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Workers in the oil industry are about to become victims of their own success. As the American oil industry has hit its boom through the advent of new drilling techniques such as tar sands extraction and hydraulic fracking, oil prices have plummeted -- bringing gasoline prices down with them.

But these new techniques, which were developed years ago, only came into play in recent years as oil prices went up to the point where they became economical. The techniques have been so successful that the U.S. has climbed to the head of the pack, surpassing Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producer. Inventory is at record levels, and prices have tanked. As production peaked, hiring was on the rise -- creating instant boom towns in states like North Dakota and Texas, and overseas in places like Perth, Australia, Brazil, and in towns along the coast of the North Sea.

Oil companies don’t like prices this low, but the only way to get prices back up is to cut production, and that means laying off workers. That started in January. By now, worldwide layoffs have already exceeded 100,000. The cuts will tear a wide swatch through the economy as not only will the laid-off workers cut back on their spending, but also a great deal of collateral spending associated with oil production will also see a decline. The 59,000 layoffs among oil service workers in the U.S. dwarfs the 7,100 layoffs in manufacturing that occurred over the same period.

There is more than a little bit of irony here, as conservatives and fossil fuel interests have long pushed back against any number of measures to encourage energy conservation and the growth of renewable supply, calling them “job-killers.” Meanwhile, when it comes to jobs, renewable energy is lighting up the scoreboard. The U.S. solar industry added 23,000 new jobs in 2013, bringing that total up to 142,000. That’s a 20 percent growth rate.

According to the National Electrical Contractors Association, there are now over a million American jobs associated with renewable energy. The breakdown is something like this:

• Solar                                    142,000


• Wind                                    75,000 to 80,700


• Hydro                                   200,000 to 300,000


• Geothermal                          25,000


• Biomass                               470,000


• Energy efficiency                 380,000

Internationally, the numbers are even greater. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the number of jobs associated with renewable energy (direct and indirect) worldwide, was a total of 6.5 million by the end of 2012. China had the largest number, following by Brazil, then the U.S.

Meanwhile, in the American oil fields, rig counts, drilling permits and well completion rates continue to head south. Some are looking to the government to repeal a 40-year-old law that prohibits American oil companies from exporting crude. If the ban was lifted, inventory levels would drop, and prices would begin to rise again. In the meantime, production keeps chugging along, like a runaway train. Some experts predict that oil could hit $20 a barrel at the bottom.

A study by the consultancy HIS, claims that anywhere from 394,000 to 859,000 new jobs could be created by 2030 if the oil export ban was lifted. Roughly three indirect supply chain jobs would accompany each job in the oilfields, while twice that many would occur in the broader economy.

It’s hard to say exactly what the impact of this would be on climate change. On one hand, rising gas prices would likely lead to people curtailing their driving, but it would also mean more fracking and more tar sands production.

The bottom line for surviving climate change seems to rest on leaving as much fossil fuel in the ground as possible. And as Alex Taurel, deputy legislative director at the League of Conservation Voters, says: “It doesn’t make any sense to export oil and spur destruction of public lands to only benefit oil companies and provide oil to China.”

So, those jobs would come at a high price to the planet. Why bother with that when energy efficiency alone is expected to create 1.3 million new jobs over the same time interval, while clean energy can add another 4.5 million net new jobs?

For more information, check out this story on Alternet.

Image credit: aoenday: Flickr Creative Commons

The past few years we have witnessed financial institutions, including banks, invest in clean energy projects. Bank of America is one example of a company that has invested in renewables, but now there are signs water will be the next frontier of both investment and social responsibility within the financial sector. Two of the largest banks in the United States have taken bold action on addressing the growing water disaster underway worldwide.

Recently BofA and Wells Fargo each announced US$1 million commitments to water projects. Both companies conduct a brisk business in California, which is lurching towards a worsening drought crisis. And much of the world is struggling with diminishing supplies of fresh water while local populations grow and citizens demand more of it. If the banks are starting to take water seriously, then finally this precious but undervalued resource may finally start scoring the investment and resources that are desperately needed.

Bank of America has partnered with Water.org, a social enterprise founded by Matt Damon and Gary White that uses market-based solutions to expand access to water around the world. The organization has long worked with large companies to develop long-term and sustainable answers to water challenges. The $1 million grant that Bank of America promised to Water.org will allow as many as 100,000 microloans for securing access to clean and safe water in India. Water.org’s most successful program in India and other developing nations has been WaterCredit, a microfinance program that allows citizens to borrow money to access municipal taps, build and maintain toilets or start small businesses related to water and sanitation needs.

Meanwhile Wells Fargo has committed $1 million to Imagine H2O, an NGO that runs several programs focused on entrepreneurs working on water-related technologies and innovations. Imagine H2O in wrapped up its sixth annual water competition, at which it announced US$200,000 in cash and in-kind services to two start-ups. According to Wells Fargo, the funds given to Imagine H2O are part of bank’s program offering a total of US$100 million by 2020 to non-profits and universities in order to boost the emerging “green” economy.

Banks wishing to make an impact on the sustainability front should consider grants similar to that of Bank of America and Wells Fargo for several reasons. First, as we are currently experiencing here in California, entire economies are threatened with collapse if there is not enough water to sustain people, businesses and agriculture. In addition, as dark as future scenarios appear to be in a world with less water, there are also numerous opportunities for investment, from water recycling to infrastructure projects.

Finally, what these banks have done is not a simple act of corporate philanthropy: they have invested in organizations that have a reputation for finding new ways to address the water crisis instead of slapping a band-aid on what is an increasingly difficult challenge. Whether they are protecting businesses in California or improving water security in countries that are the home of many companies’ supply chain, ensuring continued supplies of water is one of the most compelling risk management strategies a financial institution can tackle.

Based in Fresno, California, Leon Kaye is a business writer and strategic communications specialist. He has also been featured in The Guardian, Clean Technica, Sustainable Brands, Earth911, Inhabitat, Architect Magazine and Wired.com. When he has time, he shares his thoughts on his own site, GreenGoPost.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

Image credit: Water.org’s Flickr page

Human rights has been a compelling issue in the Middle East for centuries, and no political situation underscores that more than the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Populations on both sides of the Green Line (the demarcation that separates the state of Israel from the West Bank and Gaza) have their share of poverty, unemployment and homelessness. These economic factors have grown worse, not better, in the past decades.

One Catholic priest wants to help improve the odds for the poorest that live on both sides of the Green Line. Father Sean McManus, best known for his success in helping to reshape the way that U.S. companies did business in Northern Ireland during its civil war in the 1980s, believes a similar strategy can work in the Middle East -- specifically, in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

The Holy Land Principles

The Holy Land Principles (HLP) are eight fairly succinct guideposts for companies planning to do business in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. While they have neither legislative nor legal power, they have a compelling voice where it often counts: with the shareholders. Their purpose, says the organization's website, is to "ensure that American dollars do not support discrimination, human rights abuses or violations of international law in the Holy Land (which it describes as "Israel/Palestine," as well as Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem).

All of the principles are the kind of things we'd like to see in corporate America. In fact, they are meant to reflect the very virtues that American consumers have said they believe in: fair hiring principles and no discrimination in layoff, recall or termination. The principles also reject any kind of corporate endorsement of military service unless the job responsibilities specifically require such training.

This last point is an interesting addition, since Israel is one of few countries in the world that require conscription by almost all citizens -- men and women, secular and devout. The only sector of the population it doesn't apply to as a whole is the Arab citizenry, who are exempt but have been known to volunteer in the military as Israeli citizens.

Holy Land Principles 'enhance America's security'

According to the website, the principles are not a means to support divestment, disinvestment or reverse discrimination, better known as the "BDS" concepts that have been used to wield influence against companies that do business in the Palestinian Territories and, in some cases, in Israel.

On the other hand, argues the organization, "corporations will enhance America’s security" by sending the message to populations in the region that America stands for fair and ethical business principles.

But in truth, the Holy Land Principles probably won't resonate with all corporations or their shareholders with investments in the region. To date, Fr. McManus' doctrine has received relatively little endorsement from American companies. As of this writing, only one company has endorsed the principles.

Setting ethical boundaries in foreign countries

If there is anything that corporate America has learned (and painfully at times) about overseas investment, it is that American values aren't always understood, interpreted or endorsed by foreign cultures the way we think they should be. Arriving in a foreign country with a set list of dos and don'ts, including preconceived limitations on funding that may be not only acceptable but legally expected, may put corporations at a disadvantage when seeking licenses and investment opportunities.

But the McManus principles also have some unsaid social parameters that aren't evident until one examines the supporting documentation -- all of which are published by outside agencies or writers. And it is there that many companies may have found some points of discomfort.

The principles don't protect everyone

Although none of the principles mention it, the supporting documents (and the website's about page) assume that Arab and Christian workers need protections that Jewish and other ethnic workers don't. All workers are at risk of discriminatory behavior. Developing a standard whose language and supporting sources address that carries the strongest message.

Unclear geographic boundaries

Despite the fact that the report aims to address human rights in three distinct regions, the majority of the documentation HLP uses to make its case focuses on working inequities in Israel. At the same time, little reference is made to conditions in the West Bank and Gaza, where wages are lower and employment protections are either less or nonexistent. Several of the sources it uses do not recognize Israeli-governed areas that were established under the Oslo Accords.

Israeli census and culture are complex

"[Almost] 40 percent of the families in Israel that live under the poverty line are Arab families," notes the report, Arab Citizens of Israel at Work. As in most countries, demographics and cultural traditions often have a play in employment statistics. While the number of Jewish poor is not as large, the overall number of Israeli poor suggests that there is more to the story than discrimination or class. By some sources, 1 in 5 Israelis are below the poverty line. By others, 1 in 3 are impoverished. And one of the largest sectors of Jews under the poverty line comprises Israel's most religious Jews. The demand for Israeli, nonprofit soup kitchens and homeless assistance for all populations has ballooned in recent years.

"More and more Israelis are working, and staying poor regardless," notes the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz.

Human rights or politics?

The HLP has some laudable humanitarian aims. But are the goals of the authors it cites in the supporting documents the same?

The language used by some of the sources that HLP cites in reference to Israel give the unfortunate impression that politics, not global principles of human rights, are at the core of problems in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. References to "the Zionist state of Israel," Israeli "occupation," and the tenor and political focus of material written by some of the supporting sources can undermine the HLP's goals to ensure human rights are applied regionally, not just politically.

Israel, Israel/Palestine or Isreal?

Unfortunately, spelling and historical attribution matter, particularly when it comes to wooing the ethical support of companies and business leaders in a region that is divided by political differences. Referring to the geographic area as the Holy Land makes sense, since it is, in fact, a sacred land for many cultures. But recognizing Israel by its legally accorded name (not Israel/Palestine, or Isreal[sic] as the links to the supporting documents state) is just as necessary as recognizing the existence of the West Bank and Gaza.

Lastly, some of the greatest strides in ensuring fair pay, benefits and protections for Arab workers continue to go unrecognized. Recent steps taken by businesses owned by Israeli Jewish entrepreneurs or jointly owned or operated by Jews and Arabs, have helped to set benchmarks for not only better pay for the people HLP cites, but also for improving relations between communities and cultures. Manufacturing companies, agricultural groups, architectural firms, research facilities, museums, educational institutes focused on sustainable living, hospitals and other businesses have taken ownership of these societal goals -- and on both sides of the Green Line. None of these businesses has been cited as an example advancing human rights.

Annual shareholder meetings

In the coming weeks, the Holy Land Principles will be up for vote at the annual shareholder meetings of two major U.S. companies. Both operate businesses in Israel, Gaza or the West Bank: Corning (April 29) and Intel (May 21). It will be interesting to see the outcome.  According to Fr. McManus, General Electric (which held its annual meeting this weekend) and Corning previously appealed to the Securities and Exchange Commission to exclude the HLP resolutions, and the appeals were rejected. No explanation was given for their appeals, but they may mean that the HLP will have an upward battle promoting the standards at this time.

No two countries are the same, and no two political conflicts present the same set of challenges for foreign investors. But language can carry just as powerful a message as the humanitarian goals being put forth. Ethical standards that call for the rights of all workers and cultures, not just those of a minority, ensure fair and transparent treatment for all. And while the standards are attracting the attention of foreign investors, they are also sending a global message that human rights is a global entitlement that should never need to be justified.

Image of Arab children: Justin MacIntosh

Image of residents at soup kitchen: Government Press Office, Israel

Image of 1947 rally of Jewish and Arab farm workers: GPO

The United Nations has a goal, and it's a steep one: To halve the world's extreme poverty rate by the end of this year.

Actually, it's only one of eight goals that were established for the planet at the start of the new millennium. The others are equally steep and include ensuring that every child (boys and girls) can access and complete primary education, ensure global environmental sustainability, and halt and reverse the spread of HIV and AIDS.

And most challenging of all is their target date: the end of 2015.

While the U.N. is still a far way away from the completion of these targets, it had made considerable progress, the agency said. According to the agency, extreme poverty rates were cut in half by 2010, five years ahead of the actual goal.

"Despite this impressive goal," however, "1.2 billion are still living in extreme poverty."

So, filmmaker Richard Curtis ("Notting Hill," "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "Make Poverty History") and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation want to give the program a tiny push: They want to mobilize the entire planet.

To launch this effort, called Project Everyone, they have put together an impressive list of resources from around the world -- a kind of go-to list of experts who know the culture, languages, media, and strategies for reaching populations near and far. Experts include Brazilian television celebrity Caldeirão do Huck; author Paulo Lima, known for his talent in reaching young readers in multiple countries; and media moguls like Nizan Guanes of Africa Advertising and Mandalah.

Last year, Curtis called on radio stations from around the world to help support the project by broadcasting it to every area of the planet. He calls the U.N. Millennium Development goals a "checklist for the world" and says everyone deserves the right know about them.

"Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you could say to people, this is the optimistic version of the future, the first generation to live without extreme poverty and the first and last generation to live with climate change?" said Curtis after announcing his challenge to radio stations last year.

In September, the U.N. is due to set new goals for the next 15 years. Curtis and Project Everyone want to ensure the world is ready, so they are launching Action 2015: an even larger campaign to ensure all 7 billion world members are engaged and know that the outcome of these goals affect them as well.

"The hopes for Action 2015 are huge," said Sara Jacobs, spokesperson for Action 2015. "Already thousands of people are mobilizing behind the campaign around the world, and we want and need millions more speaking out for the future they want, so world leaders know they have to act, and act big in 2015."

Image of children at Ebola treatment center: United Nations

Video: Action/2015 - New Year's Eve 2015 - Rio de Janeiro from Mandalah Conscious Innovation.

Editor's Note: This post originally appeared on Unreasonable.is.

By Unreasonable.is Staff

The up-and-coming millennial generation is entering an unforgiving marketplace riddled with high youth unemployment — over 20 percent in Europe and nearly 15 percent in the U.S. On top of this, they enter straight out of an education system that doesn’t seem to prepare youth with the best tools to succeed. One startup makes it their mission to empower youth to create their own projects and jobs by providing a new framework.

“We’re expecting to have business superstars when many kids don’t start thinking about business until they are almost 20 years old,” says Matija Goljar,  co-founder and CEO of Ustvarjalnik, a Slovenian startup. Goljar is a 2014 Unreasonable Institute alumni who partners with high schools to provide after-school entrepreneurship programs for youth. “That’s not going to work. You’ll never get a gold medal at the Olympics if the team starts to train when they’re 20 years old.”

Matija and the team at Ustvarjalnik — pronounced “oost-war-yall-nick,” meaning “creative place” or “creative machine” in Slovenian — arms hundreds of youth in Slovenia with tools to create a meaningful career through entrepreneurial thinking. “We all see the problems in the educational system, and yeah we all want change,” says Matija. “We don’t want to change the education system—instead we want to compliment it.”

The program has three simple keys. First, they put an emphasis on fun; tasks designed to break comfort zones and encourage relationship building with influential community members. For example, go take a picture with the mayor.

Secondly, they put an emphasis on action. “We don’t care about business plans. We don’t care about ideas,” says Matija, “We want to see the real deal. We want to see the thing sold. We want to see the app built. We want to see the kids actually succeed.” Instead, Matija and the Ustvarjalnik team encourage participants to test ideas then rapidly iterate them; a concept found in lean startup principles.

“I took an entrepreneurship class in high school,” Jernej says, a mentee and first-hand witness of Matija’s program. “We were told to pick an idea, and start writing a business plan. Our idea at the time was 24/7 computer support. We still got an A, even though we wrote in our business plan that we’ll employ five people in our first month (plus four founders), and everyone will have big salaries. That kinda seemed unreal, and discouraged me from entrepreneurship. Then Matija told me about lean startup and my mind was blown.” Jernej is now a student at Watson University, a social entrepreneurship school in Boulder, Colorado.

Lastly, they provide a massive amount of positive encouragement. “We work with them to make their project happen,” says Matija, “So if they say ‘Hey, we want to make a submarine that’s capable of reaching the Titanic,’ we as mentors say, ‘OK, where do we start?’ And then they actually do this.” And they did. A team of students gained access to Slovenia’s only battleship to prototype a submarine dive with the help of mentors.

The program has seen incredible success since its inception in 2011. Matija’s first student, now 20 years old, wanted to be a photographer and now just got invited to Red Rocks, a well-known concert theatre in Boulder, Colorado, to take pictures for concerts there. A student group developed a wristband that alerts Alzheimers patients when they need to take their medication. Another student group developed a mobile app that gained one-hundred thousand users within months without any online marketing. A seventeen-year-old student created a computer keyboard that charges itself when people type on it. And another sixteen-year-old drummer was invited to TechCrunch Disrupt last year to showcase an iPad app that listens to the drumming and creates musical notation.

Ustvarjalnik has grown to one-third of Slovenia’s entire school system. Now they are partnered with Up Global — a nonprofit dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship and grassroots leadership—and they’re expanding globally by creating an online scale kit and support system for mentors in communities around the world to take to their local high schools.

Here’s how it works: high schools pay Ustvarjalnik to provide an after-school program, global events and entrepreneurship curriculum, and Ustvarjalnik in turn pays the mentor—a local entrepreneur who wants to bring the curriculum to their local community—a stipend for hosting the program at the high school. Each kit creates enough working capital for the program to break even within a couple months of being deployed.

School administrators in Taiwan, the U.S., Spain, Greece, Kazakstan, and elsewhere are eager to bring the programs to their schools because they empower kids and incite creative action—something greatly needed in today’s high-school environment. “We teach people how to empower themselves,” says Matija, “We’re enhancing education.”

When talking about how to fix our education system, a piece in Time magazine last year has serial entrepreneur and angel investor, Scott Gerber, stating that eighty-seven percent of youth in America desire to pursue entrepreneurship. Introducing kids to entrepreneurial thinking at an early age can not only be a key to meaningful career creation, but also a key to economic growth. “We’re simply the entry-level system of the pyramid of entrepreneurship support,” says Matija, “We’re creating the base. We will be sending people to Stanford, sending people to Watson, sending people to Techstars, sending people to Unreasonable someday. And that’s our role in the whole system.”

Want to bring Ustvarjalnik’s program into your community? If you’re a mentor, school administrator, or investor interested in bringing or financing a program in your community, email [email protected].

Image credit: Jurij Vizintin/Ustvarjalnik via Facebook

MIT’s Climate CoLab is looking for “high impact” ideas on how to deal with climate change through 22 contests that are now open to the public.

There’s even some semi-serious money involved for the winners. Contest topics cover a range of testy and tricky climate change issues, from adaptation, rural resilience, transportation, geoengineering and waste management to the “energy-water nexus.”

A project of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Center for Collective Intelligence, the Climate CoLab seeks to “harness the knowledge and expertise of thousands of experts and non-experts across the world to help solve this massive, complex issue.”

“As systems like Linux and Wikipedia have shown, people from around the world—connected by the Internet—can work together to solve complex problems in very new ways,” said MIT Sloan professor Thomas Malone, director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence and principal investigator for the Climate CoLab project.

Climate CoLab has a growing community of more than 30,000 members from around the world. Anyone can join the platform — even Sens. Jim Inhofe or Ted Cruz — to submit their own ideas, or comment on and show support for other proposals on the site.

The CoLab said the U.S. Carbon Price contest is returning this year, which seeks innovative policy and political mobilization strategies on how to implement a carbon price in the United States. Serving as Advisors for this contest are Former U.S. Secretary of State, George P. Shultz; former U.S. Rep. (R-SC) and current director of the Energy and Enterprise Initiative, Bob Inglis; and, former U.S. Rep. (D-IN) and current president of Resources for the Future, Phil Sharp.

A number of contests are run in collaboration with other organizations, such as the World Bank Negawatt Challenge (Urban Energy Efficiency); the MIT Sloan Latin America Office (Energy Solutions for Latin America); and the City of Somerville, Massachussetts, (Atypical Solutions for Going Carbon Neutral).

Additionally, this year the Climate CoLab team announced a new set of contests in which people can create climate action plans for major countries, and for the whole world. In these contests, members combine proposals that have been submitted in other contests and use a suite of climate modeling tools to project the real-world climate impacts of the plans they create.

All contest winners will have an opportunity to present to people who can support the implementation of their ideas, including policy makers, business executives, and NGO and foundation officials, CoLab said. They will also be invited to showcase their proposals at MIT this fall, where a $10,000 Grand Prize will be awarded.

Submissions are due before May 16, 11:59:59 PM Eastern Time.

It's kind of a climate change contest wiki, only cooler because, well, MIT.

Image: MIT Climate CoLab logo via MIT

By Paresh Shah

You know that feeling you get when you've given someone the perfect gift. You watch in anticipation as she unties the ribbon and unwraps the box. You see her face light up with joy and excitement, and you have a connection that brings you closer together. It’s these moments of connection that create harmony in the world.

Sure, the holiday season can be stressful and make you want to pull out your hair, but the giving spirit brings out the best in people — both personally and professionally. So, don’t say goodbye to those happy, connected feelings as soon as the holiday decorations come down. You can hold on to this giving spirit — and the benefits that come with it — all year long.

Creating a giving company culture is a powerful way to boost employee satisfaction, customer retention and even financial performance 365 days a year. Studies show that expressing gratitude can increase happiness by up to 25 percent, and happy employees are more productive.

A giving culture is about more than charity

Los Angeles car dealership company LAcarGUY is the epitome of a giving culture. The company gives to cystic fibrosis research, and CEO Mike Sullivan sponsors events such as the famous Manhattan Beach Pumpkin Race. When anyone in Southern California thinks about buying a car, the first company that comes to mind is LAcarGUY. After all, why not buy a car from the guy who made it possible for your child to beam with pride as he raced his decorated pumpkin?

But people such as Mike understand that a giving culture is about more than sponsoring events or donating to charity. Giving cultures foster a spirit of service, and employees volunteer, mentor and serve as leaders to create a sense of connectedness in their communities. Leaders of companies that develop this culture build a giving mindset that extends well beyond their teams to their customers and the rest of the world.

Giving is a vital part of my company, Glimpulse. My team often begins meetings by expressing gratitude, making sure to acknowledge our staff members’ contributions. Each person shares something simple yet powerful, such as “My job got easier because of…” or “Today, I’m inspired by…”

These powerful sentiments put the group in the right state of mind to work through challenges and recognize the contributions that each person is making. It’s also a great reminder that life is all about giving and that there are lots of ways to give as a company.

A powerful question is: “How can I help?” It makes us all feel good — to give and to receive.

How to build a giving culture at your company

Many leaders scoff at the idea of giving in the workplace because they think it costs too much. But a truly giving culture doesn’t necessarily have to cost anything. Rather than buying people expensive gifts or handing out lucrative bonuses, start with giving your time to other people.

Here are a few powerful ways to give back to your team without spending a dime:

1. Give your attention. As a leader, simply taking the time to really get to know your team members is one of the most powerful acts of giving. We’re all busy, but making time for your employees shows them that you care about them as individuals.

Tiane Mitchell Gordon, former senior vice president of diversity and inclusion at AOL, would devote a full hour to each of her staff members once a month to talk about whatever that person wanted to discuss — personal or professional.

2. Give insight. I have yet to meet anyone who couldn’t use a little guidance from someone more experienced or skilled, but corporate culture often makes it nearly impossible to ask for help when you need it. As a leader, you can make this easier by encouraging employees to spend time helping others through sharing their unique business and non-business talents. It’s not about taking over someone else’s job; it’s about playing together as a team.

3. Give information. Sharing information and data with employees fosters trust. It also gives employees the opportunity to contribute in ways they wouldn’t be able to without key information. Once you’ve armed employees with what they need to know, you’ll see the energy, support, and insights from everybody come together in new and exciting ways.

Contrary to popular belief, people won’t hoard and protect data; they’ll actually share and help one another. If a person in your company starts hiding data to protect his own interests, squash it right away. That’s the beginning of politics, division, and self-interests being put above team goals.

4. Give acknowledgement. Send thank-you cards, informal lunch invites, and other small tokens of appreciation to team members who go above and beyond. Don’t make it a big corporate thing, though. Keeping it personal will make it resonate more than a formal reward or bonus program. If it’s authentic, the word will get around.

5. Give enjoyment. No one wants to say it, but expecting employees to spend every second at the office working is simply unrealistic. Breaks are important, even when they happen spontaneously throughout the day. Creating a company culture where people are free to share stories, make jokes, dance, and send one another funny Vines can keep things fun and light — even in times of high stress.

Like anything else, giving requires constant practice, but building a giving culture is well worth the effort. Your employees will be more productive. And when your employees are happy and engaged, that attitude trickles down to your customers. Ultimately, a giving culture promotes prosperity for everyone involved.

Image credit: Flickr/State Farm

Paresh Shah is an experienced entrepreneur, executive, yogi, life coach, and dad of four kids. He’s the founder and CEO of Glimpulse, the Human Expression Company that creates products to challenge, inspire, and equip people to be happier, healthier, and more giving through authentic self-expression.

Consumer goods giant RB (formerly known as Reckitt Benckiser) is partnering with international children's charity, Save The Children, in an effort to help eradicate child deaths from diarrhoea in India, Pakistan and Nigeria.

 Along with the development of two innovative new hygiene and sanitation products aimed at preventing, controlling and treating the condition, RB will fund a Stop Diarrhoea programme which will fully implement the World Health Organisation and UNICEF 7-point plan to ensure comprehensive diarrhoea control.

The two new products are a multipurpose soap bar that can be used by families for cleaning and washing hands (including children from the age of one) and the second is a ‘game-changing’ toilet powder to make the use of pit latrines more hygienic. The powder keeps flies away, which reduces both faecal matter and the transmission of germs. The benefits of the toilet powder should encourage communities to make better use of the more hygienic pit latrines, as opposed to defecating in public areas.

For the first time, RB will not be making a profit from these products and the revenue will be reinvested into the Stop Diarrhoea programme and fighting diarrhoea. They will also be produced locally, encouraging entrepreneurship, in addition to reducing the overall carbon footprint and transport costs associated with their manufacture.

Rakesh Kapoor, chief executive of RB, said: “We believe that businesses like ours have a responsibility of delivering value to the society beyond the returns to the shareholders. We have used our core R&D business to develop products to help stop children dying from diarrhoea, this is the first time RB has developed and tested products specifically for consumers at the bottom of the pyramid”.

The products will be piloted in Pakistan and Nigeria with plans to roll them out into India by the end of the year.

The products have been developed through a model of ‘open innovation’ bringing together some of the world’s leading chemical scientists, enzyme specialists, fragrance experts and academics from around world, including BASF, Novozymes, Tagasako and University of Nairobi. This open and collaborative approach to innovation represents another first for RB in the development of the two new products.

 

Picture credit: CJ Clarke/Save The Children 

After visiting the Ecuadorian coast, I understand better the gravity of water scarcity. During the dry season, high-cost water is trucked in and delivered to homes and businesses. Although it is an inconvenience to people in the middle or upper class, it often means low-income people can't afford water in their homes.

This helps put the importance of water resource conservation in perspective. Levi Strauss & Co. recently announced that it saved 1 billion liters of water in four years with its Water<Less process alone. "When we first introduced the Water<Less process, a few [suppliers] picked it up," says Michael Kobori, vice president of sustainability for LS&Co. "As their success grew, other suppliers gained interest in the program and the cost saving involved. It started four years ago, and today 24 percent of all Levi’s products are made with the Water<Less process."

LS&Co. plans to amp up the program, aiming to use this process when making 80 percent of its products by 2020. Although these numbers are commendable, it is just the tip of the iceberg when considering all LS&Co. is working on, an approach that started with a realistic look at the scope of the issue at hand.

"Almost 1,000 gallons of water are used throughout the life of a pair of jeans," says Kobori. "This is certainly an impact that we are aware of and that we want to reduce. It is important for the planet and for people all around the world."

This number was calculated during LS&Co.’s recent Product Lifecycle Assessment (LCA), determining that cotton cultivation comprises 680 gallons, consumer use 230 gallons and garment finishing consuming a mere sliver. This means that most water is consumed not in LS&Co. factories, but on 100 million thirsty cotton fields across the globe and in our washing machines -- making LS&Co. water conservation initiatives a bit trickier to implement.

In rising to the challenge of reducing water consumed in cotton production, LS&Co. is working with the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), a nonprofit organization that brings together a variety of stakeholders in the cotton supply chain and takes a holistic approach to sustainable cotton production. This means that LS&Co. is collaborating with competitors to shift the global cotton market.

"Our relationship with the BCI is driven by the fact that in our lifecycle assessment, 68 percent of total water use is consumed in growing cotton," says Kobori. "We really need to focus on cotton production, but we don’t procure the fabric directly. Our relationship is often two or three steps removed."

The impact of BCI is impressive, with its data showing that farmers in China trained in BCI's water-saving techniques used 23 percent less water than nearby farms that didn't use the techniques. LS&Co. is now working with its global suppliers, with a goal of purchasing 75 percent Better Cotton by 2020. For gallons saved, this seems to be a real goldmine.

LS&Co. has also taken bold steps to shape consumer behavior. The company is urging us to change our jean-washing behavior to reduce both water and energy use. LS&Co. CEO Chip Bergh captured headlines last year after saying during an interview, “These jeans are maybe a year old and these have yet to see a washing machine.” For World Water Day, LS&Co. has launched the #WashLessPledge, urging a change in washing behavior and quantifying the impact in water and energy savings.

"The average American washes their jeans after wearing them just twice," says Kobori. "If we all wash them after 10 wearings instead, we can save as much water as the city of San Jose uses in an entire year."

Such initiatives might just have the power to shift American culture to help reduce our water consumptive ways. The LCA revealed that Americans use more energy and water to clean their jeans than people in France, the United Kingdom and China. Less frequent laundering and line-drying helps jeans last longer, which seems to fit with the Levi's brand, which Bergh described last year as "the ultimate in slow fashion" in contrast to fast fashion cycles where clothes are quickly outdated and discarded.

All LS&Co. jeans contain a care tag that states, "wash less, wash cold, line dry, donate or recycle." With this variety of mediums, consumers are getting the message loud and clear.

“It’s time to rethink auto-pilot behaviors like washing your jeans after every wear because in many cases it’s simply not necessary,” says Bergh.

Although the announcement about 1 billion liters of water saved sounds like a big number, there is much more work to do. Unfortunately jeans are a thirsty product and have a big water footprint, but LS&Co.'s efforts to taper it down are impressive.

Image credit: Pexels

Editor's Note: This post originally appeared on the IEEFA blog.

By Karl Cates and David Schlissel

The utility and fossil-fuel industries continue to spread a crude canard against the growing popularity of rooftop solar across America.

The lie goes something like this: Households and business that install photovoltaic panels are doing so at the expense of other electricity ratepayers because they are “subsidized” by those that don’t have solar panels.

The truth is this: Rooftop solar provides substantial benefits for everyone, regardless of who installs it. It helps power the homes and shops that adopt it, to be sure, but it has far-reaching benefits for other customers as well. If Jane Doe in Anywhere, USA, puts a solar panel on her roof, every other electricity ratepayer within the footprint of whatever regional grid Jane Doe is tied into will benefit as well.

Honest purveyors of utility-industry fact know this, of course, and say it quite often. So, more and more, does Wall Street. No less a titan than Sanford Burstein & Co., one of the perennially best-rated firms in Institutional Investor’s annual rankings of investment researchers, has studied the issue deeply over the past couple of years and comes away with an unequivocal take on the issue: Rooftop solar, aka photovoltaic solar, means lower peak-hour energy prices for all.

Bernstein lays out the supporting research in a reported published last month that found that the rapid increase in the amount of solar PV available on the electricity grid in California—a seven-fold expansion in only four years, from 0.7 gigawatts in 2010 to 4.8 GW in 2014— had helped reduce system loads so much that peak prices were put off until later in the day, when demand was lower. Lower demand means lower prices.

That report went on to predict that the effect will be amplified inevitably across the state as growth in solar capacity continues. This will probably reduce the value of incremental additions of solar capacity on the California grid, but that’s not the point. The overarching conclusion is that all power consumers in California benefit from lower afternoon power prices, not just those that have rooftop solar PV panels.

The February report builds on earlier important work by Burstein & Co, notably a report the firm distributed to clients in November 2013. Titled “Tilting at Windmills: How Conventional Generators are Losing the Battle with Renewables,” that research found that the rapid growth of solar and wind resources (rooftop solar included) in four of the nation’s major electricity regions had suppressed the output of conventional coal and natural-gas fired generators. That’s good news because the trend also eroded the price at which the output of those conventional generators could be sold. Solar- and wind- powered electricity, in other words, drove market prices down.

This happened—and continues to happen—because renewable resources, which have zero variable costs, have displaced higher-cost conventional generation, lowering the marginal cost of supplying power competitively in wholesale markets or in states that do not regulate the retail price of electricity.

That particular Bernstein & Co. research also noted that by suppressing the output of conventional power plants, solar and wind generation had reduced demand for coal and natural gas. The firm estimated that some 52 million megawatt-hours of coal-fired generation and 42 million megawatt-hours of gas-fired generation was displaced in 2012 alone by wind and solar resources in the four regions it studied. This translates into a reduction of “coal burn” by approximately 30 million tons and “gas burn” by approximately .07 billion cubic feet/day. Bernstein & Co. also said this trend will continue too.

But back to rooftop solar for a second. In addition to driving energy market prices down, it brings environmental benefits by reducing dependence on fossil fuels, and it acts as a hedge against fossil-fuel price spikes.

It’s in every ratepayers best interest. And that’s the truth.

Image credit: Flickr/Arlington County

Karl Cates is IEEFA’s director of media relations; David Schlissel is IEEFA’s director of resource planning analysis.