Mahlet Garedew, innovation program manager at the Brooklyn-based chemistry startup Air Company. “Why don’t we start assembling these molecules at the molecular level and mimicking what nature is doing? This is the core of green chemistry. It’s the design of products and processes. That’s why this technology is exciting.”

The molecular approach is reflected in the six winners of the 2023 Green Chemistry Challenge, a program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Among the awardees is the Texas firm Solugen. The company’s proprietary “Bioforge” enzyme-based platform reassembles sugars, air and carbon dioxide into plastics, construction materials and other products. The New Jersey company Modern Meadow's bio-based protein foam replaces petrochemical dyes, reducing water use by 95 percent and energy consumption by 75 percent.

The follow-on health and safety benefits of green chemistry are also illustrated by an award to the Georgia firm Captis Aire. The company captures compounds called terpenes from wood processing facilities and converts them to biofuels, fragrances and other products. “Currently these terpenes can be an air pollutant, an irritant to eyes, lungs and skin, and are commonly burned as waste which releases greenhouse gases,” the EPA notes.

Starting the recarbonization conversation: A new biofuel made from biofuel emissions

Air Company was also included among the 2023 awardees for its trademarked “AirMade System” that recombines carbon dioxide and water into new forms. The award underscores how green chemistry can help support other elements of the bioeconomy.

The company launched in 2017 with two signature products, a vodka and a perfume, made with carbon from ethanol fermentation plants. The launch helped raise awareness about green chemistry's potential to impact a wide variety of industries, Garedew said. The company also produced hand sanitizer during the COVID-19 pandemic and even worked with NASA to convert carbon dioxide into sugars, with the aim of one day synthesizing food in space.

In the area of ethanol and biofuels alone, the potential for green chemistry is vast. U.S. ethanol producers, for example, are depending on new carbon capture and sequestration projects to cut their carbon footprint. However, new pipelines and sequestration proposals are encountering roadblocks, including the cancellation of a proposed 1,300-mile carbon pipeline for the U.S. Midwest.

A new McKinsey report also indicates that capture and sequestration is not an effective pathway to net zero. McKinsey advocates for a “recarbonization” of the biofuels and chemistry industries, using biomass and carbon from the atmosphere instead of fossil sources.

The AirMade System meets the recarbonization standard while raising the potential to avoid new pipelines. The modular, transportable system can be located at or near the point of carbon emissions. The system also includes water-sourced green hydrogen technology, powered by renewable energy.

This distributed-by-design business model eliminates the need for a centralized carbon sequestration facility. It creates the potential to deploy existing pipeline, road and rail infrastructure, and it enables ethanol producers to generate additional fuel from the same amount of biomass. 

The company can use a variety of industrial emissions for carbon, but its main focus is currently on fuel from ethanol plant emissions and other bio-based sources. “Really the big impact is in chemistry and fuel industries, specifically aviation,” Garedew said. 

More pressure on petrochemicals

Pressure on the petrochemical industry is beginning to rise from other sources. One example is the Beyond Petrochemicals initiative, launched in 2022 by Bloomberg Philanthropies and aimed at stopping the construction of new petrochemical plants in the U.S. 

Academic resources are also gathering force. The new Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale University, for example, is a partnership with the United Nations to introduce green chemistry in key industries around the world, beginning with the replacement of hazardous materials in the textile and construction sectors.

The trade association American Chemistry Society co-sponsors the EPA's Green Chemistry program as part of its support for an industry-wide pivot away from petrochemicals and other hazardous materials. In contrast to past practice, the group now encourages its members to create “a new reality for chemistry and engineering” based on pollution prevention, waste reduction, resource preservation, and energy conservation.

Next steps for green chemistry

The rising uproar over the toxic impacts of the “forever” chemical group PFAS indicates the American Chemistry Society has a lot of ground to make up. The field of green chemistry itself is also evolving, as advocates for the “sustainable chemistry” movement press for the inclusion of more holistic, long-term ecological goals.

Above all, chemists themselves are emerging as powerful change makers.

“By training I’m a biosystems engineer, and I worked in an organic chemistry lab on the bio-based side of green chemistry,” Garedew explains. “A lot of my Ph.D. work was promoting that, and thinking where we can implement the principles of green chemistry.”

“Innovation is always on the horizon,” she says. “There are so many things we can do with carbon dioxide.”

This story is part of Equalizing Wealth, a guest-contributed column that takes a sharp look at the interconnected factors driving racial wealth disparities in the United States — and puts forward evidence-based ways to address them. If you're interested in contributing your perspective to this column, please get in touch with us here. 

Last year, Drs. Nathan Connolly and Shani Mott, a Black couple from Baltimore, Maryland, sought out a home appraisal to refinance their mortgage, and their home was estimated at $472,00. Recognizing the valuation was out of line with homes in the area, the couple removed any traces of their race, including family photos and books by Black authors. The pair then outfitted the home with generic artwork, white family photos and asked a white colleague to pretend to own the home. After conducting this social experiment in racial bias, their second appraiser estimated the home value to be $750,000.

Drs. Connolly and Mott believe the initial appraisal process used subjective criteria to evaluate their home, including proximity to a majority-Black neighborhood and proximity to a busy street. The couple tried to challenge the appraisal with their initial lender but were met with silence.  

On the other side of the country in San Francisco, California, another Black couple, Paul Austin and Tenisha Tate-Austin, sought out an appraiser to refinance their mortgage to pay for major upgrades. The initial appraiser valued the home at $995,000. What’s most shocking is that approximately a year earlier, the home was appraised for $1.45 million. Fortunately for the Austins, when they challenged their home appraisal, the lender agreed that the appraisal's subjective criteria were “incorrect or inappropriate.” Like Drs. Connolly and Mott, the Austins removed items hinting at their racial identity, including family photos and hair care products, and also asked a white friend to pose as the homeowner. The second appraiser valued their home at $1,482,500, higher than the previous two estimations.  

Both scenarios illustrate the negative systemic conditions families of color often face during the homeownership process. These conditions contribute to our racial wealth divide. Whether a person is selling or buying their home, appealing a property tax assessment, applying for a home equity line of credit, or refinancing a loan, a home appraisal is necessary to ensure a home’s value is accurately assessed.

Home appraisals play a key role in setting a foundation for generational wealth, offering the homeowner access to the full equity when they pay off their mortgage. 

Home appraisers are intended to give an “independent, objective, and unbiased opinion of the estimated market value of a residential property” based on home condition, size, amenities and upgrades, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). While home appraisals should be a race-neutral process at face value, racial bias is still alarmingly present in the home appraisal process, and these two stories are not anomalies.  

A 2022 Fannie Mae study looked at 1.8 million appraisals for refinance applications in 2019-2020, and researchers found that white-owned homes were valued at higher rates in all neighborhoods but especially those in majority-Black neighborhoods. The researchers concluded that the overvaluation resulted in a 10 percent higher appraisal value in their automated valuation models. 

To address the racial bias in the appraisal process, the Joe Biden administration commissioned the Interagency Task Force on Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity (PAVE), a group of 13 key agencies that have an impact on the appraisal process, to create an Action Plan. The PAVE task force was inspired by U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters' (D-Calif.) plea to protect consumers in the appraisal process through letters to the Biden administration and her subsequent bill, House Resolution 2553. 

With homeownership as the primary way for most people to build wealth, racial bias in the home appraisal process can contribute to the divide between wealth for white families and that of their Black and Brown peers.

White households hold 11 times more wealth than Black households and nearly six times more wealth than Latinx households, according to Prosperity Now's State of Household Wealth and the Racial Wealth Gap in 2020 report. In fact, the PAVE report notes that the “financial returns associated with owning a home” is “perhaps [one of] the biggest drivers of the racial and ethnic wealth divide." If advocates are committed to eliminating racial inequities in wealth building, we must also be committed to disrupting the barriers that devalue home prices because of race. 

The PAVE task force devised five key recommendations that aim to create equity in the home appraisal process through arming consumers with knowledge to identify appraisal bias and how to combat it, diversifying the appraisal workforce, providing better data and research on bias and how to identify it, and reevaluating policies and guidance to ensure that bias is eliminated from the process.  

The PAVE task force’s recommendations are extremely robust and a major step in the right direction to ensure that Black and Brown families have equal access to homeownership. Although they get to the root of the deficiencies in processes among the relevant federal agencies, which should lead to better safeguards for homebuyers and homeowners, states still have a role to play in protecting homeowners from racial bias. In 2021, California passed Assembly Bill 948 that provides homeowners and home buyers with information about contesting the appraisal process if they suspect racial bias, modifies the appraiser licensing course to include cultural competency and bias courses, and directs the California Bureau of Real Estate Appraisers to present an assessment of appraisal complaints to relevant state lawmakers.  

States also have great flexibility to rethink their requirements for aspiring appraisers, including modifying or eliminating education or experience requirements to allow for a more equitable workforce.
 
For instance, states can innovate through partnerships with state universities and state agencies to create intentional pathways into the industry through bachelor’s degree programs. They could offer programs that help aspiring appraisers meet education and experience requirements, host appraiser mentorships, or provide stipends so that those who cannot afford to train in an unpaid capacity can still obtain the necessary experience.  

It is an all-hands-on-deck responsibility to ensure that racial bias is eliminated from the appraisal process in pursuit of greater wealth equity. Consumers and advocates can also play a role in ensuring that the recommendations are being implemented in their states and that key improvements, such as incentivizing current appraisers to train up-and-coming appraisers, are funded each year. 

"This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here."

Stripping coal from a mountain demands a wholesale rearrangement of its summit and the transformation of the surrounding forest into a moonscape. Enormous machines rip out the vegetation first, followed by the topsoil, and finally a layer or two of rock. It all becomes waste, dumped into a valley below the site. The federal Surface Mining Reclamation Act of 1977 requires coal companies to leave the denuded land in roughly the shape they found it or restore it to “higher and better use” at their expense, though many of them find ways to slip out of the obligation. 

It’s hard to know how much unreclaimed and partially reclaimed mine land exists, though some place the figure at 633,000 acres across Appalachia. As many as 100,000 of them may lie in Virginia alone. Much of this land is a quagmire of erosion, water pollution, and other problems, yet some of it is slowly being taken back by the forest. It may be ill, but it certainly is not dead, and is in many cases surprisingly alive, as scientists have found over decades of studying the reforestation and recovery of mined lands.

A manual, written in September by a coalition of southwestern Virginia scientists and advocates of sustainable development, used new and existing findings to shape a vision for these ravaged landscapes.

Flat land is hard to come by in the mountainous central Appalachian region, and much of the development has occurred on ridges flattened by coal strip mines. These sites, often deemed empty space at best and wastelands at worst, have been targeted for everything from prisons, Walmarts, and industrial parks to lavender farms, wildlife preserves, and, most recently, clean energy projects. As millions in public and private investment, boosted by the bipartisan infrastructure law, pour into the region, many people are eyeing these abandoned sites.

The researchers of the High Knob Regional Initiative want them to slow down and take a look at what’s already there.

“Some of these sites, especially the older sites, have begun to restore themselves in a way where forests started to come in, and wildlife is coming into some of the sites on their own,” said Wally Smith, a biologist at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise and the team’s leader. “We’re increasingly finding that it’s not true that these are just ecological voids where nothing is living there.”

For decades, researchers, including some affiliated with the Initiative, have studied a variety of mine lands, from underground shafts to decades-old strip mines to more recently leveled sites, some overgrown with forest, others bearing nothing but stubby autumn olives (a non-native shrub) and scraggly grasses. Not only has the natural world crept back into many of these places, but so too has a multiplicity of flora and fauna, including rare and endangered species. The green salamander, currently under consideration for inclusion on the federal endangered species list, turned up in several locations in Wise County, Virginia, for instance. On another site, mined three or four decades ago, Smith’s team found mammalian diversity higher than in some parts of the surrounding forest, especially where wetlands had formed or been constructed. 

Previous research has suggested wetlands and forest can be an integral part of surface mine reclamation, filtering out acidic drainage, heavy metals, and other contaminants that can seep from mine sites for years or even decades. In some cases these marshy areas formed as a result of the changes to the landscape.

Smith hopes local leaders use the region’s current moment of energy and economic transition to correct, rather than exacerbate, land use mistakes of the past. Poorly planned construction can easily erase this progress, as seen with Spearhead Trails, a vast and controversial network of ATV paths sprawled over reforested former mine land, owned by the Nature Conservancy, in southwestern Virginia. An investigation by the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism found that erosion and dust tore up creek beds, damaged homes and family cemeteries, and caused flooding. 

Many people, Smith feels, see mine lands as real estate, already lost and as good as trash. He pointed to a feasibility study an engineering company filed with Virginia’s department of energy in support of a small modular nuclear reactor slated for a former strip mine in southwest Virginia. The document finds “there are few environmental restrictions regarding the preservation of the existing environment” and that a reactor fits the description of a “higher and better use.” 

“The environmental considerations that you would normally consider for something like an intact forest are not there,” Smith said. “They’re kind of these guilt-free development sites.”

Smith stresses that his team isn’t arguing against development, but rather, in favor of sustainable development that brings underserved members of the impacted communities into planning processes earlier and more often than currently required. The coal industry ran rampant over the region’s mountaintops and privatized huge swathes of land for profit, and the researchers say now is a chance to try a more ecologically sound, community-centered approach. 

To that end, the High Knob Regional Initiative compiled its years of research into a set of best-use recommendations for the region’s former mine lands. The guidelines target recreational development, energy development, and other construction projects, and urge developers and local officials to incorporate more environmental assessment, transparency, and public input into planning efforts, which should consider the possible effects on local communities.

“You really got this very big, maybe a kaleidoscope is the best way to say [it], with all these properties that had been mined and managed in different ways,” Smith said. “What that really means is there’s not a one-size-fits-all conclusion that you can reach about the impacts for wildlife and native ecosystems there.”

There’s also a real sense of wanting to reclaim these lands not only for the ecosystem, but also for the human communities that live there. Corporations that benefited from coal’s glory days may continue to profit from using the region’s land in other ways, even if they’re less environmentally destructive than before. For instance, the mine lands of several Appalachian states are becoming utility-scale solar fields. One of them near Wise, Virginia, is owned by Dominion Energy, which profited heartily from Virginia’s resources through gas and coal.

Tarah Kesterson, communications director for Virginia’s regional Abandoned Mine Land Program, said that the state consults with mine lands developers on permitting, but ultimately, the landowners have the final say on how projects treat the land, with the agency focused more on safety fixes to shore up any problems with the stability of the land itself.

More community-engaged projects could be possible soon, she says. With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act last year, coalfields states suddenly have more funding to restore abandoned mines than ever before. Virginia will get upward of $22.7 million per year for 15 years. Kesterson hopes the windfall will be an opportunity to look at mine land restoration more holistically. “It’ll give us more opportunities to look at the effects of abandoned mine lands on these communities and maybe do community projects rather than a little fix-it here and there,” she said.

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/science/the-surprising-biodiversity-of-abandoned-coal-mines/. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org.

Like millions of people around the world, tech entrepreneur Cary Wheelous suddenly found himself with a lot of free time during the COVID-19 pandemic. That's when he heard the news that the owner of The Carolina Times — the only Black-operated and owned newspaper in Durham, North Carolina — had passed away and the paper was shutting down. 

“I thought, ‘Here we go, another Black newspaper is going out of business,’” Wheelous told TriplePundit. “And I thought, ‘Why does this keep happening to the legacy Black papers that have served our communities for many, many years? What’s going on with them?’” 

Wheelous examined news aggregation apps like Apple News, Google News and Flipboard to see what content from Black publishers he could find. He didn’t find much, despite the fact that Black audiences are the largest consumers of mass media in the United States. 

“I couldn’t count more than 30, and therein lies the problem that I found,” Wheelous said. “Black legacy publishers are not getting distribution across major mainstream apps that we use every day. I said to myself, ‘I can do something about this.’” 

In 2020, Wheelous started developing Hayti (pronounced HAY’-tie) a mobile app that aggregates content specifically from Black publishers. He named the app after a historic African American community in Durham of the same name where The Carolina Times was founded in the 1920s. 

“Hayti was a very prominent Black Wall Street. In fact, it was probably just as big, if not bigger, than Tulsa,” Wheelous said, referring to the city’s Greenwood District, one of the most prominent concentrations of Black-owned businesses in the U.S. during the early 20th century that was destroyed in the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921.

With a majority of Black audiences already using social media apps to keep up with the news cycle, a news aggregation app from credible Black publishers enables them to connect with culturally relevant, fact-checked information and push back on the spread of misinformation, Wheelous said.

“The app is a news aggregation app, just like any other app that you use on your mobile phone today. The only distinction is we aggregate traffic, or aggregate content, specifically from Black content creators,” Wheelous said. “We have the same features. You can save articles. You can share articles. We have everything broken out by news, business, sports, politics. You name it, it’s in the app.” 

In just over three years, Hayti became the largest mobile app to feature more than 200 Black publishers on Android and iOS, and the first Black-owned mobile app to feature more than 2,000 Black podcasters on both operating systems, too.

“We’ve been able to successfully increase traffic and also increase revenue for not only publishers, but also podcasters who were never able to get the listeners on other platforms,” Wheelous said. “Now they’re getting some of those listeners. The ultimate goal is to drive traffic, but ultimately to boost revenue for these Black content creators to keep them in business.”

The decision to expand the app’s reach into podcasts was in direct response to the needs of its target demographic. Sixty-two percent of Black podcast listeners said they listen to podcasts “at least in part for exposure to hosts that look and sound like they do,” according to a report from the podcast agency JAR Audio. Because of the app’s success in attracting Black podcasters, Hayti is now the official app of the Black Podcasters Association, Wheelous said.

The app promotes podcasters by recognizing a podcast of the week. “But in addition to that, that story actually gets pushed out to our mobile users," Wheelous said. "We’re working hand-in-hand with the Association to conduct webinars and handle promotion to make sure that we can get their stories out via both organizations.”

The Hayti app generates revenue from advertising that enables it to be available for free to users and publishers. The long-term vision for Hayti is to bring in retailers, too, Wheelous said. 

“You will be able to come to the app to not only get news or access to podcasts, but you will also be able to support and purchase products from retailers,” Wheelous said. “We want to be a digital Black Wall Street mobile app that will enable users to support our community via the smartphones that they use on a daily basis.”

Forward-thinking companies are implementing supply chain sustainability initiatives that include environmental and social pledges. But many are also grappling with how to comply with new and evolving regulations as they work to mitigate the risks they face, including those tied to human rights. 

For example, multiple countries are collaborating to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to meet the goals set by the Paris Climate Accord and the European Green Deal. They’re also working at the national level to institute laws, such as Germany’s Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG), that mitigate broad-based environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks and corporate compliance mandates.

As businesses continue to navigate the complex regulatory landscape, they will need the right programs and technology solutions to address one mandate without neglecting another. By taking a risk-informed approach to sustainable procurement — particularly when it comes to low-carbon technologies — leaders can help protect the planet and ethically treat people that produce the products and services that companies procure. 

As global temperatures rise, the race to net-zero heats up

Global companies that have tens of thousands of suppliers and third parties operating as part of their extended enterprise are exposed to escalated ESG and human rights risks. They often adopt third-party risk management solutions that can facilitate risk assessments, due diligence checks, supplier audits, and continuous monitoring.

Digitally-enabled companies that can identify, assess, and continuously monitor their risk exposures across their extended enterprise are far better prepared to mitigate them. 

Yet, despite their best efforts and intentions, many companies still encounter third-party and supplier risks, including those in the renewable energy market.

Take, for example, the recent experience of U.S.-based solar panel manufacturer First Solar. While auditing suppliers, four sub-contractors in Malaysia were found to have violated worker rights and First Solar’s standards by charging workers recruitment fees in their home countries and withholding their passports and pay, effectively detaining them in Malaysia. First Solar discovered these violations through due diligence, took action to resolve the issue, and voluntarily disclosed the findings in its annual sustainability report in August of this year.

The system worked as designed. Ultimately, rather than sever ties with the sub-contractors, First Solar worked with them to remediate their labor practice issues — enabling First Solar to drive positive social change, support the local workforce, and retain a critical part of its supply base. 

Other companies aren’t so lucky. 

Since June 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has seized $1.81 billion in goods at U.S. ports, including solar panels and materials used to make them, for violating the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA).

Hundreds of U.S. companies were unable to show sufficient due diligence to rebut the UFLPA’s presumption that what they’re importing was created through forced labor. Although nearly 40 percent of seized shipments have since been released, the lapse in third-party due diligence created operational delays, affected revenues, and increased pricing for solar panel modules by 30 to 40 percent.

Why this can be so difficult for companies

Demand for clean energy technologies continues to outstrip U.S. domestic production capacity, compelling many procurement teams to source from suppliers in countries with poor human rights records and opaque supply chains. But, as the UFLPA holds, plausible deniability will no longer pass muster. 

China’s infamous human rights record, including the Uyghur genocide, casts a long shadow over the global solar panel supply chain. Companies that have left China to either build domestic production capacity or source from other countries (e.g., Malaysia and Vietnam) remain at risk, because China controls at least 80 percent of global manufacturing at each stage of the solar panel supply chain. This means that solar panels shipped to the U.S. and categorized as manufactured in Malaysia are still predominantly built in China. Malaysia is the country of origin most often cited in CBP statistics for violations of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. 

Therefore, until the domestic production of solar panels, wind turbines and rechargeable batteries begins to approach domestic demand, companies building or acquiring renewable-energy technologies will remain exposed to the risks of modern slavery and other worker abuses in their supply chains. 

How to advance on climate without retreating on human rights

Broad ESG regulatory compliance is not an implementation project, it’s a journey. As business leaders turn to technology to improve supplier visibility and third-party risk management, there are five considerations they should keep top of mind.

Clearly define what you're doing. 
Establish a well-defined charter that sets the purpose, business objectives and scope around current risk profiles, how third parties are used and managed, and which ESG regulations, standards, and frameworks must be adhered to.

Chart a roadmap. Create a roadmap of your company’s ESG programming to provide a clear starting point and outline the implementation phases for your risk priorities, with continuous checkpoints and insights.

Get buy-in, internally and externally. Secure cross-organizational alignment within your company, and then clearly communicate ESG expectations with your third parties to ensure governance and compliance requirements are understood and met.

Identify the changes you plan to make — and how you'll make them. Create blueprints of functionality, technologies, and integrations needed for each risk domain to help inform and give definition to the business processes needed to make it happen. 

Set your priorities, and start investing in them. When considering technology investments, business leaders should think big, start small, and grow fast. Companies need modern business solutions for modern business problems. 

• Think big: Take a comprehensive view of your ESG strategy first and select a system or software platform that can support the majority of them with consistency. 
• Start small: Implement one or two of the most critical programs you've identified, because ESG risks and regulations will change, along with compliance requirements. 
• Grow fast: Expand quickly through a series of implementations that incrementally expand risk domains as needed.

With the right programs and tools, companies can conduct more thorough due diligence that vets and assesses suppliers and third parties for inherent risks. These business solutions can ultimately help companies reach their climate and emissions goals and requirements while preserving the human rights and dignity of the people who ultimately fuel their supply chains.

Public transit ridership plummeted around the world at the start of the coronavirus pandemic and never fully recovered. Some riders may be hesitant to revisit densely packed public spaces, but convenient access to public transit remains a key reason why ridership continues to lag.

As housing prices skyrocketed in major cities and the pandemic eased the transition to remote work, people across the U.S. and around the world started moving out of downtown areas in search of lower costs. That means where people live in relation to historic transit hubs is quickly changing, further complicating the fact that only around half of urban residents worldwide have access to public transit near their homes. 

Camden, New Jersey, where an estimated 70 percent of residents rely primarily on walking or public transit, is among the latest cities looking toward technology to solve their transportation problems. With the newly launched Camden Loop, the city joins hundreds of localities around the world in supplementing fixed-route public transportation with on-demand microtransit. 

For commuters, microtransit systems are similar to ride-hailing services like Uber or Lyft: The user pulls up an app on their phone to order a ride, they're given an estimated time of arrival, and they meet the driver at a nearby corner for a shared ride with others traveling in the same direction. But behind the scenes, these systems are co-created by municipal governments and local stakeholders to fill in public transit gaps and get residents where they need to go.

As of last year, about 450 companies were offering microtransit services worldwide, Lukas Foljanty, a German transportation analyst focused on microtransit, told Bloomberg. 

Microtransit meets crucial needs in Camden

Situated across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, the city of Camden is home to around 71,000 people. With nearly 34 percent of the city's population living below the poverty line at the time of the last Census, the former manufacturing hub is now the poorest city in the Garden State. 

Those rates of poverty bring with them familiar challenges — including lack of access to essential services like healthcare facilities, schools and grocery stores selling fresh food.

"About a third of the households in the city do not have dependable access to a car," said Dana Redd, who served as mayor of Camden from 2010 to 2018 and is now CEO of the nonprofit Camden Community Partnership. "I certainly can attest to that. Having been born and raised in the city of Camden, raised by my grandparents, we did not have a vehicle in our household. And I relied on public transportation to connect to employment and also to connect to school." 

The Camden Loop launched in July as a joint effort between the city of Camden, Camden Community Partnership and the microtransit developer Via. People took notice early on. "In the first week, residents were texting me how wonderful this option is and how wonderful the service has been," Redd told us. 

The Camden Loop has provided almost 15,000 rides so far. Nearly 7,700 unique riders — equivalent to over 10 percent of the city's population — have established app accounts to utilize the Camden Loop. 

The on-demand service helps riders fill in gaps between fixed bus routes and crucial hubs both inside and outside of the city, including New Jersey Transit hubs in Camden's downtown and about seven miles away in the affluent suburb of Cherry Hill. 

"Fixed-route does a great job of connecting people, but unfortunately, just due to the way that fixed-route works, it can't reach everywhere within a community," said Eric Gardiner, head of East Coast partnerships at Via. "That's where having a technology-enabled public transit service — where you can indicate from a demand side, not a supply side that you need a ride — allows you to cover a much greater area and fill in the gaps, while also connecting that first-last mile to intermodal hubs."  

Addressing access 'deserts' in underserved communities 

Early data from the Camden Loop indicates riders are using the service to get to school, work, and essential services in ways that are faster, easier and cheaper than what they were able to do before. "The trips that people are taking are ones they previously could not take on public transit," Gardiner said. "They're moving around the community in a completely different way." 

That includes easier access to transportation and shopping that is available in Cherry Hill. While only a few miles from downtown Camden, the suburb's offerings are a world apart, with public transportation connecting to North Jersey and New York, as well as ample access to shopping centers and grocery stores that are few and far between within the city proper. 

In particular, about 30 percent of people who visit the ShopRite in Cherry Hill are from Camden, Redd said, a journey that for many is an arduous combination of walking and buses that stop only a few times an hour. Even more so in cold and icy weather. "I can remember as a young person growing up in the city, being raised by a grandmother, just the struggle of getting to the market, and then after you shop, the struggle of getting home," she said. "Trying to do that via public transportation was not something I looked forward to as a little girl."

The city's major hospital and Camden's public high school — which Redd describes as "the center of activity" on Camden's South Side — are also among the top stops in the first four months of service on the Camden Loop. 

Ensuring accessibility for those who need it most

As far as transit goes, the Camden Loop is cheap and easy. Rides cost $2 each, compared to $2.25 for standard fare on New Jersey Transit buses. "It's very affordable here for residents, but we also have other ways to offer reduced rates — including the weekly pass, which is a $7 a week charge for up to four rides per day, or a monthly pass, which is $26 per month for up to four rides per day," Redd said. 

Beyond cost, the service is also accessible. Those who are tech-savvy and don't mind walking a block to a designated pickup point can utilize the service the same way they'd use the carpool function on Lyft or Uber, with average arrival times of around 15 minutes. People who don't have a smartphone or don't like technology can call to get a ride, while those with mobility challenges can request door-to-door service rather than corner-to-corner. The shared vans can also accommodate wheelchairs

"We were able to hear from [people in the community] well in advance of us designing this, finding out what the concerns were, finding out what the needs were, and really looking to address some of those deserts — locations where the first-mile, last-mile barriers were very intense," said Brian Bauerle, vice president of Camden Community Partnership. "What was most important to us was finding a partner like Via, who had the expertise to hear our voice, what we wanted to represent for the community, and help us implement that."

A global proving ground for microtransit 

Hundreds of microtransit programs like the Camden Loop are operational across the U.S. and around the world. Via alone has more than 50 municipal partners in the U.S., where the company provides the technology and works with community partners to build unique microtransit programs that meet city needs. 

Those partners include Camden's neighbor to the north, Jersey City, which sits across the Hudson River from Manhattan and has seen promising results since launching the Via Jersey City microtransit service at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. "Low- to moderate-income residents have access to 35 percent more jobs, schools and hospitals within 30 minutes," Gardiner said. 

It's not just Jersey that's seeing success with microtransit. Birmingham, Alabama, increased access to schools and jobs by 80 percent by using the microtransit model in partnership with Via, while the traditionally car-heavy Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs are now home to the most popular microtransit program in the U.S. — serving around 70,000 riders monthly. 

Of course, microtransit isn't a panacea to our public transit problems. "At a very basic level, everywhere that exists is not a candidate for microtransit," Gardiner said. "If you look at high-capacity corridors where you get a bunch of people that are riding a fixed-route bus quite regularly, there's no better way to move those people than on a fixed-route bus." 

Beyond that, news reports have documented inefficiencies in some city programs, or cases where ridership is lower than expected for various reasons. 

But for Camden, the Loop service is proving an effective way to get people around without multibillion-dollar infusions into the local public transportation system. The fleet now includes six vehicles, most of them driven by Camden residents. Average utilization is around three riders per vehicle hour, which is pretty solid considering the city's relatively low population and frequent rides outside the city that can easily take 20 minutes or more. 

"In the places where it makes sense, this is very much a type of public transit that fits in for a couple of core goals of community," Gardiner said. "One is in places that are just under-penetrated by fixed-route, where there's no transit available. The other is as a first-last mile service. A big part of making sure that it's used correctly for the overall transit network is the service design and the goals upfront, and the Camden Community Partnership did so much work ahead of time prior to launching this."

The early results are enough to make city organizers feel confident in their decision, with plans to add weekend hours, additional zones near Camden, and more vehicles as needed thanks to funding from the state of New Jersey for 2024. "This has nowhere else to go but up and certainly to improve the lives of residents in Camden," Redd said. 

Images courtesy of Via