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In most regions, the two supply chains that are operating at scale are those of governments and multinational corporations. These supply chains are already designed to serve tens and hundreds of millions of people each day. Products and services exchange hands, much like a relay race, with each participant fully aware of their role. These supply chains have evolved over a significant period of time and are quite stable in their operations. A recent result of these two supply chains uniting to produce transformational impact, has been the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out. Since the pandemic broke out, in March 2020, more than 12 billion doses of COVID vaccines have been delivered worldwide. 

Surely – if 12 billion vaccine doses can be delivered in 18 months to benefit the global population, providing safely-managed toilet facilities for 3.6 billion people in the next eight years cannot be a stretch too far? 

Currently, hundreds of thousands of people die each year due to inadequate sanitation. This is preventable. Governments and large corporations working together can fix this. In a post-pandemic world, governments are motivated more than ever before to bring hygiene to the farthest reaches of their countries. If corporates can join them in this zeal, universal sanitation, i.e. Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6), can be a reality much ahead of 2030. While governments focus on social impact and worry about public funds, corporations can bring the business case for safe sanitation and unlock private capital. It can be a wonderful partnership. 

But – what do corporations achieve in ensuring everyone, everywhere can access a safe toilet? 

Ensuring resilient communities

Communities that have safe sanitation will have health, economic prosperity and resilience. Whether as partners or customers, individuals in these communities can become active participants in business growth. If half of humanity is not provided with the basic rights and tools to perform at their potential – is sustained business growth possible?

Sanitation and a healthy workforce

Large companies have a decentralized, distributed workforce contributing from multiple regions. This trend is bound to grow. The workforce will need to be further decentralized and present physically in the markets that it operates in. Increasingly, companies prefer to hire from the same communities that they are looking to serve. People from local communities can bring market intelligence quite seamlessly. As companies become more decentralized, their workforce – located in healthy, hygienic and prosperous communities – must be a durable engine of growth.

Recession-proof demand for hygiene

Sanitation is perhaps the only supply chain that meets its customers every day. People cannot ignore their various daily sanitation needs – there is no alternative option, unlike even eating and heating. Therefore, demand for sanitation products and services can be extremely recession-proof. As the product and service portfolio grows, it will require diverse products not just limited to traditional sanitation – innovative digital sensors, software, robots, and machine technology is already being used widely today. 

While governments have a strong social obligation and ambition regarding universal access to safely managed sanitation, corporations have much at stake too, if they want their supply chains to be resilient and sustainable. Ensuring sanitation systems serve all can bring not only a positive impact on health and hygiene, but also human rights, food and water security, as well as climate change mitigation. 

For this reason, we see a growing number of purpose-driven corporates in- and outside of the commercial sanitation space – including Toilet Board Coalition leading members Unilever, Kimberly-Clark and Lixil – joining hands with public sector and non-profit organizations – including USAID, Aqua for All and Asian Development Bank (ADB) – to invest in acceleration of vital sanitation solutions (such as the Lootel Cafe concept, shown above) being developed by small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). There are multibillion-dollar market opportunities awaiting businesses with solutions for the billions of people currently under-serviced.

To achieve necessary social, economic and environmental windfalls in the coming years, corporations should collaborate with governments urgently – entering ‘mission mode’ (again!) in order to save and improve lives.

Image credit: Toilet Board Coalition

Farmers in Great Britain generally supported Brexit back in 2016, a decision that may seem dodgy now as many farmers across the U.K. are now struggling in the wake of the country deciding to cut ties with the European union. But regenerative agriculture could prove to be a lifeline for more farmers, including those who grow barley, as both the government and private sector are funding such programs in a bid to resuscitate the country’s agricultural sector. Among such companies is Suntory, the Japan-based brewing and distilling company that owns brands including Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark.

Suntory recently launched an initiative focused on reducing greenhouse gasses by sourcing U.K.-grown barley that farmers will cultivate using regenerative agriculture practices. In a partnership with the U.K.’s malt supplier Muntons, the sustainability consultancy Future Food Solutions, and barley farmers in the country’s East Anglia region, Suntory says the project will being production next year with the goal to grow barley that emits half the GHG emissions over the next five years.

The worldwide food and agriculture sector is amongst the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet, responsible for between 25 and 33 percent of global emissions. To that end, food companies and investors are increasingly showing interest in regenerative agricultural practices in order to mitigate the sector’s emissions. Supporters of regenerative agriculture insist it can boost the health of ecosystems, improve soil health and even sequester carbon.

Not everyone shares this enthusiasm — some are making the argument that bold announcements about regenerative agriculture are a ruse to stall tactics that would be far more environmentally responsible. Nevertheless, during COP27, regenerative agriculture was on topic for several events and finance negotiations, as farmers, global leaders, climate change experts and business leaders all continue to search for ways in which to transform agriculture from a problem into a solution. Barley could very well be one crop that can help decrease emissions through such uses such as planting it during certain times of the year as a cover crop.

On that point, Suntory says raw ingredients comprise about 20 percent of the company’s total emissions across its entire value chain – with barley, a key ingredient in both beer and spirits, adding to that total. The company will gauge how the regenerative agriculture program will reduce emissions, improve soil health and water quality, ensure crop yields, and affect grain quality. Various brands falling under the Suntory umbrella will evaluate these crops’ contributions to Suntory’s goal to eliminate emissions across its entire value chain by mid-century.

Other brands in Suntory’s space, all of which are dependent on barley for their brews and whiskies, are dabbling in regenerative agriculture — a list that includes Diageo’s Guinness, Anheuser-Busch and Molson Coors. So drink up — at least next holiday season, as there’s a chance the moments you choose to imbibe will be a smidge more sustainable.

Image credit: Leon Kaye

A white paper put out this month by the Clean Energy Council of Australia is calling for a “certificate of origin” on renewable energy components such as wind turbines, solar panels and batteries while exposing evidence that the industry is riddled with forced labor. While modern-day slavery is an ongoing problem across supply chains in a wide variety of industries, the ramp-up in renewables needed to reduce emissions worldwide threatens to make it worse. What’s more, while decarbonization is being hailed as a form of environmental justice, that can hardly be the case if the transition is built by people in forced labor.

The report, Addressing Modern Slavery in the Clean Energy Sector – which was produced in conjunction with the law firm Norton Rose Fulbright – focuses on Australia’s obligation to transition responsibly, but its lessons can still be applied worldwide. Australia has more than doubled its peak renewables output versus fossil fuel sources in the past five years and is currently on track to achieve a predominantly renewable grid by 2030. With much of the world rushing to convert as well, doing so demands a concerted action to protect vulnerable populations around the world. As the report points out, “The undisputed benefits of clean energy when it comes to climate change does not absolve the industry of its impacts in other areas.”

Modern day slavery is defined by the report as: “any situations of exploitation where a person cannot refuse or leave work because of threats, violence, coercion, abuse of power or deception.” Australia’s Modern Slavery Act includes traditional servitude and slavery as well as “the worst forms of child labor, forced labor, human trafficking, debt bondage, slavery-like practices, forced marriage and deceptive recruiting for labor or services” in its definition and requires mandatory reporting and mitigation of suspected slavery in the supply chain by businesses bringing in over $100 million annually. However, the system is hardly doing all that it could considering the lax compliance and lack of financial consequences — hence the need for oversight through a labeling or certification program.

According to the Clean Energy Council, there are three major areas of concern where accusations of modern-day slavery within the global renewables industry's supply chain appear to be well-founded: the production of polysilicon and solar panels in Xinjiang, China, balsa wood harvesting in Ecuador and cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Forty to 45 percent of solar grade polysilicon comes out of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China, where 2.6 million people who belong to ethnic minority groups in the area face work programs as a part of the government’s re-education and internment, according to allegations by non-governmental organizations. The Chinese government has not allowed independent audits or investigations into the accusations but, due to the proclivity of polysilicon from the Uyghur region, the report hypothesizes that it is highly likely that forced labor will enter the supply chain in Australia via solar panels. Realistically, the same can be said for every country that is currently working on a transition to renewables.

Balsa wood from the Ecuadorian Amazon, which is used in wind turbines, is another area of concern. The Clean Energy Council reports that laborers have been working under very poor conditions, with a portion of their pay coming in the form of drugs or alcohol instead of cash. And, as deforestation worsens, instances of worker exploitation, coercion and modern-day slavery increase.

Lithium-ion batteries are an integral part of the renewables transition and cobalt is an integral part of those batteries. The DRC supplies 70 percent of the world’s cobalt, 15 to 30 percent of which come from the small-scale mines that employ roughly 250,000 people, 35,000 of whom are children as young as seven. They earn less than $2 per day while working in hazardous conditions, without the proper protective gear, with many of the workers meeting the definition of modern slaves.

The scale at which the energy transition is occurring threatens to increase incidences of modern slavery in certain regions. As such, the report recommends certifications at each level of the supply chain. Such oversight would aid in limiting the sale of components made through forced labor, thus forcing suppliers to fix their labor practices or risk losing markets while protecting countries from importing goods produced by slave labor. “We need to see industry, government, the financial sector and civil society working together to provide access to competitively costed, slavery-free renewable energy,” Dr. James Cockayne, the anti-slavery commissioner at Norton Rose Fulbright, said in the Guardian. “If we don’t, modern slavery risks significantly complicating the just transition to a decarbonized economy.”

Image credit: Filipe Resmini via Unsplash

The anti-ESG movement and the “woke capitalism” canard has many U.S. political observers scratching their heads. Instead of the traditional Republican Party support for big business, a growing number of Republican office holders are leveraging their legislative power against corporate efforts to align with ESG (environmental, social and governance) principles. Nevertheless, the pieces of the puzzle are beginning to come together.

The usual suspects: Fossil energy lobbyists

The anti-ESG movement focuses primarily, though not exclusively, on stemming the flow of investor dollars to the renewable firms that that are involved in clean energy and related fields. It’s no surprise, then, to find the Heartland Institute front and center in the anti-ESG movement, which it also calls “anti-woke.” The organization is well known for developing media and legislative playbooks in support of the fossil energy and tobacco industries. The organization is apparently applying the same methodology to stem the flow of investment dollars to renewable energy.

Last June, Heartland catalogued its anti-ESG playbook in a long-form article under the title, “Woke Investing Gets Well-Deserved Pushback.”

“The Heartland Institute has written extensively and testified about the dangers of government agencies mandating banks, companies, and portfolio funds adopt and report on Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards,” noted the article’s author, H. Sterling Burnett.

“Heartland has also provided detailed critiques of efforts by a cabal of large, multinational banks and gigantic financial companies to force every business to adopt ESG goals,” Burnett continued.

The use of the word “cabal” is not a one-off. Burnett continues to deploy coded words that evoke the anti-Jewish canard of an all-powerful financial cult that pulls the strings of the global economy.

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“The woke, billionaire corporate elites who run these corporations do this by threatening to withdraw banking or financial services or by applying pressure through their control over large amounts of a company’s stock,” he added.

Burnett also emphasized that Heartland can take partial credit for the growing number of states that have proposed or enacted anti-ESG legislation. “In a joint effort with likeminded nonprofit organizations, The Heartland Institute’s government relations professionals have pushed back against this by working with legislators in various states to shape and adopt model legislation blocking use of ESG scoring in deciding whether to offer banking and investment services. These efforts have borne fruit,” he wrote.

The other usual suspects: Trump supporters

It’s also no surprise to find investor, former Facebook board member and political kingmaker Peter Thiel involved in the anti-ESG movement. He was instrumental in former U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign for office. He also publicly backed two candidates for U.S. Senate this year, both of whom deployed anti-ESG rhetoric during their campaigns. 

In addition, Thiel has launched a new financial venture that is apparently aimed at providing an outlet for anti-ESG investors.

Reporters Liz Hoffman and Charley Grant picked up that thread for the Wall Street Journal last May in an article titled, “Woke, Inc.’ Author’s Startup to Take On BlackRock” and subtitled, “Backed by Peter Thiel and Bill Ackman, Vivek Ramaswamy’s Strive will tell CEOs to stay out of politics.” 

“An upstart financial firm backed by Peter Thiel and Bill Ackman has a message for American corporations: Focus on making money, not taking stands,” they observed. “Mr. Thiel invested both personally and through his Founders Fund, joined by Palantir Technologies Inc.”

“Vivek Ramaswamy, who made his fortune in pharmaceutical startups before writing a book last year called ‘Woke, Inc.,’ says he has raised $20 million to start a fund manager that would urge companies not to wade into hot-button social or environmental issues,” they added. 

The idea seems to be catching on. Last August, reporters Katherine Greifeld and Elaine Chaim of Bloomberg noted that the firm filed for four more equity ETFs. “The filings land just two weeks after the Strive US Energy ETF (ticker DRLL) launched, which has already accumulated nearly $250 million in assets,” they wrote.

The anti-ESG movement embraces Elon Musk and the religious right

Another leading element in the anti-ESG movement that has recently come to light is the nonprofit organization State Financial Officers Foundation. The group reportedly claims that it is not involved in advocating for elected officials. However, its financial “team” is staffed exclusively with Republicans, many of whom hold elected office, according to research by David Armiak of the Center for Media and Democracy. At least four members of the group are elected officials in Texas, West Virginia, Arizona and Kentucky who are known for promoting anti-ESG policies.

Nonpartisan or not, the Foundation has advocated on behalf of the fossil energy industry, as expressed in a public letter to President Joe Biden last April. It has also publicly aligned itself with high-profile personalities and organizations in the anti-ESG movement. 

On Tuesday, for example, the organization’s home page featured a tweet from newly minted Twitter owner Elon Musk that read, “ESG is the devil.” The brief message is of a piece with Musk’s earlier anti-ESG pronouncements, as reported by the New York Times.

The day before that, the Foundation's home page highlighted a tweet from the Washington Stand, a publication of the Family Research Council, an evangelical activist group. The tweet linked to an unattributed commentary that described a Foundation conference in November, in which “conservative leaders made it clear that, moving forward, they plan to be woke capital’s worst nightmare,” the Family Research Council wrote.

As with other anti-ESG manifests, the piece leveraged anti-Jewish sentiment by repeatedly focusing attention on the financial firm BlackRock and its Jewish CEO.

Advertisers are already bailing from Twitter on account of Musk’s tolerance for hate speech on his platform. Issues related to his other business ventures may also come into play. Now that the anti-ESG movement has embraced his rhetoric, the likelihood of additional advertisers fleeing from Twitter has grown.

As for the State Financial Officers Foundation, its embrace of Musk’s “free speech” policy should be a red flag to any remaining corporate sponsors and donors that continue to support the organization, and a clear signal that business leaders can no longer count on the safe haven of Republican policy-making to support their interests. 

Image credit: Chenyu Guan via Unsplash

Sustainability is defined across three dimensions: social, economic and environmental. As businesses continue to adapt their operational models for post-pandemic planning, environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives are becoming more important for present and future employees, stakeholders and customers. 

But what does this mean, exactly?

ESG is a wide-ranging topic, and in the information technology field, it encompasses everything from the employee experience to ethical IT. For the purpose of this piece, let’s focus on the concept of sustainability. When we talk about tech, we’re thinking about hardware — the personal and enterprise devices that are omnipresent in our daily lives — and the software that runs behind the scenes to keep all those devices from becoming expensive paperweights.

First and foremost, organizations must talk about change alongside practicable efforts to enact it — and validate and ensure accountability for those efforts by measuring them against standards like the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and CDP's disclosure standards. Today’s customers want to see that businesses are doing what they say they’re doing — and they’re putting their decision-making muscle behind those desires. 

PwC research found that 79 percent of consumers are more likely to buy from a company that stands up for ESG practices, and 84 percent of workers are more likely to work for those companies.

At our annual BMC Exchange customer event, I recently moderated a panel of BMC decision-makers in a session about how to practice and plan for ESG within the enterprise. Here are some of the takeaways from that discussion.

Security and governance

Security and governance go hand in hand, and they’re bleeding into societal concerns because breaches go beyond the business to also affect the individual consumer. Organizations can face significant fines, lose customers’ confidence, or ruin their brand if they have a security breach that exposes corporate and customer information. 

And that security lapse extends to customers who can then face phishing attempts, credit fraud, stolen credentials, identify theft and more. Part of ensuring a secure environment across a business and for everyone the business touches means putting secure practices around governance, and implementing real-time, ongoing vulnerability detection solutions. These measures create the assurance (never a guarantee!) that companies are intent on protecting their customers and communities.

Reducing carbon footprint

Another area where employees, customers and stakeholders are weighing their ESG business considerations is whether, and how, the companies they engage with are actively working to reduce their carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions. They want to know that companies are planning for the future state of the world beyond their business.

Take, for example, today’s data centers — they have servers running, HVAC systems to keep them cool and significant electricity requirements, and all of these things generate carbon emissions. By adding sensors and monitoring solutions to that environment, organizations can monitor and measure emissions, and analyze that data to better optimize their infrastructure and reduce its footprint.

Migrating to the cloud, or scaling or rightsizing that environment, is a solid first step but only part of the equation. Businesses can also expand the scope of inquiry to include transportation, supply chain and other partners — and focus on collecting and analyzing those complex data streams. That’s where automated solutions come in handy to orchestrate data pipelines, ingest the data, and correlate, optimize and understand it. 

In doing so, organizations can leverage those insights to guide decision-making on smarter infrastructure and better business processes that reduce greenhouse gases. Once the necessary steps are identified, it also helps to have a methodology in place to forecast the carbon footprint going forward over the next five to 10 years and beyond.

Ethical IT and the circular economy

In the world of hardware — whether you build it, sell it or use it — being mindful of its entire lifecycle and making ethical decisions at every step has an impact. Some of the ways every business can support ethical IT include selecting products that are designed with recycled or ocean-bound plastics, maximizing the product's working life, and recycling and upcycling devices at end of life to keep them out of landfills when they’re replaced. 

As a personal consumer, keep those same considerations front of mind. According to a recent study by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and the WEEE Forum, 5.3 billion of the 16 billion mobile phones possessed worldwide will become waste in 2022. If stacked one on top of the other, they’d stretch one-eighth of the way to the moon.

You can help by making responsible decisions at the point of purchase and extending the life of your devices whenever possible. Replace the battery, and move all those images to the cloud or delete unused apps to get back some of your storage space before you go buy another phone. 

And when you do replace your phone, don’t put the old one in a drawer or randomly throw it away. Repurpose it with organizations like Medic Mobile, the 911 Cell Phone Bank, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, DV Safe Phone or Community Calling that deploy devices into communities that need them. If you’re planning to toss it, look for a licensed recycler that will ethically, responsibly dispose of both the device and its toxic components that can contaminate the earth, groundwater and waterways — and endanger flora, fauna and people. 

Build better code

In the area of software development, sustainability factors into eco-design principles, such as leveraging modern agile software methodologies and emphasizing modular code and code reuse for cloud and software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings. Software ownership, which includes development, operation and maintenance costs, also has opportunities for improvement through automation. Automating testing, maintenance and continuous deployment processes can help organizations achieve better sustainability by reducing energy consumption. 

For web usage, organizations can consider the data load of the web pages they create to improve the energy consumption involved in the storage of hosting those pages — and for users to access them. Focus on experiences that provide value for end users and the environment. 

According to the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer, 58 percent of respondents will buy or advocate for brands based on their beliefs and values, and 60 percent will use that criteria when choosing an employer. With ESG a growing part of a global belief and value system, it’s no longer a nice to have; it’s now a must-have.

Watch the full BMC Exchange 2022 session here. 

This article series is sponsored by BMC Software and produced by the TriplePundit editorial team. 

Image credit: Copernico/Unsplash 

Last spring, a brief spate of headlines covered the firing of Justin Zhu. He was terminated as the CEO of Iterable, a Silicon Valley startup that at one point was valued at $2 billion. The reason? At the time, Zhu said he was dismissed for “micro-dosing” on LSD during a 2019 meeting with investors.

The circumstances surrounding the firing certainly came across as odd, given the fact that taking hits of hallucinogenic drugs such as mushrooms and LSD has long been accepted as being part of Silicon Valley culture given the pressures that come with working in the tech sector. Apple’s legendary co-founder, Steve Jobs, after all, was hardly shy about taking LSD. Bill Gates has hinted that he indulged in his youth, too. No one’s endorsing dropping acid or tripping on mushrooms while on the job, but when or why is it all right for some execs and not for others?

A year and a half later, Zhu is hitting back. In a lawsuit filed against his former company and its venture capital backers, Zhu claims the real reason for his sudden firing was because of racial discrimination due to his East Asian background.

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The timing of Zhu’s firing occurred while the U.S. was having another reckoning over race relations, this time after the horrific murders of several Asian American women in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Zhu was among the organizers of Stand With Asian Americans, a coalition that at the time was committing $10 million to fight violence and racial discrimination against Asian American people.

Zhu claimed it was that public stand that contributed to his firing. As detailed in the case filed with the Superior Court of the state of California in San Francisco, here’s what Zhu said happened after Iterable scored $60 million in a Series D funding round during a discussion with two of the companies’ investors, Murat Bicer and Shah Shardul:

"Justin shared the story of how, pre-series A, an Asian growth investor advised him that when the company gets bigger, that success will require hiring a white CEO because that’s what it takes to succeed in America. Justin suggested that this was the investors’ plan.

"The investors did not deny the accusation. Instead they affirmed that they wanted to replace Justin as CEO. They stated that if he cared about Asian causes, he could invest in them, not serve the goal by being a role model as CEO. Shardul pointed to the statement by a potential investor who said that Justin did not look like an enterprise CEO. The potential investor stated that the company’s Caucasian COO looked more like a CEO than Justin did.

"Shardul and Murat stated that Justin would always be the founder; that if one of Justin’s values is humility, he should be humble and say he may not be the best for CEO. Justin responded that the company was thriving under his leadership, and that to achieve the company’s vision, he would need to be in the final decision-making position. The conversation became tense. The investors then sought an independent board member and Justin would search for a CRO.

"After the dinner, the investors pushed for a Caucasian man to be the independent board member. Shardul pressed Justin strongly for a CRO candidate who was Caucasian. Justin met with the candidate for hours in Denver, but concluded that she did not fit the company’s values, and he conveyed this to Shardul during their next one-on-one meeting."

Granted, this is Zhu’s side of the story. However, he also claims that frank discussions about his mental health, including how the eight years of leading the company had taken a toll on him, also came into conversation as his eventual termination drew closer. At one point, Zhu resisted investors’ calls to have him demoted as Iterable’s chief technology officer.

Despite his role in securing close to $200 million in additional funding by April 21, Zhu claimed that continued discussions about his mental health and the challenges he faced as an Asian American further drove a wedge between the company’s co-founder and its investors. Meanwhile, Zhu was set to become the subject of a news story with Bloomberg, a profile that would have focused on his experiences with racial discrimination as an Asian American founder and executive, and why his role as a CEO was important to the wider Asian American community — topics that “further concerned” his colleagues. 

The confluence of the admissions about taking LSD, the Bloomberg story and his claims about racial discrimination led to Zhu's firing in April 2021 — and the company's immediate denial of any access to his company calendar, email and accounts including Slack, he said.

Zhu’s story could resonate with many Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Currently, about 9 percent of the U.S. workforce identifies as part of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community — a figure that rises to 13 percent when evaluating white-collar jobs. However, less than 6 percent of senior executives at America’s largest companies are Asian American — suggesting that many AAPI employees frequently find themselves overlooked come promotion time.

If the lawsuit, which was only filed this week, doesn’t settle and makes it to court, this case and the press surrounding it will certainly touch upon many challenges in the workplace: if recreational drug use, at even a micro-dosing level, is acceptable at all in the office, and why it’s all right for some to imbibe but not others; how far discussions about mental health should go in the workplace; and the ongoing discussion about race, diversity and fair opportunities for promotions within corporate America.

Image credit: Adobe Stock/Alexy

Governments and companies continue to scramble as they insist they are committed to decarbonization in the wake of yet another gathering that resulted in a lackluster COP27. True, after Egypt there are renewed pledges to fund pay for “loss and damage” and climate adaptation projects for poorer nations that need them badly. At the same time, there’s no real agreement on how to pursue decarbonization: Few political leaders seek a bold shift away from fossil fuels, and billions of dollars are needed if clean energy projects can scale up worldwide.

While we’re on the topic of energy, it’s important to remember that many estimates suggest that the building sector is responsible for about 40 percent of the world’s emissions. About 70 percent of those emissions are generated from daily operations; the other 30-odd percent comes from the actual construction of the world’s buildings from start to finish.

Better design would help reduce the collective emissions of offices and homes worldwide. After all, a building designed to be sustainable and efficient from day one will emit less carbon during its construction and later, its entire lifespan. And that is where software can come in, as the  technologies and materials that can maximize a building project’s efficiency already exist.

To learn more about how better design and the most advanced software can lend an assist to the global construction sector, TriplePundit recently caught up with Rodrigo Fernandes, who out of his Lisbon office heads sustainability strategy, initiatives and partnerships at Bentley Systems, an infrastructure software company based in Pennsylvania. 

During the Bentley’s recent Year in Infrastructure Conference, held in-person and virtually in London, Fernandes offered his perspective on how better and design and software can have a leading role in taking on the world’s most pressing sustainability problems.

In layperson’s terms, think of Bentley’s software packages in part as a virtual reality tool for the building and construction sector. Though virtual reality and the “metaverse” have been long touted for their consumer and entertainment benefits — such as gaming, obviously, as well as for visualizing apparel and household goods — Bentley has seized upon this technology’s capabilities and made it an indispensable tool to manage a building project’s design, construction and operations workflows.

With the global building industry’s carbon footprint in mind, Fernandes made the case for how engineering and construction firms can be part of global decarbonization efforts. “You can start to take on carbon efficiency in the earliest stages of planning. The earlier you start, the more you can plan and reduce a project’s carbon impact,” he said.

When it comes to a construction project’s sustainability performance, that mindset has to kick in at the very beginning — there’s no winging it or slapping on some recycled tiles or carpeting once the project has launched. “If you build something now, you’ll have that building for about 60 years,” noted Fernandes. “The problem now is that the infrastructure we are building will long stay with us — so we need to plan beforehand, as the company will spend a huge amount of energy and carbon and steel; resources that are scarce. The later you start [focusing on sustainability], the less impact your project has.”

The right investment in software can help a project team be more proactive, which in the end can save money, materials and in the end, boost decarbonization efforts through energy efficiency and reduced emissions. “We know we spend a lot of energy and resources generating concrete, cement and steel; we can’t avoid using them as we need them to build the things today,” continued Fernandes, “but you can make them more efficient on an operational level. Your architects and engineers should understand not only the cost, but what is the carbon footprint of the infrastructure? What elements of design can they use to reduce CO2 from minimizing the impact of steel and cement?”

A demo of Bentley’s suite of products, including new software packages that Bentley released earlier this month, offered 3p an idea of how such technology can be indispensable to engineering and construction companies. Think of the software as combining the best in CAD design, modeling software and MRI technology, which along with virtual reality capabilities allows a project team to troubleshoot problems that can’t be seen by the naked eye. Better yet, a remote team can view, analyze and suggest solutions without being onsite.

Those capabilities lead to another benefit of harnessing software packages like that of Bentley’s — the ability to inspect buildings and large infrastructure projects long after they are completed, and be done remotely, more frequently and safely. Take, for example, what’s needed to inspect the underside of a bridge. Instead of dispatching a team that needs to be suspended from ropes and harnesses, an inspection crew can take a look at that section of the bridge using Bentley’s software from a remote location, and wait to send a group of workers under that same bridge until the actual repair needs to be done. The result is not only less emissions from fewer live visits to that bridge, but there’s increased safety, too — you’re not sending people into a risky or dangerous work environment until it’s absolutely necessary.

With the proper tools, the global engineering and construction sector is in a unique position: It can do its part to tackle decarbonization now while preparing the world for the climate adaptation needs for tomorrow. As Fernandes explained, “Your architects and engineers should understand not only the cost of these materials, but what is the carbon footprint of this infrastructure project?”

Further, software tools like that of Bentley also allow a project team to ask the best possible questions, such as, in Fernandes’ words, “Can I use design to reduce CO2 to reduce the impact of steel and cement?”

Bottom line, there’s little that can be done about the emissions that is already hovering above us in the atmosphere. But that doesn’t mean engineering and construction firms can’t start their push toward decarbonization now. The tools are at hand to ensure the most efficient use of building materials and to design spaces that have minimal impact on the planet from day one.  “Even if you do all of that — we’ll still have more floods, heat waves, etc., because the GHG emissions will stay in our atmosphere for many years. But at the same time, [Bentley’s software] can help us to survive and adapt,” said Fernandes as he wrapped up the interview with 3p.

Image credit: Brandon Lee via Unsplash

As the planet appears ready to blaze past the original 1.5 degrees Celsius cap on temperature rise set by the Paris Climate Agreement, the unthinkable is being considered — solar bioengineering. Otherwise known as dimming the sun, it’s an insane prospect with unknown and potentially devastating ramifications, yet the likelihood that such technology will be utilized in the coming decades is rising right along with global temperatures. Of course, such a drastic measure should be both unnecessary and completely preventable through transitions to renewable energy as well as by implementing immediate degrowth in the Global North. Instead, climate denial continues as profit margins and excessive lifestyles refuse to give way, regardless of the consequences.

By continuing down this path of business-as-usual those in power are risking not only the ability of the planet to support future business, but perhaps even its ability to support life itself.

While energy transitions are happening, they aren’t happening fast enough. And while degrowth may be getting more attention amongst policymakers, billionaires like Bill Gates appear poised to do whatever they can to keep consumers ravenous for high-profit goods regardless of the corresponding environmental costs. As such, the New Yorker reported that NASA scientist James Hansen, often referred to as “the Paul Revere of global warming,” has predicted that Earth will break the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit much sooner than 2030. The publication quoted him as saying, “Even a little futz of an El Niño — like the tropical warming in 2018-19, which barely qualified as an El Niño — should be sufficient for record global temperature. A classical, strong El Niño in 2023-24 could push global temperature to about +1.5°C.” 

The consequences are hardly arbitrary. At 1.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, we are already seeing death and destruction as islands sink, superstorms and extreme hurricanes cause massive flooding in some areas while droughts dry up whole bodies of water in others, and the forests we desperately need for oxygen and carbon sequestration burn to the ground. As we leap over 1.5 degrees, the repercussions become exponentially worse. Not only will entire island systems be swept underwater by rising sea levels, but mainland coastal areas will flood as well, affecting between 4.2 million and 13.1 million people in the U.S. alone. Storms will continue to worsen. Heat waves will continue to increase along with droughts. And coral reefs will disappear altogether — along with the life they sustain.

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a marine biologist with the University of Queensland, is quoted in NPR as saying: "Something around 50 percent of the shallow water corals were killed literally over a couple of months, in some cases over a couple of weeks. If you extend that out into the future, we'll get to a point where the damage overwhelms the ability of corals to bounce back." He likened the present situation to staring down the barrel of a gun. In fact, 70 to 90 percent of the world's coral reefs are expected to die off with a 1.5-degrees Celsius increase in global temperatures, while a 2-degree rise could kill more than 99 percent of them.

It’s under these circumstances that dimming the sun is beginning to look like a terrifying inevitability — something we have to do out of desperation as the planet becomes uninhabitable. However, pinning the world’s last hopes on solar bioengineering instead of structural change demonstrates not just a severe lack of foresight and planning, but more than likely, a ploy by billionaires and the fossil fuel industry to continue raking in the profits hand over fist while avoiding the full costs of the emissions that make them that money.

“In a few years, people like the Koch family will jump on solar dimming. They’ll say, ‘Listen, we don’t have to reduce emissions so brutally and so quickly, because we have a Plan B for the next thirty or forty years.’ It’s the same as climate denial, in that it helps people have doubts,” political scientist Frank Biermann, who was one of the original “senior scholars” to sign a letter demanding the use of such technology be prohibited, told the New Yorker.

So, what exactly is it? Solar bioengineering is essentially shooting sulfur, or a similar element, into the stratosphere in order to reflect some of the sun’s heat away from the Earth. In principle, this should cool the planet in the same way that a major volcanic eruption does. But such eruptions can also have dire consequences. The “year without a summer” came after Mount Tambora blew in 1815, causing widespread hunger in the northern hemisphere. Even worse, an eruption in Iceland in the year 536 resulted in 18 months of darkness and a famine that lasted for years.

Indeed, spraying our skies with sulfur could interrupt photosynthesis and cause unfathomable starvation, potentially leading to far more deaths than is expected from climate change. It’s also unpredictable and could do good in some areas while wreaking havoc in others, which could lead to skirmishes around the globe if one country’s solar bioengineering hurts another. There is concern that the ozone layer could be damaged as well. Indeed, untold consequences abound. Theoretically, blotting out the sun could even cause severe harm to human health in the form of lost Vitamin D. 

On the other hand, it’s cheap.

Cheaper than switching to renewables. Cheaper than degrowth. Cheaper than lost profits. Cheaper than billionaires and the fossil fuel industry paying the full cost of doing business. Ultimately, dimming the sun is likely to be sold to us as the only solution to a problem that they created and continue to profit from.

Image credit: Jongsun Lee via Unsplash

Investors who support the environmental, social and governance (ESG) business model got some good news last week when the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued a new rule that loosens restrictions on ESG investing. The federal-level support is a welcome contrast to state-based efforts aimed at thwarting climate action and obstructing corporate social responsibility goals.

Out with the old ESG rules…

The restrictions were imposed during the Donald Trump administration. The DOL announced the new rule in a press release last week. 

“After extensive consultations and feedback from a wide range of stakeholders, the department concluded that two rules issued in 2020 during the prior administration unnecessarily restrained plan fiduciaries’ ability to weigh environmental, social and governance factors when choosing investments, even when those factors would benefit plan participants financially,” the agency explained.

The two rules in question were issued on November 13 and December 16 of 2020, after former President Trump lost his bid for re-election. 

The 2020 rules limited the ability of firms to offer investment products based on “goals and purported benefits” unless they are related to financial performance.

That may seem to make common sense, but the straight-line connection to financial factors is out of step with the holistic approach that underpins ESG investing and the corporate social responsibility movement.

…back to the older ESG rules

The 2020 rules were also out of step with precedents established under the 1974 Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), which regulates private pension plans. The 2020 rules satisfied policymakers and their allies within the Trump administration, but other stakeholders objected strenuously to the restrictions.

The opponents included “asset managers, labor organizations, corporate America, consumer groups, service providers, workers and investment advisers,” as noted by the DOL.

“These stakeholders questioned whether the 2020 rules properly reflected the scope of fiduciaries' duties under ERISA to act prudently and solely in the interest of plan participants and beneficiaries,” the DOL observed. The agency agreed with the stakeholders, who argued that the 2020 rules were inconsistent with DOL guidance going back to the 1980s.

“In its interpretive guidance during this [40-year] period, the Department has consistently recognized that ERISA does not prohibit fiduciaries from making investment decisions that reflect ESG considerations, depending on the circumstances,” the agency explained.

The new rule represents a return to precedents established under ERISA. Published in the Federal Register under the title, “Prudence and Loyalty in Selecting Plan Investments and Exercising Shareholder Rights,” the new rule will take effect 60 days after publication.

“The final rule retains the core principle that the duties of prudence and loyalty require ERISA plan fiduciaries to focus on relevant risk-return factors and not subordinate the interests of participants and beneficiaries (such as by sacrificing investment returns or taking on additional investment risk) to objectives unrelated to the provision of benefits under the plan,” the DOL explained.

Regarding climate change, the new rule clarifies that fiduciaries are permitted to take into account “the economic effects of climate change and other environmental, social, or governance factors,” as part of a risk and return analysis (page 22).

…and, in with science

The DOL also took note of charges that the 2020 rule-making process was rushed, and that it “failed to adequately consider and address evidence submitted by public commenters on how ESG considerations can improve investment value and long-term investment returns for retirement investors.”

The rush to implement poorly informed policies and the failure to consider facts and evidence have become a hallmark of the Republican party’s governance. The 2020 rules were not the only example of fact-free policy making during the Trump administration, but they were a particularly egregious example. Even as leading businesses began to embrace evidence-based decarbonization strategies like the Science-Based Targets initiative, the former president and his administration continued to foster misdirection on climate policy.

The new rule is a more accurate reflection of profit-making based on observable facts and professional expertise.

“Climate change and other environmental, social and governance factors can be useful for plan investors as they make decisions about how to best grow and protect the retirement savings of America’s workers,” explained Lisa M. Gomez, the Assistant Secretary for Employee Benefits Security.

“The rule announced today will make workers’ retirement savings and pensions more resilient by removing needless barriers, and ending the chilling effect created by the prior administration on considering environmental, social and governance factors in investments,” Gomez added.

Next steps for ESG investing

By spelling out the permissibility of climate change and other ESG factors, the new rule should help relieve some of the pressure on financial institutions being imposed by state-based policymakers who are pursuing a vendetta against “woke” businesses.

Still, the anti-ESG movement among Republican office holders and candidates shows no sign of slowing down. To date, at least 17 states have imposed or are considering laws that limit the ability of businesses to consider ESG factors.

The business community can help push back against the anti-ESG movement by withdrawing financial support from Republican candidates for office that express anti-ESG views. However, they also need to dig deeper and stop supporting organizations that are administered partly or fully by partisan Republican office holders.

The nonprofit organization State Financial Officers Foundation is one example. Earlier this month, David Armiak of the Center for Media and Democracy reported that “every single financial officer on the ‘team’ is Republican, mostly serving in elected positions,” even though the organization claims that it is “not involved in issue advocacy on behalf of elected officials.”

That description is supported by other news outlets. For example, in an article dated September 16, 2022, reporters Gina Gambetta and Dominic Webb of Responsible Investor noted that members of the group include financial officials in Texas, West Virginia, Arizona and Kentucky.

“All four have been outspoken in their criticisms of ESG,” they observed, adding that the Foundation “has taken a strong stance against ESG on social media and appears to be supporting the pushback against it.”

The Foundation itself makes no secret of its anti-ESG stance. As of this writing, its website features a tweet purported to be from an account run by The Washington Stand, a publication of the ultra-conservative Family Research Council. The tweet links to an article titled, “Anti-Woke State Treasurers Ride Their Own Red Wave.” 

“Starting in 2024, Republicans will control double the number of state treasuries as Democrats,” the tweet begins, adding: “And at  @SFOF_ conference last week, conservative leaders made it clear that moving forward, they plan to be woke capital’s worst nightmare.”

Until recently, the Foundation's website listed sponsors and “friends of sponsors,” including Fidelity Investments, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase, among others. As Gambetta and Webb reported, at least two other companies have cut ties. Those remaining need to exercise their pro-ESG muscles and follow suit.

Image credit: Adam Śmigielski via Unsplash

America is putting its money where its good intentions are when it comes to fighting the climate crisis. With the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. makes the single largest climate investment in the nation’s history. The legislation is expected to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the clean technology sector. California has pledged tens of billions of dollars in budget money for climate proposals as well. Collective efforts are instrumental to combatting this crisis, and businesses that commit to climate-change fighting strategies will become the most significant agents of change for the planet’s future. Utilized to its fullest potential, intelligent automation (IA) could make all the difference.

Net-zero emissions is considered critical to insulating the world against the worst effects of climate change. If achieved, it means that human CO2 emissions will no longer exceed the amount of CO2 we remove from the earth’s atmosphere. Its importance has led to governments and corporations around the world pledging to meet such targets by 2050. But are net-zero emissions possible by 2050? Meeting this goal is not just a pipe dream, but it requires substantial change, determination and the right technology 

Digital solutions such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have the potential to accelerate decarbonization efforts and reduce emissions by up to 20 percent. If scaled across industries, digital solutions could be most effective at reducing emissions in the three highest emitting sectors – energy, materials and mobility. 

But to make this possibility a reality, high-emitting industry sectors must rethink their strategies to leverage efficiency, circularity and sustainability.

Predictions and production 

Digital solutions can enable the energy sector to reduce carbon-intensive operations and, subsequently, emissions by 8 percent, according to estimates from the World Economic Forum (WEF). To successfully transition to more renewable energy sources, utilities suppliers need to develop better methods for estimating how much energy is required, allowing them to make better use of resources and fill any gaps with renewables. Machine learning can anticipate energy outputs and demands through its data analysis. These forecasts can then help industries effectively implement climate change strategies while reducing inefficiencies and carbon emissions. 

Researchers from the Department of Energy (DOE) are relying on ML as a tool to search for materials that can be used as solar absorbers. They’re studying a class of material called halide perovskites which has shown promising results in converting sunlight to electricity.  According to a DOE report, solar energy could power 40 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2035.

The benefits of ML algorithms extend beyond the utilities sector and can be used in any business, across industry verticals. As a result, more accurate supply and demand forecasting contributes to drastic cuts in manufacturing and transportation waste through improved understanding of what’s needed, and when. Targeted suggestions for low-carbon items can also drive ecologically responsible purchases by helping to optimize power usage and avoid unnecessary storage and waste.

Enhance the algorithm

Intelligent automation solutions can also improve sustainability in vital industries, such as manufacturing, infrastructure and data centers. Organizations can reduce emissions by employing data automation and modeling to digitize and analyze processes, and develop predictive maintenance and monitoring capabilities. 

Although IA algorithms that anticipate energy consumption already exist, there is room for improvement to ensure they can keep up with the multiple sources of energy production today and the need to meet new and evolving regulatory and measurement requirements. Complex algorithmic features also need fine-tuning to be able to react to changing trends or behaviors, and to expand beyond the industrial level to cater to family and individual demands. 

One-stop digital solutions such as IA not only boost efficiency and production, but they also enable the development of new procedures that reduce power consumption and harmful emissions. 

AI-powered waste reduction

Artificial intelligence has the power to support climate action by reducing waste. The problem is that even among the many firms that utilize a high level of automation, a fragmented approach to AI is often adopted. This is inefficient, stifles transformation, wastes valuable time and racks up “technical debt” (referring to the costs that arise from organizational reworks needed due to sub-optimal solutions being originally chosen for fast, short-term results). 

Organizations need to reimagine their existing strategies and use varied yet complementary technologies that work together, rather than in isolation, to maximize efficiency and reduce waste. AI-managed energy systems can then identify the appropriate amount of energy consumption needed at any given time. These insights support the fight against climate change by minimizing energy waste, simplifying processes and maximizing productivity by creating efficient and unified workflows.

Innovation driven climate action

AI-enhanced digital solutions can assist with the development of tools that will help individuals and businesses understand their carbon footprint and outline steps to decrease it. For example, the World Bee Project harnesses the power of technology and science to enhance the wellbeing of bees and other pollinators. The collective effort has created the world's first global bee database. Monitoring sensors capture and combine data points, such as hive temperature, humidity, pollinator decline and deficiencies. This data supports the creation of solutions that maintain a healthy and sustainable ecosystem.

Automation technology has progressed significantly in the last five years with billions of dollars being invested in research and development. The prioritization of generating digital solutions has done much to accelerate the journey to reaching net-zero. Businesses and organizations that have committed to such targets will continue to move toward their goals by committing to digital solutions. Implementing intelligent automation may be the turbo boost they need on the road to simplifying work processes, reducing waste, and contributing to a sustainable and brighter future.

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