Search

Advocates for corporate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies are finding support from a new wave of employee activism, in which workers deploy quiet strategies to press for progress from the bottom up. Business leaders who value a diverse workforce can learn from these creative organizers and improve their ability to attract and retain top talent from all walks of life.

The importance of institutionalizing diversity and inclusion

Diversity hiring has acquired a strong track record for delivering financial results. The well-known human resources expert Josh Bersin recently summarized the state of affairs in a 2021 white paper titled, “Elevating Equity: The Real Story of Diversity and Inclusion.”

“In fact, we won’t even debate the fact: More than 200 studies show how diversity in business leads to greater levels of innovation, customer service, employee engagement, and long-term growth,” Bersin wrote.

However, achieving and maintaining a diverse workforce is a complex task. There are no shortcuts. Bersin, for example, underscored the importance of following up diversity hiring with ongoing programs that support inclusion and employee satisfaction.

The case for managerial responsibility

Despite the informed views of Bersin and other experts, though, DEI shortcuts have become commonplace. Businesses routinely call upon vendors to conduct one-off employee training sessions, rather than making DEI programs a permanent fixture within the organization.

Although they're popular, DEI shortcuts are known to be ineffective. For example, a widely cited 2006 study found that sporadic DEI training sessions mostly fail to change behavior or improve diversity hiring. The authors advocated for ongoing policies that are institutionalized within the company. 

In particular, the team of 21 academic researchers from Harvard, MIT and other institutions emphasized that managers must be made responsible for diversity hiring. Members of the same team made a similar case in a 2018 article, in which they advocated for DEI programs that focus on managerial engagement rather than legalistic mandates.

“The antidiscrimination measures that work best are those that engage decision-makers in solving the problem themselves,” they wrote.

DEI is on the ropes, but employees still care

As Bersin noted in 2021, many businesses did hire dedicated DEI staff and increase their commitment to DEI programs after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. However, much has changed since then. One big change this year is a wave of layoffs targeting corporate DEI staff, especially within the tech sector. 

Sustained, multi-level attacks on corporate ESG (environmental, social and governance) principles have also muted the willingness of companies to discuss ESG goals and related social issues.

In addition, the dramatic, attention-getting street protests that characterized employee activism during the Donald Trump administration have largely faded from the media spotlight. That has eased the pressure on corporate leaders to respond to social issues. 

However, pullback on DEI policies at the top of the corporate ladder does not necessarily reflect employee sentiment. Studies show that employees continue to value DEI programs at work.

A Pew survey last spring, for example, found that 56 percent of employed adults say that DEI programs at work are mainly “a good thing. Pro-DEI sentiment is stronger among women, at 61 percent, as well as younger workers ages 18 to 29 (68 percent), and those identifying themselves as Democratic (78 percent), Black (78 percent), Asian (72 percent), or Hispanic (65 percent), the study found. 

These numbers provide support for companies to continue deploying DEI policies that attract employees beyond the traditional hiring pool, and to reach out to an increasingly diverse and socially aware workforce.

DEI from the grassroots up

The Pew findings also indicate that business leaders who drop the ball on DEI may encounter pushback from their own employees. Researchers who study employee activism have in fact noticed that employees are institutionalizing DEI goals among themselves. 

Greater Good Magazine, a publication of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California – Berkeley, outlined this employee-centered trend in an October 30 article titled, “How to Keep Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives Alive at Work."

The authors, Columbia University professor Peter T. Coleman and University of San Francisco assistant professor Allegra Chen-Carrel, both work as DEI consultants for large employers.

In the article, they describe an emerging trend in which employees are driving the DEI conversation. “Internal activism is on the rise, with four in 10 of all employees and half of millennials reporting that they had spoken out about controversial issues at work,” they reported.

They observed employees taking lowkey pathways to foster change, such as building support networks among themselves, while managers are choosing to practice diversity hiring in the absence of strong corporate leadership.

Keeping up with the fast pace of lowkey employee activism

In their article for Greater Good, Coleman and Chen-Carrel provide employees with a toolkit for lowkey activism while urging employers to become more alert to employee issues and concerns.

Creating an opportunity for mediation is one key piece of guidance. “This can involve something as simple as offering opportunities for coworkers and managers to share their concerns by simply taking time to listen, ask questions, and acknowledge problems,” Coleman and Chen-Carrel advise.

They also take note of employee-driven, self-care strategies that could be incorporated into a company’s wellness programs, such as relaxation exercises and time for self-education on broader social issues.

For employers, affirmative action plans, diversity committees, employee surveys and other data collection methods, and annual reporting are listed among the action steps.

Further, DEI leadership requires companies to identify and change harmful corporate practices, provide more support for effective practices, adapt to change, and respond proactively to tense situations, Coleman and Chen-Carrel argue. 

“When destabilizing events occur, such as scandals, mergers, leadership changes, or even wider social movements such as Black Lives Matter or #MeToo, there can be energy and momentum for organizational change,” they write.

All of this involves an investment of corporate resources. Nevertheless, the long-term payoff can be significant in terms of avoiding costly lawsuits as well as attracting top talent and building a positive brand profile.

Filling the gaps

To be clear, progress on diversity within corporate walls can only go so far. In his 2021 white paper, Bersin took note of a sharp backslide on civic governance in the U.S. since the 1970s. He cited a weakening of equal access to housing, voting rights and business opportunities among the evidence. Equal access to education and health care can also be added to the list, in light of recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court.

To the extent that these attacks on human and civil rights impact employees, the pressure for change in the workplace will continue to rise. Companies with active, institutionalized DEI policies are in a good position to turn that tension in a positive direction. As for companies that have pulled back on DEI, they may need to rethink their position before the tension boils over.

Homepage image: Tim Mossholder/Unsplash 

The term microplastics often conjures images of plastic bags and bottles breaking down in the ocean. But it isn’t just decaying litter that creates the minuscule pieces now found in every part of the planet — including human bloodstreams. The bulk of products that make up modern life add to the microplastic problem.

Microplastics make a huge problem

“Just by doing our laundry, the amount of microfibers we throw into the oceans is the same as if you would take a plastic bag and throw it into the sea,” said Marjana Lavrič Šulman, chief brand officer at PlanetCare, a company that makes washing machine filters to capture these fibers. She’s not talking about one bag per year. For the average household, doing laundry is the same as tossing a plastic bag in the ocean every week.

“You would never do that,” she said. Not on purpose, anyway. But the difference is what we can see and what we can’t. “[When] doing your laundry, you don't see it, but the amount of plastic is the same. So, every single user that we managed to onboard basically does not throw 52 plastic bags per year into the ocean.”

The equivalency is startling, to say the least. But it hasn’t been enough to get the industry to act. “Originally PlanetCare started with an integrated filter for washing machine manufacturers,” Šulman said. The company pitched that design to manufacturers in 2017, only for founder and CEO Mojca Zupan to be told that she would be better off adopting a dolphin.

Pivoting to consumers

“The hardest lesson was to realize that there are no quick wins, even though you think you have a great product that solves a very serious problem,” Šulman said. “The industry just doesn't care. And for us to be resilient enough to show that, then you change the business model. Then you go to the end consumers. Then you turn to those who do care.”

PlanetCare’s first aftermarket filter launched in 2019 and has 7,000 users worldwide. It’s an impressive number for a startup that doesn’t have an advertising budget, access to venture capital or corporate partners. Instead, the company relied on an EU grant and funding from a family in its home country of Slovenia. “We’re really actively searching for investors,”Šulman said.

That search includes a successful crowdfunding campaign aimed at its second-generation filter — PlanetCare 2.0. Pledges are far outweighing the company's original goal, which goes to show a significant number of people are interested in doing the right thing when it comes to microplastics. Additionally, a survey conducted by the company in 2021 found that almost 85 percent of respondents would pay more for a new washing machine with a built-in microplastic filter versus a machine without one.

“After four years, we have now made it better,” Šulman said of the upgraded model. “It's hardly the same filter. We say it's an improved version of the first one, but really everything's new. Everything's different.”

The PlanetCare filter attaches directly to the drain hose, doesn’t require any electricity to run and is compatible with all washing machines. Independent testing shows that PlanetCare 2.0 captures 98 percent of fibers, though variation is expected with different machines and cycles and will also depend on what is being washed.

A need worth meeting

While it is disappointing that manufacturers were not interested in the original integrated filter — nor fair for the industry to continue to shift responsibility to the consumer — there is a definite need for aftermarket filters for microplastics. In 2013, 840 million washing machines were in use worldwide, according to the latest available data. More are certainly in use now, and it will be a long time before they all need replacing.

As with the shift to electric vehicles, upgrading before an appliance has worn out just to get one with an integrated filter would do more harm than good. In this respect, PlanetCare has the potential to fill an enormous need as hundreds of millions of machines could use the external filters. The issue is making it happen, especially in poorer and more remote regions.

Another benefit to PlanetCare’s external filters is the closed-loop system. Used filter cartridges are sent back to the company where they are cleaned, refurbished and redistributed. The microfibers are collected for recycling. At this point, the pool is too small to have any products on the market that are made from them, but the company’s pilot program has produced insulation mats and mesh for chairs. 

The new model features a much more efficient cartridge than the first, Šulman added, and the cartridge filters fill up in about four weeks with average use. 

While there is a carbon cost to shipping the filters back and forth, asking the consumer to wash and reuse their filters at home would send the fibers into the water system anyway — defeating the purpose altogether. 

“We know this is a pain of ours, that sending the cartridges back and forth is not really the most environmentally-friendly thing we can do,” Šulman said. “That's why for those really far-away users, we say, ‘Please don't buy the small starter kit with only three spare cartridges. Get the large one and we only have to do it once per year.’”

The company has a clear vision for the future that includes local refurbishing units, so it won’t be necessary to send the cartridges back to Slovenia. “Once we have 5,000 users in Australia there will be a local unit, or once we have 5,000 users on the West Coast, or on the East Coast, or anywhere in Europe,” Šulman said. “It's an easy, very easy system.”

Patagonia has leveraged its brand recognition with appliance maker Samsung to develop an external microplastic filter, too. As a producer of outdoor clothing and gear, Patagonia’s products rely heavily on synthetic fibers that shed microplastics — which is what prompted the company to form the partnership two years ago. Samsung also introduced a "less microfiber" cycle that it says can be downloaded as an update to any of its machines. Still, it begs the question: Why aren’t manufacturers more motivated to include integrated filters on all new machines?

“I was naive five years ago, and I actually thought there would be somebody who would just do it because it's the right thing to do. Because we all live on the same planet, and we all use the same resources, and we all drink the same water,” Šulman said of the industry’s lack of interest in building models with filters already installed to remove microplastics. “But I still hope the filter gets integrated without the regulative pressure.”

Images courtesy of PlanetCare

In 2016, a groundbreaking report from the World Economic Forum revealed the world’s oceans could have more plastic, by weight, than fish by 2050 if nothing changes. It was part of a growing chorus raising alarms about the flow of plastic from consumer products into waterways and oceans around the world. Specifically, consumer goods brands were seen as key actors in creating solutions to save our oceans.

At the Our Ocean Conference in Indonesia in 2018, one of the world’s largest users of plastic packaging shared details about its ambitious and innovative effort to address one of the biggest plastic waste challenges in the developing world: the sachets used to package small quantities of household products like detergents and soap. To much fanfare, Unilever announced it would begin operating a factory in Indonesia using a new chemical technology called CreaSolv to recycle sachets — giving hope the plastic pouches could, in the future, become part of a circular system. 

“Billions of sachets are used once and just thrown away, all over the world, ending up in landfill or in our waterways and oceans,” said David Blanchard, Unilever’s chief research and development officer, in a statement announcing the plan. At the time, he said Unilever aimed “to scale the technology with industry partners, so others — including our competitors — can use it.”

The company also announced an investment into crowdsourced solutions for sachets and a plan to make all the plastic packaging it produced either compostable, recyclable or reusable by 2025. It seemed the company was serious about ending its dependence on single-use plastic. 

But Unilever quietly scrapped the chemical recycling pilot earlier this year, citing insurmountable logistical, financial and technical challenges. TriplePundit reached out to learn about what happened and received this response from a spokesperson via email: “We’re working on a range of solutions to reduce our use of multi-material sachets … This is a complex technical challenge, with no quick fixes, and we are fully committed to working with industry partners and other stakeholders to develop viable, scalable alternatives that reduce plastic waste.”

For those looking to solve the plastic crisis, the lack of context about why the CreaSolv effort didn’t work was disappointing. 

“Unilever's management has acknowledged the detrimental effects of plastic sachets in Asia,” said Devayani Khare, Asia communication officer at the nonprofit Break Free from Plastic. “Yet the corporation's actions have fallen far short of the mark when it comes to actually tackling the issue. We still don't have viable solutions to plastic sachets.”

The problem with sachets

Sachets are small, soft plastic pouches that can hold small amounts of liquid or gel products. For Unilever, sachets are a way to sell cosmetic products — including soap, shampoo and conditioner — in single-use servings in the developing world. If you spend time in Southeast Asia, Latin America or Africa, you’ll quickly grow familiar with the sight of sachets for sale at roadside stalls seemingly everywhere. 

Like most flexible packaging, sachets are made of multiple materials that are highly challenging to separate, and no mainstream solution exists to recycle them. Because they are typically sold in developing countries, and in rural areas, there often isn’t even an effective waste management system to collect them. The result is sachets ending up as litter, where they can easily flow into waterways and our oceans. Among the many problematic pieces of packaging out there, sachets are among the most challenging and pressing.

While plastic sachets are a big issue in the developing world, they’re a problem in the United States, too. The most common place that consumers encounter them is in fast food, where ketchup, mustard and other condiments are packaged for single use. Like their counterparts in Indonesia, they can’t be recycled using traditional methods, such as the systems that exist for plastic beverage bottles.

There are two ways to approach the sachet challenge. One would be to eliminate their use. But because of the popularity of sachets in remote regions, and the lack of alternative ways for major brands to sell their goods to those consumers, most big brands have focused on finding a way to make these mixed, multi-layered plastics recyclable. Some, like Unilever, looked toward a nascent technology: chemical recycling.

Traditional mechanical recycling methods generally clean, melt down, and then reconstitute a single type of plastic, like polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is commonly used for beverage bottles. Chemical recycling, on the other hand, breaks down complex plastics and multi-material packaging into constituent parts. 

“These technologies can be broadly lumped into three big categories: purification, depolymerization and conversion technologies,” said Anja Brandon, a material scientist now with the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy. 

Purification turns hard-to-recycle plastics into usable polymers for other applications. Depolymerization converts plastics into non-plastic chemicals for a variety of uses. And conversion turns plastic into fuel to be used in chemical or industrial applications. One thing they all have in common, though, is their complexity.

“Chemical recycling technologies have much, much larger climate footprints than mechanical recycling,” Brandon added.

This creates two challenges: cost and scalability. The CreaSolv project used a type of purification technology. But to address the amount of sachets in just Indonesia, the effort would have to be expanded to several plants across the country. This cost could make scaling the technology a challenge and, based on the background TriplePundit received from sources like Brandon, may have played a role in the project’s demise.

Technology alone isn’t a solution 

To many, the news about the failure of the CreaSolv pilot shows the limitation of recycling technology as a solution for hard-to-recycle plastics and multi-material packaging like sachets. 

“There is an urgency for Unilever and other food and consumer companies to quit sachets,” Khare said. “Silence is insincerity when corporations advertise certain values but are not as sincere in their actions.”

A completely different paradigm is needed to really solve the problem when consumer companies sell products in developing markets. Instead of producing and selling millions of sachets in regions without effective waste management systems, Unilever and others are challenged to ensure the waste created from their sales can be handled properly, and not end up in the environment.

One way to ensure this? Extended producer responsibility, or EPR. In most markets today, companies can sell sachets, bottles, and other single-use plastic and then ignore when that plastic ends up in the environment, harming marine life or polluting waterways. EPR mandates that companies take responsibility for plastic packaging even after it's sold to consumers. The PET bottle fees we pay at grocery stores in many U.S. states, which are factored into the price we pay, are an example of an EPR system in action. The goal is to create a system that supports the recycling and recovery of bottles before they end up in landfills.

Historically, many consumer brands have opposed strict EPR, whether in Indonesia or in the U.S., instead promoting technology as a solution. That has changed in recent years, as industry groups like the Consumer Goods Forum are, partly due to consumer pressure, open to adopting some form of EPR. This is a sign that, perhaps, the tide is really starting to shift.

“Unless Unilever switches their packaging system, they will not solve the plastic waste problem in Indonesia,” says Ibar Furqonul Akbar, who leads the plastic work at Greenpeace Indonesia. “Many consumer brands, they just want to rely on recycling itself, but they don't consider reduce or … reuse in the first place.“

One lesson to learn from the Indonesia pilot is that technology is not always the solution and simple models around things like reuse can work better, especially in emerging economies. 

“Perhaps eliminating these single-use sachets and prioritizing sustainable packaging alternatives would be better for Unilever,” Khare added. 

In fact, reuse is promoted by local brands across Indonesia, with zero-waste stores selling locally-made shampoo, soaps and conditioner — the main products sold in those sachets — in reusable containers. Now in several cities, these stores are expanding even into the countryside. Similarly, refill and reuse systems are being set up to reduce single-use plastics in Africa and Latin America, but thus far these local efforts haven’t received adequate backing from global brands

The main reason that companies are hesitant to embrace reuse and refill systems? The cost. Plastic is cheap and easy to ship to remote regions. The unfortunate reality is that going to a refill shop can often cost more than buying single-use sachets from a street vendor in places like Indonesia. The cost of circularity is borne by the consumer, not the polluters. 

Meanwhile, many brands are still pushing recycling technology as a stand-alone solution. Last year, PepsiCo invested $35 million in a closed-loop local recycling fund. Colgate, Coca-Cola, Keurig and others are also putting millions of dollars into so-called next-generation recycling technologies. Whether they succeed or end up as costly delays, like the CreaSolv sachet recycling project, remains to be seen. But can we afford to wait?

That is why advocates are calling for a system change. “Recycling is not impact-free,” said Lynn Hoffman, co-president of the zero-waste social enterprise Eureka Recycling, during a recent online press conference on chemical recycling. “It takes a lot of energy, water and doesn't remove toxins. Recycling mitigates harm of waste and extraction, but not as much as reuse.”

Unilever has taken some steps in the right direction and says it wants to move toward a circular system while also expanding re-use and refill systems. 

One thing we can take away from all this? In the future, highly non-recyclable plastics, like sachets, should only be sold if and when a fully circular and sustainable system is developed. Otherwise, they’ll end up in our environment, causing harm to us all — and to the marine world, already facing dire stress due to climate change.

Whether it’s called “The Big Muddy,” “Old Man River,” “The Father of Waters,” or even “The Main Stream,” the Mississippi River has always been an enormous presence in American life. Ninety million people live in its watershed, and more than 60 billion gallons of fresh water is withdrawn from the river daily. Unfortunately, the biggest impact humans have on the mighty Mississippi is pollution from fertilizers, insecticides and trash — particularly single-use plastic.

For more than a decade, Living Lands and Waters, an environmental nonprofit devoted to cleaning up the Mississippi and its tributaries, has combined its efforts with education through its “floating classroom.” Based in Memphis, Tennessee, the classroom is a river barge upon which the nonprofit conducts 40-50 workshops annually, including an Alternative Spring Break program for college students. Operating nine months out of the year, the floating classroom has educated more than 24,000 students since 2012.

Even before the barge, college students from across the country converged in Memphis to clean up trash along the Mississippi and learn about the damages of pollution to the ecosystem. The Alternative Spring Break volunteers have collected more than 100,000 pounds of trash every year since 2009.

The floating classroom caught the attention of the environmental advocacy platform Rivers Are Life, which produced a short film called “Study Aboard” that chronicles Living Land and Waters’ 2023 spring break program. 

Chad Pregracke, the founder and president of Living Lands and Waters, told Triple Pundit that the short film was “a perfect example of collaboration” between groups with similar aims. 

“Rivers Are Life wanted to come see us in action and tell our story, which will hopefully be seen by a lot of people,” Pregracke said. “This story shows the impact that our volunteers have had and how one person can make a difference if they change their habits ever so slightly. Think of the impact if everyone watching changed one habit for the betterment of the environment. It would be huge.”

A key message the nonprofit tries to convey through the floating classroom is the importance of water conservation, he said.

“What we put in the water has a deep, long-term impact on what we eat, what we drink, and vegetation and wildlife,” Pregracke told 3p. “The sooner we all realize this we can hopefully protect our natural resources.”

Because the trash is not always easy to access, the organization’s clean-up efforts require walking along the riverbanks and picking up trash by hand or plucking debris from the rivers by boat. An excavator is used to move large objects, such as automobiles, from the riverbanks and water. Since its founding in 1998, Living Lands and Waters has harnessed the efforts of more than 126,000 volunteers in 21 states who have removed more than 13 million pounds of trash from the Mississippi, Pregracke said. 

“Volunteers are the heart of our organization,” he said. “Without them we cannot do the work.” 

A large majority of the 13 million pounds of trash collected is single-use plastics, 55-gallon barrels and tires, Pregracke said.

The impact of plastic pollution on the Mississippi is particularly troubling because plastics linger in the environment for centuries, causing hazards for wildlife and humans. Animals can choke on bags, balloons and straws mistaken for food. Or they can become entangled in fishing lines, the rings that hold six-packs of cans together, and other plastic trash.

This problem can’t be solved with river cleanups alone. Pregracke calls for more recycling and transitioning away from single-use plastic, too. 

“Unfortunately, more single-use plastic is produced every day, which results in more being discarded,” he said.

A native of East Moline, Illinois, Pregracke spent most of his life on or near the Mississippi and one of its tributaries, the Illinois River. Between his childhood and first job as a clam digger, he soon realized he didn’t like what he saw above or below the river. 

“As a teenager, I would camp on islands and go shell diving. I saw how trashed our river was, and I couldn’t stand it, so I decided to do something about it,” Pregracke said. “Anything you start from the ground up is hard. When I first started, I would go out and pick up trash from the river all day and soon realized I needed to get a boat to make a bigger impact.” 

One day, while watching a NASCAR race on television, Pregracke noticed the race cars were covered with names of companies who sponsored the drivers. 

“I figured, why can’t I do something like that? So, I grabbed the phonebook and started with the letter ‘A’ looking for larger companies in our area to call to see if they might be willing to donate,” Pregracke said. “From there, we just continued to grow. You will always have obstacles as you grow an organization, you just need to think outside of the box on how to overcome them.”

 Over two decades after starting operations with a single boat, Living Lands and Waters’ fleet now includes four barges, two towboats, five workboats, an excavator and a crane.

“More than 18 million people get their drinking water from the Mississippi,” Pregracke said. “We know our efforts are helping provide cleaner drinking water and cleaner living conditions for both marine life and wildlife.”

Most of the global hydrogen supply still comes from natural gas, but new alternatives are beginning to emerge. In addition to decarbonizing the hydrogen supply chain, alternative sourcing can also open up new economic development opportunities. In particular, hydrogen derived from biomass can help local communities participate in wider energy markets while addressing other urgent environmental and economic issues, too.

Alternative sources for hydrogen

Currently, 95 percent of the hydrogen produced in the United States comes from natural gas. If natural gas is eliminated from this supply chain, it would help decarbonize major industrial sectors that depend on hydrogen including transportation, fertilizer, food processing and pharmaceuticals, among others.

Clearing fossil energy resources from the supply chain would also reduce the carbon footprint related to steam reformation. Steam reformation is the most common process for extracting hydrogen from natural gas and other feedstocks. It is an energy-intensive process that requires high heat, ranging from 700 to 1,000 degrees Celsius.

“Steam reforming is endothermic — that is, heat must be supplied to the process for the reaction to proceed,” according to the U.S. Department of Energy. 

Steam reformation is a mature technology that has dominated hydrogen production for many years, but alternatives are arising. Much of the activity is currently centered on electrolysis, which deploys renewable energy to jolt hydrogen from water.

Drawing hydrogen from biomass is another new area of activity. Within that field, attention has focused on pyrolysis, which refers to the gasification of biomass in an oxygen-free environment. As with steam reformation, pyrolysis systems require high heat. However, pyrolysis systems can run on the synthetic gas they produce from gasified biomass, eliminating the use of energy from outside sources.

Pyrolysis at work: the carbon-negative solution 

Pyrolysis is considered to be a carbon-negative system because it produces a charcoal-like, carbon-sequestering substance called biochar, in addition to hydrogen and other fuels. Sometimes referred to as biocarbon, biochar is an effective soil enhancement that can increase crop yields while also helping to conserve water. Biochar is not yet widely used in the U.S., but efforts to scale up the production and application of biochar are underway.

One such project is taking place in California, where the state’s Department of Conservation launched a $50 million pilot project last year called Forest Biomass to Carbon-Negative Biofuels. The goal of the program is to convert forest and agricultural waste to hydrogen and biochar, with a focus on marketing these products within California.

“The impetus behind this program is to address serious and significant issues of forest health and wildfire risk in the Sierra Nevada,” according to the Department of Conservation. The agency also lists fossil fuel replacement and carbon sequestration among the benefits.

Decentralizing the energy infrastructure

The Forest Biomass program underscores how alternative hydrogen sourcing can enable local communities to deploy renewable resources to participate in energy markets. The program passed a milestone last spring with the selection of eight proposals for producing hydrogen and biochar in the Sierra Nevada region.

One of the eight proposals selected is a partnership between the pyrolysis firm Kore Infrastructure and the Tule River Economic Development Corporation. TREDC is owned by the Tule River Tribe, encompassing the traditional territories of the Yokuts people and headquartered in Porterville, California. The agency is governed by a board of directors consisting of tribal members and local business professionals.

The $500,000 funding award calls for Kore to construct a pyrolysis facility in Porterville. Construction is set to begin in 2024, with operation expected the following year. Once up and running, the facility will take in 48 tons per day of non-marketable forest waste and produce two metric tons of hydrogen daily along with 10 tons of biocarbon (note: the company refers to biocarbon and biochar interchangeably).

Kore plans to market the hydrogen to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach for use in converting diesel-powered equipment to zero-emission fuel cells, helping to support broader seaport decarbonization initiatives. The Porterville facility may also supply hydrogen closer to home as local demand emerges.

The forest waste harvesting operation will take place in parts of the Sierra Nevada Forest that are already under management by TREDC. The proposal also involves plans to bring additional land under TREDC management. To supplement the forest waste, the pyrolysis facility will take in wood waste from orchards in the Central Valley region.

New economic development opportunities for local communities

Until now, TREDC has focused on small-scale, on-site economic development projects like gas stations and restaurants. The Porterville project is a significant pivot in a new direction, but it is also one that draws on local resources and experience.

“We have not done any other energy-related project, but the tribe has done forest management since the beginning of time,” Dennis Ickes, TREDC’s chief executive officer, told TriplePundit, referring to conservation practices that maintain healthy forests. “This project enables us to get a foothold in the market and be progressive in forest management.” 

TREDC has also won grants for solar panels and electric vehicle chargers at its properties, but the pyrolysis project is an entirely new level of scale. It will occupy a 40-acre site owned by TREDC. A $3.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce will provide funding for basic infrastructure at the location including water, roads and electricity.

“Dead, dying, diseased or rotting wood can be chipped and left in place, burned in slash piles or composted. Currently, most is landfilled or burned,” Ickes said.

The option to burn agricultural waste will be all but eliminated in part of the region after 2025, as regulators seek to improve air quality in the San Joaquin Valley, Ickes said. Carbon-negative hydrogen production facilities like the Porterville project can provide farmers with an economical alternative.

“This is a problem that we are solving in a way that benefits the environment,” Ickes said. “We are taking carbon out.”

More decarbonization opportunities for farmers

Currently, the California Department of Food and Agriculture advises farmers to replace burning with chipping and composting, a practice known as whole orchard recycling.

Pyrolysis with hydrogen production is rapidly emerging as another option. In addition to the Forest Biomass program, the leading utility Southern California Gas Company announced plans for a major pyrolysis facility to process agriculture wood waste and nutshells into hydrogen and renewable natural gas in August.

Kore also anticipates that other projects will follow its TREDC facility. The company affirmed in a July statement that its future plans include tripling the initial size of the Porterville facility.

“Kore’s model is being closely considered and evaluated for replication by the Central Valley Orchard and Forest Management for several projects throughout the Central Valley,” according to the company.

The prospects for a rising bio-derived hydrogen market in California also increased last week, when the U.S. Department of Energy announced seven projects to win funding under the new Clean Hydrogen Hubs program. California won a $1.2 billion share for a proposal focused exclusively on electrolysis and biomass.

Fossil energy stakeholders are still aiming to maintain their edge on hydrogen production, but California wields a significant influence on national markets. If money talks — and it does — the new investments in public and private funding for hydrogen from biomass will benefit farmers, local communities and the statewide economy as a whole.

As TriplePundit moves forward with our new editorial focus on solutions journalism, we've looked back at some of the top solutions proposed to address our most pressing environmental, social and economic challenges a decade ago. Now, we're looking ahead to learn more about the evidence-based responses that can further progress on these challenges into the future. Last week, we reviewed some of the highest-potential interventions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change — from reducing food waste to restoring tropical forests. Now, we're fixing our eyes on another persistent and pervasive challenge: global poverty. 

When talking about how to address wealth and income disparities in the fight against poverty, similar interventions are often mentioned: direct cash transfers, increasing education levels among children, training farmers to produce better yields, improving healthcare services, empowering women and girls. All of these things can make a massive impact on their own. For example, empowering women and girls with social protections, family planning services, and equal pay for equal work could lift nearly 150 million people out of extreme poverty by 2030 on its own, according to estimates from U.N. Women. But what if we could bring all of these interventions together? 

That's the concept behind the Graduation Approach — which the Brookings Institution, a U.S. economic think tank, called "the most widespread and well-researched version of a 'big push' poverty eradication method." 

A "big push" to fight global poverty

"Big push" programs employ multiple interventions simultaneously or in sequence to address the multidimensional causes of global poverty. The Graduation model in particular was pioneered by the international development organization BRAC (then the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) in 2002. It deploys evidence-based interventions at specific times to help individuals and families lift themselves from extreme poverty — defined as living on less than $US2.15 per day. 

"These interventions are adapted to local requirements and generally include livelihood training, transfers of cash and productive assets, and encouragement of savings, all facilitated through in-person coaching," according to Brookings. "They focus on the needs of the household as a whole, with women usually as the primary program participants."

The long-term results impressed researchers and made the global community take notice. BRAC's Graduation program reached 9 million people in Bangladesh from 2002 to 2021 and helped 95 percent of those people move out of extreme poverty. "Based on the successes of the program, over 100 partners in nearly 50 countries have either piloted or implemented Graduation, reaching 14 million people and over 3 million total households," Brookings reported in 2021. 

Understanding the global poverty problem

While wealth accumulation and access still varies widely around the world, global poverty has declined significantly since the end of the last century. Around 1.9 billion people, or 36 percent of the global population, lived in extreme poverty in 1990. By 2015, that number had fallen to 730 million, or around 9.9 percent of the world's population.

Even with backslides tied to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused the first increase in global poverty seen in nearly two decades, the world is still making progress compared to where we came from. Last year, around 8 percent of the world's population — some 648 million people — faced extreme poverty. 

While the numbers are headed in the right direction, the current state of things still leaves nearly 1 in 10 people globally subsisting on less than US$2.15 per day and struggling to meet their most basic expenses. 

Beyond Bangladesh, researchers have documented compelling evidence that the Graduation model can begin to change the tide. A 2015 randomized study of 21,000 people across Ethiopia, Ghana, Honduras, India, Pakistan, and Peru showed that people had more assets and more savings 12 months after a three-year Graduation program ended. For every $1 spent on the program, participants received between $1.33 and $4.33 in benefits, depending on the country. 

While the results of case studies like these are promising, how to effectively scale such programs around the world remains in question. When the Ford Foundation and the World Bank's Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) studied 10 Graduation pilot projects in eight countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America from 2006 to 2014, they found the results to be "extremely positive." But they hastened to note, "The very factors believed to make it so effective — highly personalized, wrap-around services delivered with compassionate, skilled and individual attention — also make the 'classic' Graduation Approach time- and labor-intensive and costly."

Still, the groups' research into programs run by both governments and non-governmental organization (NGOs) showed this roadblock is more than surmountable. "The scale-ups documented in the four case studies [in Colombia, Ethiopia, India and Peru) indicate that adaptations to suit local contexts, participant needs, and resource constraints can be managed successfully," they found. 

Looking ahead to a more evidence-based approach to fighting global poverty

Economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo won the Nobel Prize in 2019 for their emphasis on an evidence-based approach to fighting global poverty. They led the large-scale 2015 study on Graduation and followed up with another randomized controlled study published just last year. 

The study found that former participants in a Graduation program in West Bengal, India, had higher incomes than the control group even a full decade later. It's often typical for the benefits of anti-poverty interventions to fade over time, so results like these put substantial evidence behind Graduation in the long-term. 

It's not the only answer, of course, as other research found cash infusions alone to be just as or more effective than cash plus the other services offered through Graduation. Which approach wins out varies greatly by local context — demonstrating that although evidence and research can point us in the right direction, understanding local needs will always be imperative when tackling social challenges like poverty. 

“We’re not trying to pit Graduation against anything else. Nothing we do is the one magic bullet to end poverty,” Shameran Abed, the executive director of BRAC International, told Vox last year. “But we think Graduation is extremely powerful, extremely compelling, and the evidence suggests that. So we would really like to see a much greater uptake of Graduation-type programming globally.”

BRAC provides resources and support to help other organizations and localities adopt Graduation-type programming. You can learn more here. 

We know that plastic waste is a colossal global problem. Landfills are overflowing, and plastic waste is causing severe degradation of the world's oceans and marine ecosystem. Yet we continue to produce, buy and use a record amount of single-use plastic. Around 36 percent of all plastic produced worldwide is used for packaging, much of it for single-use beverage and food containers.  

To address this, some beverage brands are considering paper bottles as an alternative to plastic. But are paper bottles really a better solution than other alternatives?

The state of beverage packaging: Plastic, aluminum or glass?

More than a million bottles of water are sold around the world every minute, and the bottled water sector continues to boom. About 85 percent of all plastic bottles sold end up in a landfill or leak into the environment. And, of course, bottled water is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to global plastic waste. 

But addressing the problem isn’t always as simple as “stop drinking bottled water.” In both developed and developing countries, people often turn to bottled water because they see it as safer than the water coming from their taps — and in many cases, they’re right. 

And while consumers claim to be changing their behavior to integrate sustainable and environmental considerations into their purchases when they can, 1 in 4 U.S. adults don’t know what makes a food or beverage product sustainable, according to a 2022 survey.

For beverage packaging, plastic is often replaced, by default, by glass. However, glass takes more resources and energy to produce. Making glass involves mining raw materials such as silica sand and dolomite that release pollution which, when inhaled, can cause the lung condition silicosis among workers in the industry. High temperatures are needed to melt these materials, a process powered by fossil fuels, and glass production also releases carbon dioxide. Further, glass weighs 20 times more than plastic, which means vehicles transporting glass bottles consume more fossil fuels to deliver the same amount of liquid as what comes in plastic.

As the sustainability challenges tied to glass become better understood, some have also considered aluminum to replace plastic in beverage packaging. Aluminum production consumes less energy and resources; cans are lighter than glass and aren’t made from fossil fuels like plastic. But production still requires the mining of bauxite ore and refining and smelting to create aluminum, which can be energy intensive. 

A few different studies have compared the circularity of plastic, aluminum and glass. All of them found that the recycling efficiency of aluminum is 80 to 90 percent, followed by glass which is between 34 and 59 percent. Plastic recycling rates vary between 13 and 40 percent. 

Since each of these materials come with their own set of trade-offs, some beverage companies are looking toward paper fiber as an alternative, a packaging material used widely across other sectors.  

The reign of paper bottles might be on the horizon

“Glass, plastic and metal are all brilliant materials when deployed in the right regional environment, where the supporting infrastructure enables collection and recovery,” said Scott Winston, CEO at Pulpex, a renewable packaging technology company that has introduced a renewable fiber bottle made from sustainably-sourced wood. “However, we need to resist the temptation to introduce new, hybrid materials or technical solutions where circular packaging is not possible and the solution must go to a landfill or, at worst, it risks polluting an existing material recovery route.”

Established by the global spirits giant Diageo and Pilot Lite Venture Management, Pulpex recently secured $24.4 million in funding to deliver a commercially-scalable production line for its fiber bottles. Apart from Diageo, the parent company of brands like Johnnie Walker, Pulpex bottles are also being used by PepsiCo.

“Pulpex’s patented packaging solution uses the natural credentials of wood fibers and was developed to be sustainable as well as scalable,” Winston said. “[The bottles] technically perform as required to deliver product shelf life and filling infrastructure compatibility and, at their end-of-life, are curbside collected, sorted as paper and go on to become other fiber products.”

Pulpex aims to produce more than 2 billion paper bottles per year by 2028, in partnership with global brands and the fiber solutions company CMPC. “Pulpex’s commercial-scale production line in Cambridgeshire (U.K.) will be online by early 2024,” Winston said. 

Florida-based micro-distillery Distillery 98 opted for the paper-based Frugalpac bottle instead of glass for its locally-sourced Half Shell Vodka when supply chain disruptions tied to COVID-19 made glass bottles inaccessible.

“It was hard to get bottles we liked that were manufactured in the way we wanted them,” said Distillery 98 co-owner and CEO Harrison Holditch. “When we came across the Frugalpac bottle, we saw a solution to our problem. We began to educate ourselves on the carbon footprint it takes to create a glass bottle overseas and also what it takes to recycle a glass bottle, which has a larger footprint than manufacturing one. The more we went down the road with this bottle, the more we found it to be a fit for us and what we believed was possible for our distillery."

Paper Bottle Co (PaBoCo), a Danish startup that makes another climate-friendly alternative container for beverages, also uses paper from sustainably-sourced wood. 

“Our vision is to create a fully bio-based paper bottle to challenge the notion of what packaging can be,” said Michael Michelsen, commercial director at PaBoCo. “We are addressing this in innovation increments, launching newer generations of bottles and putting them into use with products and consumers even while we develop them. The way forward is by introducing paper bottles — as light as possible, with minimum emissions — and building the technology necessary to supply this solution.”

PaBoCo is already commercially viable and has been working with beverage companies including Coca-Cola, Carlsberg and Absolut. Absolut Vodka is to become the first global spirits brand to sell single-mold, paper-based bottles commercially in the U.K. as part of its journey to create a fully bio-based bottle.

PaBoCo says its paper bottle can reduce emissions by up to 32 percent compared to other materials used in the industry today. Its first-generation, single-mold bottles are made from 57 percent paper with what is described as "an integrated barrier of recyclable plastic.” 

The plastic component, however, is still about 43 percent of the product’s weight and is made from polyethylene naphthalate (PEN), a plastic resin used in many industrial applications like food packaging, electronics and tires.

“Our next step to move the markets forward will be the introduction of a next-generation bottle consisting of minimum 85 percent paper,” Michelsen said. “Now that we have demonstrated paper bottles are here to stay, I believe we will see more variants of paper bottles appear, which also means a greater degree of adoption of such bottles across the industry.”

So, where does the paper come from?

The Frugalpac bottle is made from recycled paper, and the fiber sourced for both the PaBoCo and Pulpex bottles is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), ensuring that the wood used comes from responsibly-managed forests.

“Responsibly-sourced wood can play a significant role in sustainable long-term solutions for beverage packaging,” said Monika Patel, director of communications and marketing for the FSC in Canada. “When sourced from well-managed forests, wood can be a renewable and low-impact material option. It provides an opportunity to reduce reliance on non-renewable resources and can offer numerous environmental and social benefits. If wood pulp is not harvested in a sustainable manner, it can lead to deforestation, habitat destruction, and negative impacts on local communities and biodiversity.”

Is paper really the solution?

Criticism of the paper bottle is scarce but not unfound, and it mostly revolves around the question of how practical paper bottles are for consumer recycling. 

For instance, to recycle the 94 percent paper Frugalpac bottle, the user has to separate a plastic pouch from the paper bottle and place the items in their respective recycling bins. For PaBoCo, the recycling process is not clear, considering the bottle is not 100 percent paper yet. 

Pulpex fiber bottles, on the other hand, are designed to be recycled just like paper. They do not contain a plastic liner that needs to be separated and can degrade in the natural environment in the worst-case event they end up as litter.

A lifecycle assessment from another sector sheds further light on the trade-offs at play. 

Product sustainability consulting and software solutions company Trayak recently conducted a lifecycle assessment study with Dr. Bronner's, a U.S. producer of organic personal care products, to evaluate an alternative for the recycled plastic bottles the company uses for its signature soaps. Although not in the beverage industry, consumer goods companies like Dr. Bronner’s share the same sustainable packaging dilemma. 

The study assessed the impact of four different packaging materials: the current bottle made with post-consumer recycled plastic, a fully paper bottle, a bottle made from post-consumer recycled aluminum, and a paper gable-top bottle carton that includes a plastic liner.

All four options came with their own benefits and drawbacks. And while Dr. Bronner’s plans to pursue reusable packaging in the long term, in the short term it opted for the gable-top carton for larger refill sizes of its soaps. Although the carton is not recyclable due to the plastic liner, its lifecycle environmental impact was found to be smaller than the other containers, even in a scenario where the carton is landfilled and all the other containers are recycled. 

So, should brands focus on using recycled materials, prioritizing the recyclability of the package or accounting for full lifecycle impact? Is it preferable to be entirely plastic-free or to use a lighter package? There is much yet up for debate and evaluation in the long run. 

The search for the best bottle continues

While paper bottles may provide a solution for the beverage industry, it is still a new concept and there is no quick or one-size-fits-all solution. Many variables need to be considered in evaluating the best solution per product type.

“There is no easy shift to adopting a renewable packaging solution,” Winston concluded. "What is needed is strategic vision on how to resolve these challenges and how to use available resources to support the correct outcomes rather than risk making the wrong decisions.”

Michelsen agreed. “The companies that want to transition quickly need to adopt a continuous innovation approach and need to cope with the challenge of being the first market entrant with their new packaging solutions,” he said. "Of course, they also need to work closely with companies to develop a feasible technical packaging solution, a task that takes a considerable amount of time, knowhow and dedication.”

Editor's Note: This story was updated on Friday, November 3. An earlier version of this story stated that Pulpex bottles are 100 percent paper. The bottles are around 98 percent fiber-based but also contain a water-based, spray-on barrier coating. The bottles are still biodegradable and recyclable as paper, according to the company. 

Fiesta Subaru is living up to its name in a big way. The Albuquerque, New Mexico, retailer brought the pet party directly to its campus with a brand new dog park. And it’s giving pet lovers a reason to celebrate by hosting on-site adoption events to connect shelter animals with their loving families. It’s all a part of the Subaru commitment to improve the lives of as many shelter animals as possible.

Pups on parade at Fiesta Subaru of Albuquerque

Fiesta Subaru has helped facilitate the adoption of 95 pets through the Subaru Loves Pets adoption campaign since 2020. “We host a pet adoption event roughly every six weeks,” Alexandra Kulach of Fiesta Subaru told TriplePundit. The number of dogs available to adopt has ranged anywhere from six to eight puppies in the same litter, to larger groups of 15 to 20 dogs. Moving forward, Kulach is excited about the opportunity to host a bigger cohort of potential adoptees thanks to the retailer’s new dog park and expanded facility. “We’re going to be able to connect even more animals to their forever home,” she beamed.

“We're hoping to have a lot more people, too,” Kulach said, describing the next event as a big shindig complete with food trucks and a pet frame for photo ops. Subaru owners are encouraged to come out with their pets, even if they’re not looking to adopt. “We are planning to have a really fun food truck come out. They're called Dawgs for a Cause, and they donate a portion of their proceeds from the day to charity as well,” she added.

Fiesta Subaru’s pet adoption events are already enormously successful. “There have been two instances in which we've hosted these pet adoption events and the dogs have all been adopted before we are even supposed to get started,” Kulach said. “The shelter had to then go back and bring more dogs, which was pretty exciting. Having the community come out and be so interested in adopting these dogs has been such a fun experience.”

Fiesta Subaru also helps new pet parents get a leg up from the get-go with a starter kit. “The New Pet Parent Kits are stocked full of goodies. There’s a bowl, as well as leash and bandana, and a waste bag holder,” Kulach said. “They also receive educational pamphlets that describe the responsibilities of pet care as well as how to keep your pet safe.” The pamphlets are also on display at the retailer for Subaru Loves Pets month in October. “Any customers who visit us can take one and have that information available to them,” she added.

As a prominent promoter of pet adoption, Subaru of America and its retailers have been inspiring customers to drive off the lot not just in a new car, but with a new furry family member as well for quite some time now. TriplePundit previously covered Maryland-based Fitzgerald Subaru’s adoption events, which have been going on regularly since 2014. Nationally, the automaker has partnered with auto shows since 2018, bringing adoptable pups to dozens of expos each year.

A purr-fect partnership

Fiesta Subaru hosts these pet adoption events in partnership with Watermelon Mountain Ranch, New Mexico’s largest no-kill animal shelter. “Watermelon Mountain Ranch Animal Center, located in northern Rio Rancho, is honored and humbled to be able to partner with Fiesta Subaru,” said Sara Heffern, executive director of the shelter about 15 miles outside Albuquerque. 

“That hits hard for us, and it’s something we’re passionate about,” Derek Kulach of Fiesta Subaru said of the shelter’s no-kill status. “Which is why they are not only our Subaru Loves Pets partner, but they’re also one of our partners for the Share the Love Event.” 

In addition to the big pet adoption event in October, Fiesta Subaru pledges $250 for every car sold during the Subaru Share the Love Event, which runs from mid-November to January. “And that’s matched by Subaru of America as well,” he explained.

“The money that has been donated to our organization over the last several years has helped to save thousands of pets' lives,” Heffern said. “Being a Subaru Share the Love Event partner has meant the absolute world to us, and being able to hold adoption events regularly at Fiesta Subaru has been absolutely amazing."

It’s a rewarding experience for the Fiesta Subaru team as well. They’ve been able to donate over $40,000 to support the cats and dogs at Watermelon Mountain Ranch since 2020. And, together with the funds matched by Subaru of America, nearly $80,000 has been donated so far.

Overall, Subaru and its retailers have donated over $51 million to national and local organizations, supporting the rescue, transportation and adoption of over 420,000 pets.

In addition to local retailers helping shelters like Watermelon Mountain Ranch, Subaru is also the largest corporate donor to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), and since 2008 has donated over $35 million to the organization. That money makes a big difference considering nearly 6.3 million companion animals enter shelters nationwide every year, according to the ASPCA. Housing, caring for, adopting out, and returning strays to their owners doesn’t come cheap, after all. And by bringing dogs into the public domain and involving the community, Fiesta Subaru and Subaru of America are doing their part to get animals out of shelters and into loving homes.

Paws down, this Subaru retailer has a purpose-based design

Pet adoption events are poised to get even bigger thanks to the new onsite dog park at Fiesta Subaru. “This new facility was built with purpose for events like this, from where the location of the dog park is to how the facility is set up to be able to support bigger events,” Kulach said. “Now that we're in the new facility and operating out of there, I think it's something that's going to be an ever-growing thing for us.”

The dog park features a traditional double-gate entry so the pets are kept safe, as well as a water station, trash cans for pet waste, trees for shade, and a bench for pet parents to rest. “It's been a great success,” Alexandra Kulach said. “We continually have customers using it. They really seem to enjoy it, and the dogs especially enjoy it. You always hear dogs barking when you're outside because they're playing around all day long.”

It’s not just customers’ dogs either — Subaru employees are free to bring their dogs to work with them as well. “It brings a great energy to our store and it’s fun to have all the pets around,” she added. The team at Fiesta Subaru says they're eager to see some of the pets from their adoption events frolicking at the dog park in the near future. And, as one of five Albuquerque businesses that are trained to scan for microchips, they’re also proud to be a part of the solution helping to reunite lost pets with their families.

The retailer even has its own resident rescue — a cat named ONI. “When we first acquired the franchise, this cat showed up. And he became kind of the face of Fiesta Subaru. He walks around and greets people and surprisingly gets along very well with all the dogs that run around,” Derek Kulach explained. “We're happy to be a part of the 69 percent of Subaru customers who have a pet.”

With all that Fiesta Subaru is doing to advance pet adoption and care in its community, it’s no wonder the retailer has become a local beacon for pets and their owners. “Subaru Loves Pets is part of the larger Subaru Love Promise campaign that we’re a part of. Supporting the rescue, transportation and adoption of pets with Subaru of America is a huge deal for us,” he continued.

“We're just happy to be a small part of that and continue to grow our presence in helping pets get adopted,” he added. “We’re proud to be a part of it because Subaru is committed to doing good simply because it's just the right thing to do.” Whether it’s helping shelter dogs find their forever families, supporting cancer patients, donating vehicles to Meals on Wheels, or helping fund classrooms, Subaru of America is doing just that.

This article series is sponsored by Subaru and produced by the TriplePundit editorial team. 

Images courtesy of Subaru

Media and government have turned on the spigot of information about the group of chemicals known as PFAS contaminating water sources. The public response to this serious situation includes questions like “should I be freaking out” and “what type of water filter should I buy.” Meanwhile, scientists, companies and governmental organizations seek to remediate the chemical compounds at the grander scale of groundwater, long before they make it to the tap.

One approach offers a promising track record: colloidal activated carbon (CAC), a mixture that can be gravity-fed or low-pressure injected into the soil at a contaminated area. There, PFAS adheres to the mixture and can be left in situ (Latin for “on site” or “in place”) for years. The colloid is a blend where the different components don’t separate — like how egg yolk keeps oil from separating in mayonnaise — and it captures PFAS molecules while letting water molecules pass through.

The value of getting PFAS out of groundwater

Studies show that exposure to PFAS (short for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances) is a pervasive problem for many reasons. The class of substances includes over 12,000 chemicals, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Often called “forever chemicals” because of the inability of the strong fluorine and carbon molecule bonds to break down on their own, they stay in the human body for years and increasingly accumulate.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported this summer that at least 45 percent of U.S. tap water contains one or more of 32 types of PFAS. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says most people in the nation have it in their blood. The chemicals are linked to cancers, reproductive damage, immunological problems, infant and child development disruption, and organ disease, among numerous health concerns.

And the effects are not just in humans. Fish, wildlife, livestock and plants also contain PFAS. The substances are, therefore, in food.

PFAS use provides water-resistant properties to rugs and jackets, adhesion to glues and tapes, flame-retardants to building materials and pajamas, and fire-extinguishing capabilities to foams, to name just a few uses since World War II. While some PFAS-containing products can pose an exposure risk to humans, the average person is most likely to take in PFAS by drinking contaminated water. Those who work with producing or employing PFAS-intensive products have the added vulnerabilities of inhalation and constant skin contact.

That’s why getting PFAS out of groundwater is critical.
 
Groundwater not only feeds drinkable water sources, but also the entire global water cycle through evaporation and precipitation. What goes up must come down, which explains why even remote parts of the planet now register PFAS contamination.

Intercepting these substances in groundwater at industrial sites, airports and military bases makes in situ colloidal activated carbon (CAC) a promising remediation technology at scale.

When PFAS met CAC

“I think we were the first people to use [CAC] in situ anywhere in the world,” said Rick McGregor, a hydrogeologist and the president and CEO of InSitu Remediation Services Ltd., headquartered in St. George, Ontario. “There was a site here in Canada near Ottawa, Ontario, that we were hired by a consulting firm and the owner of a property to remediate petroleum hydrocarbons.”

McGregor’s team used a colloidal activated carbon product called PlumeStop, made by the environmental remediation solutions company Regenesis, for that original purpose. But serendipity stepped in to enlarge the project’s scope when the end-client’s consultant mentioned that firefighting training had taken place on the site.

“This is back in 2016. Things were starting to emerge about PFOA and PFOS [perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, two types of PFAS] in firefighting foam, so I grabbed some water samples from the wells before we injected [PlumeStop] and sent those samples off to be analyzed,” McGregor said.

Tests revealed PFAS present at the site. The good news? PlumeStop captured the two PFAS chemicals in question, along with 12 others, reducing the two to barely detectable levels and the others below their respective measurable limits over the first 18 months of periodic testing. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently proposed a maximum contaminant level of 4 parts per trillion for PFOA and PFOS, which is as low as tests can detect, but the ultimate goal is zero.

Tiny particles, big result

Maureen Dooley, the vice president of Regenesis’ industrial sector, said the company now has over 550 in situ colloidal activated carbon installations serving various industries, airports and military sites. PlumeStop was launched in 2014, first to address petroleum hydrocarbons and chlorinated solvents, and is now also used to remediate PFAS. 
 
For any filtration to be successful, the filter has to be the right size. For comparison, standard air filters for household HVAC systems often run 5 to 10 microns. For whole-house water systems, 5 to 50 microns is the common range. The smaller the number, the greater the filtration because the pores of the filter are smaller. But that can mean a higher tendency to clog or reach holding capacity and need more frequent replacement.

“You can't catch a mosquito with a chain link fence,” Dooley said. “Colloidal activated carbon is 1 to 2 microns in size. So, that's like the size of a red blood cell or a bacterium. The smaller size of the colloidal carbon has a lot more surface area.” That translates to faster adsorption of contaminants like PFAS as the molecules attach themselves to the carbon surfaces.

The solution carrying the carbon is pushed below ground to surround the soil particles at a distribution thickness that meets each site’s needs. That coating creates an underground filter.
 
“I’ve used the analogy that we are painting the soil … roughly a 10-micron-thick coating around the soil particle that is not going to impede groundwater flow,” Dooley said. In some cases, other compounds can be added to promote biodegradation of other materials hitting the colloidal activated carbon barrier.

Colloidal activated carbon comes with benefits, but limitations remain

The science and engineering needed to utilize colloidal activated carbon may be complicated, but its benefits are easy to comprehend, even beyond its remediation effectiveness.
 
“Containment is the only feasible remedy currently available for treating PFAS in groundwater,” Dooley said, noting that destruction of the strong carbon-fluorine bonds in PFAS is both energy-intensive and expensive. At least for the present, destruction technologies simply aren’t yet suited for addressing PFAS underground, being better applicable to water above ground, such as at landfills and wastewater treatment plants.

Because in situ colloidal activated carbon does not extract contaminated water from the ground and place it in containers for treatment, known as “pump and treat,” it eliminates a lot of expense and carbon emissions caused by transferring either treatment equipment to the site or contaminated water to a treatment facility. It also “ensures communities do not become exposed to additional PFAS risk during the handling, transport and disposal of these wastes,” Dooley said.

If in situ colloidal activated carbon has a weakness, McGregor said it would be “breakthrough" — in other words, PFAS bypassing the carbon and moving through the pores along with the water. This can happen with “short-chain” PFAS, which have fewer carbon molecules than “long-chain” PFAS.

That makes short-chain PFAS more soluble in water and less attracted to the carbon in the colloidal activated carbon filters. Even long-chain PFAS, which are less soluble and have a greater attraction to the carbon, can break through if the colloidal activated carbon filter reaches its capacity, similar to an overly saturated sponge.

Both McGregor and Dooley said adding follow-up applications of colloidal activated carbon to soils can address breakthrough on an ongoing basis.

Plus, follow-up studies and modeling since the 2016 Ottawa installation, including a report by Dr. Grant R. Carey et al that included McGregor, show that colloidal activated carbon has longevity for continued effectiveness and durability as it quietly does its work underground for several decades.

Those decades buy a lot of time to remediate PFAS contamination, as well as to allow additional treatment and testing technologies to develop and become economically feasible. More time means more knowledge about PFAS, better regulations and safer alternatives to PFAS for products.
 
The U.S. Department of Defense is looking for safer fire suppressants to match the effectiveness of currently used PFAS-containing foam. That’s critical given explosive ordnance is housed on bases. If firefighting foam seems to get more than its fair share of attention over other products containing PFAS, Dooley shared an important thought: “Firefighting foam is so pervasive. Every community has or had a fire-training area,” she said.

In situ colloidal activated carbon is proving itself effective not only against PFAS in firefighting foam entering groundwater, but also with discharges and run-offs at manufacturing sites, landfills, refineries and storage facilities. In the remediation train to get PFAS out of drinking water and the environment’s water cycle, fixed-location colloidal activated carbon holds an early car position behind the solutions locomotive.

Toxic workplaces have the power to do a lot of harm. Employees feel the effects mentally and physically, and productivity suffers as a result. Naturally, turnover is high in toxic work environments, and employers struggle to retain top talent. But discrimination, harassment and bullying are preventable. It’s up to employers to foster healthier workplaces that truly value diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), but employees can also find their voice to speak up and hold leaders accountable. 

TriplePundit spoke with Chiquita Hall-Jackson, an attorney and expert in employment law, about what can be done to promote employee wellness and inclusion, and what employees can do if they witness discrimination or mistreatment at work.

Diversity without inclusion leads to missed opportunities

“A lot of companies have been focusing on diversifying their staff and their workforce,” Hall-Jackson said. “However, they're not being inclusive, and that's where a lot of opportunities have been missed.” It’s not enough to just hire a diverse staff. By ignoring inclusion, many employers miss out on the benefits that come with a diverse workforce. After all, employees have to feel included to be comfortable sharing their ideas and talents.

Employees need to feel like they have a voice in the workplace and can offer input, she said. “They also want to contribute and show that their talents are recognized by the company.”

Inclusion through bonding experiences

Hall-Jackson sees bonding experiences during the workday as a simple step employers can take to foster employee wellness and connection. These group activities could include mixers, cooking lessons, exercise classes, and paint and sip classes. “Different activities that you used to do with your girlfriends or a bunch of friends, corporate is now evolving as bonding activities,” she said.

These experiences cultivate inclusion, employee happiness and a sense of belonging, she said. “A lot of people just don't feel like they belong in the workplace, and ultimately it affects their mental health.” Offering bonding experiences can help workers who don’t feel valued or engaged to feel included. 

Resources for reporting workplace issues

A strong social support system in the workplace is the backbone of inclusion and employee well-being, Hall-Jackson said. That means fostering an environment of respect and fair treatment, supporting an open-door policy for communication between workers and supervisors, and creating a human resources policy against discrimination and harassment. 

When it comes to reporting discrimination, harassment and bullying, employees feel safest if there is a third-party phone number they can call instead of reporting to internal human resources personnel, she said. The option to remain anonymous can also protect them from retaliation. 

Likewise, she encourages employers to use a third party to handle issues that arise while safeguarding employee privacy — for example, requests for leave related to medical issues and disabilities. She gave the example of a client whose supervisor left the mental health records she submitted for a leave request on a desk where anyone walking by could see the employee’s personal, protected health information. Utilizing a third party to process these records would have protected the employee from the embarrassment of sharing such personal information with her supervisor and exposing it to others in the office.

A budding movement rallies workers to speak up about wrongdoing

Hall-Jackson wants employees to be able to use their voices to stick up for what’s right and intervene when they witness harmful behavior like microaggressions and discrimination at work. 

“They might even see their supervisors yelling and picking on a particular individual or group of individuals,” she said. “If you don't feel comfortable speaking up in that moment, maybe immediately after — I'll say no more than 24 hours after that particular meeting, or interaction — pull that person to the side and say, ‘Hey, I witnessed what happened. I don't think that's fair. I think you owe XYZ an apology. And that's not how we do things around here.’" Letting people know you're against this type of behavior and don't think it's good for the company draws a clear boundary and establishes that you won't look the other way, she said. 

Hall-Jackson founded Blow the Whistle Law to facilitate more speaking up. The "social justice and accountability movement" aims to institute workers’ rights clinics in at least 10 law schools across the U.S. to train law students to disrupt wrongdoing and prioritize diversity in the workplace, she said. 

“It was sparked after being triggered by the Black Lives Matter movement back in 2020,” Hall-Jackson said. “When I, personally, had the belief that if the officers who were with Derek Chauvin had intervened that day when he had his knee on George Floyd's neck, that his life could have been saved.”

The limits of employment law

The Blow the Whistle Law movement holds monthly webinars around workplace issues. One of the most popular is about identifying discrimination and how to navigate a hostile work environment. It’s important that employees can distinguish discrimination and harassment from workplace bullying, because perpetrators are emboldened when employees rush to file lawsuits or Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claims for bullying and, inevitably, lose those claims, she said. 

“Unfortunately, there are no workplace bullying laws in place,” she said. And unless the mistreatment is related to a protected class, “what they're describing is not discrimination. It is simply workplace bullying or some kind of petty offense that's not covered under the law.”

This is why it’s all the more important for employers to value their employees’ well-being by proactively creating inclusive work environments and safe ways for employees to report mistreatment. Simultaneously, bonding activities can help co-workers feel more inclined to speak up for one another. Ultimately, it is up to employers to ensure their workplaces are not toxic, but employees can help protect each other by educating themselves on employment law and speaking up when they see mistreatment.