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The Ebola virus is one of the deadliest to hit West Africa. The number of Ebola cases in West Africa totaled 9,936 with 4,877 deaths as of Oct. 20. The average death rate is 50 percent, but in past outbreaks the death rate has ranged from 50 to 90 percent. Clearly, West Africa needs help fighting Ebola, and corporate donors are pledging money to help with that fight. Recently, JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced up to $600,000 in donations from its foundation and employees.

Grants of $300,000 from the JPMorgan Chase Foundation will support the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the International Rescue Committee in their work to help control the Ebola outbreak. The foundation is also launching an employee giving campaign that will match employee donations dollar-for-dollar. The foundation will double donations made by employees by up to $150,000 for a total of $300,000.

“There is an immediate need for assistance to help prevent Ebola from spreading any further,” said Dalila Wilson-Scott, head of global philanthropy for JPMorgan Chase. “With our support, UNICEF and the IRC will be able to continue responding to the outbreak, helping prevent the disease from spreading and providing social services to West African communities in need.”

Foundations donate to help fight Ebola

Corporate donors with foundations are also pledging big money to fight Ebola. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $50 million to combat Ebola, $2 million of which has been donated to the CDC Foundation. (The rest has been donated to the World Health Organization and UNICEF.) Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, gave $25 million to the CDC Foundation from their Silicon Valley Community Foundation. The $25 million donation is more than donations from the governments of China, Canada, Germany and France and is the biggest private donation to the CDC Foundation.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen recently pledged $100 million to combat Ebola. Allen created the Humanitarian Aid Worker Medevac Fund and Ebola Medevac Fund to fund the development of two medevac containment units which the U.S. State Department will use to evacuate medical professionals from West Africa. Allen is also partnering with the World Health Organization.

Chocolate companies pledge to fight Ebola

West Africa produces nearly 70 percent of the world's cocoa, and the virus is threatening the world’s cocoa supply. But chocolate companies are also donating to help the region cope with the Ebola outbreak.

Earlier this month, the World Cocoa Foundation announced a $600,000 donation to fight Ebola in West Africa. The money came from member companies in the cocoa and chocolate industry which include Hershey, Mars and Nestle. All of the money went to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and Caritas.

Image credit: European Commission DG ECHO

Symantec last week released its seventh annual Corporate Responsibility Report, shortly after the software and information management firm announced it would be split into two separate publicly-traded businesses. The report, entitled Transforming to Protect the Future, continues the company’s reputation for a proactive CR approach and includes updated performance goals for the next five years.

The California-based company has been an early adopter of responsible business standards and was a signatory to the 2006 U.N. Global Compact, a set of international principles to protect human rights and ethical working conditions, decrease environmental impact and protect against corruption. The company also joined the U.N. Global Compact LEAD Initiative, a platform for corporate sustainability leadership launched in 2011, as one of just five U.S. companies.

Symantec has grown to dominate the security and data management industries, reaching $6.7 billion in revenue in FY 2014 (ending March 30, 2014), and recently announced the company would be separated into two distinct entities -- a data security and information management business. The company has not yet indicated how this change will affect its CR strategy, but its latest CR report added several new performance goals on workplace diversity, education and supply chain impact over the next five years.

Symantec has built a reputation as a high-performer in the field of workplace diversity and has placed diversity and inclusion among its highest CR priorities. While the company’s gender and race ratios remain highly skewed, this is perhaps more reflective the wider lack of minorities and women in the technology sector as a whole. Of the company’s 20,000 employees, 72 percent are male, and whites are the most highly represented race at 61 percent of the overall workforce, followed by Asians at 25 percent. Nevertheless, the company garnered several awards for its diversity efforts this year, including a spot on Minory Engineer Magazine’s list of its top employers, and it was selected by readers as the “Best Diversity Company” by readers of Diversity/Careers. Symantec also received a perfect score on Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index for the sixth year in a row and was recognized by the HRC as one of the “Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality.” In this year’s report, the company vowed to improve on its existing record, setting a goal of a 15 percent increase over 2014 workplace diversity metrics by 2020.

One way the company is helping to build a stronger employee pipeline for the long-term is through its philanthropic education initiatives. Education accounted for over 40 percent of the its overall donations last year and overall philanthropic giving has steadily increased over the past few years, reaching $28M in FY14, though the bulk of this was in-kind software donations.

In this year’s report, Symantec set a goal to engage one million students in STEM education -- particularly in computer science and cybersecurity -- by 2020 through a $20 million, five-year investment. According to the Symantec, cybersecurity jobs are one of the fastest-growing fields in IT, but there are not enough qualified applicants to fill vacant positions. Earlier this year the firm launched its Cyber Career Connection program, which seeks to train underserved adult populations in the field of cybersecurity and assist them with job placement. The program launches its pilot phase in FY 2015, with an initial group of 45-50 trainees across three cities.

On the environmental front, Symantec appears to be focused on strengthening its responsible sourcing and emissions reductions efforts, though the company has yet to establish and formal greenhouse gas reduction goals. The company has been tracking its GHG emissions since 2008 and has seen minor improvements in the electricity use for its data centers, labs and offices -- the company’s single largest source of GHG emissions.  In FY14 emissions from this source decreased about 3 percent compared to the previous year, a change the company attributes to occupying newer, more energy-efficient buildings (over 80 percent of Symantec’s occupied building space is LEED certified). However emissions related to business travel increased 14 percent compared to FY13, resulting in a 3 percent increase in overall GHG emissions to reach 244,000 metric tons of CO2e.

Data centers are one of the largest sources of power consumption for Symantec and similar technology firms, and the company has stated that it will be consolidating and upgrading the efficiency of these centers over the next few years, but no firm targets hav been set. Symantec has joined forces with HP, Facebook and other data center operators to form the Business for Social Responsibility’s Future of Internet Power, a collaborative effort to encourage adoption of sustainable energy sources for power-hungry data centers. Symantec also announced in this year’s report that it will be pursuing Energy Star certification for 100 percent of its hardware products by the end of 2015.

The company is also pushing to reduce the impacts of its hardware supply chain through its commitment to validate all products manufactured for Symantec as “conflict free” minerals by the end of 2017. In some countries, the mining of raw materials such as tin, tantalum, gold and tungsten has been linked to financing for bloody conflicts, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In late 2013, Symantec issued a conflicts mineral policy and has since been tracing its mineral supply chain to its roots, in accordance with US regulations on conflict minerals. While the company has not yet fully mapped the supply pathways for all of its suppliers, it has stated that if any conflict minerals are discovered, it will force suppliers to change their sourcing.

You can view the full Symantec report here.

Image credit: Nicole Honeywill/Unsplash

A large part of the response to climate change amounts to holding actions to mitigate the impact of fossil fuel emissions and to better prepare for unprecedented storms, hurricanes and floods.

Is enough being done on the latter point — preparedness for extreme weather? The answer is no, according to a 76-page report released this month by the National Wildlife Federation, Allied World Assurance Company Holdings and Earth Economics. In fact, the organizations say, there’s a major “preparedness deficit.”

The study, Natural Defenses from Hurricanes and Floods: Protecting America’s Communities and Ecosystems in an Era of Extreme Weather, examines the growing risks from potentially-catastrophic natural hazards; the policy solutions that can safeguard people, property and wildlife habitats; and local case studies that can point the way forward.

“Our preparedness deficit is the result of years of inaction and under-investment at the federal, state and local levels,” says Collin O’Mara, NWF president and CEO. “It’s time for our elected officials to reinvest in our natural defenses and this report offers a blueprint for bipartisan, market-based solutions.”

The report reads: “Far too many people who live along America’s coasts and rivers are at considerable risk of personal harm from floods and hurricanes, and their properties and economic livelihoods are highly vulnerable as well. Efforts by policy makers to grapple with and respond to these problems have been inadequate.”

Climate impacts are hitting home faster than governments are adapting, the report's authors say. “But it’s not too late to protect our communities with cost-effective, nature-based approaches for risk reduction, ” But — and there are always many buts when it comes to reacting to and dealing with climate change — what’s needed are major increases in “investments in proactive risk reduction measures” on the scale of a “Marshall Plan,” that will take into consideration the growing risks from more intense storms, flooding and sea level rise.

Two years ago Superstorm Sandy, a storm climate scientists say was worsened by global warming, slammed into the East Coast. It killed 72 Americans, touched 24 states, knocked out power to more than 7 million people and caused an estimated $70 billion in damage. In 2014, the U.S. has just come off the hottest six-month stretch on record globally, and America saw the ninth wettest summer on record:

• Torrential downpours in the Northeast dumped a summer’s worth of rain in just a matter of hours, while parts of the Midwest received two months of rainfall in one week.


• Montana had its wettest August on record with 276 percent of its average precipitation.


• Even in the midst of historic drought, California has experienced record thunderstorms and deadly flash floods.

The report's authors say solutions are at hand: “Policymakers can make coastal and riverine communities safer and more resilient to floods and hurricanes by focusing on natural and nature-based approaches for risk reduction. These approaches protect and restore natural infrastructure such as wetlands, dunes, riparian zones, living shorelines, and natural open space. They are cost-effective and produce a host of benefits to residents in addition to flood protection, including clean water, habitat for fish and wildlife, and increased opportunities for recreation and tourism. They also produce savings for taxpayers nationwide.”

The authors note that improvements in seven areas of federal and state law are needed:

1. Phase out subsidies for federal flood insurance to reduce incentives for development in high-risk and environmentally-sensitive areas while taking care to address social equity impacts.


2. Prioritize federal investments on the front end of disasters, potentially reducing billions in disaster relief after storms and floods.


3. Further reduce and eliminate federal subsidies that lead to more development on barrier islands.


4. Ensure better protection of wetlands, intermittent streams, and other water bodies that can absorb floodwaters, act as speed bumps for storm surge, and buffer communities.


5. Refocus Army Corps of Engineers on restoration projects that work with nature to reduce flood risk rather than on multi-billion dollar civil works construction projects.


6. Ensure that state-sponsored insurance programs are designed in ways that discourage development in hazard-prone areas while protecting socially-vulnerable communities.


7. Take urgent action to reduce carbon pollution that’s worsening extreme weather.

Those are logical and needed steps as the nation must cope with a “new normal” of extreme weather conditions. And a Marshall Plan approach is desperately needed.

Here’s the thing however: The Marshall Plan was the American initiative to aid Europe after World War II, in which the United States gave $17 billion — or the equivalent of about $160 billion in current dollars — in economic support to help rebuild European economies over four years beginning in April 1948. What are the odds that the U.S. will spend on that scale over the coming decades?

Image credit: Picture extracted from the Natural Defenses report

Following through on the mitigation aspects of President Barack Obama's Climate Action Plan, the Department of Energy on Oct. 22 announced the latest round of SunShot Initiative award winners. Reducing fossil fuel use is the most effective means of reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that are fueling climate change. By investing in innovative solar and renewable energy research and development, DOE is promoting further reductions in the cost of solar energy -- making it an economically more attractive, emissions-free alternative to fossil fuels.

In this latest round of SunShot R&D funding, DOE awarded a total of $53 million to help young, small U.S. companies carry out 40 innovative solar energy projects that could help realize the SunShot Challenge goal of driving the total installed cost of solar energy down to 6 cents per kilowatt-hour by 2020. Thanks to SunShot, the U.S. is 60 percent of the way there, with the average price of utility-scale solar-generated electricity having dropped from about 21 cents to 11 cents per kWh.

Among the latest crop of SunShot R&D award winners are Cogenra Solar, Mosaic and Stem -- promising young U.S. companies at the forefront of innovation in upstream and downstream solar photovoltaic (PV) energy and intelligent energy storage technology. All three, as it turns out, are based in the San Francisco Bay area.

The multiple benefits of investing in solar energy R&D

U.S. solar electricity generation capacity grew at a torrid 418 percent rate from 2010 to year-end 2013. Though it's the fastest growing category of any type of electric power generation, solar energy only accounted for 12,057 megawatts, or 1.13 percent, of overall U.S. generation capacity in 2013.

U.S. solar power generation capacity is expected to continue to grow rapidly in coming decades, however. According to DOE, solar energy could meet 14 percent of U.S. electricity needs by 2030 and 57 percent by 2050. Some believe those estimates are modest. Realizing SunShot Initiative targets would also drive creation of green jobs, including helping to revitalize U.S. manufacturing, in which relatively well-paid skilled jobs are the rule. As DOE states:

“Achieving the SunShot Initiative's 6 cents per kWh goal would lead to the creation of 390,000 new solar jobs by 2050.”

SunShot Initiative, solar jobs and electricity costs

Also significant, achieving SunShot goals would go a long way toward mitigating the negative effects high and volatile fossil fuel prices have on the cost of generating electric power.

“In the scenarios envisioned by the SunShot Initiative, solar power could decrease costs by up to 14 percent and save up to $20 billion annually by 2050 while still meeting the nation's carbon-cutting goals,” according to DOE.

Federal R&D program funding and public-private partnerships such as those being enacted through the SunShot Initiative have been pivotal to promoting growth across the renewable energy value chain. Commenting on the latest round of SunShot R&D awards, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz stated:

“As U.S. solar installation increases and the cost of solar electricity continues to decline, solar energy is becoming an increasingly affordable clean energy option for more American families and businesses. “Today, the U.S. has 15.9 gigawatts of installed solar power – enough to power more than 3.2 million average American homes. The projects announced today will help the U.S. solar energy industry continue to grow, ensuring America can capitalize on its vast renewable energy sources, cut carbon pollution, and continue to lead in the world in clean energy innovation.”

SunShot and Bay Area solar startups

San Franciso Bay Area solar energy startups, such as Cogenra, Mosaic and Stem, figure prominently in the SunShot Initiative's success. Among the latest round of solar R&D funding recipients, DOE awarded Mountain View-based Cogenra $2 million to help finance construction of an automated production line for its record-setting Dense Cell Interconnect (DCI) technology.

Cogenra's DCI holds out the promise of boosting the power output of solar modules by as much as 15 percent. In tests at third-party labs, DCI “set world records for peak power output in N-type mono crystalline, P-type mono crystalline and multi crystalline silicon photovoltaic (PV) cells.” Cogenra achieved these substantial gains by “eliminating copper interconnect ribbons, solder joints and inter-cell gaps,” DOE explains.

Upstream of solar cell and module manufacturing, pioneering solar energy finance startups such as Oakland's Mosaic are making solar more accessible and affordable. The developer of a peer-to-peer online platform for investing in solar energy projects, DOE awarded Mosaic its second cooperative award.

Mosaic will use the $650,000 SunShot award to support its growing home solar lending business. That includes further improving its home solar Web portal, which home solar system installers are using to close deals, Mosaic explains in a press release. Mosaic says monthly payments on its home solar loans are among the lowest in the market. The company is raising capital for its home solar loans by aggregating investments via crowdsourcing. "The SunShot Initiative is a model for the public sector's power to support private sector innovation," said Mosaic co-founder and President Billy Parish. "We're thrilled to receive a second round of funding from SunShot's Incubator program and to be joined by the solar industry's brightest innovators."

Advances and cost reductions in intelligent energy storage technology of the kind being developed and deployed by Millbrae, California-based Stem may be the missing piece of the puzzle that triggers another acceleration in solar energy deployment. With $935,000 in SunShot R&D funding, Stem aims to improve grid stability and lower the cost of integrating solar energy generation assets with electric grids. “While storage and solar require hardware such as batteries and panels, Stem has demonstrated the considerable value that can be unlocked by coupling these technologies with advanced software capabilities,” Stem CEO John Carrington was quoted in a press release. “This award underscores the critical role data analytics play in integrating technologies into the U.S. electric grid.”

Editor's Note: An earlier version of this post reported that the national average total installed cost of solar dropped from 21 cents to 11 cents per kWh. The post has been updated to note that these figures only refer to utility-scale solar energy.

*Image credits: 1) DOE SunShot Initiative; 2) DOE Solar Manufacturing Partnerships; 3) Mosaic; 4) Stem, Inc.

By Kathy Gerwig

Health care organizations are in the business of supporting human health. Yet the irony is that health care organizations, and the hospitals they operate, are no small players in contributing to climate change. Hospitals account for 8 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. They spend $5.3 billion on energy every year, and use twice as much energy per square foot as traditional office space. They generate more than 2 million tons of waste per year. And they are among the top 10 water users in their communities, with some facilities using up to 700,000 gallons of water per hospital bed per year.

It’s a considerable environmental footprint. And as the consequences of climate change are becoming all the more real, posing the “biggest global health threat in the 21^st century,” it is only natural that health care organizations should take a leading role in addressing this challenge.

And they are.

A growing number of health care business and clinical leaders are turning away from ideological disputes and tired political battles over climate change and are simply stepping up to the challenge. They are embracing environmental stewardship as part of their commitment to improving health. They are mounting a response to the health impacts of climate change that are predicted and are already being felt. And they are looking hard at the environmental impact of their hospitals and operations in order to address their role in driving climate change and do something about it.

Last month’s United Nations Climate Summit illustrates the complexity of getting world leaders to agree on a plan of action to tackle the climate crisis. By contrast, some of the world’s leading health care organizations see their mission of healing people and healing the planet as one and the same. They carry out their health care mission with the understanding that environmental health, community health and individual health often interact in such complex ways as to be often indistinguishable. If we want to achieve health, we must tackle all the determinants of health, and we must do it in partnership with one another.

In my book “Greening Health Care, How Hospitals Can Heal the Planet”, I examine the intersection of health care and environmental health, exploring the challenges that health care has faced in owning up to its impact on the environment. I look at the many ways that health care is helping to shift the dialogue around environmental sustainability by stepping up to the challenge of climate change in ways that, frankly, many world political leaders could learn from.

What are health care leaders doing?

Health systems including Dignity Health are committing to reduce their systemwide energy consumption through energy efficient upgrades and installation of renewable energy sources like photovoltaic, solar hot water, cogeneration and fuel cell technology across 35 percent of their enterprise.

Cleveland Clinic achieved impressive energy efficiency results simply by substituting more than 60,000 LED bulbs for nearly all the incandescent lights across their campuses and dimming nighttime lighting in hospital corridors. The result was a huge reduction in energy, with a savings of $4 million in energy costs per year.

Seattle Children’s Hospital implemented a comprehensive transportation management plan focusing on the health and environmental benefits of cycling, walking, using public transit and other innovations. Since its inception, the hospital has helped to take 630,000 car trips off the roads, reducing vehicle miles traveled by 6.5 million miles and saving 235,000 gallons of gasoline.

And at Kaiser Permanente, we’re building healthier hospitals through a commitment to LEED Gold-certified construction in all major projects. It’s now our standard practice to incorporate such innovations as energy-efficient heating and ventilation systems, photoelectric and motion sensors to turn off or dim lights when not in use, replace halogen and incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs, and build-in systems to recycle waste anesthetic gases that have a high global warming potential. Kaiser Permanente is the largest user of solar power among U.S. health care providers and we are ramping up additional purchases of onsite and offsite renewable power.

In addition to addressing climate change, these actions have immediate health benefits today. Reducing particulate matter, mercury, carbon and other pollutants reduces respiratory illness, heart attacks and early deaths.

The evidence is clear that we in health care not only have an opportunity to take action, we have an obligation by virtue of our social and medical mission. The past 15 years represent a green revolution underway in the health care industry. It is a journey of a thousand steps, but one that shows great promise as an entire industry has begun to unite in response to the health impacts of climate change.

Kathy Gerwig is vice president of Employee Safety, Health and Wellness and environmental stewardship officer at Kaiser Permanente. She is responsible for developing, organizing and managing the organization's national Environmental Stewardship initiative, and under her leadership Kaiser Permanente has become widely recognized as an environmental leader in the health care sector.

By Shannon Houde

So, you've found a posting for your dream job. It looks amazing, you love the company already, it’s in your city, and you think you can do it well. What next?

If your answer is to draft an email to the HR department and attach a CV that tells all about who you are and what you’ve done, then you'd better keep reading. Because a winning CV is not a flabby, generic description of a candidate; it’s a ripped marketing tool that does the heavy lifting for hiring managers and makes it easy for them to see why they should call you for an interview. It makes them want to know you!

In the battle for dream roles, smart jobseekers know that ignoring the market in this way is a serious CV fail. I'm a sustainability career coach, talent advisor and former HR manager, and I often find myself sat at seminar discussions, high-level meetings and coffee tables with the very people whose attention you're trying to attract. Which is how I know that taking a strategic, targeted approach to job applications is the best way to land an interview.

In last month's post -- The Most Common CV and Resume Mistakes, Part 1: It's All About Me!  -- I explained why your CV should be all about the market: appealing to the market, meeting the market's needs, using the market's language, communicating what the market wants to hear. In this month’s post, I’m going to help you take a deep, analytical dive into the job description to figure out what the market really wants and tailor your CV to nail it.

It is absolutely crucial to translate your skill set to the job you're applying for. A hiring manager will spend 30 seconds reading a CV, so if you want to impress and get yours on the 'A-List', think like a salesperson and put the good stuff front row, centre. In my experience, the easiest way to do this is through what I call 'Mapping Your Skills to the Market': a process I developed to help clients and readers to make their skills and experience relevant to the job description. Here’s how to do it.

Map Your Skills 1) Translate the job description

The best way to get to grips with a job description is to set about translating it into bite-size chunks of role requirements -- streamlining and editing at its best. Cut out all of the repetitive fluff and confusion in the job spec. Copy and paste the essential criteria and the desirable criteria (along with any other nuggets you may find) into Word Doc bullet points, leave the rest behind, and proceed to step two below.

Map Your Skills 2) Get thematic

Take your bulleted list of key points and copy and paste each of their requirements under the headings of skills, values, traits or knowledge/issues. Under each heading, try to collapse their criteria and identify the main themes, for example: communications, strategy, impact measurement, fundraising, etc.

Look at the key words that re-occur most often -- these are likely to be the most important. If they mention project management six times, that will give you a major hint!

Map Your Skills 3) Look for the grey area

Now that you’ve stripped it back to the bare bones and got some thematic order on things, you can start to map your skills to the role -- bullet point by bullet point – and see how you match up. But don’t panic if you feel you’re coming up short: While a job description will contain well-defined role requirements, the parameters for meeting them are not always so well-defined.

This is where relevant versus literal translations of job descriptions come in, basically the idea that even if you haven’t done that specific thing, you might still have had exposure to it or have transferrable skills. Here’s an example: A role requires experience developing policies. You haven’t done that, but maybe you have exposure to the policy debate and current legislation, maybe you’ve engaged in that debate through social media or NGO affiliations, perhaps even written a blog about it. These things might not sound like much, but to a hiring manager, they show relevant exposure to a key job requirement, and that’s useful.

Map Your Skills 4) Sanity check

Now that you’ve broken down the job description, identified the key themes and matched up your relevant and literal skills, you’re probably feeling one of two things: a) satisfied and confident that you have what it takes to go for and potentially win this role (but make sure it is not below you), or b) slightly nauseous as you peer into the deep ravine that is your skills gap. If it’s the latter, take heart – at least you know early, and you’ve constructively identified the areas you need to work on before going for another role like this one.

If it’s the former, it’s time to dig out your old CV and move on to the next phase of the application process -- the writing, or spinning I sometimes call it – where all the hard work of mapping your skills will really pay off. If it’s the latter, make sure you have made an effort to translate tangible achievements that may fit to what they are looking for before you throw in the towel. Third-party perspective on this can really help so reach out to your trusted advisors.

Next month in Part 3 of this series on The Most Common CV and Resume Mistakes, I'll take you step-by-step through the writing of a killer personal profile that meets the hiring manager’s requirements while staying true to you. And Part 4 – how to wow a hiring manager with a killer achievement. In the meantime, follow me on Twitter @walkoflifecoach to stay in the loop.

Image credit Ian Sane, via Flickr/ CC BY

***

Shannon Houde is founder of Walk of Life Consulting, the first international career coaching business focused solely on the sustainability, corporate responsibility and impact fields.

The divestment train has left the station. It’s hard to pass a headline that doesn’t include the words 'divestment' and 'foundation' in the same sentence these days. And rightfully so: As technology and innovation in renewables start to take hold, the good old boys at the coal mining and fossil fuel companies are starting to lose investors. Recent campaigns include:

• Stanford University, an $18.7 billion portfolio, got out of all coal mining investments.


• The city of Oakland unanimously approved a measure divesting city funds from all investments in any company whose business is extraction, production, refining, burning or distribution of any fossil fuels.


• Rockefeller Brothers Fund, heir to the oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, announced the divestment of fossil fuels in the fund.

The list goes on and on. Somewhat piggybacked nearly 40 years later on the anti-apartheid campaigns of the early '80s, this divestment campaign started a few years back at universities and colleges and has now spread to over 300 college campuses across the country through organizations such as Responsible Endowments Coalition. But it seems as if this divestment movement is taking hold not only with the universities, but also with a number of different institutions, including small and large family foundations and local municipalities. This eventually will trickle down to individual households who have various IRAs, 401(k)s and brokerage accounts. Several steps to help create a personal fossil-fuel free portfolio include:

• If you own individual stocks, readdress whether or not they are involved in the dirty energy extraction business.


• Ask your human resources director at work if there are options within the 401(k) or 403(b) plan that take into consideration environmental, social and governance screens.


• If you work with an investment advisor, simply call them and request to see the holdings and if he or she could discuss how to integrate sustainable and responsible (SRI) principles into your portfolio. If they say something like “Why in the world would you want to do that?," then it may be time to switch advisors.

For big institutions that have a fiduciary responsibility to make money, their divestment from coal and oil is not just coming out of the goodness of their hearts. It is also coming from the fact that this industry may be just unable to compete (like any other industry out there) and because of their duty as board members have to look elsewhere to maximize their profits.

"This announcement sends a powerful message to the fossil fuel industry: if you're going to try and take away our planet, we're going to try and take away your money. We're no longer just playing defense against dirty projects like the Keystone XL pipeline, we're going on offense, too," stated 350.org.

Image credit: Flickr/hampsjpphotos

Dale Wannen is CEO of Sustainvest Asset Management LLC, an investment advisory firm focused on sustainable and responsible investing based in Petaluma CA. He can be reached at dale@sustainvestmanagement.com.

Solar prices continue to drop, according to the findings of a joint report by National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) system prices decreased by 12 to 19 percent nationwide in 2013. Prices in 2014 are expected to drop by another 3 to 12 percent -- and this trend is expected to continue through 2016.

PV system prices of residential and commercial systems dropped by 6 to 7 percent per year from 1998 to 2013 -- and by 12 to 15 percent from 2012 to 2013. Market analysts expect system prices to continue to drop. The Department of Energy SunShot Initiative aims to reduce PV system prices by 75 percent from 2010 to 2020.

Other findings in the report include:

• Prices for residential systems (5 kilowatts) dropped by 12 percent from the second quarter of 2012


• Prices for commercial systems (200 KW) dropped by 3 percent from the second quarter of 2012


• Utility scale prices dropped by 5 percent from the second quarter of 2012


• From 2012 to 2013, prices for systems bigger than 10 KW dropped by 12 percent and by 15 percent for systems greater than 100 KW


• The median reported prices dropped by roughly 5 to 12 percent during the first half of 2014 across the three size ranges


• Global annual average module prices increased by 7 cents per watt from 2012 to 2013

A report by the Solar Energy Industries Association for the second quarter of 2014 found that the price for the national average PV installed system price dropped by 9 percent. The average price of a residential PV installation in the second quarter of 2014 dropped 41 percent from 2010. Since the second quarter of 2010, the average price of a solar panel dropped by 64 percent.

For the first half of the year, 53 percent of all new electric capacity installed has come from solar. Through the first half of the year, a new solar project has been installed every 3.2 minutes.

All three PV market segments grew significantly year over year. Over 6,500 megawatts of PV is predicted to come online in 2014, representative of a 36 percent growth over last year’s record installation levels.

There are over half a million solar installations now online in the U.S. The U.S. solar market topped the gigawatt mark for the third consecutive quarter to settle at 1,133 megawatts. That represents a 21 percent growth over the second quarter of last year and brings cumulative installed solar capacity to 15,900 MW, enough to power more than 3.2 million average American homes.

Image credit: Christine via Flickr

This post is part of Triple Pundit’s ongoing coverage of the SXSW Eco conference. For the rest, please visit our SXSW Eco page here.

Goose Island is one of my favorite Chicago beers and like many quality beers has a solid sustainability story to share.  At this year's SXSWeco conference, Goose Island's Assistant Brewing Manager, Ian Hughes and I had a good talk about the efforts the company is making to be more sustainable.  Perhaps of equal importance, we also talked about how consumers can be better educated about the efforts of breweries like Goose Island.

Ian and I both agreed that the story of sustainability in brewing should be more widely known - so drink to that next time you sit down for a pint.

More in the video below....

The tubes started buzzing earlier this week with news that leading corporations 3M, Cisco Systems, and Kimberly-Clark Corporation have partnered with the World Wildlife Foundation  and the National Geographic Society to offer their employees something that we're going to call "instant" solar financing on their home solar systems. The idea is to take advantage of bulk-order group purchasing power to slash costs, and to vet one standout solar company to manage the financing and pre-qualify reliable contractors to provide the installations.

Giving employees a great deal on home solar installations is just part of the perk. The other part is relieving individual solar purchasers from all the time, hassle, and guesswork involved in choosing a reliable solar financing and installation company.

The solar company selected by the partnership is  Geostellar, which has received Energy Department funding to develop a low cost, streamlined solar purchasing process that enables it to offer one of the best solar deals, if not the best, available today.

But wait, there's more -- lots more. The excitement was touched off by a story in The New York Times on October 22, but the new solar financing partnership is just one small piece of a huge bundle of solar initiatives announced by the Obama Administration back on October 18. Somehow that slipped under our radar, so before we dig deeper into the solar financing perk let's take a look at the whole package.

Solar financing and much, much (much) more

The October 18 announcement runs down a long list of executive actions recently undertaken by the Obama Administration to promote the U.S. solar industry, many through public-private partnerships and commitments.

The "executive action" track has become something of a political buzzsaw recently, but the depth of the private sector involvement demonstrates that U.S. companies are not exactly being dragged kicking and screaming into the solar marketplace (check out the growth of SolarCity, for example).

Among the private sector initiatives listed in the announcement, the Obama Administration highlighted progress in the area of solar financing. The standout examples include Goldman Sachs, which back in May committed to an additional $10 billion in financing and investments for distributed solar.

Citi also gets a mention for an innovative financing transaction that will cover more than three dozen renewable energy systems at $160 million.

The October 18 announcement also took note that 28 new partners, including private sector property owners, are joining the Administration's Better Buildings Initiative, a public-private initiative designed to spur investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy while establishing best practices models.

The executive action package also included a raft of initiatives for federal agencies that dovetail with the solar industry and other clean tech sectors.

Two of those highlights include solar jobs training for military veterans, and Agriculture Department loans and grants for rural renewable energy and energy efficiency projects through REAP, including solar financing.

Speaking of taking the guesswork out of solar financing, another highlight is the soon-to-be-announced launch of Solar Powering America, which will provide individuals and business with one-stop access to all available federal resources for promoting the solar industry.

In addition, the Administration released an updated version of its Guide to Federal Financing for Energy Efficiency and Clean Energy Deployment. That toolkit is designed to help government agencies and their private sector partners identify solar financing and other renewable energy opportunities.

GeoStellar, WWF and Solarmojo

Put the new solar financing employee perk announcement in this context, and you can see how deeply the solar industry is penetrating into the fabric of corporate America.

The new solar financing deal is actually the brainchild of WWF (World Wildlife Foundation). It comes under the organization's Solar Community Initiative, which officially launched on October 22.

According to WWF, the deal provides employees with a flat rate that is about 35 percent lower than the current national average, and about 50 percent lower than average electricity rates. The solar financing angle is based on a power purchase agreement, which means that the property owner pays nothing up front. The installation is paid off through the monthly electricity bill.

For companies seeking to attract and keep sustainability-minded employees, offering a discount on Geostellar's already competitive pricing is a significant perk that costs them virtually nothing.

If you are a business owner, you can jump in, too. Under the promotion code "solarmojo," Geostellar has stated that the deal for 3M, Cisco, and Kimberly-Clark is available to all comers nationwide until the end of this year.

Image (screenshot): Courtesy of Geostellar.

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