Search

By Jessica Oaks

It’s 2015, and planet earth ain’t what it used to be. With extreme weather conditions like hurricanes, heat waves, droughts and polar vortexes becoming the norm, people are started to take these signs of significant global warming a lot more seriously.

The leaders of the economic world, aka businesses, are leading the rest of society into saving the planet by practicing corporate responsibility and sustainability. Here are five brands that have focused on doing their part to help the environment.

H&M

As one of the world’s largest clothing retailers, H&M has made something of a 180 -- going from a oft-maligned, fast-fashion company to a veritable pioneer in making the fashion world green-friendly.

The retail company has prioritized investment in sustainability not only to benefit its future, but also for the communities it operates in. Upon entering an H&M store, any shopper can notice the brightly-lit, often massive, store lined with clothes. More than 80 percent of the company's energy footprint comes from H&M stores, which is why the brand understands that energy usage needs to be a main consideration.

The company made a public commitment to get all of its electricity from renewable sources wherever available. And by 2020, H&M plans to cut electricity use by 20 percent per square meter. The retail clothing giant is also the world’s No. 1 user of organic cotton.

Unilever

Global consumer goods company Unilever has worked diligently on its carbon footprint. It has reduced energy consumption across its manufacturing network by 20 percent, which has resulted in 1 million metric tons of carbon emissions saved since 2008.

Unilever provides products globally and has created a new business model that focuses on the well-being and health of people around the world. It utilizes sustainable resources and drives sustainability in every corner of the business — with the constant goal to hold a positive social impact. Taking a holistic approach, the business is innovating its products to require less water for instance and forming partnerships to tackle global issues like deforestation and improving sanitation, hygiene and access to water.

Ford

Within the automotive industry, Ford is leading the pack in minimizing environmental impact. It’s implemented a science-based strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its products and practicing operations geared toward stabilizing carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere.

The automaker has a 2016 goal to reduce waste sent to landfills by 40 percent per vehicle (from 2011), and it's working to improves fuel economy through sustainable technologies and alternative fuel plans. The company has introduced six electrified vehicles already and is facilitating mass adoption and use of this sustainable auto alternative.

Ketel One

The word alcohol triggers a connection with water in many ways. Aside from rehydrating from a rough night, water conservation is a huge concern in this consumer beverage category.

Spirit labels like Ketel One Vodka, under the Diageo umbrella, are majorly cutting water usage in production. Diageo has made a commitment to reduce water use through a 50 percent improvement in water efficiency, return 100 percent of wastewater from operations to the environment in a safe manner, and replenish water-stressed locations with the same amount of water used in their final products -- all by 2020. It also has formed an initiative to provide safe drinking water and sanitation to those in need as part of the water conservation program.

Heinz

Agriculture and food are integral to the earth’s ecosystem. Heinz is one company practicing sustainability in all aspects of the food chain. It practices quality control in sustainable agriculture, overseeing that the health of the land in which so many of Heinz-branded products are farmed from are safely grown. Furthermore, supply chain management is at the forefront — reduction in factory production emissions and packaging waste is a key goal.

The aforementioned businesses are just a few of the many that are starting to take big action in protecting the environment. In the years to come, they will be hitting their targets and continuing to grow and save the planet with even more preventative measures.

Image credit: Ford Motor Co.

Jessica Oaks is a freelance journalist who loves to cover technology news and the ways that technology makes life easier. She also blogs at FreshlyTechy.com. Check her out on Twitter @TechyJessy.

Swedish furniture giant IKEA has become the first major retailer to use sustainably-sourced cotton across its entire products range. 

Steve Howard, IKEA Chief Sustainability Officer, IKEA group said: “For over a decade we have been working towards an ambitious goal: to have 100% of the cotton we use in our products come from more sustainable sources. Today, we are delighted to announce that we have reached our 100% target and we not stopping here. We are committed to creating positive change throughout the entire cotton industry.”

Cotton from more sustainable sources includes cotton grown to the Better Cotton Standard, by farmers working towards Better Cotton, and sustainable cotton from the USA. From September 2015 onwards, all the cotton used in IKEA products is from these sources (although a small volume of products produced using conventional cotton prior to this time will still be on shelf until they are sold out).

Richard Holland, director, WWF Market Transformation Initiative commented: “Cotton from more sustainable sources across all IKEA products is a potential game-changer for the global cotton market because it demonstrates the clear business case for sustainability. We need more companies to follow IKEA’s lead but this milestone shows what’s good for people and nature is also good for business.”

Cartons, cups and bags at McDonald's are now made from wood fibre coming from recycled sources or sustainably-managed forests.

Indeed, all centrally-sourced packaging for the burger chain giant - distributed across its 38 European markets - is now chain-of-custody certified.

Keith Kenny, vp sustainability – Worldwide Supply Chain, McDonald’s, commented: “This step represents a key milestone in McDonald’s European sustainable packaging strategy to source 100% wood fibre from recycled or certified virgin sources by 2016, as well as providing credible evidence to our customers that the packaging products we use come from well-managed forests.

"The achievement has involved collaboration across the length and breadth of our supply chain in all 38 European markets, from those that supply our restaurants right back to the family-run businesses that own the forests.”

McDonald’s has achieved significant sourcing milestones in recent years, both globally and in Europe. Since 2008, McDonald’s European markets have sourced 100% of their coffee (excluding decaf) from farms certified by Rainforest Alliance or Fairtrade for their sustainable practices. In addition to this, all of the fish used in McDonald’s Filet-o-Fish sandwiches in Europe is certified by the Marine Stewardship Council.
 

In a recent conversation with Novozymes CEO Peder Holk Nielsen, we asked: If he had a few minutes alone with one of the delegates at COP21 in Paris, what would his elevator pitch be? His response, without hesitation, was that we already have most of the technology we need.

Referring to the McKenzie Abatement Curve, which examines the cost of various carbon abatement measures, he said: “Actually two-thirds of those technologies are available. Of those, one-third has been shown to be economically advantageous, while another third is roughly neutral. Then there is one-third where it’s complicated, and expensive, which means, we really don’t understand how to do it yet.”

What was clear to Nielsen that many people do not yet realize is how many tools we now have for dealing with carbon emissions in a cost-effective manner. Many of them are already in widespread use with costs continuously dropping as they achieve scale and continue to be refined. Many others are highly promising and are at various stages of development. Let’s take a moment to consider some of these.

Renewable Energy World recently ran a story with a similar theme, naming five key technologies that “would go a long way in supporting implementation of that agreement,” if indeed an agreement is reached. They included:

• Onshore wind: A total of 369.6 gigawatts of wind was installed as of the end of 2014. That includes enough wind power in China to power 110 million homes. In 2014 alone, wind power avoided 608 million tons of CO2.


• Offshore wind: A more recent development, offshore has been deployed in Europe since 1991 and is now beginning to find application in the U.S. Given the large proportion of people living in coastal areas, there is a lot of potential. Recent developments in floating platforms in Japan support very large turbine sizes, which could ultimately reduce cost. The U.K. is becoming a major player as well.


• Biofuel is mostly being used to produce a supplemental vehicle fuel, but new processes based on the Organic Rankine cycle, using organic fluids with lower boiling points than water, could help improve the electricity output of combined heat and power plants that run on biomass.


• Concentrated solar power: Improved efficiency is being achieved through cooling measures and integration with combined-cycle thermal power plant technology originally developed for fossil fuel generation. Highly efficient Stirling engines are also being developed for this purpose.


• Energy storage: The report mentions adiabatic compressed air energy storage (CAEE), which includes heat recovery, though many other viable storage solutions are now available including a wide variety of batteries -- purpose-built for various applications ranging from cell phones and electric cars, to home energy storage (where lithium-ion still rules), to utility-scale power storage using flow batteries.

This list was compiled by the Global Sustainable Electricity Partnership (GSEP), a group of executives from “the world’s leading electricity companies,” which explains the fact that rooftop photovoltaic technology, which is among the most significant developments in the energy picture, is absent from the list.

We think solar PV should be added. While solar PV is still catching up with wind, it is gaining rapidly. There is now more than 20 GW worth of solar electricity installed in the U.S., a number that is expected to double in the next two years. The U.S. produced a total of 4 million GW of power in 2014 -- so renewables need to be ramped up substantially, but it is now cost effective to do so.

Worldwide solar PV installations have reached 177 GW, a tenfold increase since 2008. This growth should continue as Asia, Africa and the Middle East all are beginning to ramp up in earnest. Not only have costs come down, but efficiency also keeps improving -- and a number of innovative financing options now make it possible for people to install solar on their roofs with no money down. Another important advance is the advent of community solar, which allows inner-city residents, even renters, and those whose rooftops are shaded, in poor condition, or face the wrong way, to purchase solar power from an installation in their neighborhood. The installations are often public-private partnerships that could utilize vacant lots or other available land.

Without getting into things that are still in the R&D phase, the list of technologies that are available is truly breathtaking. On the demand side, we see things ranging from higher efficiency devices including lighting, appliances, computers and just about everything with a plug, smart buildings, boosted by cutting-edge design tools, smart cities using the Internet of Things (IoT), smart-metering, and lots of apps designed to track and help you save energy. Demand-management programs, including energy storage as well as deployment of fuel cells), are designed to flatten out peaks which saves cost and improves the efficiency of the grid. These technologies will reduce the total volume of electricity we need without reducing performance.

While not exactly a technology, the restoration and preservation of forests is another key factor in the climate equation. What is it that forests do? Trees pull carbon out of the air and store it in their trunks and branches. Can that be done artificially? Attempts at utility-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) attached to coal plants have proven quite expensive, though there is at least one working example. Meanwhile, other, more modest methods are emerging.

Bayer, for example, is now using recovered CO2 as a feedstock in its production of polyurethane for mattresses. A Swiss company called Climeworks has developed a system for pulling CO2 out of the air, to be used commercially for such things as boosting plant growth in greenhouses. Other advances in agriculture, such as vertical farms, can locate food supplies closer to where people live, reducing transportation-related emissions. Speaking of transportation, we have everything from car-sharing, to various forms of e-bikes, to re-engineering of cities to enhance bike-ability, walkability and transit options, to EV charging stations, to apps that quickly find you a parking spot thereby saving gas.

On the supply side: Commercial wind turbines up to as much as 7 megawatts are now being deployed. Not only has their size increased, but their efficiency and capacity factor have as well. Capacity factor is the percentage of the time that a wind turbine actually produces the amount of power it’s rated for. While that used to be around 25 percent, improvements in design have increased it to 50 percent, which is the “new normal.”

Various types of utility-scale solar projects, from thermal to photovoltaic, are also being installed. That sector grew by 38 percent last year. Meanwhile, rooftop residential solar grew by 51 percent driven by the combination of factors noted above.

Microgrids can reduce demand and cost, and by tailoring to the specific needs of its subscribers, be more efficient as well. Putting solar panels in water to help cool them and provide more area is another idea that’s catching on. Passive tracking for solar panels can improve output by up to 30 percent without consuming additional power.

The fact is: Both wind and solar are already less expensive than coal or gas in Europe, on a levelized cost of energy (LCOE) basis. This is not true everywhere, but it will be as solar and wind prices continue to fall. Geothermal systems are also growing with about 13 GW currently installed. That is expected to grow to 17.6 GW by 2020. A water injection process called EGS is currently being evaluated which could reduce costs and increase demand.

Meanwhile, hydropower, the first renewable, exceeded 1,000 GW in 2013 and continues to grow at 3 percent per year. Despite the lessons of Fukushima, there is a significant groundswell of support for the so-called “meltdown-proof” molten salt reactors. A recent report highlights a number of active efforts across the globe with a prototype from the Shanghai Institute in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Lab expected in the next few years.

Finally, the 2015 U.N. Climate Solutions Award winners were just announced. Among these are:

•      Solvatten Solar Safe Water Heater, Kenya: Reducing emissions while securing access to safe drinking water


•      Fostering Cleaner Production, Colombia: Reducing emissions in manufacturing


•      Harvesting Geothermal Energy, El Salvador: Generating income with geothermal waste-heat


•      Planting Trees to Save the Mangrove, Guinea: Establishing women-led groups that protect forests and generate income


•      SELF’s Solar Market Gardens, Benin: Empowering women farmers through solar drip irrigation


•      Azuri PayGo Energy, Africa: Innovating pay-as-you-go energy systems for rural homes


•      Deforestation-free Cocoa, Peru: Using a carbon-asset-backed loan to protect forests and produce cocoa


•      Microsoft Global Carbon Fee, Global: Transforming corporate culture by putting a price on carbon


•      ChargePoint Electric Vehicle Charging Corridors, U.S.: Building a network of electric vehicle express charging stations


•      Mobisol Smart Solar Homes, Rwanda and Tanzania: Powering homes with solar energy

These are just the tip of the iceberg. Any comprehensive list of available tools to combat climate change would fill a book.

The point that the delegates need to understand is this: The technology is not the problem. A multitude of technologies are already here, and many more are on their way. What is needed now is the commitment to use them and to quickly make the transition to clean energy, which will be painful for some, knowing that all of us, including generations to come, will be better off when we do.

Image credit: Flickr/Steve p2008

As you read this, enormous fires are burning on the Indonesian side of Borneo, and on Sumatra. And the resulting haze is creating a environmental catastrophe throughout the region, putting the health of tens of millions at risk. These are, quite possibly, the largest fires in human history.

Many are blaming El Nino, which is causing dry conditions through much of Southeast Asia as it brings much-needed rain to California. But the truth is that the fires were caused by humans, and historically, such fires have directly benefited two of the world's biggest industries – palm oil and pulp/paper.

Palm oil travels on a vast supply chain all the way to America, where it is the most consumed food oil. You'll find it in your bathroom, in your snack foods. Companies that purchase palm oil from Indonesia are directly responsible for the climate disaster we're seeing right now.

Here why: Fires don't occur naturally in the tropics, as they do in California. Similarly, palm oil is not native to Indonesia, for a reason. Much of Sumatra and Kalimantan are peatlands, naturally wet and swampy. Before palm-oil cultivation arrived in Sumatra, brought as a cash crop by the Dutch, local people never planted on peat, living instead alongside rivers and farming swidden, rotational agriculture on higher ground.

Because palm plants require dry land to grow, palm oil plantation owners drained the peats, leaving the land in an unnaturally dry state.

Now, here's the problem – Indonesia's peat lands contain some of the densest carbon stock in the world. Peat forms a critical component of the natural carbon-sink in Southeast Asian forests, regulating climate globally. When a peat fires starts, it can be nearly impossible to put out. That is why, despite millions in firefighting, fires continue to rage in Indonesia and haze continued to billow into Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

For years, fire was used to clear land to turn into plantations, and that palm oil ends up in corporate supply chains. This is even the case for palm oil certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, whose industry-crafted, weak and rarely-enforced guidelines have left even those plantations susceptible to fire.

Fires are probably the worst way to clear forest. But they are also the cheapest, and serve another function – a de-facto land grab. Pristine forest is difficult to convert into palm oil or pulp plantations. But recently burned forest and peat? Welcome, palm. Haze and smoke are merely externalities, a cost passed on by palm and pulp producers to the entire region -- and, through massive CO2 emissions expected this year to be greater than that of Germany, to the world.

It is easy to blame Indonesia's President Joko Widodo, or farmers in Sumatra and Kalimantan, for Indonesia's fires, but this is not just an local problem. It is a global problem, connected by supply chains and transnational corporations. This is global, multibillion dollar business, run by giant companies and thousands of smallholders along a long, complicated supply chain. Any effort to stem fires needs a stronger push for sustainable supply chains and accountability on the demand side as well, beyond the headlines-making but ineffective zero-deforestation pledges.

We are seeing signs of this in Singapore, the country closest to Indonesia and facing dangerous haze levels, which has begun removing products from companies connected to the fires from its grocery stores. If more countries did the same, this could have a powerful effect of forcing companies to think twice before letting fires encroach on their land, or from purchasing palm oil or pulp from those companies.

We also need to focus on prevention. Fires wouldn't have happened if restoring ecosystem and returning Indonesia's tropical forests to an healthy state had been a priority for government and the palm oil industry. The millions being spent on firefighting now – not to mention the billions in negative economic and tourist impacts that Greenpeace estimates – could have been better used in prevention through ecosystems restoration. This means a greater recognition that stopping fires is more than just firefighting, but a larger social and economic problem.

This is key. All the rhetoric about holding those responsible for the fires accountable will mean little if the incentives to burn remain in Indonesia. Changing this will be a tall task, but the current crisis just might be the right catalyst. The first step – companies like PepsiCo, which still source palm oil from risky sources, need to come clean and commit to supply chain transparency. They should also take the lead in helping restore Indonesia's forest ecosystems. This is a global crisis, and it requires a global solution.

Image credit: NASA via Wikipedia

By Don Shaffer

What will it take to build a thriving social enterprise sector that can lead the way to the next economy?

That’s a question that’s always on our minds at RSF Social Finance, and we’re convinced that one essential step is to challenge the dominant funding model. In that compartmentalized approach, venture capitalists aim to make as much money as they can in the shortest possible time, philanthropists give money to donation-dependent nonprofits, and early-stage investors — even in the impact sector — look for the hockey-stick growth graphs typical of tech pitches.  (“Growth Financing for Social Enterprises: 5 Options and How to Make Them Work for You” provides an analysis of funding options.)

We need to rethink the purpose of capital for social enterprises and adopt an approach that crosses conventional boundaries — a model RSF calls integrated capital. Integrated capital is the coordinated and collaborative use of different forms of capital (equity investments, loans, gifts, loan guarantees, and so on), often from different funders, to support a developing enterprise that’s working to solve complex social and environmental problems.

Integrated capital addresses the funding challenges social enterprises face in a number of ways. It allows for longer development times by including some types of investment that don’t need to make a large return (or any return). It gets enterprises through the “valley of death,” where they have a promising business model, technology, product, or service, but need more capital to realize its potential and don’t qualify for traditional financing. And when community foundations and local investors participate, it creates a community commitment to the enterprise’s success.

Testing shows the model works

We know this model can succeed. In 2012, we launched the RSF Local Initiatives Fund, in collaboration with lead donors, to pilot an integrated capital approach to financing regional food systems. (See “How Can We Fix Our Broken Food System? Start With the Base of the Supply Chain” for context.) In the first two years, the fund deployed $2 million to 40 early stage sustainable food and agriculture enterprises, with a focus on technical assistance grants, loan guarantees, convertible notes, and place-based Shared Gifting circles. Those investments have leveraged well over $10 million in additional financing to date.

For example, a $200,000 loan guarantee from the Park Foundation made possible RSF’s $1,150,000  mortgage loan to Regional Access, a wholesale food distributor focused on creating a sustainable regional food system in New York and expanding access to quality food for underserved urban and rural residents. The mortgage loan and a $200,000 line of credit, supported by a $50,000 Local Initiatives Fund guarantee, allowed the company to consolidate debt and expand its reach and operations. That translates to more ecologically responsible and locally grown food for more people (Regional Access currently serves 600-plus stores, restaurants, and institutions) and improved economic viability for local farms—all for a small, low-risk investment.

Fair Food, an enterprise dedicated to bringing locally grown food to market and promoting a humane, sustainable agriculture system for greater Philadelphia, is another great example of growth through integrated capital financing. In early 2014, RSF provided a $100,000 line of credit for working capital that enabled Fair Food to maintain timely payments to farmers and producers in the long-term, and bridge immediate cash flow needs in the short-term. Guarantees were crucial to making the loan work: Fair Food requested support from community members and raised $50,000 in RSF Social Investment Fund accounts to back the loan, and RSF provided an additional $20,000 guarantee from the Local Initiatives Fund. Then in September 2014, Fair Food participated in a food and agriculture–focused Shared Gifting Circle and received a $9,900 grant to train and assist farmers with Group GAP (Good Agricultural Practices) certification—a cooperative approach to farm food safety that addresses the needs of small and midsize farms.

Four new funds are on deck

Building on the success of the Local Initiatives Fund, RSF is preparing with core donors to launch four new Integrated Capital Funds: the RSF Fair Trade Fund, RSF Biodynamics Fund, RSF Soil Health Fund, and RSF Women’s Fund.

These philanthropic funds will provide loan guarantees, equity investments, grants, and other types of capital that position social enterprises—for-profits, nonprofits, and hybrids—to obtain additional equity or debt financing and give them time to develop. We expect to recycle about two-thirds of the money into new financing (we’ll consult the lead donors in each fund on the exact target ratio).

The focus for each fund is based on needs our community identified. The Biodynamic and Soil Health funds grew out of regenerative agriculture advocates’ search for the next step beyond organic. The Women’s Fund provides capital to women-led social enterprises, which tend to be underserved. The RSF Fair Trade Fund will initially provide loans to our fair trade borrowers’ suppliers when existing sources don’t meet those suppliers’ financing needs. Initial partners include Guayakí, a beverage company that sells organic, fair-trade yerba mate tea leaves and drinks; Indigenous, a clothing company that pioneered Fair Trade certification for apparel and linens, and also developed the Fair Trace Tool™ to show consumers how a garment was made; and Equal Exchange, a worker-owner cooperative that sells fair trade coffee, tea, chocolate and other foods.

Collective action is needed

Our goal, which we hope others will join us in, is to use low-interest loans, loan guarantees, equity investments, and other instruments from philanthropic funds to leverage significant amounts of market capital for social enterprises. We intend to support catalytic enterprises, and we know that not all of them will succeed—but it’s worth the risk. If philanthropic funders start using their money fearlessly where it has the greatest chance to spur sustainable social innovation, we could collectively fill the funding gap between seed money and growth capital for social entrepreneurs.

One key aspect of making this work is recalibrating our thinking around gift funding. Our purpose with these funds is to be nimble, agile, and opportunistic, so that we can get the right capital to the right entrepreneurs at the right time. To that end, we’re requiring minimal reporting. Philanthropy has developed a compliance culture that puts a lot of focus on layers of reporting and calculating return on investment. But making a true gift rightly involves releasing control. We think the whole movement to measure every little thing is a waste of people’s time; recipients should be able to just get to the work. It’s not about being sloppy or undisciplined. It’s about reestablishing a more human-centered sense of accountability.

Bold funders can move the field ahead

As our work with Regional Access and Fair Food illustrates, RSF has the advantage of being able to draw on a diverse mix of both investment and philanthropic funds under one roof to support organizations that are models for systemic change. We see ourselves as a laboratory for the integrated capital approach, and we’re taking on that challenge by reorienting our entire funding operation around the concept. We’re finding that it requires us to break down the internal walls between investing and philanthropy—a reflection of the need to break down the walls between these sectors generally.

It’s encouraging to see that others are thinking along the same lines. Integrated capital shares collaborative and creative aspects of Nonprofit Finance Fund’s complete capital approach, which brings together financial, intellectual, human, and social capital to help nonprofits succeed, and Pacific Community Ventures’ catalytic capital concept, which recognizes that grants, guarantees, and seed funding can trigger additional financing that otherwise would not have been available to an enterprise. Activist community foundations are also considering an integrated capital approach.

The fact that we’re seeing this fresh focus on the uses of capital to achieve social benefits tells us that there is a real opening now for vastly greater collaboration between impact investors (individuals, networks, and firms), foundations (community and private), and community banks. As the holders of capital, it’s up to us to create a finance infrastructure that enables social enterprises—and the communities they serve—to thrive.

Image credit: Juan Carlos Castaneda, Indigenous Designs 

Don Shaffer is president and CEO of RSF Social Finance, a pioneering funder of social enterprises based in San Francisco, and is a B Lab board member. He welcomes inquiries into using the integrated capital model.

By Monica Jain

The seafood industry has one of the most complicated supply chains in the world, often with five to seven companies involved from catch to plate, each keeping records on paper in far-flung locations. In these murky waters a new wave of entrepreneurs sees opportunities to make the seafood industry more transparent to consumers, businesses and governments striving for sustainability.

The seafood industry defines traceability as the ability to track the source of seafood, the conditions under which it is farmed or caught, and the intermediaries it passes through. Improving traceability is critical to promoting sustainability in both aquaculture and wild-caught fish: The current, largely opaque supply chain hides numerous negative impacts, including overfishing, fraud, human rights abuses in the labor force, pollution and resource depletion. (See TriplePundit’s recent Q&A on seafood traceability for details on systemic issues.)

The shrimp market illustrates many of these issues. Shrimp is one of the most heavily consumed types of seafood, accounting for a $5 billion market in the U.S. and 2 billion euros in the EU. More than half the world’s shrimp supply comes from aquaculture, which has grown rapidly in recent years, largely in Asia. As detailed in our recent report, this rapid growth and lack of oversight has resulted in habitat destruction, disease outbreaks, and in the case of the Thai shrimp feed industry, forced labor.

The fishing industry in Thailand employs 300,000 people, many of them migrants from Myanmar or Cambodia. These migrants often are heavily indebted to their traffickers, who then sell them off as crew on ships catching fish used for shrimp feedstock. NGOs and governments have been bringing international pressure to bear on this issue, and retailers in the U.S. and Europe are looking to traceability strategies to verify suppliers’ labor standards. Ethical suppliers are out there. Traceability enables corporate buyers and consumers to support businesses that are socially and environmentally responsible and to avoid creating market incentives for bad practices.

Entrepreneurs take on supply chain hazards

The rising demand for traceable seafood among Western retail buyers and consumers is inspiring entrepreneurs and investors to develop solutions for the shrimp market and the entire seafood sector. Their innovations pave the road to change by providing ways to collect reliable data and to keep that data attached to products from the farm or ship to the table. As an added benefit, the data collected can build scientific knowledge about fishery stocks and guide sustainable fisheries management.

The business opportunity is significant: the market for food traceability products and technologies is expected to grow to $14.1 billion by 2019, according to Allied Market Research. That growth is fueled by increased government reporting requirements, consumers who want to know where their food comes from, and businesses answering to both regulators and customers. (For details, see the Fish 2.0 market report on traceability.)

Traceability-focused companies are well-represented in this year’s Fish 2.0 competition for sustainable seafood businesses. We see companies focusing on traceability in various aspects of their business strategy, ranging from developing new technologies that capture data at the source to creating consumer products and brands based on transparent sustainability information. Presenters at Fish 2.0’s final event (taking place Nov. 10 to 11 at Stanford University) include:

• Pelagic Data Systems, a California-based company that provides remote data capture for boats at sea. Its system uses a solar-powered plastic box, installed on each vessel, that passively gathers data on the catch and uploads it to databases via cellular networks. Information on boat and catch weight, movement, temperature, time and other factors is aggregated on a dashboard.


• Shellcatch, another California company, also provides remote data capture and vessel monitoring, with the addition of visual identification—video taken of the catch on the boat.


• TRUfish, based in North Carolina, offers DNA testing of sample fish from batches, allowing resellers and consumers to find out what species is actually being sold. According to a 2013 Oceana study, one-third of all seafood sold at groceries and restaurants in the U.S. is misidentified, creating possible health and safety problems. After processing, much fish meat simply looks too much alike to distinguish species by sight, and the TRUfish system could reduce fraud.


• LoveWild Fish Co., based in Colorado, sells traceable sustainable fish (packaged with gourmet sauces) bought from Marine Stewardship Council–certified fisheries, and from aquaculture operations that meet Global Aquaculture Alliance guidelines.


• FairAgora Asia, a CSR consulting firm based in Thailand and also working in Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, is developing an online system (called VerifiK-8) for fisheries and farmed aquaculture that will track compliance with various environmental and social certification systems.


• New Mexico Shrimp Co. is meeting the demand for traceable shrimp by farming with environmentally sustainable practices. Its shrimp are grown without preservatives or antibiotics—in the Southwestern desert. The company expanded from one to three facilities in just two years of operation, and is planning for another eight by 2016.

Companies like these illustrate why we founded the Fish 2.0 competition two years ago: there’s a real need to connect seafood innovators with investors to bring solutions like these to the marketplace. One in eight people worldwide relies directly or indirectly on the seafood industry, but about 70 percent of the world’s fisheries are fully exploited or in danger of overexploitation, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Traceability is an essential factor in enabling both better resource management and fair working conditions.

Creating systems that allow us to develop the world’s aquaculture resources responsibly, manage fisheries sustainably and ensure that the seafood industry supports good jobs and healthy habitats worldwide is going to be good business over the long haul.

Image credit: Flickr/Laszlo Ilyes

Monica Jain is the founder and executive director of Fish 2.0 and Manta Consulting Inc. She has worked for over 20 years in the private sector and philanthropy, and specializes in creating innovative financing strategies and structures for impact investors, foundations, and private sector–nonprofit partnerships. Follow her @fish20org.

By Matt Baird

On Sept. 30, 2015 California’s Air Resources Board (ARB) released a draft of its Short-Lived Climate Pollutant Reduction Strategy. The final plan is due by the end of the year, as required by Senate Bill 605. The strategy does a great job of outlining the need to address short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) in a timely fashion, which include black carbon (soot), methane, and fluorinated gases. The Climate Trust is concerned with how the Strategy proposes to change the regulation of California dairy methane emissions, and therefore the Livestock Protocol used to incentivize dairy methane capture via generation of carbon credits at dairies across the United States.

The strategy explains that the “dairy and livestock industries account for roughly half of the state’s total methane emissions,” and half of these methane emissions result from manure management practices. Most dairies manage manure via a lagoon storage system; creating an anaerobic environment in which the manure produces methane that is released into the atmosphere as it breaks down. Atmospheric methane is a greenhouse gas that traps much more heat per unit than carbon dioxide.

ARB uses the Livestock Protocol under the cap-and-trade compliance market to incentivize dairies to change their practices through the production and sale of carbon offsets. The dairy industry’s manure management baseline, or business-as-usual, creates methane emissions. A carbon credit is generated at a dairy by the capture and productive use of methane, such as electricity generation. The difference between the lagoon baseline emissions and the project emissions, measured in metric tons, is the number of credits generated in a given year. The resulting credit, or California Compliance Offset, may then be sold to organizations required to offset their emissions by California law and increases revenue for the dairy.

Since the Climate Trust contracted with its first biogas project in 2009, the sector has grown to comprise one third of The Trust’s portfolio of offsets under contract since 2010. The Trust is building on that legacy by developing a new carbon fund that will invest capital into early-stage dairy digester projects in return for an ownership stake in the resulting carbon credits; essentially leveraging the Livestock Protocol to capture more methane and reduce financial barriers for dairy owners. However, a new dairy manure management regulation would undermine one of the Trust’s core sectors and make an existing incentive obsolete.

The strategy proposes to “develop a regulation by 2018 that would establish requirements for manure management best practices for new dairies and expansions at existing dairies.” The regulation will therefore alter the baseline for new dairies after the effective date, thus eliminating the delta between carbon project and baseline that produces the carbon credits. Footnote 102 of the strategy continues, “Requiring emission reductions from the sector would mean that offsets under the cap-and-trade program would no longer be issued for new projects.” The strategy proposes to alter the baseline for new dairies in California, but at the same time eliminates the potential for all U.S. dairies to generate offsets for California’s compliance market.

While the low baseline of lagoon-stored manure must change in order to combat methane’s effect on the climate, it is not necessary to make the Livestock Protocol obsolete in the process. The Trust estimates that carbon offset sales represent 20 to 40 percent of revenue generated by a dairy digester, and the percentage will increase in conjunction with carbon credit prices over time. Removing dairy digester projects from California’s carbon market will eliminate or significantly reduce this revenue stream, making dairy digester projects less viable. The removal of this incentive to capture methane for all dairies in the U.S. is a step back for global methane emissions; a step that will work against the goals of the strategy. However, there are alternatives to removing the livestock sector from the market.

One option is to allow for multiple baselines. The proposed regulation only changes the baseline for new dairies in California. Therefore, the 1,000 large dairies currently in operation will continue to manage manure in open lagoons until they expand or cease to exist. Allowing new carbon offset projects to be created on existing dairies seems like a simple solution to simultaneously move toward better manure management, while also maintaining the incentives for existing dairies to improve their practices.

A similar option would be to allow use of the Livestock Protocol in other states, as the regulation only affects California dairies. For example, The Trust manages several dairy digesters in Oregon and Washington, and the baseline manure management rules are not likely to change in the near future. Eliminating all U.S. dairies from California’s cap-and-trade market in order to reduce California’s livestock emissions seems like a small step forward for California and big step back for reining in U.S. methane emissions. Allowing for existing dairies and out of state dairies to have independent baselines would be a good way to move the regulations forward (stick), but maintain current incentives (carrot).

Another alternative involves the current discussion on how to compare various greenhouse gases, especially as it becomes clear the effects of climate change are not something to be left for future generations. There is no single answer on best methods for comparison. The strategy addresses this, and uses a 20 year time horizon for methane with a global warming potential (GWP) of 72 (compared to the 20-year GWP of 1 for carbon dioxide). However, the current livestock protocol uses a 100-year time horizon with a GWP of 25 for methane.

As the strategy’s use of the 20 year time horizon better captures the importance of immediately mitigating methane, and the 100 year timeframe has no scientific basis, it is recommended that the Strategy consider collaborating with stakeholders to update the GWP value used in the Livestock Protocol. If the number of offsets generated by biogas projects doubled, or tripled, this would greatly increase the incentive for new biogas digesters to be built and utilized across the U.S. The change would also synergize with other manure management goals in the Strategy, such as aligning financial incentives with improved manure management practices, fostering markets to increase cost effectiveness, and ensuring reductions at existing dairies—instead of making the goals more difficult.

The Trust agrees that business-as-usual manure management practices need to change, but there are alternatives to those proposed in the strategy; ideas that build off of existing incentives, rather than making them obsolete. ARB recognizes the need for collaboration from many stakeholders in order to achieve significant reductions in SLCPs, and the Trust will be following the Short Lived Climate Pollutant Reduction Strategy as it progresses towards a final version; providing input where possible. The impact of removing a carbon offset sector from the California cap-and-trade market deserves more than a footnote.

Image credit: Flickr/Dirk-Jan Kraan

Matt Baird is the Program Coordinator for The Climate Trust.

A survey of 400 global Independent Financial Advisors (IFAs) has shown that many fail to even discuss responsible investment with their clients.

Research from Alquity, the responsible investment manager, found that over a third (38%) of IFAs said they had never discussed responsible investing with clients whilst almost a third (31%) of IFAs admit they don’t know enough about it. In addition to this a staggering two thirds (66%) of those polled said they lack access to information on it.

However, when asked about the future, 82% think the market for responsible investment products will increase over the next 5 years. The size and growth of sustainable investing in Europe represents 64% of the €19.3t global market for sustainable investments* in 2014, with the UK representing the largest market with a volume of €1.97t.

Many IFAs confirmed that the decision to invest responsibly is driven either entirely or mostly, by their clients and in only 5% of cases is it based on the recommendation of the IFA. Alongside the lack of available information around responsible investing, 32% of IFAs stated that they believe there are insufficient funds to choose from.

Paul Robinson, founder of Alquity commented: “IFAs still don’t understand responsible investment and there is a critical disconnect between the demands of retail investors who are looking at ethical investments and the traditional IFAs. IFAs need to wake up to the benefits of using ESG to drive investment performance and mitigate risks, before they miss opportunities for their clients and become dinosaurs in a world that is embracing responsible investing."

Picture credit:© Predrag Novakovic | Dreamstime.com 

 

 

By Jill Abelson

According to U.S. EPA, 19.5 million “monster” fridges -- 15 years or older -- are still in use throughout the U.S., manufactured before 2001 Federal efficiency standards took effect. Most, about 12.4 million, of these monsters are primary fridges in the kitchen, while the rest are secondary, lurking in dark basements or garages. On average, these older units use twice as much energy as a new Energy Star-qualified fridge, collectively eating up more than $4 billion a year in energy costs.

What is more, refrigerator-freezers manufactured prior to 1995 contain chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as coolants and in the foam insulation. CFCs were phased out in the U.S. in 1996 because they destroy the Earth’s protective ozone layer. CFCs are also extremely powerful greenhouse gases, between 5,000 and 11,000 more potent than CO2 pound for pound.

Retirement and responsible recycling of these clunkers has been an ongoing focus of the U.S. EPA Energy Star Program, EPA’s Responsible Appliance Disposal (RAD) Program, the U.S. Department of Energy, local and regional utilities, and leading retailers. Many local utilities have sponsored contests to find the oldest fridges in their territory, luring some of the oldest but still operating units out from their hideaways.

In previous posts, 3P looked at the global impact of refrigerants’ link to climate change and the increased importance of responsible recycling.

With an estimated 11+ million refrigerators/freezers, 6 million window A/Cs and about a million dehumidifiers disposed of annually in the U.S., according to U.S. EPA’s RAD Program, responsible recycling remains a priority. The vast majority of old fridges end up in landfills or metal scrapyards, where their coolant refrigerants, insulating foam and other hazardous materials may not be dealt with properly. Old, inefficient fridges that can be rehabbed often end up on the secondary market, where they are resold and put back on the electricity grid.

The good news is that there are a number of programs around the country that insure that retired appliances, especially these older fridges, are handled in accordance with U.S. EPA’s RAD Program, thus saving energy; recycling and re-purposing metal, plastic and other raw materials for a second lease on life; preventing release of hazardous materials; and avoiding harmful emissions from refrigerant coils and insulating foam. The environmental benefits are lost if fridges aren’t recycled properly.

What to do with your scary monster? Chances are, your local utility sponsors a program that can pick up your old fridge and offer a rebate, too. U.S. EPA offers these resources to learn more.

Just make sure you retrieve any candy (or beer) from Halloweens of yore.

Jill Abelson is SVP Marketing, JACO Environmental

Images courtesy JACO Environmental