Search

The World Bank marked its 80th anniversary last month, and while a lot has changed in the past eight decades, one aspect of the institution remains the same: its resistance to being held accountable. Past and current World Bank-funded projects displaced people, destroyed livelihoods, polluted water, harmed biodiversity and exacerbated sexual exploitation, among other harms. Even though harm to people and the planet is a known outcome of some of its projects, the World Bank does not routinely acknowledge or redress it. 

Instead, it falls on brave human rights and environmental defenders to raise the alarm, demand justice and convince the bank to be accountable. That shouldn’t be the norm. And right now, there is an opportunity to finally change course. The World Bank’s board can empower the institution’s accountability mechanism to identify and redress environmental and human rights harm.

The World Bank has an institutional channel — albeit a flawed one — for hearing from people harmed by its projects, which is called the independent accountability mechanism. Created by its board in 1993 in response to people demanding accountability, the World Bank’s Inspection Panel investigates allegations of non-compliance with its own environmental and social policies. 

The panel’s creation was a groundbreaking development that other development finance institutions have since replicated. And over the past 31 years, the Inspection Panel published multiple investigation reports confirming the concerns raised by communities globally. 

Despite its successes and incremental changes made to the panel over the years — including the creation of a mediated dispute resolution process for impacted communities and implementing agencies — the World Bank’s accountability mechanism was never given the mandate to fully hold the organization responsible for the impacts of its projects or deliver remedies to address harm. The mandate is woefully behind its peers at other development finance institutions. That’s something the bank should be ashamed of, because it means that the organization knows there are better ways to ensure projects do not harm the environment or infringe upon human rights yet is unwilling to act. 

The ways in which the World Bank has hindered its own accountability mechanism are myriad: The panel needs the board’s approval before it can begin an investigation, communities filing cases are not permitted the counsel of their choosing, communities have to consider a dialogue with the Dispute Resolution Service before an investigation, and the panel can’t even recommend remedial actions or monitor how the bank responds to its investigation findings, among others. 

The shortcomings of the World Bank’s accountability mechanism are not theoretical. They limit communities’ access to justice and undermine the credibility of the bank. For example, the panel could not monitor the actions taken by the bank after an investigation confirmed harm caused by an energy project in Nepal. Bank management was able to misrepresent the level of communities’ consent to ongoing project construction and the nature of government intimidation and violence toward the communities. 

We demand that this changes now. The World Bank’s accountability mechanism should be best-in-class and truly have the mandate to underpin the bank’s ambitions to become bigger and better. 

Last month, a team of experts published a Draft Report and Recommendations for the World Bank’s board based on a review of the effectiveness of the bank’s accountability mechanism and asked for the public’s feedback. The terms of that review were limited and imperfect, but the report recommends multiple important improvements to the World Bank’s accountability mechanism. Civil society organizations provided detailed feedback based on our experience advocating alongside local communities demanding justice. Several key improvements are needed for the World Bank’s accountability infrastructure to truly be effective.

The structure of the accountability process must facilitate justice. The structure of the accountability mechanism hinders its effectiveness and is confusing to affected communities trying to understand what to expect from the case process. As discussed in the review report, a near-term solution is to separate the Inspection Panel from the Dispute Resolution Service and ensure that both have the necessary resources to do their work. 

The entire accountability process should be accessible to impacted communities. Barriers to accessing the accountability process should be removed, including prohibiting individuals from raising complaints and restrictions on communities’ choice of representation. Importantly, communities must have the ability to choose how they want their concerns addressed, whether through a compliance investigation, a dispute resolution process or both.

Findings of noncompliance should always be addressed. The World Bank should be obligated to rectify and remediate harm related to any non-compliance the Inspection Panel finds during an investigation. To facilitate that, the panel should be given the power to recommend ways for the bank to course-correct. And the panel should always monitor the implementation of the bank’s remedial efforts to ensure they are actually accomplished.

The outcomes of the accountability mechanism’s dispute resolution processes should be published and transparently monitored. Reaching an agreement to address community grievances is just one step in ensuring justice. Because of the stark power imbalances between the parties, the bank’s borrowers can all too easily back out of commitments without transparency and effective monitoring of the agreement’s implementation. The accountability mechanism should publish the specific outcomes of its mediation process so that expectations are clear. It should then monitor and report publicly on implementation. 

The World Bank knows its projects cause serious human rights and environmental harms that undermine its mission. It should want to hear about mistakes and rectify them to ensure its financing meets the mark and the bank can be trusted by the people it claims to serve. A critical way to do that is by making sure the people suffering have a fair and accessible way to raise issues and have harm addressed. For that to be true, the World Bank’s Inspection Panel and overarching accountability mechanism must be empowered to truly hold the institution to account. An 80th anniversary seems as good a time as any to chart a new course of accountability. 

Biodiversity loss is recognized as the third largest global risk over the next decade. As awareness grows, businesses are increasingly setting biodiversity-related targets due to reputational risks, stakeholder expectations, operational and financial risks, and dependency on ecosystem services like pollination and clean water. But integrating biodiversity in responsible investment and reporting is challenging, as it’s difficult to measure an organization’s impact. Businesses attempting to take action on biodiversity encounter obstacles like a lack of understanding of the impacts and measuring methods and difficulty incorporating the management of shared resources into standard business practices.

To address these challenges, and biodiversity loss at large, researchers developed a credit metric with support from the United Kingdom Natural Environment Research Council. The Biodiversity Impact Credits (BICs) metric computes changes in the probability of a species long-term survival related to businesses' actions. This metric assesses species extinction risk and is based on the changes in global species population patterns caused by an organization — with adjustments for species nearing extinction.

The researchers propose that this metric aligns with the global biodiversity goals set in place to reduce extinction risk at the 2022 United Nations climate change conference. It could also be adopted in biodiversity policies and financial reporting. The membership organization Botanic Gardens Conservation International manages the credits.

Applying Biodiversity Impact Credits

The BIC metric helps people understand how species populations are changing due to business activities, said Axel Rossberg, lead researcher of the study. Companies can use this credit metric by measuring their intentional and unintentional impact. 

For example, a business emitting harmful chemicals that reduce the population of a local species would earn them negative credits but taking action to prevent biodiversity decline would earn positive credits. Businesses calculate their result and effect on biodiversity by adding together all negative and positive impacts, Rossberg told TriplePundit. These credits are based on a business’s current state and not on its future restoration plans, projected improvements, or risks and uncertainties of future restoration plans with other organizations. 

Benefits beyond business

There is a global funding shortfall for biodiversity conservation with an estimated $700 to $900 billion needed to restore and preserve global biodiversity. Biodiversity credits create the potential to boost private funding in biodiversity and conservation. And these credits bring benefits to businesses, such as market differentiation and being up to date with regulations and consumer preferences and interests.

While the prevailing narrative suggests businesses should protect biodiversity because they depend on the ecosystem, this view is only partially correct, Rossberg said. Species extinction is a weak argument because the species close to extinction do not significantly contribute to ecosystems. The real benefit for businesses lies in contributing to the common good, he said.

“In different places, different people in different cultures value biodiversity in different ways," Rossberg said. People derive unique benefits from ecosystems, so the conservation of species is for the benefit of future generations and the opportunities it may bring. We currently cannot predict the benefits future generations might seek from ecosystems, so preserving species is critical, he said. "If it's lost, it's the most difficult to get back." 

Bob Marley is widely known for his music, his Rastafari faith and even some pro-environment sentiments. After all, climate change was already an issue in the seventies during the height of his career. What many people may not know is at the heart of Marley’s faith sat strong environment-friendly principles that still persist among the Rastafarians of Jamaica today. 

An essential principle within their beliefs is the concept of Ital. The Ital diet is similar and often even conflated with the vegan diet, but it is not the same. So what does Ital mean? It can be considered differently by different people within the Rastafari faith. 

“My interpretation of it is ‘natural,’” said Kareece Lawrence, a wellness event producer at the Rastafari Indigenous Village in Montego Bay, Jamaica. “One of the special things about Rastafari is the language. We’ve chosen to use words with more feeling and positive meaning. Which is how you get words like ‘I&I’ instead of ‘we’ and that is how you get words like ‘Ital’ instead of ‘natural.’”

Though there are different factions with different beliefs and lifestyle practices within Rastafari, there is some consistency with the Ital diet, Lawrence said. “Not having processed foods, animals and eating from the earth — preferably your own garden or a farmer you know and trust.”

The Ital diet is what’s known as a sustainable food system. A closed-looped way of eating that
allows the food source and the environment to replenish. Food system transformation is a great way to address health and the environment at once, according to research published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.  

Food systems are estimated to be responsible for a third of human-caused greenhouse emissions. But it’s not just the emissions that contribute to climate change, it’s also the growing practices, said Machel Emanuel, life sciences lecturer and botanist at the University of the West Indies. Pesticide and fertilizer runoff can be absorbed deep into the earth, blighting the land, or washed into waterways, significantly disrupting the ecosystem there. Pesticides can also pose health risks to humans, particularly people with high levels of exposure like agricultural workers. 

While it may not be possible to completely overturn the food processing industry in one fell
swoop, some key takeaways from the Rastafarian Ital diet could help inform and inspire a healthy transition.

Leonard Howell, who is widely regarded as the first Rastafarian, established a 500-acre commune in the hills of St Catherine. It was fully self-sufficient with over 4000 members eating and living off the land. This is where the germ of the Ital concept of a three-pronged approach to food system transformation began to thrive. For Howell, it was about creating economic independence by eating what they grew, but it was just as much about the health of the people and the environment that nourished them.

The principle of eating what you grow is a great place to start. You don’t need a 500-acre commune. A simple backyard garden or planters on a balcony would do.

Limiting the consumption of ultra-processed foods is another key principle that has application in any household. These foods have preservatives, flavorings, sugars and other substances added to them to enhance flavor and lengthen shelf life. Looking into organic alternatives for some of your favorite ultra-processed foods is an excellent first step. Developing a relationship with a farmer’s market in your area could also be a good way to support organic agriculture and fill in areas where your backyard garden may fall short. Support for these markets is already growing, Emanuel said. 

“We see the change taking place,” Emanuel said. “People are becoming more conscious of where the food comes from, who is actually growing it, and what sort of inputs are being used. So you’ll see a lot of farmer’s markets being set up around the country. We see consumers are willing to patronize agricultural products where they are closer to the people growing them and are able to have a certain amount of input in the way things are done.” 

But food processing isn’t necessarily the enemy. Not all processed foods are ultra-processed, and there are ways to do it without risking the viability of the environment. A project from the Norway-based food research institute Nofima, for example, tested new technology with the potential to replace autoclaves — a machine used to ensure food safety and extend shelf life that requires a lot of water and energy. These new sustainable ways to process food are slowly making their way into the industry.

Roughly three out of four people remain unemployed a year after they are released from prison. Long-term, that unemployment rate remains at about 27 percent — exponentially higher than the rate for individuals who have never been incarcerated. People who were formerly incarcerated also face substantially higher rates of homelessness and economic and social inequality. Unsurprisingly, unemployment, homelessness and a lack of access to resources are among the factors linked to recidivism.

By and large, employers remain biased against hiring justice-impacted individuals. Sustainable knits manufacturer FutureStitch wants to change that. The company focuses on hiring formerly incarcerated individuals and reducing recidivism among employees for its U.S. factories, a practice known as second chance hiring. FutureStitch makes socks and other knits for brands like Lululemon, Crocs and New Balance. It also partners with the NBA and the MLB.

“We feel like the biggest proof point that we could create in business was around this social cause, which we think is a plague in America.” Taylor Shupe, CEO of FutureStitch, told TriplePundit.

Offering the training and support needed to thrive, not just survive

Shupe, who was involved with the criminal justice reform nonprofit the Innocence Project, was inspired to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. and, in the process, create a program that would prove there is a better way forward than the revolving door of the criminal justice system. The resulting program is called SecondStitch. It offers justice-impacted individuals employment, training and development, while also connecting them with the support and community resources they need to successfully reintegrate.

It begins with foundational skills — such as personal finance and computer competency — and builds up to more specialized training, Shupe said. The goal is to create an entrepreneurial mindset and foster growth. Classes are offered in things like marketing, finance and other in-demand subjects, so employees can choose from a wide range of skills to benefit their future. 

That education and training empowers graduates to move up in the company. “My head of HR is justice impacted, and one of my controllers is justice impacted,” he said. “So it's not just production work. It's actually like, let's build the right skill sets.”

In other words, it’s not just about giving formerly incarcerated people the bare minimum in employment. It’s about providing a foundation for them to build their lives on. That’s an important distinction considering that being limited to low wage jobs is another contributing factor of recidivism.

“It’s equally as important to get them into position where they can make enough money to support themselves and their family, buy a house,” Shupe said. “Things that they thought that they wouldn't be able to do, ever.”

A working environment that fosters retention to reduce recidivism

“Most people that get out of the system are not online,” he said, which can make recruitment difficult. “Where we've found opportunities, [is] working with charities that help ex-incarcerated individuals or also homeless people.” 

In addition to being justice impacted, more than half of FutureStitch’s employees are previously unhoused, he said. Although not all of FutureStitch’s employees have been impacted by the legal system, 71 percent were, according to the company. The employees who were formerly incarcerated have a higher retention rate than the workers who were not, Shupe said. Whereas the overall retention rate at the knit manufacturer is 80 percent, justice-impacted employees stick around over 90 percent of the time. Both numbers are impressive considering turnover in manufacturing hovers around 40 percent.

By providing stable employment with sustainable wages, as well as a strong support system and access to resources, the company is able to achieve its primary goal: preventing people from going back to prison.

“The objective for us is to prove as low of a recidivism rate as possible, and right now, we're still at 0 percent over two years in,” Shupe said, comparing the numbers to California’s overall average rate of 50 percent. “It just goes to show, if you have the right wage, if you have the right community, the right support, if you create a culture that's about self-improvement and optimism, then you can make huge impacts in the labor market. So we're trying to evolve this further.”

A model for other employers

Part of evolving further is sharing the SecondStitch model with other employers. Shupe likened doing so to a nonprofit franchise model. Most of FutureStitch’s website is sparse, but a lot more money and effort was poured into the dedicated SecondStitch pages, he said. That’s because, in addition to providing employees with resources, it gives the framework for other employers to learn from and eventually emulate.

So what’s stopping employers from jumping on the bandwagon right away? “I think it's just a risk tolerance thing,” Shupe said. “There's this general sensitivity that I think sort of pushes the executive or the founder to pause … They're nervous that employing an individual like this — who may have a history of selling drugs, or a history of prostitution, or whatever — is going to create a legal liability for them. And it couldn't be further from the truth.”

In fact, the only risky situations FutureStitch has experienced came from employees who had never been incarcerated, Shupe said. He’s hopeful that by showing just how much the company benefits from increased retention and production, other employers will see the value of offering former offenders a second chance with the necessary programming.

“When you give out trust, when you give out empathy and love for somebody else, it reciprocates. And that's what we've learned here. Most of the people that we've hired from the system were never really given trust,” Shupe said. “It's interesting what happens when you give somebody trust first, instead of giving them cynicism … You get so much more passion and you get so much more loyalty.”

Homepage image courtesy of FutureStitch. 

Solar energy innovations are all over the news as scientists develop new ways to produce more power from the sun and the true potential of solar to reduce emissions becomes clear. Generating energy from solar and wind is now cheaper than oil and gas in most scenarios, and investment in renewables is set to double investment in fossil fuels this year. 

That all adds up to more countries meeting more of their energy needs with renewable sources. The European Union met half its power needs with renewable energy from solar, wind and hydropower in the first half of 2024, and the bloc's use of solar power in particular increased by over 30 percent since 2020. With efficiency upgrades and game-changing design shifts on the horizon, the world's love affair with solar is just getting started. Read on for some of the hottest news that crossed our desks this summer. 

Solar without the panels? Printable and paintable solar could soon be a reality 

Scientists at Oxford University say they've developed an ultra-thin and flexible material that can be applied as a coating on objects like building walls, roofs, cars and cell phones to generate solar energy without the need for solar panels. “If more solar energy can be generated in this way, we can foresee less need in the longer term to use silicon panels or build more and more solar farms,” Junke Wang of Oxford’s physics department said in a statement released by the university last week. 

The idea of generating solar from everyday objects is nothing new. Researchers from Singapore's Nanyang Technological University debuted a thin solar cell that doubled as a touchscreen a decade ago. Bringing it into the real world proved challenging, but new developments could change that.

The key to this ultra-thin solar material is a relatively inexpensive mineral called perovskite, composed of calcium and titanium, and Oxford's isn't the only research team experimenting with it. Researchers at the City University of Hong Kong also unveiled a perovskite solar material this month which they say is essentially printable for inexpensive production on a mass scale, just like "printing newspapers," said Alex Jen Kwanyue, chair of the university's materials science department. 

Importantly, both teams are reaching new heights in power conversion efficiency. The City University of Hong Kong's material reached around 26 percent efficiency in lab testing, which means it converts 26 percent of the sunlight that hits it into energy. Oxford's surpassed 27 percent, nearing “the limits of what single-layer voltaics can achieve today," Shuaifeng Hu of the university's physics department said in a statement. "We believe that, over time, this approach could enable the photovoltaic devices to achieve far greater efficiencies, exceeding 45 percent," he said. 

The research teams say innovations like these will continue to decrease the cost of solar, which is already 90 percent cheaper than it was in 2010, while opening new possibilities for solar development with less space. 

Solar windows take a major step toward the mainstream

Even as researchers reach new breakthroughs in developing ultra-thin solar film, maintaining the transparency of this material so it can be used on building windows is another matter.

The California startup Next Energy Technologies is among those looking to commercialize solar windows, and it installed a demo window at the design and architecture firm Gensler's headquarters in Los Angeles earlier this summer. At only around 6.5 square feet, the test window is small, but it carries big implications for a technology more than two decades in the making.

Rather than the silicon used in standard solar panels or the perovskite used in films, Next Energy coats glass with organic materials to generate energy from the sun. The organic semiconductors it uses today were first discovered at the University of California Santa Barbara, where the company was formed, earning the research team a Nobel Prize for Chemistry back in 2000. 

The company says the test brings it one step closer to bringing a full-size solar window to the market. “It’s rewarding to see our technology developed to the point where commercialization can be realized and demonstrated to architects, glass fabricators and framing system providers,” CEO Brenton Taylor said in a statement. Gensler co-chairman Andy Cohen called the company's technology "an innovation breakthrough for architects that will transform the game plan for sustainable buildings."

Two is better than one for solar thermal, with China's dual-tower plant boosting efficiency by 24 percent

Rather than flat panels that convert the sun's rays into energy, solar thermal setups include thousands of mirrors that reflect sunlight up to a tower. Magnifying the intensity of the sunlight creates high temperatures that produce steam which powers a turbine to create energy. Though these systems are actually more efficient than conventional solar panels, they tend to be more expensive and as such were slower to take off. That may soon change as recent innovations boost efficiency even further. 

China is almost finished with a dual-tower solar thermal installation it says can achieve record performance. The new plant in Gansu Province incudes two 650-foot towers surrounded by around 30,000 mirrors. When it comes online later this year, it's expected to generate more than 1.8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, enough to power over 100,000 homes.

The big change in the plant's design comes down to the placement of the mirrors, says project manager Wen Jianghong. "The mirrors in the overlapping area can be utilized by either tower," he told New Atlas. "This configuration is expected to enhance efficiency by 24 percent." Energy produced by the plant is expected to avoid 1.53 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, the outlet reports. 

Floating solar panels could provide much of Africa’s energy, research finds

Floating solar panels are promising for countries without a lot of extra land, and they come with the added benefit of reducing water evaporation from at-risk lakes and reservoirs. Though less than 5 gigawatts worth of floating solar is installed worldwide, compared to more than 1,000 gigawatts of land-based solar, the technology's potential is vast. One piece of 2023 research estimated 35,000 terawatt-hours of floating solar power potential off the coast of Indonesia alone, which is more than all the energy currently produced on Earth. 

Another study released this year estimates the technology could help countries across Africa meet their energy needs with renewables. Ethiopia and Rwanda could generate more energy than they currently use by installing floating solar on just a portion of their available water surfaces, according to the analysis conducted by U.K. environmental scientists R. Iestyn Woolway and Alona Armstrong.

Other African countries including Chad, Mali, Madagascar, Malawi, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Togo could meet between 15 percent and 73 percent of their energy needs with floating solar. "We also found that there are 1,977 water bodies across Africa that could be used to float solar panel systems," Woolway and Armstrong wrote in an op/ed for The Conversation.

African countries are clearly paying attention, with Ghana switching on the continent's largest floating solar system at a reservoir earlier this summer and Kenya inking plans to install more than 40 megawatts of floating solar at a network of hydropower plants.

New York City will soon be home to one of the nation's largest offshore wind projects. In June, developers broke ground at the municipal South Brooklyn Marine Terminal (SBMT), an old container and general cargo port facility occupying 73 acres that will provide crucial services for Empire Wind 1, a federally approved offshore wind farm set to contribute 810 megawatts of clean electricity to New York’s  power grid by 2027.

The groundbreaking builds on New York’s Green Economy Action Plan and Mayor Eric Adams’ efforts to develop a multifaceted “Harbor of the Future.” Both initiatives reimagine New York City’s waterfront and fuel 21st-century growth and innovation.   

The newly imagined South Brooklyn Marine Terminal is poised to be far more than a support facility for wind energy. It will also play an important role in urban regeneration while providing important employment opportunities for union jobs paying family-sustaining wages. 

”Transforming the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal into a hub for offshore wind is an investment in New York City’s economy on a generational scale,” said Molly Morris, president of Equinor, the company which will develop the Marine Terminal site and Empire Wind 1.

The terminal was last used by a car importer but sat derelict for over a decade. Back in 2015, New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) put the site on the market “to figure out what could be feasible to bring new life to this parcel of land,” said Sam Jung, vice president of renewable energy industry development on NYCEDC’s Green Economy team.

In September 2021, the city and NYCEDC unveiled a 15-year, $191 million Offshore Wind Vision Plan to make New York a leading destination for the industry. To deliver on that vision, in March 2022 New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced an agreement between NYCEDC, Equinor, and Sustainable South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, L.P. (SSBMT) — a partnership between Industry City and the Red Hook Container Terminal — to transform the terminal into one of the largest offshore wind port facilities in the nation. 

Leaders in the Sunset Park neighborhood, along with the Brooklyn-based environmental justice organization UPROSE, came together to put forward a community-based vision for the terminal and the community. The goal was to transform the area into a sustainable and green industrial waterfront. “The idea that it could be a wind port facility was really seen by them,” Jung said.

How do onshore terminals support offshore wind?

Most people are familiar with offshore wind farms, but the onshore component may be less obvious. The South Brooklyn Marine Terminal will serve as an onshore support hub, maintaining necessary functions both during the wind farm’s construction and on an ongoing basis for future operations.

The terminal will serve as an operations and maintenance center for the wind farm and as a staging and assembly area for wind turbine components. It will also host an electricity substation that will connect wind electricity generated offshore to the grid. “The lease for the site will go through 2054, demonstrating NYC’s commitment to the clean energy future,” Jung said.

The project will create more than 1,000 jobs during construction, 200 turbine assembly jobs, and approximately 50 permanent positions once the terminal is completed. 

New jobs support community impact 

Equinor aims to award 30 percent of project opportunities to minority- and women-owned businesses, and where possible, the build-out will draw upon labor from local neighborhoods and New York City more broadly. 

Equinor signed a project labor agreement which prioritizes Sunset Park residents, New York City labor union members, and low- or very low-income New Yorkers for jobs at the terminal. “We are committed to creating opportunities for New Yorkers to secure well-paying careers in the growing renewable energy industry,” said Morris of Equinor.

Crews, many of them from women-owned businesses in the area, spent the first half of the summer taking down old buildings to make way for the planned terminal. As the site moves to the next stage, locals hired into union jobs will begin constructing the necessary infrastructure to support the waterfront project.

”There’s a lot of labor that goes into this. From the laborers to the carpenters, to the welders, to the dock builders, everybody works hand-in-hand,” said Kirt McCarthy, a 25-year veteran of the New York City District Council of Carpenters union. “As we go along, by months and quarters, it’s like a puzzle — it comes together in pieces. In my 25 years in the union, I’ve been at a lot of big sites and every one is different, so every day is a learning experience.”

Experienced workers like McCarthy are close by to help the younger apprentices, perpetuating an ongoing process of bringing up the next generation who will have access to family-sustaining wages through union work. “I feel this wind farm is going to grow roots in the neighborhood and the city,” McCarthy said. "The labor aspect of it is great, and I hope we can get some more projects like this in New York City.”

Jung of NYCEDC hopes the revitalization of the area will create a new walk-to-work community that will grow. “From the city’s perspective, we’re leveraging this moment to seed other investment in the area [and] make South Brooklyn a new center of gravity for other climate-related activities,” he said.

Public funding of the project has already garnered multiples in private investment. On the public side, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) awarded a grant of $60 million to the project, augmented by $105 million in city capital. These investments leveraged $1 billion in private capital from Norway-based Equinor, an important injection of direct investment for the city. “We are proud to say that this combination of public funding is unlocking a ton of private value for New Yorkers,” Jung said.

Upskilling New Yorkers for offshore wind and maritime careers 

The city also invested heavily to support workforce development and spread awareness of the career opportunities the terminal will bring about. That includes annual offshore wind and maritime career fairs, a more than $10 million investment in the local City University of New York (CUNY) system for workforce programing and facilities, and an emerging partnership with the Harbor School, a public high school on New York City’s Governors Island that focuses on maritime careers. 

Students at the Harbor School will have a chance to see the city’s budding offshore wind sector take shape through an internship program with Edison Chouest Offshore, the company that will build and operate Equinor’s services operations vessel. The ship will be utilized in the operations and maintenance functions for Empire Wind 1 and will be home-ported at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal.


“SUNY Maritime College’s Global Wind Organization training programs are collaboratively leading New York State’s energy transition by supporting the forward-looking, diverse and sustainable workforce of the future,” said James Spear, director of professional mariner training at the State University of New York’s Maritime College. “As part of the nation’s first maritime academy, we’re excited to help our fellow New Yorkers build an inclusive and efficient tomorrow.” 

Meanwhile, city-supported Workforce One centers, including a location at NYCEDC’s Brooklyn Army Terminal (BAT) in Sunset Park, that aim to enroll everyday New Yorkers into pre-apprenticeship programs “so that people from all across New York, but particularly Sunset Park, can begin the process of getting into good-paying, family-sustaining union jobs, like Kirt is in,” Jung said.  

Laying the groundwork for other cities to follow 

The planned terminal also supports New York state’s climate goals which include generating 9 gigawatts of offshore wind electricity by 2035. “We are in lockstep with the state and federal government to realize these goals,” Jung said. “This redevelopment is in service of a more livable future for New Yorkers, and doing it in a way that supports those historically underserved and impacted communities from the fossil-fuel industry, so they can benefit from these renewable energy investments.” 

Jung and his team at NYCEDC believe the terminal will serve as a model for how renewable energy development can promote minority- and women-owned businesses, forge partnerships with environmental justice groups, and trigger reinvestments that benefit the local community.  

“At a localized scale, [the terminal] is set up to have a robust and long future,” Jung said. But success will ultimately depend upon factors that still hang in the balance.

The terminal is designed to host services for Empire Wind 1, but it is built with sufficient capacity to serve other wind farms, too. This means part of the terminal’s success will depend on ensuring a consistent and reliable pipeline for offshore wind developments in the future.  


One thing which might impact that pipeline is confidence within the industry. “The industry looks to the public sector for reliability,” Jung said. “In an election year,  there can be concern about what a change in administration might do to an emerging industry.” To this end, he said the city is doing as much as it can to enable the industry to succeed.

Over recent years, factors like high interest rates, higher commodity prices, supply chain constraints and even the war in Ukraine also manifested as unforeseen barriers.

Even still, the transition from a derelict piece of land to the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal is an important and optimistic one. “As the offshore wind industry continues to grow, it is critically important to continue developing a highly skilled workforce and pathways to family-sustaining union careers for New Yorkers interested in entering the industry,” said Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York. “Our members are proud to be working on the redevelopment of the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal.”

Kirt McCarthy of the District Council of Carpenters agreed. “I hope this could be the beginning of many more successful projects like this one that will help the city and help the community, and I’m thankful.”

An important clean power resource lies beneath the surface of the Earth in the form of geothermal energy. Access to geothermal energy in the United States was limited to naturally occurring hotspots in the West. Now, the Biden-Harris administration is leveraging technology from the oil and gas industry to open access to geothermal energy to a wider field, including the Eastern U.S.

The limitations of geothermal energy

In contrast to wind turbines and solar panels, geothermal resources can generate electricity on a steady, 24/7 basis, just like a conventional fossil energy or nuclear power plant. With this level of performance, the geothermal industry could play a key role in the U.S. renewable energy profile. But geologic conditions have limited its reach.

Virtually all of the geothermal power plants in the country are located in California and other parts of the West, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency. In these regions, geothermal resources are naturally located close to the surface and can be accessed with conventional technology.

“Natural geothermal systems exist in the presence of heat, permeability and fluid underground,” according to the agency.

One standout example is The Geysers, an 18-plant geothermal complex in California. The facility was first commissioned in 1960 and remains the largest geothermal complex in the world.

A helping hand from the oil and gas industry

Currently, geothermal power plants account for just 4 gigawatts of electricity in the U.S. But next-generation, cost-effective technologies could increase that number to 90 gigawatts, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.  

To open up other parts of the country for geothermal production, the Department of Energy enlisted hydrofracturing technology, also known as fracking, to create artificial geothermal reservoirs called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS).

Hydrofracturing involves pumping water and sand underground at high pressure to extract oil and gas from shale formations. It was linked to a wide range of public health risks and environmental hazards after coming into widespread use during the early 2000s.

Those impacts are not relevant when the process is used for geothermal development. For EGS, hydrofracturing opens up existing subsurface fractures, creates new ones or both. That process allows more fluid to circulate through the hot rock underground, according to the Department of Energy. The fluid brings heat to the surface so it can be used to generate clean, renewable electricity with existing technology. 

“The ability to tap geothermal resources for electricity requires subsurface heat, water or fluid, and permeability (ability for fluid to flow through rock),” Kevin Jones, manager of the Department of Energy’s Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy, told TriplePundit in an email. “Where those components do not exist naturally, such as in the Eastern United States, enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) can be used to create human-made geothermal reservoirs.”

An assist from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, too

Although hydraulic fracturing is a mature technology, its use in the geothermal industry is new and costs are relatively high. The Biden-Harris administration is supporting new, cost-cutting EGS innovations through the Enhanced Geothermal Shot program. It aims to foster a 90 percent drop in the cost of EGS by 2035, bringing it down to $45 per megawatt-hour.

Funding from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also provided a financial platform for EGS innovators. The law specifies that funding be provided to projects that increase production at or near existing geothermal fields in the West, expand EGS into other regions where sufficient heat is present, or demonstrate the technology in the Eastern U.S.

First steps to another new sustainable energy industry

So far, the Department of Energy’s Geothermal Technologies Office has awarded $60 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding to three pilot projects in the Western U.S. The awardees — Chevron New Energies, Fervo Energy and Mazama Energy — will demonstrate new EGS technologies in California, Utah and Oregon.

The office is now selecting awardees to share up to $14.2 million in additional funding for EGS pilot projects in the Eastern U.S. As with the first three projects, the new cohort is expected to demonstrate a variety of advanced EGS technologies, while serving as platforms for experimentation and models for best practices.

The awardees will also demonstrate how consumers and markets contribute to the design of EGS projects, particularly regarding the equity and environmental justice goals of the Biden-Harris administration. Applicants are required to submit a plan describing how they will ensure the federal funding advances energy equity, investment in America's workforce, and diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, Jones told 3p.

The EGS initiative is part of an overarching goal to ensure that the renewable energy transition does not overlook frontline communities that have long been burdened by the impacts of conventional energy development, Jones said. That includes creating new employment opportunities for fossil energy workers displaced by decarbonization.

“Geothermal energy also shares numerous other similarities with oil and gas, including drilling technologies, workforce skills, and subsurface exploration techniques,” Jones said.

Technology obstacles aside, the next steps will also need to address the slow pace of permitting for energy projects. Nevertheless, the Department of Energy's estimate that new geothermal technologies could bring the country’s capacity up to 90 megawatts is a timely reminder that the nation has only just begun to tap into its renewable energy resources.

Even after serving in the United States Marine Corps for 20 years, Nick Hamm still answers the call of duty. 

The call he answers today is not to take arms, but instead to help fellow veterans readjust to civilian life after experiencing combat. Hamm founded the Warrior Built Foundation, a nonprofit based in Lake Elsinore, California, that provides combat veterans with vocational training, recreational therapy and mental health services.

“Everything we do as far as the recreational stuff, the vocational stuff, benefits these veterans in many different ways,” Hamm said. “I would say the most powerful way is the relationships they create with each other.”

The veterans who come to Warrior Built have different backgrounds and served in different branches of the armed forces, but they share similar experiences in uniform. “They’re meeting people with similar struggles, so they’re helping each other,” Hamm explained. 

At the center of the organization’s mission is vocational training that exposes veterans to auto mechanics and mechanical fabrication for different types of motor vehicles. The veterans have free access to tools and equipment at Warrior Built to explore their interests and hone their skills.

“Whether it is an off-road vehicle, race car, classic car or motorcycle, we give them a chance to figure out if they want a future in the fabrication and mechanic industry or just do it as a hobby,” Hamm said.

Warrior Built’s operations depend solely on financial support from individuals, small businesses and corporations. For more than a decade, one of the nonprofit’s key supporters has been Monster Energy.

Monster Energy directly funds a facility for Warrior Built with a full-time instructor in general auto mechanics and welding, along with a gym, music room and computer room. Warrior Built also enters all-veteran teams into off-road motorsport races, the biggest of which is the Score International Baja 1000 in the Baja Peninsula of Mexico, and Monster is the race crew’s lead sponsor. 

“Monster ensures that we have the financial capabilities to make sure that we’re not having to worry about paying our rent every month, that we’re not having to worry about some of the little things that normally we’d have to worry about,” Hamm said. “They allow us to focus on our mission.”



Beyond auto mechanics, Warrior Built’s recreational therapy involves engaging combat veterans in activities that boost their motivation and adrenaline, Hamm said. Along with bringing veterans together to compete in action sports, the nonprofit organizes trips to events like dirt bike races, drag racing, off-road racing and concerts.

“The main reason I chose off-road racing is because it takes a team,” Hamm said. “And obviously, in the military, we do everything in a team. Whether it’s your fire team, your squad, your platoon, your company, your battalion, it’s all a team. It’s not just one individual.”

He sees organizing off-road races as akin to a military operation because it involves planning, logistics, communications, and what he calls the “Five Ws” — who, what, where, when and why.

“We’re talking about making sure we’re loading everything up, and we’re convoying down to another country,” he explained. “We’ve got to stay together. We've got to look out for each other. Then during the race, everyone has a job. It’s not just the driver, co-driver or the guy riding. It’s the pit crew as well.”

Warrior Built’s biggest challenge is outreach, both for getting more combat veterans involved and in raising funds, Hamm said.
“The charity world is very competitive, and there’s so many great charities out there helping veterans,” he told us. “I’m thankful that there’s so many great charities out there, but it also makes it challenging to compete for those donor dollars.”

Without the financial support from partners like Monster, Warrior Built could not operate at its current levels, he said. 

“There’s no way we could have helped as many combat veterans as we have already, and there’s no way that we could do all these events and activities without them supporting us,” Hamm said. “Monster has helped us through in more ways than I think the public will ever know because of their genuine support for the military and their motivation to help us make a difference.”

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

Driving down a gravel mountain road, Brock Buchmeier hauls a truckload of wood salvaged largely from forest fires. He brings a mixture of felled trees like cedar, oak and fir to an industrial park in Oakridge, Oregon, a small city just above the snow line.

“It’s a sketchy job, but someone has to do it,” Buchmeier said. “I’m doing anywhere between three to four trips a day to get this wood to the lot.” 

His business, Brock’s Wood Lot, is the first in an emerging regional forest resource hub that could revolutionize how leftover debris from wildfires and logging are processed in this once-booming timber town. 

The lot is one of 171 projects funded in part by a U.S. Department of Agriculture wood innovation grant program that creates new markets in rural communities while trying to manage wildfire risks. These nationwide projects share similarities, but each comes with its own set of challenges unique to the region. 

For Oakridge, a smokey problem lies within its basin-shaped valley that traps pollutants in the air. Buchmeier and community partners are trying to solve it while living with wildfires. 

Using the unusable

This August, the Willamette Complex Fire, composed of several wildfires, burns outside of Oakridge. Its smoke brings high concentrations of particulate matter that can linger for months. And the residents there won’t have much of a reprieve come winter when more smoke follows from wood stoves, as most use them as their primary heat source.

It’s been a public health issue for years. So in response, the community started with their own homes. 

But their transition to cleaner energy couldn’t exclusively turn to electric solutions like heat pumps. People in Oakridge tried it, installing free heat pumps from weatherization-adjacent programs. They became unreliable for a forest community with vulnerable infrastructure. 

“After several years of living through power outages and not having heat for their homes, they took them out and went back to wood stoves,” said Sarah Altemus-Pope, executive director of the Southern Willamette Forest Collaborative. The group facilitates community-led decisions and secures funding for its plans by working with government departments, including the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 

“If we were going to ask the EPA to invest millions in this community to upgrade wood stoves, then we really had to argue with the EPA, ‘Let us build a program that is going to guarantee dry wood,’ because that’s a missing piece,” she said. 

For fuel, people burned wet wood, which produces denser and more toxic smoke than burning dry wood. But their options were limited. Cutting restrictions kept them from collecting wood in forests, and they didn’t have a vendor to buy from. They turned to buying wood out of the back of people’s trucks, where Buchmeier once sold his own bundles.  

“It seemed that we could never cut enough wood,” he said. “There’s always a demand for firewood. So I bumped into Sarah, who said, ‘There’s this opportunity for a community firewood program.’ And I put one foot in front of the other.” 

Altemus-Pope, who worked as a wildland firefighter, wanted to take it a step further. Not only could the program address wet wood, it could also reduce the woody debris that make fires burn exceptionally large and hot. 

In the neighboring forests, bonfire-like piles of debris were stacking up. Some of this came from wildfire crews cutting trees to safely access and put out fires, while some came from loggers sorting through the unprofitable pieces of their harvest. 

The forest service usually burns these piles under federal guidelines, but the process was another smoke source. So, Altemus-Pope and Buchmeier partnered with their local district to salvage them. After securing grants through the EPA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and local conservation districts, they acquired the equipment they needed to get started. 

Doubling down

After trucking loads of treetops, branches and other vegetation from the forest to his lot, Buchmeier sorts them by species and moisture content. He then methodically dries them in a kiln powered by lower-quality wood from the piles. 

In the last year, the community firewood program collected 200 cords, an industry measurement for stacks of wood that measure four feet high and four feet wide. It plans to double that this year with two new employees to help with the workload. 

The goal is for the lot to be a launchpad for a wood resource hub that supports multiple businesses in one location, creating diverse products — from firewood to biochar — while sharing costs and materials. Right now, the margins for the wood lot are slim. 

“I get calls all the time about, ‘Hey, we want to create a community partner program like yours,’" Altemus-Pope said. “It’s just not something anyone can do … It’s really expensive.” 

The cost of operation is twice as much as what’s earned selling the firewood to city-subsidized buyers — a large portion of their customers who have low incomes, have a disability or are over 65 years old. To help cover the program costs, Buchmeier expanded to commercial sales, supplying firewood to hundreds of campgrounds throughout the Pacific Northwest. 

But the business' primary focus is community service, not its bottom line. 

“That’s what’s unique about this community, but I do think these lessons learned can be absolutely translated to other and bigger communities,” said Altemus-Pope, referring to leveraging the intersection of grants and natural resources. 

Recently, millions of dollars were funneled from the federal wood innovation grant program to support wood processing facilities at the heart of small rural towns, including Buchmeier’s business. Wood processing was at the center of Oakridge for decades until its last timber mill closed in the 1980s. Reversing the economic damage doesn’t just take community innovation, it takes money. 

“These investments will support good paying jobs for families and communities,” Xochitl Torres Small, U.S. deputy secretary of agriculture, said in a statement. “It will increase the economy’s capacity to manufacture wood products. In turn, sustainably sourcing the wood used to manufacture these products will make our forests healthier and reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfires.” 

That’s what is starting to happen at the Oakridge community firewood lot, one truckload at a time.  

Reporting for this story was made possible with a fellowship from the nonprofit Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources. 

People in low-income communities increased their earnings by up to 33 percent after receiving reading glasses, according to a new study. It found that the glasses improve livelihoods and quality of life while reducing poverty.

The research, called THRIVE (Tradespeople and Hand-workers Rural Initiative for a Vision-enhanced Economy), was conducted by the social enterprise VisionSpring, the Bangladesh-based international development organization BRAC and Queen’s University Belfast. 

“We have always understood that with glasses, it’s not about the glasses, it’s about everything that comes afterwards,” VisionSpring CEO Ella Gudwin told TriplePundit. “It’s about earning, learning, safety and wellbeing ... We can intuit that our functioning, productivity, and income are impacted if we don’t have eyeglasses. And the same is true for people who are in low-income settings.”

The THRIVE trial included 824 people, with an average age of 47, across Bangladesh communities engaged in farming and artisan crafts. Some participants were teachers, tailors, shopkeepers and mechanics.  

“Tailors will tell you they lose their customers because their stitches and hems aren’t straight, or they’re constantly relying on somebody else to thread their needle,” Gudwin said. “If you’re a farmer, you’re looking at your mobile phone to look at the weather reports, or to transact in the marketplace because many, if not most, farmers now are using mobile banking platforms. They have to be able to look at the quality of their seeds. They have to be able to identify pests, and they have to be able to read pesticide instructions. There are lots of tasks that enable somebody to be able to do their job with greater precision and accuracy if they’re wearing glasses that ultimately leads to an income boost.”

The root of the problem is presbyopia, the natural, gradual loss of the eye’s ability to focus as people grow older. It’s present in more than 1 billion people globally. Of the 35- to 65-year-olds tested for trial, 50 percent had presbyopia, demonstrating the potential to benefit a large, important group with an inexpensive intervention.

“[Presbyopia] is a hidden problem in the health sector because it doesn’t kill anybody, and so it doesn't have an urgency on it,” Gudwin said. “VisionSpring, from the beginning, has always understood eyeglasses as a livelihoods intervention. We were founded on the idea that a billion people need glasses globally, and more than 800 million of them just need over-the-counter reading glasses, just need magnifying glasses.”

This lack of urgency can be addressed with lower-level health workers, she said. All the vision tests in the trial were conducted by non-medical personnel and the reading glasses were dispensed by community health workers, proving that this approach can work. Last year, the World Health Organization started using the same method.

Participants experienced a number of benefits on top of increased earnings. Some of those who were not working returned to work and participants’ sense of independence and ability to do daily tasks improved. And they didn’t need to be able to read to reap these benefits — 35 percent of the people participating were literate. 

“The findings of the THRIVE study demonstrate the power of reading glasses in helping reduce poverty,” Nathan Congdon, the Ulverscroft chair of global eye health at Queen’s University Belfast, said in a statement. “For the cost of only a few dollars a pair, reading glasses have a significant and sustained impact on an individual's earnings and help others get back into work. Where people are vulnerable to poverty, we can have an immediate and dramatic impact on livelihoods through this extremely simple and cost-effective intervention.”

Homepage image: Caleb Woods/Unsplash