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A Nielsen survey conducted this week points to exploding consumer interest in buying healthy, green products. The even better news for businesses is that 66 percent of surveyed consumers say they will pay more for products and services that come from companies who are committed to positive social and environmental impact. The business bottom-line is that adopting corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the path to growing sales without damaging price competition.

Key drivers influencing consumer purchases

Nieslen polled over 30,000 consumers in 60 countries. They found that the key factors driving consumer purchases were a mixture of brand trust, natural ingredients, and health and wellness benefits. The search by consumers for “in me, on me and around me” solutions has now evolved into a Green Economic Revolution where consumer values-expectations increasingly drive what they buy and who they will buy from.

Here are three telling statistics from this survey:

• 62 percent of consumer purchases are influenced by a company’s trustworthiness


• 59 percent of consumers purchases are influenced by a product’s know health and wellness benefits


• 57 percent of consumer purchases are influenced by a product being made from natural or organic ingredients

The business bottom-line is that trying to win consumers through continuous price promotions is generating diminishing revenue results. The key to winning customers, rather than just price-promoted purchases, is through selling sustainably-sourced products that promote human and environmental wellbeing.

Authenticity drives food sales

Authenticity is replacing branding and advertising in how consumers judge a product. Market research firm Instantly conducted a survey of 4,200 people that were members of its iPoll community. One stunning result was that 80 percent of those surveyed agreed that food products with artificial ingredients are less healthy than food products with natural ingredients.

How focused are consumers on the question of food authenticity? Seventy-seven percent said they review food labels all the time or sometimes. Only 6 percent said never.

What is driving this consumer interest in food authenticity? Another survey found that 90 percent agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “Food products with artificial ingredients are less healthy than food products with natural ingredients.” That says a mouthful on why healthy food sales are growing at three times the rate of conventional foods.

Listen up, politicians! Consumers support home energy-efficiency and solar

The great news is that, even though we live in larger homes compared to historical averages, we are using 40 percent less energy per square foot. Even with this success homeowners, unlike some state politicians, are keenly focused on increased energy efficiency and rooftop solar power. This is representative of another Green Economic Revolution consumer mega-trend.

Today’s consumers want solutions that cost less and mean more. The appeal of home energy-efficiency, plus solar power, not only reduces environmental impacts measured by healthier local air, but it is also a proven, and growing, path for reducing electricity bills.

Cost less, mean more will be a growing tension between consumers, politicians, regulators and utilities. Requiring utilities to buy more renewable energy will reduce environmental impacts if fossil fuel burning is reduced. Requiring utilities to buy renewable energy may reduce their fuel costs as solar and wind deliver lower prices compared to fossil fuels. What the consumer is waiting to see are lower electricity bills from the utility. Not seeing this result will drive consumers in their adoption of home energy-efficiency, smart technologies, batteries and solar.

CSR sells!

The Green Economic Revolution is shifting corporate social responsibility from a non-core staff activity into a key driver of business revenue success. CSR now shapes how consumers view a company’s authenticity and a product’s value. CSR is the messaging path to the aware consumer, empowered by their smartphone, by connecting the dots between their search for “in me, on me and around me” solutions” and a product’s procurement attributes.

The new marketing path to the customer in the Green Economic Revolution is through using CSR to make the consumer the hero by enabling them to save money, solve a health problem and make a difference.

Image credit: Pixabay

By Gabriele Crognale

The state of Maine has long been synonymous with deep forested tracts of wilderness stretching from its western boundary with the Connecticut lakes in far northern New Hampshire, up to its northern border with the Canadian provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick. The state has long been associated with pristine springs, rivers and lakes, the habitat of its signature majestic large antlered moose – and all the while conjuring up images of the ubiquitous Poland Spring water bottle.

The southern and “downeastern” end of Maine is composed of miles of sandy beaches that gradually give way to rocky crags, jutting coastline, and hundreds of small rock outcrops and islands dotted with salty old lighthouses. This rocky coastline is the perfect breeding ground for the one sea creature that Maine is famous for, and makes up the heart of the state’s predominant seafood export – that delectable crustacean, the Maine lobster.

It also appears the “typical Maine rocky coastline” is the prime location where these tasty crustaceans are caught and eventually get exported far and wide to consumers’ tables. This is according to the most recent Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s American Lobster Benchmark Stock Assessment and Peer Review Report, released last month. Of note, an interesting statistic gleaned from this NOAA study is: “… More than 98 percent of the total GOM (Gulf of Maine) catch has come from inshore NMFS statistical areas.”

This statistic is of great importance as it puts one such lobster breeding-ground right in the crosshairs of an ambitious U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) and Maine DOT proposed project to dredge and deepen the channel in Searsport – to the tune of approximately $13 million – to allow two Canadian oil companies, Sprague Energy and Irving Oil, to off-load their crude oil at a local terminal at Mack Point.

At issue for these two oil companies is that they would prefer not to wait for a high tide to off-load their cargo at the terminal, and thus save – by their account – approximately $845,000 per year. To accommodate these oil companies, the COE would risk jeopardizing prime lobster breeding-grounds in western Penobscot Bay, by dumping approximately 1 million cubic yards of dredge spoils from the Searsport channel in areas of Penobscot Bay containing numerous pockmarks created by methane venting.

According to various sources queried, including the August 2015 article in The Fishermen’s Voice, a Gouldsboro, Maine, fishing trade newspaper: “… Lobstermen from the western half of Penobscot Bay have submitted documents to formally challenge the state of Maine’s proposed dredging to deepen the harbor at Mack Island, Searsport and the dumping of nearly 1 million cubic yards of contaminated industrial debris in upper Penobscot Bay.” According to this article, some observers of the proposed dredging project see it as another step in the long-range plans of eastern Maine developers to build a pipeline across Maine – the East-West Corridor.

In COE dredging projects such as these, it is not uncommon to request spot dredge samples to determine the extent of various industrial contaminants, such as chemicals and heavy metals (usually found in harbor and channel bottoms) that is then reviewed by the various Federal agencies involved in the COE Section 404 and Section 10 dredging permit process.

According to the article, critics of the proposed project have said that the spoils dredged from the site will be contaminated with industrial toxins. However, the commissioner of Maine's Department of Environmental Protection, Patricia Aho, has flatly “disputed these charges claiming the dredging is safe to conduct as planned,” Fishermen's Voice reported.

Aho’s comments have raised more than a few eyebrows, however, given her propensity for making decisions that favor the corporate clients of her former employer, Pierce Atwood, Maine’s largest law firm, the paper continued. A 2013 article from the Portland Press Herald brings this issue front and center.

Given what is at stake – the potential damage to a sustainable fishing cash cow – a prudent approach is needed. This could involve having the state agency requesting the dredging permit submit samples of the harbor muds and silts taken from various locations in the dredge area -- and clearly mapped out on a navigation chart – and have the samples spilt analyzed by independent laboratories for both parties to determine whether it is potentially hazardous to the lobsters or possibly other bottom-dwellers.

Of particular note, from previous data obtained, COE earlier this year acknowledged that at least 20 percent of proposed dredged material is “unsuitable for uncontained open ocean disposal because of the high level of contamination it contains – including PAHs, arsenic, nickel, copper, lead, chromium, cadmium and mercury." The last four metals are referred to in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Parts 260-270 as “heavy metals” and depending upon their concentration can be considered hazardous wastes.

As the referenced EPA toxicity chart shows, these concentrations can range from 1 milligram per liter to 5 mg/L, depending on the specific metal. It is highly improbable that the concentrations would be in that range, but until stringent sampling and testing is performed, this argument cannot be finalized.

In addition, according to Attorney Kim Tucker whom we contacted for additional information, this area has been identified as a geologically unstable area with known methane deposits, unapproved and undesignated for dredge spoils disposal under the criteria established by the Clean Water Act. The area was previously rejected for dredge spoils disposal for this same project in the late 1990s – a fact the Corps has concealed from the public in briefings and filings it has prepared, Tucker said.

In one such summary sheet Tucker provided, she noted that Western Penobscot Bay is where at least 20 percent of all lobsters in the U.S. are caught. (Additional information can be gleaned from the Marine Fisheries report noted previously.) The value of this catch continues to increase -- valued in 2014 at over $130 million and an estimated to add more than $600 million to the Maine economy – more than a 26 percent increase over 2013 levels. In fact, the lobster landings in the area proposed for dredging and dumping in Belfast Bay have increase by 282 percent since 2008, when the Corps gathered the data on which it based its Environmental Assessment of the anticipated impacts of this project on the lobster fishery in Pen-Bay.

On the presumption that the dredge spoils to be dumped in the Belfast Bay pock marks off the North West corner of Islesboro are clean, the turbidity that will be caused from re-suspension of dredge spoils by natural currents in the area that maintain these pock marks through scouring could devastate lobster settlements in Penobscot Bay. It could also destroy the nearby Pemaquid Mussel Farm aquaculture facility that brings an estimated $500,000 a year to the local economy from sales of clean, high-quality, locally-raised mussels.

However, because of the presence of contamination in Searsport and the upper Penobscot Bay – including the likely presence of buried HoltraChem legacy mercury that dredging in Searsport could disturb -- this dredging project also risks destroying the reputation for wholesomeness of ALL Maine lobsters. And, if dredging spreads methyl mercury contamination to any Pen-Bay lobsters, this project could irreparably damage demand for Penobscot Bay lobsters and the iconic Maine Lobster brand – a cornerstone of the Maine economy.

Here are a few additional facts about this project, courtesy of Tucker:

The Corps acknowledges that all benthic life forms (including lobsters) and organisms in the water column during the operation (including larval lobsters that have not settled) in the area impacted by the dredging, dumping and turbidity caused by this operation will be smothered and buried. In a meeting with lobstermen in 2014, Corps staff also acknowledged that it will take at least four years for “recovery and re-colonization” of the area impacted by this dredge-and-dump proposal by any benthic life forms (which includes lobsters). This is double the time that the Corps publicly acknowledges recovery and re-colonization would take in the 2013 FSEA.

A four-year loss of just the western Penobscot Bay lobster fishery could result in up to a $2.6 billion loss to the Maine economy – lost revenue that the Corps’ staff confirmed would not be reimbursed by the federal government. However, the Environmental Assessment, drafted in 2013 and submitted to DEP with their recent 2015 application to dredge, only acknowledges a two-year timeframe for such “recovery and re-colonization." Further, the Corps’ definition of “recovery and re-colonization” only means the return of some benthic life like worms – it does not indicate a return of productive lobster and scallop fisheries that will replicate the current levels of landings or that would continue the improvements in these fisheries that have been experienced in recent years.

The federal court’s sediment expert in the HoltraChem litigation, Dr. Kevin Yeager, determined that the Corps’ 2008 sediment testing was inadequate under both the RIM 2004 standards jointly issued by the Corps and EPA, and the federal court’s experts’ standards developed during the Penobscot River Mercury Study (PRMS) to detect the presence and effects of mercury, particularly HolraChem legacy mercury. The Yeager Report concludes that additional sediment testing was required using the PRMS standards before any dredging, even maintenance dredging, is done.

Unfortunately, the Corps did updated testing that failed to meet this standard and failed to even meet the standard required by the state DEP for Sprague to dredge the Searsport dock area in late 2014. PRMS requires 90-centimeter cores, and testing every 1 cm segment from 0-20 cm, 2 cm segments from 21-40 cm, and 5 cm segments from 41–90 cm. The updated 2014 Corps testing only looked at 1-foot segments from 1-3 feet cores and still found elevated levels of contaminants, despite using a methodology calculated to under-estimate and conceal the true level of contamination present in the sediment to be dredged and dumped.

From our own drilling down, we found this recent news item from the Bangor Daily News regarding the source of some of the heavy metals that may still be in the silts and muds of the Penobscot River and Bay. As the article states, the former HoltraChem site in Orrington, Maine, sits on the banks of the Penobscot River and produced 23,000 pounds of toxic mercury waste each year while making chemicals for papermaking and other industries until the adoption of significant hazardous waste disposal regulations.

Orrington is directly upstream of Searsport and Penobscot Bay. Whatever mercury may still be trapped in the river sediment and that has migrated downstream to the bay after all these years should be of concern, and its concentration in various points within the river downstream of the former papermaking facility and in Penobscot Bay should be verified in some capacity as a good faith effort of transparency on the part of the dredging petitioners. There is too much at stake to rely on verbal assurances alone – if there ever was a case of “trust but verify” this would be the poster child.

Here's some more pertinent information on the issue:

The PRMS established that there is a layer of buried inorganic mercury throughout the entire upper Penobscot Bay, down to the southern tip of Islesboro, found generally at a depth of about 20 to 40 cm (8 to 16 inches), attributable to the dumping of mercury by HoltraChem primarily in 1967 to 1970. The Court’s experts concluded that there is no threat to the environment, biota or public health as long as this layer remains buried.

Disturbing buried legacy mercury from HoltraChem through the proposed dredging in Searsport could result in contamination of the entire Penobscot Bay food web, creating an environmental, economic and human crisis in this region and the State of Maine.

Failure to conduct the necessary, updated sediment testing prior to proceeding with this project – even prior to doing the needed maintenance dredging that we support -- could:

• Directly interfere with the federal court’s oversight of the remediation of HoltraChem mercury


• Increase the actual, economic, environmental and human costs of the remediation of the HoltraChem mercury contamination


• Spread methyl mercury contamination to the entire Pen-Bay food web, including the valuable commercial fisheries and aquaculture facilities in this region


• Damage or destroy the actual and economic viability of the lobster industry in Penobscot Bay, that sustains the Midcoast economy and the more than 2,100 licensed lobstermen


• Do irreparable harm to the iconic Maine Lobster brand

Dawson & Associates, the nation’s premier expert in federal water resources development, evaluated the Searsport dredging proposal as proposed by the COE and concluded that:

• A less environmentally damaging, practical, Non-Structural Alternative to the proposed Searsport project exists, involving doing only maintenance dredging in the existing channel to restore the congressionally authorized depth of 35 feet and deepening the dock area to a 45-foot depth, that would accommodate 97 percent of the desired future fleet that the Big Dig and Dump is designed to attract to Searsport


• Potential mercury contamination of the proposed dredge and dredge disposal sites must be further analyzed before the project moves forward


• Several of COE’s economic assumptions are questionable and could significantly affect projected cost-benefit ratios

Dawson’s Non-Structural Alternative should be adopted because it achieves 97 percent of the COE’s port improvement goals at no cost to state taxpayers and a fraction of the cost to federal taxpayers, and without inflicting adverse environmental and economic damages on Penobscot Bay and its people. This is the Least Environmentally Damaging Practicable Alternative (LEDPA) – requiring the removal of only 37,100 cubic yards of material in the channel to re-establish the 35-foot authorized depth for this federal navigation project and only about 2-feet to 5-feet of material from the dock after recent maintenance dredging at the docks conducted by Sprague.

All of this material could be disposed upland, not in the Bay, as Sprague did with the material that it dredged in the winter of 2014-2015 at the Mack Point and Searsport docks.

Tucker sums up her frustration over this permit process in this fashion, ‘Why, when they can have the larger ships and the vibrant lobster fishery, are they insisting on the most damaging alternative?”

Speaking on behalf of lobster lovers everywhere, why indeed? Or are all the proponents more concerned with oil profits and the spillover commerce the dredging will produce over the maintaining of a pristine and sustainable fishing industry that is synonymous with Maine?

As of September 8, 2015, according to the Penobscot Bay Blog, the COE and Maine Deptartment of Transportation have withdrawn the water quality certificate application for the Searsport Harbor, Searsport, Maine Federal Navigation Maintenance and Improvement project.

image credits: 1) Flickr/Richard Wood 2) Flickr/Ted Van Pelt 3) Flickr/Alec Perkins

Gabriele Crognale, P.E., is an environmental practitioner with over 40 years in the field, and author specializing in hot-topic environmental and social issues. His signature work is Environmental Management Strategies: The 21st Century Perspective, published by Prentice-Hall.

Editor's Note: A version of this post originally appeared at www.SaferChemicals.org.

By Mike Schade

In recent years, the world’s largest retailers are increasingly stepping in and using their market clout to transform the marketplace away from harmful chemicals and towards safer and healthier products that their customers are clamoring for. This comes as a growing body of scientific evidence is showing that exposure to chemicals from everyday products, even at low levels of exposure, can be harmful to our health.

The latest major retailer to act is Target. Bloomberg News recently reported on how Target has posted a significant update to its sustainable products standard that is driving suppliers away from toxic ingredients.

Target’s Sustainable Product Index (formally known as the Sustainable Product Standard) is a program launched to encourage and incentivize suppliers to bring more sustainable products to market -- especially those free of dangerous chemicals in beauty, personal care, baby care and cleaning products.

The updated standard now includes a number of substantial improvements to the original version, which will help drive suppliers away from toxic chemicals in products sold in their stores.

In the introduction to the new version, Target summarizes some of the key changes made to the program:

“In response to stakeholder comments on the initial criteria, we have expanded the set of regulatory lists used to identify chemicals of concern, refined the information used to evaluate packaging, incorporated third-party certifications and are piloting key issues that are specific to product categories.”

With an expanded universe of criteria suppliers’ products are evaluated on, products now receive a score from zero to 115 (with up to 135 points available for household cleaning products with the new pilot criteria – more on that below), and information is collected and evaluated using the UL Transparency Platform.

You can view the original version of the standard here, which our coalition blogged about and publicly congratulated the company on when it was first announced.  Be sure to check out our blog for a summary of the key elements of the original program, which I won’t revisit here.

How has the program been improved?

Let’s take a look at some of the most exciting elements of the expanded policy related to toxic chemicals:

• Taking on triclosan and a broader list of chemicals: Target added triclosan as well as Health Canada’s “Cosmetic Ingredient Hotlist – prohibited for use in cosmetics” to its list of “high level health concerns authoritative lists”, which already includes over 1,000 dangerous chemicals.   We are particularly excited about these new criteria as triclosan is one of the chemicals on our Hazardous 100+ list we have been calling retailers to act on, and the Health Canada Cosmetic Ingredient Hotlist represents a large list of ingredients that are banned or limited in cosmetics by the Canadian government.

• Rewarding third-party DfE/Safer Choice and Cradle2Cradle certified products: The index has a whole new section on certifications, giving up to 15 points for third-party certified products.  A product can receive 10 out of 15 points if it has been certified by either EPA Design for the Environment/Safer Choice program or Cradle2Cradle (Bronze, Silver or Gold). The policy surprisingly doesn’t include GreenSeal, which would be another useful program to include.

A product can also receive three points if “one  or more feedstock materials have been certified as USDA organic or biopreferred, non-GMO, fair trade or sustainable produced” though they don’t list which certifying bodies are relevant for each area. 

• Piloting new criteria for cleaning products that incentivizes the use of safer chemicals: Target has also developed a new set of criteria specifically for household cleaning products such as laundry detergents and surface cleaners.  Half of the additional credit for cleaners rewards those cleaning products containing ingredients on the Safer Chemical Ingredients List (SCIL) developed by EPA’s DfE/Safer Choice program.  More specifically, “a product will receive 3 points if up to 25 percent of its ingredients are on the Safer Chemical Ingredients List (SCIL), 5 points if 25 to 50 percent of its ingredients are on the SCIL, and 10 points if 100 percent of its ingredients are on the SCIL.” 

• New product category: feminine care products, and more categories to come: Target is now for the first time adding feminine care products to the index, which our partners at Women’s Voices for the Earth have been calling attention to in recent years. Target states that “other product categories will have an index in the future” which is a promising sign that perhaps they will finally add cosmetics and other products to the program.

• Clarifying transparency criteria: The language in the transparency section around generic ingredients (such as fragrances) has been slightly adjusted to now say, “A product will receive a maximum of 20 points if its ingredients are listed on packaging and website, ingredient purposes are listed on website and there are no generic ingredients on its publicly available ingredient list.” This provides an incentive for brands to publicly disclose chemicals in fragrances.  Under water quality, the language has similarly been clarified to now say, “A product will receive five points if the ingredient list can be fully assessed and no ingredients are on the aquatic hazard lists.”

It’s important to note that these are not the only changes that have been made to the program, but those that are most relevant to driving toxic chemicals out of the value chain.

Thinking about continuous improvement

While we recognize that taking action on toxic chemicals for retailers is a challenging task, we find a few areas for improvement.

1. What about cosmetics? While the new policy includes a list of cosmetic ingredients of concern, the policy does not actually apply to cosmetics, which Target said it would add in 2014.  The company notes that “other product categories will have an index in the future” -- we hope Target will finally add cosmetics to the policy by the end of this year, including new criteria as they have done for the cleaning products pilot.  Other product categories ripe for action include apparel, electronics, infant and children’s toys.

2. No public timeframe for reduction of priority chemicals.  In the policy, Target has flagged over 1,000 chemicals “with high level health concerns” that are “recognized as carcinogenic, developmental or reproductive toxicants, endocrine disruptors, or have other serious adverse health effects”. This is fantastic, but the policy unfortunately does not set any specific goals or timeframes for suppliers to transition away from harmful chemicals that they have flagged.

3. Suppliers need guidance in assessing alternatives to chemicals of concern.  Target should develop guidance for vendors to assess alternatives to chemicals of concern and reward suppliers that have policies or programs in place to assess alternatives to chemicals of high concern, that are aligned with the Common Principles for Alternatives Assessment. For example Walmart encourages suppliers to avoid “regrettable substitution” by evaluating the hazards of replacement chemicals and embracing best in class “informed substitution” and  “alternatives assessment” principles.

Walmart states: “Informed substitution is the considered transition from a chemical of particular concern to safer chemicals or non-chemical alternatives [1]. Using informed substitution principles will mitigate hazard risks associated with product formulation and achieve compliance with Walmart’s Policy on Sustainable Chemistry in Consumables…In the aim of advancing safer formulated products and promoting informed substitution, Walmart recommends the major tenets of Alternatives Assessment, a process for identifying, comparing and selecting safer alternatives to priority chemicals (including those in materials, processes or technologies) on the basis of their hazards, performance, and economic viability…”

In their implementation guide, Walmart cites many great resources, such as the GreenScreen, BizNGO’s Chemical Alternatives Assessment Protocol, and the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production’s  Alternatives Assessment Protocol.

4. What is Target suppliers’ chemical footprint? A new tool, the Chemical Footprint Project, could be embedded into the Sustainable Product Index and utilized by Target to evaluate their suppliers’ chemical policies.  Target should evaluate how this tool can be included in the Index and join Staples and other businesses in being a Signatory to the Chemical Footprint Project.

Congratulations to Target for continuing to move the needle on toxic chemicals in the retail sector!

All in all, the updates to the Target Sustainable Product Index are a significant milestone for Target as they continue to leverage their purchasing power to help drive the marketplace towards safer products.

We applaud Target for improving their standard and look forward to working with them to continue to expand the program over time.

We hope other big retailers will follow suit to Mind the Store.

Join us in thanking Target for this step towards Minding the Store.

Tweet: Thank you @Target for taking another big step to address toxic chemicals! #MindtheStore #Target Learn more: http://bit.ly/1RbpUdw

Facebook: Target took another major step to move the market away from toxic chemicals – thank you! Learn more about their expanded Sustainable Products Index here: http://bit.ly/1RbpUdw #MindtheStore #Target

Or you can send Target a personal message.

Image credit: Flickr/Mike Mozart

Mike Schade is the Mind the Store Campaign Director for Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, a national coalition of over 450 organizations representing more than 11 million individuals and includes parents, health professionals, advocates for people with learning and developmental disabilities, reproductive health advocates, environmentalists and businesses from across the nation.  The Mind the Store campaign is engaging the nation’s biggest big retailers around eliminating and safely substituting the Hazardous 100+ chemicals in products and adopting comprehensive chemical management policies.

On Tuesday, The Story of Stuff Project, Courage Campaign and Center for Biological Diversity joined together in a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). The suit alleges that USFS allowed Nestlé to continue to divert water from California's San Bernardino National Forest, despite an expired special use permit and a severe drought.

Since the permit expired 27 years ago, the company has made a huge profit by bottling millions of gallons of water while paying next to nothing for it.

The lawsuit, and the most recent (non-animated) movie by The Story of Stuff Project, focuses on a four-mile pipeline Nestlé uses to siphon water from San Bernardino National Forest’s Strawberry Creek and bottle it in Ontario, California.

Stiv Wilson, director of campaigns at The Story of Stuff, traveled to Strawberry Creek and filmed the conditions there. He spoke to former U.S. Forest Service employees who watched the water level dwindle to record lows, while Nestlé relentlessly continues to remove thousands of gallons a day.

Steve Loe, retired U.S. Forest Service wildlife biologist, told Wilson that in his remaining years, he wanted to take care of his grandchildren, and “make sure they have streams to enjoy, wildlife to enjoy; that is probably one of the most important things I can do.”

But Loe has become more and more worried as the days go on.

“I thought there was a good chance we could completely dry Strawberry Creek up,” he said.

Another retired U.S. Forest Service ranger, Gary Earney, echoed Loe’s concern. He explained that Strawberry Creek is “a critical drainage for our plant and animal communities” as the urban population grows and the national forests become isolated islands of plant and animal life.

Michael O’Heaney, executive director of The Story of Stuff Project, agrees. “The water Nestlé takes would otherwise be flowing into the forest. Nestlé’s continued operation harms the public because even small amounts of water in this dry environment are critically important, especially in a drought.”

“We Californians have dramatically reduced our water use over the past year in the face of an historic drought, but Nestlé has refused to step up and do its part,” O’Heaney said.

The lawsuit demands that the court immediately shut down the pipeline and require the USFS to perform a thorough permitting process as required by law, including an environmental impact assessment.

The exact amount of water per year that Nestlé has siphoned from San Bernardino National Forest is not clear. Earney estimated it to be between 50 million and 150 million gallons per year. Nestlé says that it used 25 million gallons in 2014. But The Story of Stuff Project has figures from the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District showing that Nestlé used a total of 165 million gallons from 2012 through 2014. 

Whatever the actual number, in the nearly three decades Nestlé has taken millions of gallons of water and bottled it for profit, it paid the USFS only $524 annually. After 27 years, that amounts to just $14,148.

Nearly a half million Californians signed a petition earlier this year asking Nestlé to stop bottling water during the drought, but to no avail. A nationwide survey found that a majority of people in the U.S. believe Nestlé should stop bottling in California, but there has been no cessation from the company.

“Nestlé’s actions aren’t just morally bankrupt, they are illegal. In the spring, we asked Nestlé to do the right thing, and they threw it back in our faces, telling Californians they’d take more of our water if they could,” explained Eddie Kurtz, executive director of the California-based Courage Campaign Institute, in a press release. “Our government won’t stand up to them, so we’re taking matters into our own hands.”

O’Heaney added: “The Forest Service is obligated by law to ensure public land resources are well managed. Without a proper review of Nestlé’s operation, including a full review of its environmental impacts, the Forest Service can’t assure the public that it is meeting its obligation to protect the plants and animals in the national forest.”

Nestlé defends its removal of water from the San Bernardino National Forest as legal, and says that its permit is one of hundreds waiting for renewal by the USFS,  and in the interim, the company has full rights to continue taking water. (Twenty-seven years is quite a long backlog for permit renewal.)

But even if it is legal, should a company continue to strip natural resources that are desperately needed when weather conditions change, like in the case of this severe drought? Popular opinion says no. Former USFS employees, residents, many California nonprofit community members and even most of the rest of the U.S. population all believe that Nestlé should cease operations in San Bernardino National Forest. What remains to be seen is what the court will decide.

Read a copy of the lawsuit.

Image courtesy of The Story of Stuff Project Nestlé video footage

Editor’s Note: This post is part of TriplePundit’s ongoing coverage of SXSW Eco 2015. You can read all of our coverage here.

When you talk to people about sustainability, do their eyes glaze over? Do they fall silent and listen to you ramble on … their mind wandering and wondering when you’re going to shut up?

Most people find sustainability boring. The topic is the opposite of sexy. There are a few unsexy things that become popular … think Crocs, Donald Trump and hipster ear gauging. But most of the time being beautiful is essential to gain popularity.

Enter the SXSW Eco conference: the tree-hugger addition to SXSW’s family of festivals. What sets it apart from other conferences is that it adds the much needed flare of beauty and fun to sustainability.

If SXSW knows how to do anything well, it’s how to be beautiful and popular. They throw three festivals every year: music, film and interactive (tech). They’re so popular that over 80,000 people swarm across the country to join in the fun.

At the recent SXSW Eco Data + Tech competition, each contestant addressed a traditionally boring topic: air pollution, fire hydrants and lamp posts, river recovery, a solar garage, and dilapidated cultural sites. Are you asleep yet? These beautiful and fun projects will wake you up.

Here’s a rundown of the top five projects, all of which are meant to push for social and environmental change in a beautiful and engaging way. Feel free to ohhhh and ahhhh over the fun and artistic elements. Hopefully exposing yourself to these new ideas will trigger new creative thoughts about how you can connect people with your particular mission to create good in the world.

1. Solar-power your car in style

You’ll feel like a fashion model from Vogue when you use this solar pavilion to charge your electric car. Its luscious curves will quench your thirst for beautiful design. Hellooooo, sexy sustainability! Seriously, this pavilion could be an art exhibit in a gallery.

You might think it was inspired by the roof of the Sydney opera house, but you’d be wrong and surprised to discover it was modeled after soap. Yep, soap. The stuff you wash your hands with has glamorous membrane surfaces, minimal surface structure, low impact, high performance and is lightweight. That’s a quintuple win.

The brilliant designer, Alvin Huang, has sustainability at the heart of this project. He put the design into environmental software which will analyze it for 365 days of the year, at 360 degrees of rotation, eight hours per day, and calculate the solar impact.

The pavilion is also highly portable and can be packed into a duffle bag and stowed in the trunk of a car. Set-up time is a mere 45 minutes. Living out of your car just got a fashion upgrade.

Future applications could include disaster relief, and the pavilion’s ability to produce power quickly is also very appealing.

2. Stand on top of a pyramid

Fires broke out at the Muzibu Azaala Mpanga royal Ugandan tomb. The tomb, a World Heritage site and a sacred place of worship for 700 years, burned to the ground and was lost. Fortunately, a year earlier, CyArk had shot the structure with lasers so they could preserve a 3-D digital scan of the site. The company provided a prince with highly accurate blueprints, and the tomb is now being rebuilt.

World Heritage sites are suffering from the ravages of time, urban sprawl, war and natural disasters. They are crumbling. But CyArk is a pioneer of digital preservation. It is coming to the rescue by using lasers, drones and high-def cameras to archive human history. How do they do it? By bouncing laser lights off the structure’s surface, technicians can collect millions of points per second. The points are connected together to form a mesh of triangles which then create a solid surface and 3-D model. Photos are used to color the image.

If you go to the company's website, you can view a free 3-D online library of 200 cultural sites. You can also experience what it feels like to stand on top of a pyramid from the comfort of your couch.

This amazing project took home the trophy for first place.

3. Text a fire hydrant

“When was the last time you noticed a fire hydrant or utility pole? Have you ever thought about what the world looks like from their point of view?” This question was posed by contestant Carrie Brown from Hello Lamp Post.

We all knew the city of Austin is weird in a cool way, but now it has people mumbling to lamp posts and fire hydrants. The program is called Hello Lamp Post and it has a playful SMS platform that invites people to chat with objects around the city.

Players can text a number to wake up a sleeping inanimate object like a fire hydrant, a turtle pond or a tree. When the object writes back, it asks you questions and a dialogue ensues. Discussing the Texas drought just became fun.

The messages vary depending on the object, location, time of day and weather. The objects also share stories that other users have told them. In return, people share their memories and opinions. The most surprising aspect occurred when people started confessing deviant things they had done ... I'll let your imagination run wild here.

The project's goal was to connect people to objects and each other in a playful way. However, there could be more serious future applications. One panel judge commented: “You could see this project becoming delightfully political very quickly… If a lamppost asked why that person hadn’t written to the state legislature for more infrastructure funding” it would be very entertaining and insightful.

4. Pop bubbles of air pollution

Wouldn’t air pollution be more fun to talk about if it was turned into an art installation? Airbare thought so. It uses air quality sensors to detect air pollution particles floating around the city of Louisville, Kentucky, and then projects the pollution bubbles onto a screen for people to interact with. Users can tap the bubbles of pollution and learn how to decrease pollution. “It’s like [popping] bubble wrap for air pollution,” said the contest’s emcee, Jeanne Lambin.

The plan is to install several of these interactive screens in different high schools to raise awareness of pollution. Future applications could involve developers creating an app that show residents the bike and walking routes with the least pollution.

5. Discover hidden rivers under the city

“Our relationship with water is not very good right now,” said contestant Carolina Ferrés from Brazil. She told the judges that São Paulo has over 300 rivers under the city. The rivers are covered, and most people don’t know they exist. Her organization, Cidade Azul (Blue City), decided that needed to change. It painted river areas a playful blue and created a mobile map so people can walk the city and learn where all the rivers are. The goal is to raise awareness and one day uncover the rivers for everyone to enjoy. “We want to make people cry,” Ferrés said.

All of these tech and design projects are beautiful and fun … a perfect cocktail for engaging the public and making sustainability become popular. Creating behavioral change is complex, but these creative projects are helping people understand their connection to the larger world and realize that we all share the responsibility for making the world a better place.

Note: Special thanks the contestants for their brilliance and hard work. Many thanks to the well credentialed contest judges: Kory Bieg (Founder of OTA+); Helen Davis Johnson (Arts and Culture Program Officer at the Kresge Foundation); Anne Guiney (Director of Research at the Van Alen Institute); Daniel Sauter (Associate Professor of Data Visualization at The New School); and Joel Slayton (Executive Director of Zero 1: The Art and Technology Network). And the most thanks to Julie Yost, the Design Program Curator; the design competitions were her brain child.

Image credits: SXSW Eco

A little over a year ago, Adeyemi Adewole, a recent graduate of the Executive Masters in Sustainability & Leadership (EMSL) program at Arizona State University, found himself in a position many innovators know well: He had a great idea, but he wasn't sure what it would take to get it off the ground.

Adewole and his colleague Femi Olarewaju were seeking ways to form and promote the Sustainability School in their home city of Lagos, Nigeria. At the early stages of the idea, the two were searching out global institutions with which to partner. That's when they stumbled upon the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at ASU.

After partnering with the school to complete a feasibility study for their idea, it was clear to Adewole that they needed a sustainability education to make their concept a reality. They were able to complete their studies online while continuing their work in Nigeria. After graduation, their school was appointed as the first international host of the Resource Innovation and Solutions Network. The road hasn't been easy, but as Adewole: The best is yet to come.

TriplePundit talked with Adewole to find out more about his decision to pursue a sustainability education and how it impacted his career.

TriplePundit: Let’s start by talking about your experience at ASU. What was your focus of study, and when did you graduate?

Adeyemi Adewole: I completed a 13-month online course in January 2015. I was lucky to belong to the first ever cohort of students for the Executive Masters in Sustainability Leadership (EMSL) program at ASU.

As the name implies, EMSL is sustainability education with a heavy dose of all elements of leadership required to champion and spread the gospel of people, planet and profit as a conundrum desperately in need of a solution. Ours was an international cohort of mature individuals with decades of experience in diverse fields spanning healthcare, public policy, architecture, alternative energy, politics, et cetera. The curriculum consisted of four threads, namely communication, leadership, strategy and global context, all of which were invaluable on their own and as a system.

TriplePundit: What made you decide to pursue a sustainability degree?

AA: Interestingly, my colleague from Nigeria (Femi Olarewaju) and I were among the first to learn about the program before it was announced publicly. We are both promoters of the Sustainability School, Lagos, Nigeria (SSL) in formation, and directors of the Sustainability Solutions Practice.

At the early stages of the idea, while researching global institutions to partner with, we stumbled upon the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at ASU. Femi contacted them and went to Tempe, Arizona, to present our plans early in 2013. We contracted them to conduct a feasibility study, and it became clear to us that we needed to get an education in sustainability in order to build our own capacity to midwife our proposed institution of learning.

They recommended a course that would fit our situation whereby we could learn and practice on the job, without having to move to Arizona. The course was advertised later in the year, we enrolled and started in January 2014; the rest is history.

3p: What are you up to now? Briefly describe your current role and responsibilities and how long you've been on the job.

AA: Prior to completing the EMSL, SSL was appointed as the first international host of the Resource Innovation and Solutions Network, RISN (pronounced "risen," as in the mythical Phoenix). It started as a collaboration between the city of Phoenix, Arizona and ASU’s Global Sustainability Solutions Services, as part of the Reimagine Phoenix campaign, with the slogan "transforming trash into resources." The aim is to divert 40 percent of trash away from landfills by 2020.

Back to Nigeria, we realized that we had a lot of work on our hands because the concept behind RISN speaks to one of our major development challenges, which could be a source of exponential growth in sustainable development by embracing the circular economy.

Our efforts culminated in the successful launching of RISN Nigeria (RISN-N) on Earth Day, April 22, 2015, at a fully subscribed event that was streamed live for a world-wide audience. How excited we were at the end of the day, but the best was yet to come; since then we have had an avalanche of requests to collaborate.

It turns out that RISN is going to be the bona fide precursor to our declared destination: the Sustainability School Lagos. Sometimes, it feels like we are about to relive the myth of Sisyphus in Greek mythology, who was burdened with the onerous task of continuously pushing a boulder up a steep hill. However, I guess we should take a cue from the Latin dictum, “Festina lente cauta fac Omnia mente,” which admonishes that we make haste slowly and proceed with understanding!

3p: Have you found that your sustainability education was a benefit in the field?

AA: Of course! The four threads of learning have proven to be a priceless guide in all that we have done in building RISN and SSL -- especially communication, which taught us to always think of “what is in it for them?”

We all have the tendency to expect that the other party should get what we are talking about and should respond positively, but that makes absolute sense. Sorry, it seldom works that way; you have to communicate! We have used this principle extensively in stakeholder engagement for coalition building around the RISN effort.

3p: Do you have any advice for students who are thinking about a sustainability degree?

AA: I would say go for it. Sustainability is the mega-trend of the moment and will be for a while. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has forecasted that 2015 is the year of sustainability, and the Millennium Development Goals are being replaced with Sustainable Development Goals, post 2015.

The good thing is that whatever your current experience or education is, it always has a relevance to sustainability and will act as a valid foundation for sustainability education.

3p: What's your biggest sustainability pet peeve and why? Disposable grocery bags? Trash in the compost? Cars double-parked in the bike lane? Share your thoughts!

AA: I am a big lover of water: the sea and inland bodies of water. I frequently go out on my boat for leisure, visiting the numerous beaches in Lagos Nigeria. Unfortunately, I am confronted all the time with the stark reality of trash in the water, predominantly plastic. I wish I could do something significant about it.

I will leave you with a quote by Antoine De Saint Exupery that sums up my entire sustainability experience: “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

About Adeyemi Adewole:  Mr. Adeyemi Adewole is co-founder of the Sustainability School, Lagos, and a director of the Sustainability Solutions Practice. He is also a co-founder and non-executive director of the TLP Centre for individuals living with Autism and learning disabilities, as well as the affiliated Montessori school - The Learning Place LTD, Lagos, Nigeria.

Mr. Adewole is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Adcem Healthcare LTD, an equipment and service provider specializing in kidney disease and healthcare technological innovation, since 1992. Adeyemi is a Pharmacy graduate with about 30 years work experience in Nigeria,Zimbabwe and USA. He is an alumnus of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria Nigeria, as well as Pan Atlantic University Nigeria. He belongs to the Africa-America Institute (AAI) Alumni, having completed a certificate course in Transformational Leadership. He recently completed an Executive Masters of Sustainability Leadership program at Arizona State University, Global Institute of Sustainability in Tempe, Arizona, USA.

Adeyemi is a volunteer mentor and facilitator in a few Entrepreneurship development programs including the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Program (TEEP), Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) Pan Atlantic University, Nigeria and Fate Foundation Nigeria. He serves on the governing board of the 120 year old General Hospital Lagos and is a member of the Society For Corporate Governance, Nigeria.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of TriplePundit’s ongoing coverage of SXSW Eco 2015. You can read all of our coverage here.

One of the keynotes at last week's SXSW Eco conference in Austin, Texas, which was attended by several of us from TriplePundit, came from Isha Datar of New Harvest, a grant-making nonprofit that is seeking to research, develop and promote the use of animal products made without animals. That is, meat tissue that is developed in a lab and doesn't require the killing of any living beings.

"Biotechnology opens up this whole world of food we didn't have before." @NewHarvestOrg's @IshaDatar at #SXSWeco. pic.twitter.com/ebhrrRXYfA

— Dillon J. Long (@dillonjameslong) October 6, 2015

In theory, cultured, lab meats sound fantastic. They reduce the ethical challenges of eating meat, and also reduce the need for massive, intensive farms which are a major source of both pollution, greenhouse gases and disease.

"Factory farming is the coal-fired version of meat production." Absolutely. @IshaDatar #animalwelfare #factoryfarming #SXSWEco — Tara Holmes (@tmhol) October 6, 2015

"Animal agriculture is one of the primary contributors to climate change" @NewHarvestOrg #SXSWEco #bioeconomy pic.twitter.com/k9UDgLMlxS

— Rainforest Partners (@RainforestPrtnr) October 6, 2015

There's a problem, though. According to a recent study from Slate, New America and Arizona State University, lab-produced meat may actually use more energy than farmed meat.

Cultivation of in-vitro meat requires more industrial energy — often produced by burning fossil fuels — than pork, poultry and maybe even beef. As a result, the global warming potential for cultured meat is likely to be higher than that of poultry and pork but lower than that of beef.

This may not be a huge problem – the other benefits may outweigh the increased energy costs, but it shows that there is rarely a purely technological solution to any problem. We can't continue to eat too much meat and save the environment at the same time.

Let's remember how we got into this problem. The availability of cheap meat made the modern American diet (now being exported to countries around the world) possible. This cheap meat was driven partly by the emergence of factory farms, but also by the use of pesticides and monoculture crop systems to rapidly increase the quantity of corn and soy grown in America. Those two foods are the chief components of animal feed, even given to animals like cow and chickens, which don't eat those foods naturally.

As meat became more and more of a daily necessity (and a source of rapidly growing obesity), producers went to extreme measures to produce it cheaply and effectively. Farms became more mechanized, more and more chemicals entered the food chain, and animal welfare became an afterthought. And the climate and environment impacts were ignored until today. Agriculture now accounts for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally, more than transportation.

We could do something quickly to stop this: Eat less meat. Sweden is implementing a meat tax that would counter cheap meat and promote sustainable agriculture. A measure like that could stem the problem – sans lab meat.

This problem is only growing as, unfortunately, meat has become a symbol of progress in many parts of the world. I saw this myself in Southeast Asia, where anyone with money will buy meat, partly to imitate what they see as typically Western diets. Therefore, even as meat consumption drops in America, it is growing incredibly fast in Asia and Africa.

Lab meat may be a necessary compromise to mitigate the impacts of this massive growth in demand overseas. But, until we change our lifestyles and are willing to make sacrifices for our planet, chances are no amount of lab meat will be able to solve our environmental crisis. We need a sea of change not in what we eat, but in how we think about food and the environment. There is no silver bullet.

Image Source: Pixabay

Editor’s Note: This post is part of TriplePundit’s ongoing coverage of SXSW Eco 2015. You can read all of our coverage here.

You’ve probably heard the stat by now, estimating we will have a global population of 9 billion to feed by 2050. More precisely, it is the farmers who grow our food who will have most of the onus of this monumental task placed upon them. It presents what some argue is one of the most pressing questions of our time: How will we feed our rapidly expanding global population, while not contributing to climate change in the process?

This past week at SXSW Eco, a panel of experts from business, academia and the farming community took on this question, asserting that we’ve got part of the answer right under our feet: microbes.

Microbes shack up in our soil and on the leaves and roots of plants, benefiting them in numerous ways. They not only solubilize and lock in nutrients from the soil, but they also scare away pests and prime plants to be more resilient to environmental strains like drought, extreme temperatures or pollution. And given the continued loss of global arable, fertile land to farm, it’s noteworthy that microbes are beneficial in restoring marginalized, depleted lands where the environment is not ideal for plants. Microbes make soil healthier the way good bacteria aids the human body’s digestive, immune and other critical systems.

Thomas Schäfer, vice president of bio-ag and industrial microbiology at Novozymes, was joined by Gwyn Beattie, Robert Earle Buchanan Distinguished Professor of bacteriology at Iowa State University, and DiMare Fresh grower William (Skeeter) Bethea, to share how new technological improvements are allowing scientists to recognize how microbes help farmers reduce the need for synthetic inputs and increase crop yield.

“With molecular techniques, we can see communities of microbes that were previously unapproachable," Beattie said last week.

In other words, microbes are finally ready for their close up.

Big Ag catches on

What used to be a niche market is now attracting interest from a broader audience. The likes of BASF, Bayer, Chr. Hansen, Monsanto, Novozymes, Syngenta and several startup companies have taken notice and are putting billions behind researching microbes, with the aim to bring more microbial products to market.

It’s appealing for a few reasons. Not only can this technology be applied to both organic and conventional agriculture, but Schäfer asserted that microbial products can also get to market several years faster and at a lower cost than new chemical products, because there are less regulatory hoops to jump through.

So, why is industrial agriculture just starting to recognize the importance of these microbes? It seems to be less about not recognizing their benefits, and more that we are beginning to remember our agricultural roots. Farmers have long implemented techniques such as the use of compost or compost teas, field rotation, integrated pest management, and cover crops to manage and improve the living health of their soil. New microbial technologies for use in industrial agriculture today would just be building on this “tradition of innoculants,” Beattie explained.

Not the be-all, end-all

None of the panelists suggested that microbes will be the “silver bullet” to solving our global food security woes. In fact, the research still has a long way to go in identifying which species are the most beneficial to plants. This is no easy task, considering there can be some 10,000 different species of microbes in just one tiny gram of soil.

As Schäfer illuminated: “Microbes are not created equal. Finding the ones that can be made into a product is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.” That’s why Novozymes, a Denmark-based producer of industrial enzymes and microorganisms, is currently working with the BioAg Alliance to test over 2,000 microbes directly in the field in 500,000 small plots. These tests will study the robustness of microbes to determine which ones help improve plant health and drive better yields.

The panel made clear that microbial products coming to market does not mean an end to the use of chemical inputs in industrial agriculture, at least not any time soon. To put this into perspective, the BioAg Alliance states that in 2014, the market for traditional fertilizers and pesticides was approximately $240 billion, while the market for microbials was a mere $1.8 billion.

“It would be naive to think if we make these microbial products that there will be no chemistry. It’s about farmers integrating this,” Schäfer said.

But with finite resources like phosphorus on the planet for ag inputs, Bethea underscored that farmers need to learn how to use these inputs as efficiently as possible, become less dependent upon them and incorporate other solutions like microbes.

Seeding a partnership

While there are a few options for applied microbe use, including sprays for fruits and vegetables, drip irrigation and putting the microbes on the seeds themselves, Schäfer considers this last option the most efficient, especially for the world’s corn, soy, wheat and rice farmers, because “they can buy the seed with all the benefits already on it.”

Novozymes entered into a partnership with Monsanto last year to explore this microbe-on-the-seed concept, forming the BioAg Alliance. Monsanto will manage the field testing, registration and commercialization of products, while Novozymes will handle manufacturing and supplying microbial solutions to Monsanto.

One audience member posed the question, “Should we be worried that companies like Monsanto, whose products contribute to less healthy soil, is getting involved in microbes?” Beattie emphasized that, regardless of where people stand on the company, “Monsanto has access to resources that academia doesn’t have,” noting its ability to research thousands of microbes on a large scale, with the potential for more stability across test sites.

Schäfer opined that the huge commitment in research dollars from Monsanto on microbes should speak for itself. (Monsanto paid Novozymes an upfront payment of $300 million to pursue research and product development.) “You don’t do this as a company if you aren’t really committed because it creates expectations. And if those expectations aren’t met, there will be implications with shareholders,” he stressed. That said, Schäfer acknowledged in a one-on-one interview that “Monsanto’s biggest mistake has been miscommunication.”

While controversy will no doubt continue to surround discussions of how to best approach sustainable agriculture as it relates to global food security and what players should be involved, it’s clear that microbial technology is now an integral part of that conversation.

Image credit: Macrovector/Shutterstock.com

Most of Asia's rice paddies are smaller than an acre, and most people who tend to them use methods they learned as children. Thirty years ago, a Jesuit priest invented a way to increase rice yields over traditional methods while lowering the cost of production. Perhaps 5 million farmers now use the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), a change that has lifted thousands out of poverty and food insecurity. It all sounds great until you learn that there are about 162 million acres of rice fields on the planet. So, why isn't SRI catching on faster?

This is the question that vexes the folks at Cornell University's SRI International Network and Resources Center (SRI-Rice), one of several organizations devoted to spreading the use of SRI. One answer, they say, is that it's hard to change cultural traditions. And making that change is even harder when it runs contrary to the strategic goals of international agribusiness.

"We're swimming upstream against a 30-year tide that wants to privatize every aspect of agriculture," says Dr. Norman Uphoff, a Cornell professor who has been promoting SRI since 2000. "SRI is free and open-source. It isn't sold. So, we're ignored or ridiculed by the corporations and their foundations, but nothing can change the fact that this works. Eventually they'll come around."

SRI's skeptics have said claims of improved rice yields are not backed up by empirical research. One reason is that SRI is a grassroots movement: It was invented in a village in Madagascar and spread largely through word of mouth. But scientists affiliated with SRI-Rice have been collaborating for over a decade, and the results are accumulating.

Small rice farms in the lower Mekong River Basin (flowing through Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam) doubled their yields when they switched to SRI, according to a two-year study of 62 sites conducted by Abha Mishra of the Asian Institute of Technology near Bangkok, Thailand. Paddies that used some SRI techniques saw a 60 percent yield increase, she says. And because SRI uses fewer seedlings, less water and homemade organic fertilizer, the cost of labor and materials is lower.

SRI improves the lives of village women to whom farming is just one thing on a very long to-do list, says Mishra. It should also become more attractive to bigger farms as the cost of water, seeds and materials increases.

Getting the rice from small, diverse growers to urban consumers has been another obstacle. But that is also changing as socially responsible businesses step in to develop supply chains. Lotus Foods now sells four varieties of SRI rice under the slogan, "more crop per drop -- water smart and women strong."

Image credit: Flickr/Roberto Foccenda

Many of us are tired of the grandstanding and platitudes that come from Washington, D.C., and have long been resigned to the sad fact that the nation’s capitol is often full of crap. But literally, any city home to 650,000 people is going to flush plenty of crap down the drain. Now the greater D.C area is putting some of that crap to good use, as in harvesting it to generate 10 megawatts of clean energy to lower a local wastewater treatment plant’s electricity bills.

Built at the cost of $470 million, this (mostly human) waste-to-energy plant will provide one of metropolitan Washington’s water utilities with a new way to meet a third of its total power needs, or enough to electrify 10,500 homes. The Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant, which D.C. Water claims is the largest such facility in the world, provides wastewater treatment services to approximately 2 million people in D.C. and the surrounding area. More than 350 million gallons of sewage pass through this wastewater plant daily. And while the Blue Plains plant is seen as an exemplary wastewater treatment center, the processing of all those toilet flushes consumes its fair share of electricity.

This waste-to-energy project started construction in 2011 after a decade of studies, and finally launched last month. According to D.C. Water, the plant incorporates the use of a Norwegian technology, a CAMBI thermal hydrolysis process, which is now being used in North America for the first time at Blue Plains. Without getting into too deep a technological or scatological explanation, this thermal hydrolysis system incorporates high heat and pressure to “pressure cook” any solids remaining after the final stages of the plant’s wastewater treatment process.

These solids, in turn, undergo an anaerobic digestion process, which creates methane that can be captured in order to generate electricity. Three large turbines, each the size of an airliner jet engine, anchor this facility. Along with the turbines, this plant also includes a dewatering plant, 32 hydrolysis vessels and four concrete anaerobic digesters that stand 80 feet (24 meters) tall.

In addition, this waste-to-energy process creates biosolids that can be used as compost or topsoil. D.C. Water is evaluating whether this product can be brought to market, which would certainly create a new revenue stream that could help pay off the project’s costs (inquiries made to D.C. Water about the expected ROI were not returned, but the Washington Post quotes cost-savings to D.C. Water at running about $10 million annually). In the meantime, this byproduct is being used as compost in urban gardens and infrastructure projects throughout the D.C. area.

The project’s price-tag certainly raises questions about whether such innovations in clean energy are worth the investment. But as more cities search for ways to move toward a zero-waste and low-carbon economy, D.C.’s new approach to waste management could offer municipalities a case study on how to cope with a growing population, adapt to aging infrastructure and discover new ways in which to keep energy costs low.

Image credit: EPA