President Barack Obama has done a valiant job of promoting clean energy and climate action despite facing a Congress run by climate deniers. The hallmark of this effort is the Clean Power Plan, which seeks to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants, one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases in the country.
“Time and again, we’ve seen big polluters and their allies attack the lifesaving protections that let our loved ones breathe easier and keep our clean energy economy thriving, and this challenge to the Clean Power Plan is no different,” said Mary Anne Hitt, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, in a statement.
Coal, as we reported earlier this year, is a slowly dying, antiquated industry in America. Coal company stocks are down between 50 and 85 percent in the last year. This is not a power grab, but a last grasp of an industry that prefers to live in the past and not the future.
The states that are suing the EPA are those heavily dependent on coal (and, thus, their politicians dependent on coal-industry donations) or those who have drank the right-wing, anti-climate Kool Aid. They're not trying to find alternatives to regulations, such as a carbon tax, a cap-and-trade system, or other market solutions that would limit CO2 emissions but have been held up or killed in Congress. They are merely trying to stop progress and subject us to the worst of climate change in the years to come.
Thankfully, President Obama and the EPA have a lot of allies. Fifteen states are taking the opposite position, saying the EPA's moves are not only legal, but also necessary. Moreover, environmental organizations including the Sierra Club and Earthjustice are countering the reactionaries move.
“The Clean Power Plan follows the tradition of federal-state partnerships that courts have upheld time and again against constitutional challenge, “ said Howard Fox, counsel at Earthjustice, in a statement. “Constitutional arguments against the plan are last-ditch attempts to block the transition to clean energy that is already underway. Those who make such claims are on the wrong side of the law and the wrong side of history.”
When President Obama released the Clean Power Plan this past September, only one coal company spoke in favor it: Duke Energy, which, unlike its peers, has diversified into alternative energies,
Most environmental lawyers expect the Clean Power Plan to stand, but the problem is that a lengthy lawsuit could delay its implementation. We're already far behind on tackling climate change. Moreover, this could limit the leadership role that many hope that President Obama will take at the Paris climate talks coming up in a just six weeks.
On Friday, Sept. 11, 2015, a press officer in Wolfsburg, Germany, sent on an announcement to the world’s media. “The Volkswagen Group has again been listed as the most sustainable automaker in the world’s leading sustainability ranking," it read. Martin Winterkorn, the chairman, commended “the entire team” for success in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) and drew attention to their top scores in codes of conduct, compliance, climate strategy and lifecycle assessment.
Exactly seven days later, the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C. announced officials would hold an urgent press call on “a recent development regarding a major automaker." In revelations that stunned the global business community, Volkswagen was accused of illegally using “cheat devices” to “evade clean air standards” for six years. So began a storm than has engulfed the automotive industry and raised profound questions for those working in responsible business and sustainability.
VW was quickly erased from the DJSI and automotive leaderboard. But critics have been queuing up to slam the whole concept of corporate responsibility based on self-assessment, assurance (provided for Volkswagen by PwC), ratings and awards. According to the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a “dangerous racket” because “it allows companies to parade their virtue, and look good, while internal standards are allowed to slip."
In the weeks since the evidence of software manipulation first emerged, commentators have divided into two camps. Firstly, there are those who have sought to portray this as an isolated incident involving a few rogue employees. VW has been keen to push this line. Pick out the rotten apples, and the harvest will be saved. But this defense appears to be unravelling fast.
Mediainvestigations allege systematic abuses over many years, involving managers at all levels of the organization. Far from being isolated, the bad behaviors appear endemic. The fact that the share prices of competitors have also fallen indicates that investors don’t believe this to be an isolated incident.
Those working in the auto industry know this type of cheating has been going on for years. In an effort to grow its diesel market rapidly, VW thought it could game the system and not get caught. Such unethical practices run counter to the automaker’s own code of conduct.
The company's code of conduct (downloadable as a PDF) is fascinating to read, in hindsight, and it has not received enough attention. It’s worth quoting a few extracts to illustrate the challenge in rebuilding responsible business:
“We stand for responsible, honest actions.”
“We ... make ecologically efficient advanced technologies available throughout the world.”
“We are a partner to society and politics with respect to … ecologically sustainable … development."
“We are obligated to the truth with respect to political institutions."
Interestingly, I’ve discovered that although former CEO Martin Winterkorn signed previous versions of the code of conduct, his name disappeared from a September 2015 version, and a “foreword” from board members became an anonymous “preamble."
Still, a pretty comprehensive, 24-page code of conduct exists. Perhaps it was ignored, given to new recruits and left in the desk drawer for evermore? Far from it. Here’s another fascinating fact from Volkswagen's website: More than 74,000 employees were trained in the company's code of conduct last year. Around 40 percent of these were face-to-face in a classroom, and the rest were online. In total, more than 185,000 employees received training on compliance topics in 2014. More than 1,700 audits were conducted at VW companies around the world; 140 cases on anti-corruption were investigated; 365 cases of suspected fraud were looked at; and 72 employees were fired as a result.
So, we have a conundrum. A seemingly extensive code of conduct was in place. Monitoring and compliance were up and running. But one of the biggest corporate scandals wasn’t caught. The company was clearly not asking the right questions or measuring and monitoring what really mattered.
So, does this mean that CSR is doomed? Nothing could be further from the truth. As a result of unethical and irresponsible business practices, VW’s share price fell by over 40 percent. In impacts that the Economist described as “cataclysmic," the company faces billions of dollars in fines as up to 11 million cars could be affected.
Around 230 lawsuits have already been filed, and requests for refunds could cause pain for years. In total, some analysts put the potential costs at around $33 billion. Meanwhile, the chief executive has resigned. Police raided the company's HQ, and untold damage has been done to the brand and its relationship with politicians, regulators, environmental groups, shareholders and consumers. If that doesn’t show why business integrity matters, what does?
It’s a severe body-blow to those who argue that corporate performance can be assessed on financial metrics alone. Far from dampening enthusiasm for responsible business practices, the VW scandal should accelerate it.
The question we must all ask is: How did everyone get it so wrong? Any assessment of how a company is performing requires honesty and transparency from the business. That is true across industries, whether disclosing sustainability or financial performance. Any system of assessment can only be based on what companies voluntarily share. When a company chooses to be less than transparent – or worse, deliberately falsify information – there is no system that will robustly and conclusively see through such deception.
The VW approach was such that even the Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Trade Commission and other regulatory bodies appear to have been unaware for some years of what the company was doing.
Time will tell, but it’s likely that Volkswagen’s internal compliance completely failed to pick up on this maleficence. However, a fascinating benchmark by data crunchers at eRevalue suggests that a careful look at the automaker's sustainability reports should have sounded alarm bells. References to particulate emissions and air quality in the company's sustainability reporting declining sharply compared to its competitors. Perhaps voluntarily disclosure – if analyzed properly – can help after all.
Whatever emerges from the ashes of VW, it is clear that this is not a failure of responsible business per se. Rather, it points to wider lessons for those who seek to plan, assess and report on companies’ non-financial performance. In particular, it requires all of us to ask how external agencies can better verify corporate claims so that information is not taken at face-value but subject to more careful scrutiny. The fact that investors have been dumping the shares and brand damage could last for years shows that responsible business is critical to success. It reinforces the basic premise of indices like the DJSI that a strong showing on social and environmental measures leads to enhanced shareholder returns in the long-run.
The story of VW is also a salutary reminder that there must never be a gap between performance and communications. Audi (part of the VW Group) has a slogan, “truth in engineering,” in the United States. As one professor of business ethics quipped, this could now be “engineering the truth."
Sustainability, and the values that underpin it, must be properly integrated into a business. If unethical business practices are not addressed and rectified, the company is at risk of major financial consequences. VW serves as a timely reminder that it’s fine to focus on rankings, reports, press releases and awards. But, fundamentally, it’s the outcomes and impacts of sustainability that create and destroy shareholder value.
Richard Hardyment is an Associate Director at Corporate Citizenship, a global management consultancy specialising in corporate responsibility and sustainability.
The U.S. may be winding down its fossil fuel dependency, but it appears that foreign companies have spotted an opportunity for investing in American oil and gas assets. In the latest development, the Chinese investment holding company, Yantai Xinchao Industry Co. Ltd., has filed documents indicating it will shell out $1.3 billion to buy oil fields in Texas.
The foreign ownership of U.S. oil fields adds a new twist to the political pressure that is being put to bear on lifting federal restrictions on crude oil exports from the U.S. Namely, for whom are the pro-export legislators speaking: their domestic constituents or their foreign investors?
China, renewable energy and fossil fuels
Before we get into the political implications, it's helpful to step back and look at the broader energy picture.
While China's carbon mismanagement has become the stuff of legend, more recently the country has taken action to pull itself into a clean energy future.
Among other moves, China's solar investments are skyrocketing, and just last month China reaffirmed that its cap-and-trade initiative, in the works since 2010, is on track for launch in 2017. The initiative will focus on key industrial carbon emitters.
One of China's more intriguing actions is a partnership with the Nature Conservancy announced last year. It involves an ecological mapping system aimed at generating innovative emissions-reduction strategies.
If China continues along this path, some observers anticipate that it could beat the U.S. to claim global leadership in carbon management. However, as with the U.S., China will need a relatively sizable fossil fuel supply chain for the foreseeable future -- and even if it doesn't, Chinese businesses will continue to seek profits wherever they are to be made, just as American businesses do.
Chinese company buys Texas oilfields
That brings us to the latest news out of Texas. With the U.S. oil and gas industry in free-fall, domestic oil and gas fields are in the crosshairs of global investors in search of a bargain. The energy journal Fuel Fix has been tracking the industry's shifting landscape under the pressure of declining prices. Earlier this week it noted Yantai Xinchao's oil field buy consisted of oil fields in the rich Permian Basin formation within Howard and Borden counties.
The deal involves a limited liability partnership called Ningbo Dingliang Huitong Equity Investment Center, the journal reported. That enables Yantai Xinchao to engineer the transaction through the newly created (as of June 2015) limited liability company, Moss Creek Resources, a subsidiary of Ningbo Dingliang. The Moss Creek connection provides the whole transaction with an address in Dallas, Texas.
So far, the deal is in the letter-of-intent phase, and it has gotten the seal of approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an inter-agency committee formed under the Treasury Department with the aim of ensuring that foreign investment in the U.S. economy does not compromise national security. (For more on the complexities of federal policies on foreign investment, check out this 2013 Congressional Research Service report.)
A wake-up call for the politics of U.S. energy production
The new transaction isn't the first time that China has cemented a position in U.S. fossil fuel production, though the trend is a relatively new one. China, as well as India, were reported to be on track for buying U.S. coal and shale gas assets back in 2010. One major transaction occurred in 2011, when China's Cnooc Ltd. nailed down a $570 million deal for oil and gas leases previously owned by the U.S. company Chesapeake Energy.
By 2012 the Wall Street Journal was reporting that Chinese companies had accumulated more than $17 billion worth of oil and gas deals in the U.S. and Canada, skirting around potential objections by working deals through minority stakeholder status.
As for the future, it's quite possible that the Committee on Foreign Investment will continue to approve additional deals for China-based companies in the U.S. oil and gas sector. The upside for local politicians would be an improved prospect for job retention and creation even as domestic ownership in the oil and gas industry shrinks.
There is a significant political downside, though. Evidence is accumulating that the local public health and safety impacts related to oil and gas extraction can result in more harm than good. Domestic oil and gas producers are already under increasing public scrutiny, and tracing responsibility for those impacts to foreign companies will further erode public support.
The growth of energy jobs in the wind and solar sectors also helps to weaken the job-creating argument for oil and gas. Texas is certainly no slouch in that regard. Just this week the state made waves for the spectacular growth of its renewable energy sector, and Texas municipal governments now own three of the top five spots in the nation for largest local user of clean energy.
In addition, the newly announced federal budget deal hints at a structural weakness in the pro-export argument. As part of the complex agreement to increase funding for non-defense programs the U.S. is selling down its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which is a good indicator that the country has relaxed its overall dependency on oil.
TriplePundit has also noted that oil and gas operations in the U.S. have been marching into regions that previously hosted little or no such activity, leading to significant conflicts with existing economic activity that has already proven to benefit local communities. The involvement of Chinese companies in this sector could become particularly sensitive given ongoing tensions between that country and the U.S., most recently involving U.S. Navy maneuvers in the South China Sea.
The bottom line: we're guessing that the entry of Chinese companies into the U.S. oil and gas marketplace will draw more attention to the broader issue of foreign and global investment in extractive industries that involve significant risks and impacts for local communities. As public awareness of that trend grows, certain federal legislators will find it more difficult to make the case for supporting domestic producers by opening up the export market.
If you are a corporate responsibility communicator, “you are your CFO’s best friend. Because 30 percent of a company’s stock value is intangible; it is the g-word: goodwill.”
These were the opening remarks of Clark Dumon, senior vice president of corporate communications for MGM Resorts International. He was moderating a discussion at the CommitForum about the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) storytelling in brand management. Joining him on the stage were Jenny Robertson, director of citizenship and reputation management for FedEx, and Debra Benton, director of community programs and engagement for Southwest Airlines. Both shared examples of stories that boosted their brands' reputations.
FedEx tells the love story of two seals
In January, FedEx was contacted by the Seattle aquarium to donate a cargo flight to a northern fur seal named Commander. There were only nine northern fur seals in the United States, and Commander was supposed to travel from Seattle to Boston to visit the last breeding-age female, Ursula. The hope was that Commander would charm Ursula, one frisky thing would lead to another and soon there would be seal pups.
The FedEx citizenship and reputation management team pondered what angle to put on the story in order to engage people. A lightbulb flipped on when they realized the timing was around February, and they turned the story of Commander and Ursula into a fun Valentine’s Day piece. Awwww.
https://youtu.be/iiEPAuD8NkM
The story of Commander and Ursula received high engagement on social media. So, FedEx approached several news outlets, and the story was picked up by 41 broadcast outlets. "Good Morning America" featured the love story in its trending now section, and from there it went on to "ABC World News Tonight." That’s a lot of publicity for such a small donation. It’s a fantastic return on investment. Well played, FedEx.
Southwest tells the story of a little boy with a medical disability
Every year Southwest Airlines gives over 8,000 tickets away to patients who need to fly somewhere for treatment (that’s over $3 million worth of transportation). This is done through Southwest’s Medical Transportation Grant Program which has been running for about seven years.
The program donates transportation to hospitals that in turn provide the airline tickets to patients. It’s a wonderful program but a difficult story to share with the public because HIPAA laws dictate that the patients’ information not be disclosed.
However, the Southwest community programs and engagement team got a break when they met the family of a young boy named Toby who needed to fly and receive treatment. His parents gave permission to tell his touching story.
https://youtu.be/eJ6rOCOhY5g
In addition to increasing brand reputation among the public, another benefit is derived when stories like these are shared internally with employees. When they see the good things their company is doing for others, they will feel pride in the company and the work they do.
Your story
Those are great stories, but what about your company’s story? When thinking about how to tell your story, you might want a refresher on what makes a good story. Clark Dumon from MGM shared this hilarious short talk from acclaimed author Kurt Vonnegut about how to craft the perfect storyline. Good luck!
A fire has been slowly burning underneath a landfill in the St. Louis, Missouri, area for five years. The Bridgeton Landfill, part of the West Lake Landfill, is less than a quarter of a mile away from 8,700 tons of radioactive barium sulfate.
This nuclear waste is left over from the federal government’s Manhattan Project, a program that developed nuclear weapons (think: Hiroshima and Nagasaki). According to the Missouri Coalition for the Environment (MCFE), the waste was “illegally dumped” at the landfill in 1973.
Last weekend, an above-ground fire occurred at the landfill: On Oct. 24, the Bridgeton Landfill notified the Missouri Department of Natural Resources of a small grass fire. Although the fire was contained and distinguished, it highlights the problems that exist at the landfill. In 1990, it was listed on the EPA's National Priorities list, which makes it a superfund site.
The EPA does not seem very concerned despite the fact that the landfill is near nuclear waste deposits. In an assessment released on Oct. 16, the federal agency acknowledged that the “surrounding community is concerned that the fire will reach the radioactive waste areas leading to additional contamination in the air and groundwater.” However, the EPA’s assessment concluded that the level of outdoor radon, a radioactive gas produced from nuclear waste, is “well below radon concentrations associated with elevated lung cancer risks.” The assessment also dismissed concerns about groundwater contamination.
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster is fighting a legal battle to get the landfill site cleaned up. He even filed a lawsuit against the landfill’s owner, Republic Services.
In September, Koster released a report from expert witnesses in the case. The testimonies regarding the underground fire include one from Drs. Joel Burken and Shoaib Usman, professors of environmental and nuclear engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology. Burken and Usman detected both radiological and organic contamination in trees on the property of landowners near the landfill. The report states that their findings “indicate the off-site migration of RIM [radiologically impacted material], either in groundwater or aerial transport of particulate matter.”
After the recent grass fire, Koster released a statement. While the attorney general expressed relief that the EPA’s “studies do not show an immediate danger to the general public,” he pointed out that the grass fire “reminds us, flames can surface in unexpected places without warning.” Koster recommended that the EPA move “toward a final protective remedy ... without delay.”
Local officials are concerned about a possible emergency situation occurring because of the situation at the landfill. Last year, St. Louis County created an emergency operations plan, which acknowledged that there is a “sub-surface smoldering event” that has been occurring for “several years” at the landfill. The plan states that if the so-called event “reaches the radiological area, there is a potential for radioactive fallout to be released in the smoke plume and spread throughout the region.”
The emergency operations plan also acknowledges that the release of radioactive fallout “will most likely occur with little or no warning.” For that reason, the plan was created to create “guidelines for conducting efficient, effective, coordinated emergency operations involving the use of all resources.” In other words, the county is not waiting around to plan for the worst-case scenario.
So, what can and should be done to prevent the worst-case scenario of radioactive fallout? The MCFE suggests a number of things, including that the St. Louis Army Corps of Engineers “be put in charge right now” because the corps has “the technical expertise and track record for the safe cleanup of radioactively contaminated sites.” The MCFE also suggests that the radioactive waste be safely removed from the landfill to avoid the “constant threat” they pose.
It remains to be seen whether the MCFE’s recommendations will be acted on. For the sake of the people in the St. Louis area, we can only hope so.
What’s in my SpaghettiOs? Should I assume there’s no dog in my hot dog? We all want to know what’s buried in the food we eat. We also want to know about the welfare of any animals involved in the process.
Last week the CommitForum hosted a panel entitled, “What’s In My Food? Exploring Transparency in the Supply Chain.” TriplePundit founder and CEO, Nick Aster, interviewed Niki King of Campbell Soup Co., and Stewart Leeth, assistant vice president of environmental and corporate affairs and senior regulatory counsel at Smithfield Foods.
Campbell Soup makes the chicken noodle soup you eat when you’re sick and the tomato soup that you sip with your grilled cheese sandwich. Smithfield Foods is the world’s largest producer of pork products (think: bacon, hot dogs and sausage).
People have strong feelings about what they eat and feed their kids, so transparency and communication about what’s in food is crucial. Sadly, food companies haven’t always been transparent, but Campbell Soup and Smithfield are plodding along toward the goal of complete transparency. Here are some of their recent initiatives and stances.
Campbell Soup took its first dive into transparency by doing research and asking consumers what they wanted to know about their food, Niki King, senior manager of the CSR Program Office at Campbell Soup Co., said at the panel.
“We’re not looking to be perfect. We’re just looking to be open and honest,” King said, summarizing the the goal of the project. “We want to tell you what’s in our products, why we use the ingredients we use … where they come from, what’s in our packaging, so you can make informed choices about what you buy.”
To its credit, Campbell responded and created a website to establish a forum for an “open, honest and meaningful” dialogue with customers. The website launched in July and has information about eight of the company's most popular products. It answers questions about what goes into the food, how the food is made and the choices behind determining what ingredients to put in the food. “At the end of the day, transparency is about being accountable,” she continued.
Campbell’s goal is to add the rest of its U.S. and Canadian products to the website by the end of the year -- and to list every product it makes globally in three years. The website is a work in progress, but so far the feedback has been positive, King said at the panel.
There hasn’t been a big marketing push to promote the website. Campbell could lovingly be called conservative and a push like this is seen as a big risk. King explained that they started with a soft-launch of the website and are still hesitant to create a large communication campaign to promote it. However, once some initial customer feedback is received and the company has an opportunity to make necessary changes, King said Campbell will likely promote it more in about a year.
Perhaps the company will continue down the path of increased transparency and a discussion about food nutrition. It has acquired two healthy food companies within the past few years. Both smoothie manufacturer Bolthouse Farms and baby food producer Plum Organics have joined Campbell.
Aster asked Stewart Leeth, assistant vice president of environmental and corporate affairs and senior regulatory counsel at Smithfield Foods, if the company would create a whatsinmymeat.com website.
It doesn’t look like that will happen in the near future. However, Leeth did say there are videos about Smithfield’s pork production on its website. Smithfield is trying to create “glass walls about what’s going on so it’s no big mystery,” Leeth said at the panel.
That sounded good, but when I went to find the videos it took me five minutes of clicking around on the website before I finally found them. It was far easier to learn about Smithfield’s sponsored car-racing team than it was to learn about the production of pork and ethical treatment of pigs. The videos are well done, though, and definitely deserve a more prominent place on the website.
Smithfield started to focus on the environment around 15 or 20 years ago, when it had problems on the environmental side. Leeth has firsthand experience in the ordeal, as he prosecuted Smithfield on behalf of the state of Virginia in his former role as assistant attorney general.
“But things changed,” he said at the panel. “Leadership took a [180-degree] turn.”
However, he also said that “customers are the ones that drive our sustainability program.” He's not referring to customers like you and I, but massive customer companies like Walmart that buy millions of pounds of Smithfield's meat every day. “We want to make sure our brand doesn’t tarnish their brand,” Leeth explained.
However, one is left to wonder: If the sustainability program is supported by Smithfield’s leadership, then why are customers the ones driving it? And why is there concern about tarnishing another company’s reputation? I would think Smithfield would be more concerned about tarnishing its own reputation, no?
Leeth said it’s hard to draw people in to look at its production of pork because “we don’t make Apple products.” True, hot dogs aren’t sexy like Apple products. But I think I’ve seen more videos about the pink goo that gets turned into hot dogs than I have the technical hardware components of iPhones. After all, I’m not eating my phone. Why should I care what’s in it?
Smithfield does not support ag-gag rules, which is good. In case you haven’t been following the response of companies to undercover videos documenting the mistreatment of animals, some companies have successfully advocated for “ag-gag” laws that punish people for undercover reporting. It’s the opposite of transparency.
Leeth said thousands of family farmers are doing the right thing to care for their animals and unfortunately one bad video can hurt the reputation of the entire industry. “Bad news sells and outnumbers good news. And good news is boring,” he said bluntly.
Another good thing Smithfield has done is that a few years ago it improved how sows were housed and gave them more space to move around. Leeth also said you can make your own Smithfield foods sustainability report with a few clicks, which sounds like a cool feature.
Both Campbell Soup and Smithfield appear to be taking positive steps toward transparency in the food chain. But if you really want to know what’s in your food, grow it yourself. That’s always the healthiest decision, and it makes the planet happy
With sustainability becoming today’s mantra, it is a contradiction that society has yet to embrace all the technologies that allow us to, you know, live a genuinely sustainable lifestyle.
Hybrid cars have caught on, and the governmental incentives tacked onto them have favorably catered to the profit-margin for companies that manufacture and sell them. Who doesn’t want to drive alone in the carpool lane on LA’s 405 freeway at 4:30 pm? Often times, all it takes to spark an inadvertent sustainability revolution is to provide the final user with incentives.
But low and behold, many other pieces of technology, whose necessity cannot be exaggerated enough, have yet to become a household commodity.
Take grey-water recycling systems, for instance. Grey-water recycling has been around for over a decade. Implementing a grey-water recycling system not only reuses perfectly good water for its fitting purpose, but it also simply makes sense.
Instead of allowing reusable water (and your money) to literally go down the drain, use it for toilet flushing and irrigation purposes. It effectively reduces a household water usage by 30 percent, which surpasses California’s government declared water cutbacks due to drought.
The biggest issue is this: There are no real incentives for implementing these systems (other than maybe looking like you care), and the red-tape that comes with installing a system is reminiscent of any other diplomatic inconvenience. There are no sort of tax breaks for having a system for your home, as where you can implement a certain shower-head or sprinkler-head and get write-offs. The issue then becomes: What saves substantially MORE water and is not being given governmental incentive to become a household commodity?
Other complications for installing grey-water systems come from improper piping. Without the necessary connections (and a crawl space), implementing a grey-water recycling system isn’t the seamless process that it is more than capable of being. With the potential of future mandates deeming grey-water recycling systems a necessity and a construction boom, the process of utilizing new structures to their fullest potential is extremely easy, and we won’t have to rip the floors up or do any drastic reconstruction of a home’s plumbing to effectively install a system. It is through governmental mandates that grey-water recycling systems can become part the American household vernacular.
What’s most enticing is that the golden state is the perfect place to implement and showcase this sort of technology and its startling efficiency. California is the ideal guinea pig. For one, the drought is not exactly news. Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for California’s water supplies back in April 2015, demanding a statewide cutback in water usage. The lack of rainfall since has only made the necessity for grey-water technology more prevalent. That being the case, why not demand that new buildings in California be equipped with grey-water recycling systems, or at least be piped so the installation of a system is seamless?
As of early August 2015, it became known that commercial construction activity in California has risen to its highest level since 2001. Thanks in part to available financing, low cap rates and other incentivizing factors, the industry boom for California construction has been as unprecedented as the mandatory water cutbacks.
Grey-water recycling systems are not only a necessary part of today’s infrastructure, but the inevitability of a beneficial profit margin is evident. The technology is more than suitable for reusing and saving one of our most valuable finite resources. With all the above taken into account, it’s time we look into grey-water recycling technologies and how they are a genuine game changing solution that satisfies all three Ps: people, profit and planet.
To find out more about grey-water recycling systems, and the successful implementations of such systems, take a look at Water Recycling Systems, LLC.
Here is a showcasing of one of our bigger system installations in Santa Monica, California. Yes, we're proud.
If you ever want to one-up someone in a conversation about corporate social responsibility, all you have to do is toss in the words “Unilever” or “Paul Polman," and it’s over. It’s done. Unilever and Polman can’t be topped. You win.
But you know what would even be an even bigger win? Becoming a company like Unilever or a CEO like Polman. Well, today’s your lucky day because I interviewed the CEO of everyone’s favorite Unilever brand, Ben & Jerry’s. Part man, part dessert god, Jostein Solheim has a merry disposition that will make you suspect he eats ice cream all day. If I counted the number of times he laughed during our conversation, it would probably be about 500, give or take.
However, as this conversation will prove, he does in fact do more than eat ice cream. He shared with me how to integrate social good into your business model, measure impact and recruit more brand fans … all vital components for a successful brand.
Solheim is personable, savvy and authentic -- everything you’d want in a CEO. He’s excited about businesses that are "trying to do more than just sell more stuff.” His work jives with his outdoor Norwegian heritage, where weekend activities included hiking, skiing, boating, catching your own fish for dinner, and doing anything and everything in nature.
Today, he still has “an enormous relationship with nature” and is sad to see it destroyed.
Solheim loves to see his team win and do amazing things. He would love it even more if he could help other companies and CEOs join forces and change the world together. Here are his words of advice, caution and inspiration. You’re welcome.
TriplePundit: How do you combine innovation and scale in your CSR program?
Jostein Solheim: At Ben & Jerry’s, we don’t really have a [corporate social responsibility (CSR) program]. It’s an integral part of our business model itself. It’s not really a separate thing. Our social impact is built into the core business model of linked prosperity, where we look to maximize the benefit along the value chain for all the key stakeholders. Having that built into the business model means that, as we innovate, we directly impact the whole system. As we grow our business, we also grow our social impact.
3p: How do you measure the impact of your socially responsible initiatives?
JS: There are multiple ways we measure. Measurement is critical for any business. What you measure is what you get in many ways.
For me, transparency is the first step toward measuring impact, because it allows people to contribute and give you feedback. We invite people like yourself to visit our company, meet the people and have free access, because we believe that stakeholders should be treated like co-owners and have access to the information that they need.
But we are also real data nerds. We love to have fun, but we’re nerdy when it comes to social impact. We have an index with a 200-point scale where we measure all the direct impacts -- from the way we buy dairy to the Fair Trade ingredients, to the well-being of our employees, to the size and scale of our campaigns. The index is audited by a third party. They issue a report that you can see on our website.
But then, we’re not happy yet. We’re a B Corporation. So, the third measurement step we use is completing the B Impact Assessment. That is also audited. It covers employees and environment, the whole works.
3p: Can you tell me about a time when you took action on a stakeholder’s suggestion?
JS: Many of our great ideas, new products and campaigns actually come from people contacting us and saying, “Hey, why don’t you do this or that?” We get a lot of suggestions. The famous flavor, Cherry Garcia, was suggested by a fan.
We also get a lot of suggestions from NGOs. We treat those not as criticism but as opportunities to look at how a program or initiative looks from their perspective and what we can do to improve. Vegans have been contacting us for a long time … and we’re now launching a range of nondairy vegan Ben & Jerry’s -- which, by the way, reduces our carbon footprint significantly.
3p: How do your social impact initiatives affect your brand image?
JS: We refer to the people that like Ben & Jerry’s as “the fans,” because you treat fans differently than you treat consumers. So, we have brand fans, and we have a responsibility to them to maintain standards and fight the fights they want us to engage in.
There’s nothing stronger than a relationship that’s built on shared values and passions for the greater good of society. I think our social mission plays a huge impact on our relationship with our fans. When you buy a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, you’re buying caring dairy: Fair Trade, non-GMO. It’s at the core of our relationship with our customers.
3p: Many companies have trouble convincing people to care enough to buy their eco-friendly products. What are your thoughts?
JS: I think people care more and more. People are looking at their actions and whether they’re buying things that make a difference or just buying the cheapest whatever.
Building a fan base is not only done through advertising. You do 10 things that will make the world a better place, and then you talk about one thing. But don’t do a little thing and expect everyone’s going to love you for it. Because, actually, doing good is what’s expected of you as a good company, and it’s not really newsworthy. The point is the doing, not the talking. Other people will do the talking about you.
If you look at the latest Nielsen survey, families across 60 countries were asked whether they would pay more for a socially responsible brand. It went from 50 percent who said “yes” in 2013 to 66 percent in 2015. Now when you think about it, that’s covering a population of [400 million or 500 million] people. That’s a huge shift.
So, a lot of companies are now saying, “I need to market to this.” My message to them is: “No, you have to act on this. Then your actions will be noted and people will find out, but don’t spend your resources on trying to get the message out there. Spend your resources on acting and doing the right things.”
3p: What advice would you give to a company wanting to create social impact?
JS: Oh, there are a lot of things you can do and a lot of great organizations to help you do it. The key is to find the right people to help you … to give you advice, reflect with you, look at your business, etc.
A great starting-point is the CEO Connection, which works with the social impact unit at Wharton business school. You can quickly meet a whole group of people who would help you look at your business and where the opportunities are. You can also talk to other companies going through that journey.
If you want to look at your whole business model, then [the next tier is] looking at the B Impact Assessment and the B Corporation. Ask: What do these companies do? How do they operate? Then you can either join them or pick out the elements that work for your business.
The key to all of this is to organize a broad coalition inside your company. This isn’t a CEO thing. This is a team effort. The broader a base you can [give social good] in the company, the better program and bigger impact you’ll have.
The last piece of advice is: Don’t overthink it. What matters are not your words but your actions. If you decide to go west, start walking west while you work out exactly where your destination is. Grab the first things that are in the right direction and act on them, and from those actions you will learn, get feedback, and then you can fine-tune. Don’t try to work out on paper how to save the world.
Game-time
Well, I hope you’ve taken Solheim’s words of wisdom to heart as much as I did. Hopefully they infused you with passion to shower the world with goodness like confetti, and maybe to join Solheim’s CEO Connection to collaborate on social impact. Go forth and conquer with kindness. Peace out, readers.
* Dialogue edited for clarity.
** Image credits: 1) photo of Jostein Solheim, life cycle chart 2) cute penguin illustration via Ben & Jerry’s website.
Did they or didn't they? Exxon and its decades-long research on the implications of fossil fuel technology continues to garner input from experts around the country. Among those who are calling for Exxon to be investigated is a former Department of Justice prosecutor who helped win racketeering convictions against tobacco industry execs in 2006.
Sharon Eubanks was a DOJ lawyer on the tobacco case when U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler ruled that Philip Morris USA, R.J. Reynolds Co. and other tobacco manufacturers had conspired for decades to mislead consumers about the dangers of smoking.
Last week, that landmark finding was resurrected as a reminder of the potential impact of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and the power it can wield when it comes to corporations and industries that don't live up in action to the research they conduct about consumer risk.
The fact that Exxon knew there was an increased risk associated with its product, but allegedly chose to hide that information from the consumer, merits investigation by the DOJ, Eubanks told ThinkProgress earlier this month. According to a Los Angeles investigative report, Exxon may have known for decades that global warming would be exacerbated by the carbon emissions associated with oil and gas products.
“I think a RICO action is plausible and should be considered,” Eubanks said. “The cigarette companies actively denied the harm of cigarette smoking, and concealed the results of what their own research developed. The motivation was money, and to avoid regulation.”
While the tobacco companies were convicted under RICO, they weren't required to pay for smoking-cessation for victims, citing a 2005 appeals court ruling that disallowed penalties for past conduct. It isn't clear whether Exxon would be required to pay for past actions.
Meanwhile, oil and gas industry advocates are fighting back. A senior fellow from the Heartland Institute, which frequently speaks out against climate change science, attempted to deflate the issue by alleging that Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' "false and incendiary" call for investigation was really meant "to divert [public] attention from his bumbling performance" at a recent presidential debate.
What's interesting is: The data the author, James Taylor, used to assert that the reason why Exxon didn't disclose its 1970s research to the public (or modify its stance toward oil and gas production to fit that research) is that "[some] Exxon scientists believed global warming was a serious concern while others did not, and [ultimately], Exxon’s top management sided with those scientists concluding humans are not creating a global warming crisis."
Translation: The company made a decades-long bad call on interpreting its own research.
To defend this point, Taylor notes that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's scientific projections for global warming actually overshot the amount that the atmosphere's temperature was expected to rise per decade. Instead of rising by 0.30 degrees Celsius between 1990 and 2010, says Taylor, it only rose by 0.10 degrees C.
Among the many sources of data he doesn't mention is the temperature spike that occurred during that same time at the North Pole. The mean temperature he offered as proof didn't reflect the jump in temperature in the Arctic in the 1980s, that later increased in frequency starting around 2006 (to see this data, pull down the menu at the top right and pick North Polar).
For disclosure, Taylor is careful to mention that Heartland Institute has been a benefactor of Exxon's success in the past, as the company served as a "minor donor to the lobbying organization." In fact, its donations were substantial for the period of time it provided funding. According to Sourcewatch, Exxon's "small" donations amounted to $765,500 over an eight-year period, and have averaged most years, around $100,000.
"[The] oil industry has little to fear from carbon dioxide restrictions," says Taylor, who maintains that many oil companies actually fuel global warming alarmism to their own benefit. It's one accusation for which Exxon, with its previously undisclosed data on the elevated risks of climate change for the 21st century, can probably prove it isn't guilty.
I love watching Tom Cruise movies. They don't ask too much of me and are always guaranteed to be a great popcorn movie full of entertainment. One of my recent favorites is "Edge of Tomorrow." For those who haven't seen it yet, it's about a guy who gets trapped in a time loop -- repeating the same day somewhere in the future while battling aliens who want to wipe out the world. Sound familiar? Well, it is a bit like "Groundhog Day" but with Tom fighting aliens to save the world.
It might also remind you of climate change negotiations. We've been repeating the same thing since 2009. Let me run this by you and see if you recognize the script. Sit back and have some popcorn while I paint you a picture.
A bunch of people will run into the streets in New York, but no one will notice outside of a few people who really care ... a lot. If we're lucky, it will hit the news on a few channels but unlikely to get past the 11 p.m. news.
A handful of companies will make commitments to reduce their emissions, increase use of renewable energy, [fill in the blank], etc.
They might even start a new organization or initiative to show how aligned they all are. Names like "Companies Love Initially Making Awesome Targeted Emissions (CLIMATE)." They love fancy names.
The U.S. government will raise their voice and say that this is it: the line in the sand. No more playing around as we will now get serious about making serious commitments. And a few other important governments will raise their voices, too -- China, Europe, Brazil, India etc.
Everyone will agree that this time it will be the real thing. The change we were waiting for. And it couldn't have happened soon enough because it is almost too late.
Sound familiar? It is exciting, isn't it? Oh wait, I forgot one more thing...
Everyone will get excited as we gather in some major city in the world. And then the negotiations will turn into another slog with, at best, marginal commitments and nothing done to stop climate change. Everyone will call the deal a good deal even though everyone knows it is a pretty crap deal. Nothing changes except the climate. And that is not a good thing. And we will shrug our shoulders and keep on fighting.
The only difference between Tom Cruise and our yearly round of climate change time loop negotiations and agreement? Tom Cruise actually learns from his mistakes and improves constantly. And at a pace that meant he eventually slayed the aliens and saved the earth.
And that is why it is called science fiction.
We do the same in climate negotiations: We have the science to show we need to do something serious right now, but treat it like fiction when it comes to the actual agreement and commitments.
Rinse and repeat. The life of climate change. Loud voices make big claims, but nothing will happen to slow down what is killing us.
Just stop it.
Stop believing the hype. A few people in the streets is not a movement. A movement happens when the public has bought into it every single day.
Stop applauding boring commitments. Making a commitment to use 100 percent renewable energy by 2050 is not leadership. That is 35 years from now. Everyone involved will be either dead or retired. And you will get fired if you set any other business goal for 35 years from now -- think: product development, growth etc. None of those have 35-year goals.
Stop thinking herd mentality is leadership. Yes, businesses should herd together to pull the laggards, but true leadership is for those who look ahead and set their own big, hairy and audacious goals. Leadership is lonely and way ahead of where everyone else feels comfortable.
Stop thinking that science will convince people. It hasn't, and it won't start fast enough -- think: obesity, smoking etc. People know what is right but will still not do what is required fast enough.
Stop creating another organization. We have so many of them already. Climate change must be one of the most organized and well-funded nonprofit movements ever. Pick a name with climate in it, and we have it. We don't need more. We need better.
Just. Stop. It.
"Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." -- Albert Einstein
What should we do? Let's first start with what we shouldn't be doing before we worry about that. I promise you, rinse and repeat won't do it. Next time I will focus on what we need to start doing. But lets not create another idea -- let's stop with the stupid ones first.
