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Using solar-powered electronic deterrent devices, provided by Predator Guard and the Snow Leopard Conservancy, traditional herder families, located in the mountains of central Mongolia, are saving their livestock while simultaneously saving snow leopards.

Only 4,500 to 7,500 snow leopards remain in the wild of central Asia. Living in the remote, rugged mountains, these endangered animals continue to be threatened by the humans sharing their land. Conflicts with traditional livestock herders have escalated sharply in recent years, resulting in retaliatory killings of snow leopards. From the Himalayas north to Siberia, sheep and goat herders are especially angered by the carnage that occurs when a snow leopard enters a corral and kills up to 30 or more of the confined animals.

Last year, the Tsendhorol family lost thirty sheep and goats to predators, which translates to an economic loss of about $1,000 where the annual average income is less than $4,000 per family. This year, they were able to efficiently and harmlessly deter snow leopards from their livestock corrals using Predator Guard deterrent devices, thus losing no animals to snow leopard predation.

Predator Guard deterrent devices are solar-powered, maintenance-free units designed to self charge and auto-switch on at dusk and off at dawn. At night, the deterrent devices emit a constant flash of high-intensity red LED lights, which appear as the eyes of another predator in the darkness. Wild animals are thrown off guard and quickly vacate the area.

By being exposed to electronic deterrent devices snow leopards are learning to avoid certain areas. Meanwhile, herders no longer need to actively guard their livestock at night. Instead, they are able to sleep soundly at home with their families, knowing their main source of income—the cashmere wool produced by their goats—is safe.

Picture credit: © Hgrose | Dreamstime.com - Snow Leopard Photo
 

Conferences and events are an integral part of getting business done in today’s world. Even with technologies that make virtual meetings possible — and there are many options for that — there’s still something to be said for getting together for a good, old-fashioned face-to-face event where we can connect with our peers, listen to great content, and engage in learning.

But conferences and events have an inherent impact on the communities where they’re held: some good, some bad. A boost to the local economy is welcomed, for example, but an influx of people can overwhelm local infrastructure or leave behind a significant amount of waste. Events can also generate a large amount of greenhouse gas emissions, leaving behind a big carbon footprint.

The single biggest contributor to an event’s carbon footprint is travel, which accounts for about 90 percent of the carbon emissions from an average event.* Yet accounting and taking responsibility for these emissions often falls to the wayside. It can be overlooked, or it may seem overwhelming, especially with so many moving parts to run an event. Focusing on the carbon emissions associated with travel can easily be ignored — isn’t it enough just to get everyone there?! But if your company has made a commitment to the environment and social responsibility, it should extend to your meetings and other events, too.

So, what’s the right way to address sustainability when there are so many other details to focus on?

There is no absolute authority that tells an event planner exactly what to do and how to address sustainability when planning an event. Shawna McKinley, director of sustainability at MeetGreen, recommends that “Every organization benefits when they sit down and decide what sustainability means to them. Waste, carbon, food issues, social issues—you have to hone in and prioritize what to start with. It’s easy to lack clear focus on where to begin. Consistent guidance can be meaningful in the absence of set rules.”

That guidance can come in many forms: standards like ISO 20121, an event management system and certification launched for the 2012 London Olympics, or the Convention Industry Council’s APEX/ASTM Green Meeting and Events Standards, are available tools to help measure and track the overall sustainability of an event. Meeting industry associations like Meeting Professionals International or Green Meeting Industry Council provide resources for members to help build sustainability into their planning process. And of course there are organizations like MeetGreen, which has been leading the way in sustainable meeting management since 1994.

TerraPass provides guidance in the form of an online carbon footprint calculator, where you can enter details about attendee travel, the venue and meals to get an approximate measurement of the carbon impact created by an event. If you want an easy, accurate and convenient way to know where you stand, this is a great place to start.

The advice TerraPass gives businesses is that you can’t manage what you don’t measure, and the same holds true for events. Creating a baseline measurement of carbon emissions allows you to do two things:

1. Understand the carbon impact of your event so you can identify areas where you have room to make reductions. (Bonus: Reductions often equal cost savings, a win-win.)


2. Be accountable for your event’s carbon footprint and take responsibility to lower it—or even balance it completely. (Tip: That doesn’t necessarily mean a big line item in your budget.)

Understanding Your Impact

A few ideas to consider:

Virtual or Hybrid Events: Take, for example, the myriad options available to make your event virtual: webcasts, live streaming, social media, etc. They provide a lot of flexibility — and a lot of benefits. Virtual or hybrid events mean that content is available to a much broader audience, but with a much lower carbon footprint associated with their “attendance." The required electronics, servers, buildings to house the servers and transmission capabilities all take energy so going hybrid or virtual won’t balance all emissions, but it will significantly reduce the event footprint on a per-attendee basis.

Waste Streams: No doubt about it, events and conferences generate waste — it’s important to understand not only where your waste is coming from, but also where it’s headed. Waste stream efficiencies can do more than just lower your emissions, they can make a positive impact on your bottom line. Eliminating water bottles for Microsoft events resulted in $600,000 in savings. If that business case for banning water bottles isn’t strong enough, just imagine what 600,000 empty plastic bottles laying around looks like—that many bottles could stretch 75 miles!

Location, Location, Location: Likewise, an event’s carbon footprint can be reduced by looking at some of the big decisions in the event planning process, like where the event is held. Many hotels and conference centers have programs in place that reduce water usage or use renewable energy, and even the city you choose can impact your carbon footprint because of the carbon intensity of the local power grid or the availability of public transit in the area.

Next Steps

Just like choosing the right emission reduction project can help companies tell their sustainability story, choosing the right project to support to address your event’s carbon emissions can be a great way to tie together carbon accountability and the non-carbon related impacts your event has on the local community. Supporting a local carbon offset project could bring an additional $664 per mT to the community, according to research by Imperial College London in partnership with the International Carbon Reduction and Offsetting Alliance.

So, how do you balance your event emissions without breaking your event budget? Empower attendees to take on their portion of emissions. Implementing a carbon offset program is simple, and the average footprint is only around 320 pounds of CO2e per attendee per day, but can get as high as 2,000 pounds CO2e when extensive travel is needed. The best, most effective way to start the program is to build the carbon offset right into the registration amount at a minimal cost difference to attendees, typically less than 1 percent of the cost to attend. That way, attendees don’t have to justify additional costs to employers or make separate purchases in order to be a part of the program. Communicating the program to attendees can also position the event — and the company — as an environmental leader.

Sometimes building carbon offsets into the registration costs just isn’t possible, and that’s when making it voluntary for attendees to take responsibility for their carbon footprint is a good option. Having an opt-in or opt-out carbon offset program—while less effective than a built-in option—is still a step in the right direction. And any step, large or small, begins the journey toward taking responsibility for the environmental impact of your event and building the business case for carbon accountability.

What else should you consider besides carbon reduction and accountability? There are a lot of aspects that you can focus on to address sustainability within your event. Sourcing food and beverage, location or site selection, waste management practices, travel, giving back to the local community, using local suppliers and vendors, choosing areas with public transit, reusing materials, going paperless, and so on.

What can you do as an attendee? Take advantage of the sustainability measures that have been put into place for the event. Try to minimize your waste and use those recycling bins, skip the plastic water bottles, use public transportation—not cabs!—and while you are travelling, try to fly direct and lower or raise your hotel thermostat depending on the season.

Image credit: Flickr/ter-burg

*Where does this number (90 percent) come from? Years of calculating the carbon impact of events for our customers. This applies to events where attendees are travelling from all over the country, or even internationally. Local meetings and events tend to have a smaller percentage of emissions attributed to travel. You can see how travel fits into your event’s carbon emissions at www.terrapass.com/calculate.

To learn more about how to reduce your event emissions please contact Nancy Bsales at 973-743-5374

Kristi Kaiser is a Marketing Manager at TerraPass. She is a graduate of the nation's first Associate Degree in Meeting and Event Management program and a former Meeting Professionals International (MPI) Future Leaders Forum award recipient. When she’s not busy designing tools to help companies understand and manage their carbon footprint, you can probably find her crafting an event. Connect with her at linkedin.com/in/kgkaiser.

Continuing to lead the transition from fossil fuels to renewables, California in October 2013 enacted AB2514, legislation that requires the state's investor-owned utilities to acquire 1.325 gigawatts of energy storage capacity by 2020.

Earlier this month, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison issued their first request for proposals for energy storage assets that will help meet projected long-term local capacity requirements.

California grid and energy market regulators are joining with industry players and already taking the next step in the U.S. renewable energy-smart grid transition. They're building and testing microgrids in which solar photovoltaic systems are integrated with a variety of advanced energy storage technologies and the latest in real-time energy management software platforms.

Energy storage and renewable grid integration

“2014 will be viewed as the year in which utilities started to embrace energy storage for the versatile technology that it is to solve various problems along the grid."

On Dec. 16, Eos Energy Storage announced that it had won a $2 million award from the California Energy Commission to build and demonstrate a “novel grid-scale battery system at PG&E's Smart Grid Lab in San Ramon, California.”

Eos's project came out on top following a review of 28 projects competing for a total $6.3 million in CEC grant funding. Its Aurora project proposal was the only advanced battery storage system awarded grant funding.

According to Eos, its Aurora battery system “can be manufactured at a fraction of the cost of existing energy storage solutions.” The Edison, New Jersey-based company is joining with PG&E, the Electric Power Research Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, distributed energy storage technology pioneer Stem and ETM Electromatic (ETM) to carry out the project.

“We’ve developed an energy storage solution designed specifically to meet the requirements of California’s utilities and industrial users. At a price of $160 per kilowatt-hour, we believe our batteries will compete with gas peaking plants and copper wire to provide both peak generation and infrastructure benefits,” Philippe Bouchard, Eos vice president of Business Development, was quoted in a press release. “We’re excited to work with the Energy Commission and a group of world-class partners to demonstrate the benefits of this system to the state of California.”

Advanced battery storage for a smarter grid

“Energy storage is likely to be a key element of the integrated grid and successful integration requires a complete understanding and characterization of the performance, controls and interactions under a wide range of system conditions and scenarios,”Mark McGranaghan, EPRI vice president of power delivery and utilization research, was quoted as saying. “This testing and demonstration project will help pave the way for much broader deployment of energy storage systems.”

Encased in a container, Eos's initial Aurora 1000/4000 battery system can deliver 1 megawatt of electrical power for four continuous hours. That's enough electrical energy to reduce peak power demand and avoid the need to invest in transmission and distribution upgrades, the company highlights. Aurora also offers fast-response surge capability that can more efficiently and effectively balance fluctuations in the flow of electricity associated with solar, wind and other intermittent renewable energy grid assets.

“Storage cost reduction is the key to breaking this market wide open,” said Ben Kearns, Stem’s vice president of technology. “However, batteries need to be managed and software deployed to capture maximum benefits. Stem’s software platform and proven analytics will add value to a new battery chemistry like Eos's in early deployments and in fleet management when they move to full-scale production."

*Image credits: 1) Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project; 2), 3) Eos Energy Storage

North American environmental groups have been admitting it for years: The movement needs diversity in its representation. Organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Sierra Club and others have come forward over the years to admit, often at the nudging of critics, that honoring diversity in the global environment starts with reflecting diversity in its numbers -- including its management.

The problem is: Until recently there hasn't been much of a global roadmap on how to attain that goal. Tracking diversity numbers has largely been left up to organizations with little public transparency.

But that changes next year, say six of the world's largest environmental organizations. The Sierra Club, NRDC, Audubon Society, Environmental Defense Fund, Resources Media and EarthJustice have pledged to release their diversity numbers by February 2015. The announcement was made by Green 2.0 at the Breaking the Green Ceiling forum, which it and New Media hosted on Dec. 9 in Washington D.C. Environmental groups will submit their numbers to their Guidestar profiles.

Last July Green 2.0 released its seminal report, The State of Diversity in the Mainstream Environmental Sector. The report, which was led by University of Michigan professor Dorceta Taylor, provides an insightful, if not concerning, view of the lack of diversity and multiculturalism in global environmental organizations.  Some of the highlights most include:

• People of color represent only 12.4 percent of staff in nongovernmental organizations.


• Only 12.8 percent of the people hired in NGOs in the last three years have been people of color.


• When polled on whether there should be mechanisms set up to increase the numbers of minorities and low-income residents in activities and organizational boards: 74 percent of managers agreed that "it should be done." Fifty percent said they would be "likely or very likely to support"

NRDC's incoming President Rhea Suh, who was on hand to speak at the forum, embraced the announcement, stating that the new step would "accelerate the drive to improve diversity in our ranks, especially at senior leadership levels." Suh is the first woman of color to lead a major environmental organization. "But while greater transparency is a key driver of change, we also must significantly broaden this conversation so that Americans from all walks of life, embrace our efforts and goals as their own," added Suh.

And as Suh's statement notes, one point that was acknowledged in the report, but wasn't really addressed in the press releases and discussions about these upcoming changes, was the definition of diversity.

Taylor et al were careful to mention that "there are many other aspects of diversity such as religion, disability, etc. that are not covered in this report, and that should be the focus of future studies." It's a point that doesn't appear to have been factored into the new statistics for GuideStar.

In  the 1960s, '70s and '80s, when the definition of diversity in environmentalism was eventually stretched to include white women and women's perspectives, it was no less a cataclysmic shift than what is going on today. But the true definition of such multiculturalism, by its own description, holds no boundary. I can't help but wonder why Green 2.0, New America Media and their supporters did not seize the opportunity to address the fact that diversity in its truest meaning includes many who aren't yet mentioned -- and those that should be.

Disability issues should figure largely in any discussion of diversity in the environmental movement, particularly since so much has been done -- and still must be done -- to ensure that all individuals have the same ability to appreciate and access those resources being protected. And disability here doesn't mean only those in wheelchairs or with obvious limitations, but also those individuals whose disabilities aren't apparent and may lack the same courage to step forward because of fear of rejection or dismissal.

Putting diversity on an inclusive level is the only way to erase the challenge that every generation faces in battling for its new definition. Green 2.0 and its proponents have hopefully helped to fracture the green ceiling for many, and they can do even more by extending the understanding of what true diversity, in its unencumbered form, could bring to the environmental movement.

Image: Oregon Department of Transportation

Image: StevenMitchell

Rocky Mountain Institute and Carbon War Room have joined forces

By Jeff Hayward

I recently returned to the U.S. from Lima, where I was part of a delegation to COP20 from the NGO Rainforest Alliance.  Coverage of it ranges from cheers and applause to anger and frustration, but my own experience is somewhere in between.

There is reason to criticize what the Lima agreement didn’t say.  It called for countries to submit their action pledges in advance of COP21 in Paris next year, but didn’t specify what those pledges needed to include or how they’ll be reviewed.  But it was progress that, for the first time, all nations agreed to take responsibility for their greenhouse gas emissions.  For all the delay and brinksmanship of the negotiations, COP20 was also an affirmation that all nations, developed and developing alike, have important contributions to make. 

Last week in Lima, pledges to the Global Climate Fund topped $10 billion, with new contributions not only from wealthy nations like Belgium and Australia, but also from developing forest nations like Peru and Colombia.

It’s remarkable that Latin American nations whose people depend mostly on resource-based livelihoods like forestry, ranching and farming are starting to contribute to the GCF.  It points to tropical countries’ role as full partners, not so much as funders -- there’s no question that most funding must come from developed nations – but as the actors with the most to contribute to emissions reductions from agriculture, forestry and other land use (known by the acronym “AFOLU”).

AFOLU is the second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for a quarter of global GHG emissions.  Plowing, fertilizing, grazing and burning generate vast amounts of GHG, and agriculture drives deforestation which generates even more, especially for carbon-rich tropical forests. The U.N. Climate Summit in September called for eliminating deforestation by 2030.  That would be like taking all the world’s cars off the road or eliminating all U.S. emissions. Yet as population and food demand rise, pressures on farmers and forests are growing. That’s why agriculture and forestry were prominent in Lima, and why national, bilateral and multilateral initiatives announced in these areas are hopeful outcomes of the meeting.

The Global Landscapes Forum at COP20 attracted thousands of policy and business leaders in to discuss frameworks and financing for sustainable agriculture and forestry. “We know that climate change cannot be tackled without a fundamental change in the way that agriculture is practiced,” Unilever CEO Paul Polman told the Forum.

Unilever was an early adopter of that view, committing to source all agricultural raw materials sustainably by 2020 and eliminate deforestation from its supply chain. But COP20 showcased a growing trend of tropical countries taking their own initiatives to cut emissions from land use.

For example, 13 tropical countries announced the Lima Challenge, pledging to go further in their efforts to stop deforestation, while challenging other producer countries to follow suit and for donor countries to support them.

Seven Latin American and Caribbean countries launched Initiative20x20 to restore 20 million hectares of degraded land to a combination forest, agroforestry and plantation by 2020, and that’s just the beginning, say the organizers. To get an idea how far-reaching this could be, see this report which finds that restoring just 12 percent of the world’s degraded land to productive use could feed 200 million people while cutting GHGs.

The Peruvian government presented its iNAMAzonia program (NAMA stands for “Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions”), for which my organization the Rainforest Alliance is providing technical support.  A significant part of the Peruvian Amazon is degraded land where farmers have carved out coffee, cacao, oil palm and livestock production. By working with them to make their operations more sustainable and productive, iNAMAzonia relieve pressure on the surrounding forests and prevent future deforestation.

I’m not implying that responsibility for acting on climate change somehow lies with tropical countries, which are generally the ones least responsible for the causes and suffer most with the effects. Developed countries must lead on cutting their own emissions and on financing initiatives like the ones above.

What I am saying is that cutting emissions from land use by ending deforestation and transforming agriculture are essential to climate solutions, and that the initiative of tropical countries showcased at Lima is a sign that we’re actively building the mechanisms to accomplish it.  As Leandro Salina, a coffee farmer in Mexico’s Oaxaca region working with Rainforest Alliance to implement climate-friendly farming practices, says in this video, “Even though we know we aren’t causing [climate change] – it’s others who are causing it – we, too must do something.”  Such attitudes are noble, but more than that, they’re of great practical significance for global emissions, and a source of hope for the climate.

Image credit: Flickr/UNclimatchange

Jeff Hayward is the director of the Rainforest Alliance's climate program.

As we move forward to a more sustainable and flourishing future, we’re going to need to increase our understanding of our role in the biosphere and request the assistance of some of our fellow planetary occupants, many of whom can do things that we can’t.

One of these we’ll likely need are mushrooms. Of course they are delicious on pizza and in soup, but they also have some amazing properties that make them essential for the maintenance of the soil, on which we all depend. Not only are they one of nature’s best recyclers, breaking down waste matter into simpler compounds that feed the soil, but they can also break down toxins and render them harmless.

From this comes the idea of mycoremediation. That’s the practice of using mushrooms to clean up contaminated soil. White-rot fungi dissolve the fibers of wood by secreting enzymes that break the fibers down. A similar mechanism can be used to break down complex hydrocarbons such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). In fact, these mushrooms can be used effectively against a whole array of infamous toxins including dioxins, PCBs, pesticides, coal tar and crude oil. Generally, the fungi are introduced into a contaminated area in conjunction with substrates such as straw, wood chips, bark or other organic material to help them grow.

The concept has been demonstrated at relatively large scale. For example, in 2007, there was an oil spill of some 58,000 gallons of crude off the coast of California. Large mats of woven human hair were used to collect the oil, which were then removed from the water and treated with oyster mushrooms and straw. Within a few weeks the mats were broken down into soil that was clean enough to be used for roadside landscaping. Other examples and discussion of mycoremediation can be found here.

Now, a team of micro-biologists and designers at Livin Studio in Vienna got together and added a new twist that combines both of these amazing mushroom properties. The fungi mutarium is an artificial environment in which edible mushrooms are used to break down plastic, creating a product that is not only safe but edible. This truly takes the cradle-to-cradle precept of “waste equals food” about as far as you can go.

The process works like this: First bits of thin plastic, like the polyethylene bags that stores like to give out, are chopped up and then exposed to UV light to kill germs. Then they are placed in little pods made of agar, an edible culture medium often used in laboratories to grow bacteria and other microorganisms. It is also sometimes used as a vegetarian substitute for gelatin.

Then, liquefied fungi sprouts derived from two popular mushrooms, oyster and split gill, are added and left in an incubator-like environment that is conducive to fungal growth. After several weeks the plastic is completely decomposed, leaving nothing but edible growth.

I know that after reading this you are going to want to rush out and buy your own mutarium, so that you can begin eating those plastic bags that have been cluttering up your house, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait for a while. The whole concept is still in the research phase. For one thing, it still takes too long for the process to complete. The team will continue to investigate ways to speed things up.

This does not really sound all that useful, though it certainly would be handy if you found yourself stranded in the middle of the Pacific garbage patch. If nothing else, it’s certainly food for thought.

Image courtesy of Livin, Studio Photography by Paris Tsitsos 2014

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.

Follow RP Siegel on Twitter.

As global climate change increasingly affects everything from public health and species extinction to infrastructure and property destruction to migration patterns, well, who do you sue?

No one apparently. If you think the international response on what to do about climate change is pretty much a fragmented, inadequate mess, then international law on the subject is even messier. And weaker.

A recent article in the Guardian notes that international law “stays silent on the responsibility for climate change.” This might be important because if there were serious legal ramifications regarding climate change, faster action to mitigate its effects might occur. Or not.

“The global economy is underpinned by law, but you would think it had nothing to do with climate change,” the article by Stephen Humphreys says. “Climate-related cases have been absent from international courts – even from disputes involving human rights, investment or the environment. While there have been cases heard in some national courts, particularly in the U.S., they do not progress far.”

This weak legal response means that “big polluters are getting off lightly.”

The article continues: “It is clear that 60 percent of proven oil reserves must be left in the ground if we are to have even a remote chance of limiting global warming to two degrees. Yet oil companies and exporters continue to drill and explore, to enjoy their assets and hedge against future losses, as though climate change were a mere financial risk rather than an existential threat to peoples’ lives and livelihoods.

“The world of international law is behaving as though the problem of climate change does not exist."

Look at one aspect: international trade law. An obvious policy for a country that’s serious about dealing with climate change would be to impose low carbon standards on the production of various everyday goods such as meat, mobile phones and plastics. “Does international trade law allow states to impose low-carbon standards on imported goods? The answer is yes and no,” Humphreys writes. “A low or zero-carbon import policy is almost certain to violate World Trade Organization (WTO) law. There may be viable policies but they will be time consuming and expensive to design, and there is no guarantee the WTO’s principal court won’t slap down any such policy on a technicality. No country has yet tried.

Why has the WTO not taken more proactive steps to tackle climate change? And why has the estimated $600 billion (£382 billion) in annual subsidies to fossil fuels never been challenged, while paltry subsidies to support renewable energy technologies have been stopped?”

These are unanswerable questions; and the questions become just as complex with respect to other international regimes, such as investment law and human rights law.

A 2008 paper, "Global Climate Change and the Fragmentation of International Law," addressed this issue in academic terms, highlighting the challenges for international lawyers and policymakers “in navigating the relationship between the climate regime and the biodiversity regime, and the relationship between the climate regime and the multilateral trading system.” The authors concluded that a “narrow focus on conflicts misrepresents the multifaceted nature of climate change and precludes an adequate jurisprudential understanding of the relationship between the climate regime and other regimes.” They call for “improved understanding” and a “broadening of the debate.”

Seven years later, the needle has barely moved on this subject, but there is some realization that it might be wise for international agreements to recognize national laws. Countries around the world are taking actions domestically to help cope with climate change. Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law has collected the relevant laws and policies of various countries into a database.

It’s probably too much to ask that an international agreement on climate change should include legally-binding enforcement mechanisms with teeth. Check that, it’s too impossible.

Image credit: From the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law website.

More companies report climate risks, but few do it well

According to Ceres, just shy of 60 percent of S&P 500 companies report climate risks in their financial disclosures (10-K), but the quality of disclosures is going down over time. “Most S&P 500 climate disclosures in 10-Ks are very brief, provide little discussion of material issues, and do not quantify impacts or risks,” writes Ceres in Cool Response: the SEC & Corporate Climate Change Reporting. Companies typically include no more than “one short paragraph or a couple of lines focused on climate-related risks or opportunities.”

Uncertainty or complacency?

Thinking beyond carbon regulatory risk

Five ways to improve your climate risk reporting

1. Focus on the big-ticket items: for an initial risk screening, you’re better off focusing you your assets and facilities with the highest embedded value. While imperfect, this will help you identify low-hanging fruits and gain support from your management for a more comprehensive analysis.


2. Be timely: climate change is not all about floods, drought or hurricane. When looking at assets with a long life span, you should consider gradual changes in temperature and precipitation, which could drive utility costs up, as well as sea-level rise and the increased likelihood of storm surge.


3. Think global: an effective analysis will identify and benchmark risks and opportunities across your entire value chain, not just your own operations: examine your suppliers and your extended supply chain network, your distributors and your customers. The main source of risk could be in your market or in one of the raw materials you depend on.


4. Act local: your adaptation response needs to be crafted individually for each location. You may need to consider traditional risk management tools, such as insurance, along with non-traditional methods geared specifically to the local circumstances of your facility, supplier or distributor.


5. Be a team player: climate change is not a problem that can be solved alone. A robust adaptation strategy will require meaningful engagement with local stakeholders and partnerships with public agencies.

Image credits: 1) Ceres 2014 2) http://www.rootsemporium.co.uk/ 3) CDP 2013

Emilie Mazzacurati is the founder and CEO of Four Twenty Seven. Four Twenty Seven provides customized climate risk analysis and adaptation strategic planning to corporations and public institutions. Four Twenty Seven's climate risk Forecasting and Adaptation Strategic Tool (FAST) provides a rapid and effective way to screen your value chain and reduce vulnerability to climate change risk.

Dow Chemical Co. clearly knows that handwashing is an important thing for children to do. The company recently announced its affiliation with the Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing with Soap (PPPHW) to promote the practice that can prevent diseases.

This is not the first time the company has partnered with PPPHW. Dow previously worked with the organization during Global Handwashing Day, a campaign that raised awareness about the importance of handwashing with soap and water. PPPHW started Global Handwashing Day to reduce child mortality rates related to respiratory and diarrheal diseases.

Global Handwashing Day recognized a technology created by Dow that makes soaps last longer while feeling better on the skin called Dow Polyox Water-Soluble Polymers. The technology is used in Unilever’s Lifebuoy soap. In 2011, Unilever asked Dow to help a new formulation for its Lifebuoy soap brand. The two companies came up with a soap that people in developing countries could afford and would last longer than other soaps.

Dow’s partnerships with PPPHW and Unilever help the company meet its sustainability goals for 2015. One of those goals is achieving at least three breakthroughs by 2015 that will help solve world challenges in certain areas, including health.

“We believe in the power of the human element to change the world. Dow places a high value on listening to our communities and we strive not just to be a good neighbor, but an excellent global corporate citizen,” said Ralf Brinkmann, business president, Dow Consumer Care. “This initiative has the power to change and save lives, and we are proud to contribute to building better, stronger, and more sustainable communities in the places where we do business.”

Handwashing saves the lives of children

The Dow report shows just how important handwashing is to the future of children. Handwashing with soap at certain critical times such as prior to meals or preparing food and after using the toilet can reduce the risk of diarrhea by 45 percent. Handwashing with soap can reduce the incidence of acute respiratory infections (ARIs), including pneumonia, by 23 percent. Handwashing not only helps children, but their mothers as well. Handwashing with soap by mothers and birth attendants was shown to reduce neonatal mortality in Nepal by 40 to 45 percent.

Image credit: UNICEF Ethiopia