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Developed countries, which have caused most of the world’s pollution, should help to finance “vulnerable” developing nations to combat climate change, UN members agreed last month.

The call for international aid was one of the proposals thrashed out in two weeks of debates at the UN’s 2014 climate conference in Lima, Peru, with the eventual aim of limiting global emissions to 2C above pre-industrial levels.
However, the call for more help from richer nations to cut global carbon emissions was hotly contested.

The document produced by the conference will be reviewed to create UN climate change policy at the 2015 summit in Paris, expected in December.

Delegates from 194 countries decided national pledges on action should be submitted early in 2015 and that targets should exceed present commitments. UN officials would report on the pledges in November.

Matching the conference mood, many vigils in large cities, including Washington DC, London, Jerusalem, Tokyo and Sydney, were lit with solar lamps instead of candles.

For every lamp used the international charity SolarAid delivered two to African rural communities, enabling children to study and read after dark.

 

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Businesses should have legally binding emissions limits from 2020, the CBI, the UK employers’ body, proposed in a conference paper.

The CBI wanted more funding for climate change measures, particularly from the private finance sector, and more support for innovations, such as carbon capture and storage, whereby waste carbon dioxide is locked in geological locations, often underground.

Another suggestion was more carbon pricing, under which businesses are charged for emissions, and the linking of existing carbon markets.

John Cridland, the CBI director-general, said: “Business not only has a responsibility to tackle climate change. It’s key to the solution. By developing cutting-edge products and innovative services across the globe, companies are critical to cutting emissions and creating a green economy.

“[The] climate conference in Paris is the golden opportunity to create the long-term frameworks that will give business the confidence and security it needs to play its part.”

Faster progress was urged by an alliance representing large European companies, including BT, Philips, Shell and Unilever.

The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group wants strong climate plans from political leaders by March.

Philippe Joubert, the group’s chair, said: “A bold international agreement in 2015, coupled with stable national policy frameworks and a credible carbon price, are essential for boosting business investment in scalable low-carbon solutions.”

In Latin America SABMiller, the multinational drinks group, is to form partnerships to tackle the water risks it shares with communities.

Under a water-conserving policy revealed at the summit, the company aims to cut consumption to three litres per litre of beer produced and 1.8 litres per litre of soft drinks, and to halve carbon dioxide emissions from all its breweries.

It is encouraging other businesses in the region to follow suit.

 

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The need to reduce environmentally undesirable energy production in South Asia was emphasised in a report coinciding with the summit.

Environmentalists have already warned of more disasters if the world does not end its fossil fuel dependence by 2050.

Yet South Asia is increasing its use of polluting fuels, says the report.

Ram Kishan, co-author of the report, from Christian Aid and Climate Action South Asia (CAN-SA), said: “All countries in the South Asian region are currently planning to expand their use of fossil fuel.

“India plans to more than double its coal output in coming decades, and Bangladesh and Pakistan depend heavily on natural gas, but are also looking to develop new coal power.

“However, the potential for energy efficiency and renewable energy development is huge, especially solar, wind, geothermal and sustainable developed hydro power and biofuels.”

Sanjay Vashist, director of CAN-SA, emphasised that adopting efficient low-carbon methods needed political courage and international support.

 

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Wealthy nations should promise bigger emissions cuts by 2020, said the environment charity Friends of the Earth, one of the critics of the summit decisions.

The group wants commitments to ensure clean, community-controlled energy for the two billion people without electricity and promises of the finance and technology to provide it.

“The world can still prevent catastrophic climate change. All that’s lacking is backbone from our political leaders,” said Asad Rehman, the group’s international climate campaigner.

After the conference he protested: “The only thing these talks have achieved is to reduce the chances of a fair and effective agreement to tackle climate change in Paris.

“Once again poorer nations have been bullied by the industrialised world into accepting an outcome which leaves many of their citizens facing the grim prospect of catastrophic climate change.”

Sam Smith, climate policy chief of the environment group WWF, said the document went “from weak to weaker to weakest”.

Helen Dennis, Christian Aid’s senior poverty and inequality adviser, attacked politicians: “The UK government needs to stop dithering and come out strongly in favour of a standalone climate goal … Leadership is needed now, not later.”

However, Ed Davey, the UK’s energy secretary, believed the talks showed “will and commitment” and said: “I am proud the UK has been leading the way, by our laws on low-carbon energy and climate, by successfully championing ambitious targets to cut emissions in Europe, and with our central role in Lima.” 

Early in 2015 the International Integrated Reporting Council plans to unveil a ‘landscape’ or overview of the current prevailing international reporting standards. It will be the first formal outgrowth of the Corporate Reporting Dialogue (CRD), a think tank the IIRC launched last June in response to calls for more alignment.

Paul Druckman, ceo of the IIRC said the ‘landscape’ is being based around the six capitals of integrated corporate reporting, and how “the different frameworks of international reporting standards impact those capitals.” The capitals are: financial, manufactured, intellectual, human, social and relationship and natural.

Ideally, the landscape will be a starting point to understand what measurements are currently being used and how, and facilitate informed discussions that lead to action.

Druckman who spoke recently at the Business for Social Responsibility conference in New York about the CRD’s purpose said, “We need to find ways to align or at least rationalize what is going on, so that when we are talking about something like `materiality’ we do actually mean the same thing.”

Further clarifying the role of CRD, he said, “CRD is not there to deliver things. We are there to actually make things happen.”

What the CRD’s member groups – including SASB, GRI and ISO - want to see happen is acceptance of uniform language across standards, definitions and measurements for reporting on sustainability and other corporate social responsibility programs.

Susan Mac Cormac, a partner at the law firm Morrison & Foerster and a board member of SASB, said SASB is interested in uniformity in both mandatory reporting to regulatory groups, as well as for voluntary reporting.

“That distinction is really important because in both there needs to be a shared language,” said Mac Cormac. “You can’t measure and report on what is your use of carbon one way for the United States and a totally different way for the rest of the world. It just doesn’t work.”

Many believe better reporting methods will help lay the groundwork for an era of `new capitalism’ where corporations take long term views on their various impacts, and not focus on short term financial cycles.

Michael Meehan, the ceo of the Global Reporting Initiative, suggested more uniform reporting is almost becoming a necessity. While GRI has been around for 17 years, the market is seeing “new and narrowly focused initiatives around specific standards such as ‘how to integrate sustainability in to financial information,’” said Meehan.

The issue is not of competition among standards, said Meehan. “This is more of an understanding of what is the right tool for the job. CRD is to start that dialogue around who fits with what. What is the right tool for the job and how do all these standards work together.”
 

As the Three Wise Men didn’t arrive until 6th January, I think it’s perfectly acceptable to keep a quasi festive theme in this issue, the first edition of 2015 (particularly as I am having to pen it mid-December).

While frankincense and myrrh aren’t high on many people’s wishlists, gold jewellery is a perennial favourite. So I was pleased to see that many US jewellery companies and retailers have started to take significant steps to eliminate ‘conflict gold’ from their supply chains (especially so as they are the largest end-user of gold, making up around 45% of worldwide gold demand).

According to a new report from the Enough Project, some of the big players – including Signet Jewelers (parent company of Zales), Tiffany & Co and JC Penney – are putting policies in place and initiatives on the ground. And the group has recently promoted these responsible businesses with an advertising campaign cleverly tagged “Look who’s getting engaged.”

Legislation has largely aimed to tackle the trade in conflict minerals by concentrating on the most problematic minerals – tin, tantalum and tungsten (the 3Ts), rather than gold. Indeed, major supply chain reforms by electronics companies, coupled with the Dodd-Frank Act’s section on conflict minerals and the beginnings of a minerals certification process in the Great Lakes region of Africa, have led to a marked improvement in the security situation at 3T mines in Congo.

However, the Enough Project research points out that while two thirds of the eastern Congo’s 3T mines are now conflict-free, “gold remains a major financial lifeline for armed actors”, ie brutal rebel groups commandeer mines and use the profits to fuel their murderous campaigns. It seems that as international attention has been focused on the other three minerals, gold has risen as a source of income.

Enough Project says the sector is woefully under-represented in key multi-stakeholder initiatives on the issue – in particular the Private Alliance on Responsible Minerals Trade (PPA), the OECD Due Diligence Forum, and the Multi-Stakeholder Group of the Responsible Sourcing Network. Maybe 2015 will prove to be the year that picture changes?

Continuing the jewellery theme, the world’s largest pure grown diamond was unveiled at the tail end of last year, timed to coincide no doubt with the festive shopping frenzy. What grabbed my attention was the fact that Pure Grown Diamonds have the exact same chemical composition, physical properties and optical features as earth-mined diamonds, according to the International Gemological Institute, but are, of course, ‘conflict-free’.

“Pure Grown Diamonds is the new affordable option for shoppers seeking value; for consumers concerned about the environmental impact of mining; for people troubled with the history of human rights violations in the mining industry and the deadly armed conflicts ignited by greed,” says Lisa Bissell, ceo and president at Pure Grown Diamonds. I’d never heard of them before but they sound like a mighty fine ethical purchase. As I mentioned, I’m writing this pre-Santa’s visit, so I do hope he’s paying attention...

[email protected]
 

Paul Connolly, director of the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) Think Tank, explores the role of business in the climate change debate

Debates about sustainability are vexed. The disputatious atmosphere around climate change has infected the word’s meaning and put some people off. We should remember that sustainability means the capacity of something to be sustained.

When it was first suggested that humans threatened the sustainability of natural resources through overuse, “conservationists” emerged. In the early days these were largely conservatives who wished to husband resources prudently so as to keep things as they are.

Prudent management in business, finance and taxation remains a hallmark of conservatism. But the contrast on environmental issues can be illustrated by Lady Thatcher. In the late 1980s she spoke passionately about the threat of manmade climate change. She suggested a rational conservative axis of business and science to defeat it. Yet as climate change, and other “green” matters, became associated with the ideology of her opponents, and as solutions tended towards regulation, she partially withdrew from this rationale.

However, there are still conservatives with strong green credentials, and not all business people are conservatives. But many notable climate change deniers and fossil fuel lobbyists come from the right. Their equation of action on climate change with unnecessary business burdens resonates, especially in times of austerity. An environmentally friendly David Cameron went to the North Pole during the UK floods. More recently, he characterised a pro-business budget as one without the “green crap”.

Scientific evidence for manmade climate change is overwhelming. Most people accept it and want to do something. But it is ineffective preaching to the converted, as they often lack the power to do something.

However, the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) Think Tank’s recent report Low Carbon, Higher Growth focuses on those who can do something - businesses. But it appeals to their enlightened self-interest. Put crudely, the earth’s resources are finite. Some of them, such as oil reserves, are in the hands of people who are unreceptive to Western interests. Irrespective of climate change, it still makes sense to minimise waste, maximise reuse and seek new (and especially self-sustaining) sources of energy supply. Especially if in doing so we can reduce business costs and increase profits.

MCA members who work on sustainability and contributed to the report believe the enforcement of new regulation isn’t the answer. Instead they are translating low carbon and sustainability into business opportunities. Managing energy, through ESCO models and intelligent design and build, or minimising raw material use, can save money. Businesses that foreground their green credentials can garner reputational capital and the loyalty of new “green-aware” consumers.

Our members will also often respray low carbon initiatives as cost cutting ones – to overcome the scepticism that the pursuit of low carbon could possibly be beneficial to a business. In doing so, they are reorienting sustainability back to its base meaning and fostering an emerging grain of business thinking, focused less on managing sustainability’s compliance burdens and more on seizing its opportunities.

Sustainability consultants want to save the planet. Their trick is to do so in ways that even the most committed climate change denier couldn’t object to.
 

Choosing a pension scheme with a clear focus on the relevance of good corporate governance, how companies manage their relationship within the society they operate and their impact on the environment not only makes sound investment sense but is also likely to chime well with the workforce. Paul Todd explains

For businesses striving for sus-tainability, a new opportunity may be coming their way to contribute to the ‘greening’ of global capitalism.

By 2018, all UK businesses will by law need to automatically enrol employees aged over 22 and earning more than £10,000 into a pension scheme. These pension pots are likely to reach a half a trillion pounds by 2030.

Employers will not only be contributing a good chunk of that sum themselves – they have to put in at least 3 per cent of a minimum 8 per cent of employees’ qualifying earnings – but how they approach this legal duty could also have a big impact on what happens to that money and where it is invested.

Pension funds are among the biggest institutional investors in the world. That means they control the flow of billions of pounds which is invested in companies, property and lent to governments here and around the world.

The choice over which pension scheme to enrol workers into and how to communicate with them about it falls to employers, making them not insignificant brokers in this multibillion pound market.

Recent NEST research found that nearly three quarters of small employers, who will start enrolling staff from next year, say the investment approach of a pension provider will be important when choosing a scheme to use.

This is no doubt because they want the best outcomes for workers, but could also be because they understand what motivates them. A strong sense of organisational culture and values can, according to a number of studies, help drive business success and staff satisfaction. So finding a pension provider with investment values that match those of the organisation may have a number of benefits.

A recent survey by the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) found that when pension savers understand that their money is invested in the wider economy, they want it invested in a way that supports companies’ long term futures, upholds worker rights, avoids bribery and corruption and supports human rights and environmental sustainability.

Choosing a pension scheme with a clear focus on the relevance of good corporate governance, how companies manage their relationship within the society they operate and their impact on the environment not only makes sound investment sense but is also likely to chime well with their workforce.

In addition having a fund choice that is specifically designed to meet certain ethical concerns is likely to be important to many workers too. NEST research into members’ attitudes towards pension saving suggests there is a clear desire for many to be able to invest according to ethical or religious beliefs.

Interestingly, the research we’ve undertaken into the concerns of consumers who say they’d welcome opportunities to invest ethically indicates that people are not as concerned about traditional ethical no-go areas like alcohol or gambling. The main things concerning the people we asked were social in nature and often global in scope. Labour rights in the UK, human rights abuses, child and forced labour, corrupt regimes and environmental and ecological damage.

These are the types of issues that businesses working in the sustainability sector or striving to improve their ethical performance understand. Institutional investors like pension schemes may exclude companies on the basis of bad practice in any of these areas – and this is one of the drivers for decision making in the NEST Ethical Fund. But equally important is positively reinforcing good behaviour through proactive investments in companies that do perform well and are contributing positively to environmental and social sustainability. By choosing to offer a pension scheme with this type of fund to their staff, such businesses could indirectly be helping increase the level of investment available to companies like theirs.

Corporate social responsibility professionals will know that good ethical credentials are increasingly important to firms’ image, with the ethical consumer market growing rapidly in the UK to more than £54billion in 2013, triple the size it was just over a decade ago.

This trend may not have yet translated into a significant take-up of ethical pension funds. But that doesn’t mean the demand isn’t there. Low take-up is more likely a symptom of a wider issue – mainly the fairly commonplace misconception many people have about what happens to their money when it’s in a pension. Most don’t realise it’s invested at all, and if they did, the concept of investing is still quite far removed from their day-to-day interactions with shops and businesses. As automatic enrolment brings millions more people into pension saving and their pots begin to build up, we expect engagement in where that money is going to rise as well.

Clear communication can also help empower people to make choices. Making investments tangible to members is one way that may help bridge the gap in people’s understanding of what happens to their money when it’s in a pension. For NEST, with our Ethical Fund, this means making it clear to members that companies that abuse human rights or that pollute the environment will be avoided, while instead the money will be channelled to companies that are trying to improve energy efficiency, create better social environments or make progress on global health issues, for example.

This is one aspect of our no jargon approach which helps employers give their staff appropriate and easy to understand communications about the NEST pension scheme and the different fund choices on offer.

Behavioural science suggests that ‘pro-social’ spending can make people happy. Knowing that your money is going towards helping other people has a positive impact on wellbeing and happiness. So helping employees understand that they can invest their pension savings in an ethical fund and where that money goes, could have a positive knock on effect on staff morale.

Ultimately, choosing a scheme that has a strong focus on responsible investment and a well thought-through ethical fund, will ensure that the hard-earned money employers and employees put in works with the grain of long term sustainability.

Paul Todd is assistant director of investment at NEST. NEST has been established as part of the government’s workplace pension reforms, known as automatic enrolment. It is run by an independent Trustee on a not-for-profit basis with a duty to act in the interests of its members. 

Image credit: Unsplash/Micheile Henderson

A new year, a fresh start... but how many organisations will boast new resolutions? Ethical Performance talks to key industry players about what they believe will be the prime sustainability issues in 2015

 

There is an exciting unanimity among key players in the ethical movement about what 2015 will bring. This is the year that inequality will top the agendas.

“The time is now ripe for change,” says Oxfam’s Ethical Trade Manager Rachel Wilshaw, “The everyday problems of inequality are increasing and as the bottom 40% grow increasingly worse off economies can’t grow because they lack consumers.”

Indeed, even as Oxfam was launching its new campaign Even It Up: Time to End Extreme Inequality at the end of last year, the ILO was warning that wages are lagging behind productivity, and the OECD that ‘trickle down economics’ is holding back economic growth, while in the UK the government was debating its modern anti-slavery bill and the Archbishop of Canterbury condemning hunger in the UK.

Wilshaw hopes that 2015 will be the year when big business finally “gets” inequality. “Businesses have made progress over the past years but there is still a gap between policy and reality,” she says, identifying inadequate minimum wages, pushing costs and risk down the supply chain and a lack of collective bargaining as the three key barriers to a living wage. “Our job this year is to help business understand the difference between their stated ethical policies and what is happening on the ground.”

“2014 saw clear indicators that inequality is coming up the agenda,” agrees Forum for the Future’s ceo Sally Uren, “including but not limited to, Picketty’s ‘Capital in the 21st Century’, Standard and Poors reporting that inequality is damaging the US economy, and food banks becoming an increasing feature of everyday life in the UK. And that’s not to mention the inequality hidden deep in global supply chains.”

“As the the election draws nearer, the growth in inequality is likely to come even more into focus, with the role that corporations play coming under the spotlight,” confirms GoodCorporation director, Leo Martin. “Particular emphasis is already being given to fair tax agenda and remuneration. Businesses are beginning to respond to this with Chelsea FC recently adopting the Living Wage and Lloyds publishing its pay ratios. We expect to see more companies taking a position in these areas.”

Consumer sensitivity
Indeed, with the gap between rich and poor increasing in the developed world – the average UK ceo earns some 131 times the salary of their average employee – consumers’ are increasingly sensitive to inequality issues.

“Big corporations like to use the line that appealing to consumers’ conscience is illusory,” says Oxfam’s Wilshaw, “That shoppers may say they are willing to pay more but won’t when they reach the store.

“However, a report by KPMG in June 2014 showed that 52% of consumers would pay more if the money went direct to employees down the supply chain and that 40% would not hesitate to shop elsewhere if they knew a retailer was not paying a living wage. Only 13% said this would not alter their habits. This is a significant finding.”

And this good news is backed up by the experience of the Institute of Business Ethics (IBE), the Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI) and Reddy’s Responsible Trade Worldwide (RTW) Assessment team.

The IBE has surveyed the British public on their opinion of business behaviour since 2003 and tax avoidance and executive pay continue to be the top issues which the public think business needs to address, says research director Simon Webley.

“It’s an interesting time right now, with consumers increasingly calling for better information about the products and services they use,” agrees ETI Director Peter McAllister. “They’re asking brands and retailers to tell them about the working conditions within their supply chains, and what’s being done to help improve the lives of workers.”

“Consumer awareness of how our goods are produced is very much on the rise,” confirms Reddy’s RTW business development manager Rebecca Taylor. “Since catastrophes such as the Rana Plaza tragedy and the horse meat sandal in 2013 alone we have begun to see everyday shoppers acting with their conscience, making a move towards more responsible and informed purchasing decisions.”

So while tackling inequality still needs a good push from legislators, there is hope that 2015 will see consumers’ heightened concerns forcing ethical behaviour to be engrained into the business model rather than being merely a matter of compliance.

“Compliance programmes used to focus on the potential ‘bad guys’,” says the IBE’s Webley. “But we are seeing more thoughtful communication and training programmes being developed, less focussed on compliance and more on applying ethical values.

“This more positive approach will be a vital tool in encouraging middle managers to engage with ethics programmes and champion values with their teams and there is evidence more companies are using ethical values as a means of evaluating employee performance, so bonuses are awarded for how business is done, not just on making the numbers.”

“We can no longer firefight the issues and rely on compliance alone,” agrees RTW’s Taylor. “Over the past 15 years industry have sought to facilitate change through audit and compliance measures, which are not wrong, but we’re failing to identify the root cause of fundamental issues within our supply chains.

“Many existing assessments and audit tools create an environment of fear, and the validity of the data is often questionable. The key to transparency is in accessing the worker voice – tapping into those who experience the reality of the conditions each day.”

A continued gallop towards an era of ultra-transparency is how Forum for the Future’s Uren puts it. “Our digital age offers huge opportunities for bringing the producer to the consumer. We’ll see more QR codes on fresh food, telling a story of provenance, as well as more social media connecting the grower with the consumer, often across thousands of miles.

“The digital explosion means there really is nowhere to hide, which for some may seem a threat, but for others, companies like Tesla who have opened up their IP, is an opportunity.”

Behaviour change
Mireya Alvarez, Impact Investment Analyst at the ethical investment company Nesta also sees grounds for hope. “Over the last few years we have seen changes in the way people behave and more importantly in the way people consume. This has in turn led many businesses to change their behaviour. Many large corporations are choosing to ingrain impact and ethics in their core business model and not something which is just a ‘nice to have’ add-on.”

But there is still a danger that financial services companies will swamp themselves with rules and adopt a tick-box approach to show compliance rather than take the messages on board and implement significant culture change, warns GoodCorporation’s Martin. “We hope that the recommendations of the Banking Standards Review Council will lead to real changes in behaviour.

“If 2014 was the year of the whistleblower,” he continues, “we expect 2015 to be the year in which companies start to evaluate and report on their whistleblowing arrangements.”

Stephen Howard, ceo of Business in the Community believes that If business is going to rebuild trust and inspire the belief of the public, then it must be more transparent in how it communicates its value and purpose. “Crucially I think we will see a shift from brands ‘telling’ their stakeholder to engaging them in causes that tackle key issues that are fundamental to the purpose of their businesses.”

Ceo of the global Corporate Governance Group Achilles, Adrian Chamberlain, also expects that amid mounting pressure from governments, consumers and shareholders in 2015 pressure groups will continue to name and shame companies which fail to fulfil their human rights responsibilities.

And this will extend to small and medium sized enterprises, he warns. “2014 saw a swathe of national, regional and international laws which mean businesses face even more serious consequences if they fail to act in an ethical, environmental or social responsible way.

“These new laws and regulations – such as reporting on the use of conflict minerals – will require businesses to provide a much higher level of detail from deep within their supply chain. This will mean that SMEs will have to step up and show their support and commitment to helping buying organisations improve sustainability.”

If Chamberlain has a dream, however, it is that businesses would learn the wisdom of collaborating. “Businesses spend about $60bn each year to manage information about suppliers,” he says. “Millions of businesses are asking suppliers to provide the same information repeatedly. Companies could save at least half that amount if companies in the same industry worked together to agree common requirements of suppliers, including those related to corporate social responsibility measures.”

“What we hope to see moving forward,” concludes the ETI’s McAllister, “is a level playing field where all brands and retailers are clear about what they must do to protect and respect workers’ rights in global supply chains.” 

We’ve all been there before (or know someone who has): We’re strolling through our neighborhood mall and our eyes catch a glimpse of glossy signs inviting us to escape into a land of cotton and polyester. Dresses $8.99! Sweaters $9.99! Jeans $14.99! Once we step inside the brightly lit, chandeliered store, the mounds of perfectly folded garments, seductively postured manikins and catchy pop music have us hooked. Before we know it, we’re checking out at the register with a bag of reasonably priced clothes that we never planned on buying – and we’ve only spent $35. How can we resist?

For a generation of budget-conscious millennial shoppers, popping into stores like Forever 21, H&M, Uniqlo and Zara – that offer trendy clothes at low prices – has become par for the course. In 2013 alone, those four fast fashion retailers generated a combined $48 billion in global sales. And a recent report by the financial services firm Cowen Group forecasts that fast fashion sales will increase 11 percent year-over-year through 2020.

The realized growth in the fast fashion market has been astounding – and it’s leaving conventional apparel retailers in the dust. The traditional apparel model of selling seasonal lines of clothing, manufactured and marketed months in advance, has been replaced by these bargain brands that rapidly respond to the latest fashion trends and live by just-in-time production. As a whole, consumers have been loving it; yet, recent events have shed light on questionable aspects of fast fashion’s modus operandi that are prompting some consumers to think twice about purchasing those $5 T-shirts.

The collapse of an apparel-manufacturing factory in Bangladesh last year, which killed more than 1,100 workers, spurred a global conversation about human rights and fair labor practices of garment factory workers in international apparel supply chains. And an increased awareness of the intense water, energy and waste implications of apparel production – as well as health risks connected to endocrine disrupting and cancer-causing chemicals that have been found in clothes sold by 20 of the worlds top fashion brands – are also leading consumers to ask more questions about where their clothes come from and how they were made.

Queue in the slow fashion movement. For an industry that churns out fashions after fashions at the speed of consumers’ changing tastes, slow fashion is an oxymoron. Plain and simple, slow fashion promotes high quality versus fast production, durability versus design for obsolescence, and mindful consumption versus overconsumption.

Emerging designers and e-commerce innovators such as Zady, Modavanti and Cuyana are leading the movement, selling more ethically and sustainably made apparel that’s built to last.

“Fast-fashion is designed to fall apart after a few washes, so we as consumers go back to those brands to buy more and more. And as our closets fill with cheaply made clothing, our wallets start to empty out,” said Soraya Darabi, co-founder of Zady, a mission-driven brand best described as “The Whole Foods of Fashion.”

“A $5 dollar t-shirt may feel good initially, but that's an empty high. When you work backwards to determine what a worker must have been paid to make such an inexpensively priced item, and you realize that that shirt will only last a few months before it falls to pieces and ends up on a landfil l... second thoughts arise.”

Zady prides itself in selling women’s and men’s clothes and accessories that are not only beautiful and timeless, but are also made using the highest quality raw materials by ethically treated workers.

Responding to a rising consciousness among certain consumers, leading global apparel brands are also undergoing a slow fashion makeover that is intent on making clothes more sustainably.

The North Face, for example, recently launched an all-cotton hoodie that takes a cue from the slow food movement and brings a sustainably made garment from farm to closet. Called the Backyard Hoodie, the sweatshirt was grown, designed, cut and sewn within 150 miles of The North Face’s corporate headquarters in California using a slow fashion design approach. It is part of a line of products made in the United States using locally-sourced materials and resources, and designed to reduce waste.

Many other global apparel companies are increasingly committing to improve the environmental and social impact of their products and supply chains, too. Even fast fashion bastion H&M – the world’s second largest fashion retailer – has made sustainability commitments. Last year the Swedish retailer launched a Conscious Collection made from recycled fibers and organic cotton, and the company recently announced its commitment to pay living wages to textile workers in factories in Bangladesh and Cambodia. H&M hasn’t gone “slow,” but taking these steps is promising.

Despite rising tide of the slow fashion movement, the fact remains that slow fashion sales do not compare with those of fast fashion – in quantity or in dollars.

A look at example product prices may help explain why: An on-trend dress from a fast fashion retailer sells for $15.90, while a similar dress from a slow fashion site goes for $145; a fast fashion sweater is $24.90, and a slow fashion sweater is $160; fast fashion pants are $17.90, while slow fashion pants are $128. You get the picture.

Positioning slow fashion against fast fashion is like pitting David against Goliath. Of course, those low fast fashion prices do not accurately reflect the social and environmental costs of making those products. One would like to think that, given the choice, consumers would vote with their dollars and purchase high-quality, durable and ethical slow fashion products. But in a country still psychologically recovering from an economic recession, where the median annual household income is $54,000, it is no surprise which prices win out.

Indeed, fast fashion is a multi-billion dollar industry – and it’s growing. Fast fashion retailers have proliferated across the nation in the past decade and continue to cast their net. Case in point: Earlier this year, Forever 21 opened a concept test store called F21 Red, which boasts starting price points as low as $1.80 (selling $3.80 T-shirts, $5.80 leggings and $7.80 denim jeans). Already, Forever 21 operates 600 stores worldwide – and the company plans to double its global presence by 2017 – while Zara has 1,800 locations and H&M owns 3,400 stores. Both plan to amplify their global presence in coming years.

As H&M has shown, it is possible for fast fashion brands to move a little slower. Does that mean that someday those same brands will bring the slow fashion movement to the masses – and create a world where shoppers can feel good about purchasing accessibly-priced, ethically-made garments on the fly?

One can dream. For now, let’s hope that both fast and slow fashion brands can provide consumers with sufficient ethical and economical options to render their choices easier to make.

Image credit: Pexels

As we start the New Year, there is a quiet sense of optimism that says perhaps we are reaching a tipping point in the race against time that will determine the future of life on our planet. Whether it’s the impressive growth of renewable power, the recent agreement between the U.S. and China to take meaningful action to curb emissions or the various moves towards a zero-waste economy, there are signs everywhere that humanity is slowly beginning to pull together in a unified way to save ourselves from our epic miscalculations of the past.

Another sign is the transformation of the transportation sector. According to the website EVObsession, there will be at least 15 new electric vehicle models hitting marketplace this year. Most of them are from well-established brands including Chevy, with an updated Volt, BMW, with a plug-in version of its 3-series, along with the X5 eDrive luxury-style SUV with crisp performance that, at 62 mpg, squeezes more out of a gallon of gas than a Prius. Think about that for a minute.

That machine will be vying for attention against the new Tesla Model X. Tesla, having established itself as the team to beat when it comes to electric vehicles, will certainly attract attention with this latest model. With benchmark styling, gull-wing doors and exceptional performance, this car will certainly turn heads. Though with a price tag in the same range as the Model S, it won’t be the EV for the everyman that the Model 3 (due out in 2017) promises to be.

Also competing in what I’d call the SUEV space will be the diesel hybrid Audi Q7 plug-in, the Mitsubishi  Plug-In Outlander (with 512 mile cruising range), the Mercedes GLE-class, and the twin-engine Volvo XC90 T8 (with a 4-cylinder gasoline engine driving the front wheels and an 80 horsepower electric motor driving the rear).

I must confess that despite living in a snowy climate, I have resisted the temptation to purchase an SUV in my desire to minimize my carbon footprint. Vehicles like these could be game changers in that regard.

Other sedan-style plug-ins in the works include the Volvo S60 plug-in, new C-class and E-class plug-ins from Mercedes, the Audi A3 eTron sportback, and the Volkswagen Passat GTE Plug-in.

There are some other, less familiar brands also mentioned, including the Chinese BYD Tang and the $1 million Croatian electric muscle car known as Rimac Concept One. This car has 1,088 horsepower and can supposedly go from zero to 60 in 2.8 seconds. If the idea of sharing the road with something like that frightens you -- that makes two of us. Closer to home, and along similar lines though not mentioned in EVObsession, is the Renovo Coupe which will be shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week. This car can deliver over 1,000 foot-pounds of torque and go from zero to 60 in 3.4 seconds, while fast-charging in just 30 minutes.

All of this is not to mention the plug-ins already on the market, including the Toyota Prius Plug-in, and the three Ford models: the Fusion, the Focus and the C-max Energi, as well as the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Model S.  These and others represent plenty of choices designed to fit a wide variety of lifestyles and budgets.

For those who consider electrified vehicles too new to seriously consider, I would point out this blog by Tom Moloughney, who has been driving plug-in EVs for five years, accumulating some 157,000 miles on them. He started with a BMW mini-E in 2009, as part of a test program. Then he moved up to an Active-E and is now driving an i3. Charging them primarily from a solar array on his roof, Tom might very well represent the future of transportation.

Image credit: ontoseno 2010: Flickr Creative Commons

RP Siegel, PE, is an author, inventor and consultant. He has written for numerous publications ranging from Huffington Post to Mechanical Engineering. He and Roger Saillant co-wrote the successful eco-thriller Vapor Trails. RP, who is a regular contributor to Triple Pundit and Justmeans, sees it as his mission to help articulate and clarify the problems and challenges confronting our planet at this time, as well as the steadily emerging list of proposed solutions. His uniquely combined engineering and humanities background help to bring both global perspective and analytical detail to bear on the questions at hand.

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Canadian multinationals beware: Your home and native land may now be the forum of choice for plaintiffs seeking to bring international human rights lawsuits.

In November, Canadian mining firm, Nevsun Resources, was sued in a Vancouver court by three Eritrean refugees alleging that Nevsun “aided, abetted, contributed to and became an accomplice to the use of forced labor, crimes against humanity and other human rights abuses” at an Eritrean mine.  The Nevsun case is just the most recent human rights suit to appear in Canadian court, where the alleged harm was committed by a Canadian corporation operating abroad.

The allegations

The Eritrean plaintiffs are former employees of the Bisha Mining Share Co. (BMSC), a project jointly-operated by Vancouver-based Nevsun and the Eritrean state-owned Segen Construction.  Prior to their employment at BMSC, the plaintiffs were conscripted into the Eritrean army as part of Eritrea’s much-criticized national service program.  In 2013, Human Rights Watch (HRW) linked the Eritrean service program, which requires all able-bodied Eritrean men and most women to either join the military or work for state-owned companies, to the mass exploitation of workers in Eritrea’s burgeoning mining sector.

At BMSC, the plaintiffs claim they were made to work grueling hours under deplorable conditions, for insufficient compensation, and without proper medical care, shelter or food.  The conscripted Eritreans were forcibly confined to the mine -- separate from the foreign workers -- and under persistent watch by security personnel.  If they left the mine site without authorization, plaintiffs claim conscripts were subjected to severe punishment.

According to the complaint, forced labor is so widespread and inhumane at BMSC that it constitutes a crime against humanity.

Nevsun responded to the suit by claiming the allegations were unfounded and that the Bisha mine has consistently adhered to “international standards of governance, workplace conditions, and health and safety.”  Nevsun further claims that, since 2009, it has had in place procedures to ensure that forced labor does not exist at the Bisha mine.  As the author of the aforementioned HRW report pointed out to The Guardian, “It will be hard to take [Nevsun’s assurances] very seriously if the company reacts to this lawsuit by insisting that the problem never existed to begin with.”  In fact, the 2013 HRW report called out the company by name, warning that “Nevsun’s experiences show that by developing projects in Eritrea, mining firms are walking into a potential minefield of human rights problems.”

Mining in a pariah state

Human Rights Watch characterizes Eritrea as a “pariah state” operating a “uniquely abusive program of indefinite forced labor.”  Though the country’s national service program was initially meant to last just 18 months, it has devolved into a program of perpetual imprisonment, with conscripts now fated to work for the state indefinitely and under the constant threat of violence.  In recent years, the conscript program has been used to supply labor for a growing number of international mining projects that are seeking to exploit the country’s heretofore largely unexplored mineral resources.

Nevsun, like most international mining companies seeking to operate in Eritrea, was forced to partner with a state-owned entity, Segen Construction, which purportedly stymied Nevsun’s attempts to investigate allegations of forced labor (which came as a result of the 2013 HRW report).

Last week, the U.K. parliament offered its own critique of the Eritrean government’s labor policies, passing an “early day motion” signed by 41 MPs and calling on Eritrea to allow an investigatory visit from the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea.  The motion cited Eritrea’s practices of “arbitrary arrest and detention and compulsory military service,” which have contributed to an “exodus of Eritreans, now reaching 5,000 a month,” fleeing the country for Europe.  The MPs also called attention to the “collusion” between the Eritrean government and “international mining companies from the U.K., Canada and Australia,” which have leveraged the government’s forced labor program to their benefit.

A growing trend in Canada

The Nevsun litigation follows a series of other high-profile human rights cases filed in Canada by foreign plaintiffs against international mining companies.  The first cases of the type were brought in Ontario in 2010 against Toronto-based mining firm Hudbay Minerals.  In three related lawsuits against Hudbay, members of the indigenous Mayan Q'eqchi' population in El Estor, Guatemala, allege that Hudbay and its wholly-owned subsidiaries were complicit in murder, shooting and gang-rape committed by security forces operating at Hudbay’s open-pit nickel mine in eastern Guatemala.  In July 2013, an Ontario judge ruled that the case could proceed to trial in Canadian court.

More recently, in June 2014, seven Guatemalan men sued Tahoe Resources, another Vancouver-based mining company, for shooting injuries suffered when Tahoe security personnel fired at them at close range.

Commentators have suggested that the 2013 Hudbay ruling could help plaintiffs in the Tahoe and Nevsun cases, and potentially open the door to other cases against Canadian companies accused of committing human rights abuses overseas.

This is particularly important because the door appears to be closing to foreign plaintiffs elsewhere in the world.

According to the Business & Human Rights Resource Center, the majority of the 108 legal cases profiled by the Center relate to extraterritorial claims arising in countries with weak, corrupt or nonexistent judicial systems.  Yet, in many companies’ home countries -- that is, the countries in which they are based -- surviving jurisdictional challenges to extraterritorial claims can be near impossible.

In the United States, where the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Kiobel v. Shell drastically limited the jurisdictional scope of the Alien Tort Statute and the viability of claims concerning human rights abuses allegedly committed abroad, this is especially true.  The vast majority of appellate and district courts to consider extraterritorial claims in the wake of Kiobel have sided with corporate defendants, leading Bloomberg to declare last month: “U.S. corporations [are] winning [the] fight over human rights lawsuits.”

Image credit: Flickr/rene-germany

By Andrew Meggitt

To environmentally conscious consumers looking to make more responsible purchasing decisions, there’s nothing more frustrating than being confronted with vague or misleading “green” labels. A bottle that reads “100 percent environmentally happy” might trick some consumers into buying it, but it’s going to turn off those eco warriors who see right through the marketing malarkey.

When companies make claims about their environmentally friendly practices that aren’t backed by facts or that are downright false, their credibility takes a hit. And for a business that’s identified as a “green” company, the damage might be irreversible.

But what can well-intentioned business owners do to make sure they avoid the pitfalls of greenwashing?

1. Determine your values and stick to them

If you’re an entrepreneur with socially and environmentally conscious goals for your company, you need to have firm and well-defined values. Are you in business to sell products, to be a better member of the human race, to leave as small of a footprint as possible, or a combination of the three?

Once you figure out what you stand for, you need to be transparent and communicate those goals to potential customers. Tell them how your business practices or products meet those ideals. Be clear, and — as your teachers used to say — show your work. If you make statements about your environmental friendliness, you need to be able to back them up.

2. Don’t be a greenwashing ‘sinner’

UL Environment lists “The Seven Sins” of greenwashing as a way to educate consumers. A report by the authors of “The Seven Sins” revealed that more than 95 percent of consumer products claiming to be “green” were found to have committed at least one of the sins. Even the wine industry is guilty.

Familiarize yourself with the list, and ask yourself whether your claims can be substantiated by readily available information. Also, determine whether your claims really mean something — or whether they’re true of every company.

For example, saying that your product is free of chlorofluorocarbons is pointless because these chemical compounds are banned — all products should be CFC-free. To avoid greenwashing practices, avoid saying anything that could mislead consumers.

3. Seek outside help, and use objective standards

The easiest way to make sure your practices are actually in line with your ideals is to rely on experts and use objective standards. If you’re constructing a new building, bring in an engineer or architect who is certified in Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design — a green building certification program that recognizes best-in-class building strategies and practices.

If you’re designing a new product, familiarize yourself with the criteria used to evaluate those products. For instance, SMART offers sustainable standards for a wide range of consumer products, including building products, apparel, and textiles. Look at companies you admire, and see what certification programs they use. Once you find guidelines, you can follow them to provide evidence of your sustainability.

Businesses have to make money, but they don’t have to compromise their integrity or the needs of the environment to turn a profit. It’s possible to do well in business and take real steps to make the world a better place. Have you ever bought Seventh Generation cleaning products or Patagonia apparel? Then you’ve supported businesses whose practices align with their marketing.

By engaging in truly sustainable practices and not just paying lip service to the environment, you can boost your business and make a real difference.

Image credit: Flickr/mtsofan

Andrew Meggitt joined the St. James Winery team in 2002 and has been enjoying life in the wine business for over 20 years. A three-year-long travel adventure around the world following university influenced not only his outlook on life, but also his perception of winemaking styles and methodology. Andrew creatively stretches the boundaries of traditional winemaking while integrating both old- and new-world techniques he learned while working in New Zealand and France.