Search

As discussed in the first part of this two-part series on food waste solutions, food waste has consequences for all populations, from economic to social and environmental. Because there are many ways in which food waste occurs, we need a wide range of solutions and array of technologies to make an impact. In part two, we focus on prevention and recovery solutions that can stem the flow of food waste before it gets thrown out.

Since food waste involves a complex set of inefficiencies, we need a comprehensive suite of innovations to address it.  

Smarter Inventory management crucial for curbing food waste

One of the leading causes of food waste across the supply chain is a lack of demand planning and inventory management. For example, 40 percent of food waste in the U.S.  due to administrative mistakes, spoilage, theft, and other losses. These inefficiencies cost the grocery industry alone more than $50 billion a year in lost profits. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) can enable nuanced demand planning and help track waste across the supply chain. An AI-fueled inventory management system can process hundreds of factors that influence demand and create accurate forecasts to help grocers and restaurants order and stock with greater precision. Machine learning algorithms can continue to improve accuracy over time by defining the relationship between various factors and a product’s sales. According to ReFED, improving demand planning by optimizing inventory management and forecasting systems can create $5 billion in net financial benefit for retailers. 

AI can also enable detailed waste tracking that offers retailers insights into which products they are throwing away and why. Technologies that quantify, categorize, and pick up patterns in food waste can help companies optimize their supply and offerings based on data. Waste tracking and analytics can help food service and restaurants generate over $1 billion in additional profit through reduced food purchases costs and divert 571,000 tons of food. McKinsey estimates that AI can generate an economic opportunity of up to $127 billion a year by 2030 by designing food waste out of the system. 

Digital food recovery platforms can help prevent wasted food

To facilitate food waste recovery, companies with food at risk of going to waste need to be able to transfer it to other companies or individuals who have a use for it. This requires creating new connections in the food supply chain where there are currently missing linkages. Digital platforms are now being used to bridge these food system players. Digital platforms can enable supply chain redesign and the formation of novel connections that can allow for the rescue and use of food that would otherwise go to waste. These platforms benefit players across the supply chain. 

In addition, platforms can also educate consumers about the economic, environmental, and social importance of reducing food waste or remove pre-existing beliefs around food waste recovery. Platforms can also introduce new tools into a company’s production, logistics or marketing processes. 

Digital platforms can facilitate connections across the food supply chain such as between food businesses, between food businesses and consumers, between food businesses and charities, and between consumers. For example, a number of businesses are working on getting retailers and consumers to think differently about ugly produce that would otherwise go to waste traditionally. 

Additionally, app-based companies are helping consumers access discounted food nearing its expiration date. For example, Flashfood is a mobile marketplace that enables shoppers to save on fresh and non-perishable items about to go to waste. So far, the company has diverted 30 million pounds of food from landfills and has saved shoppers almost $90 million in grocery bills.

It's time for investing in smarter packaging

Active packaging modifies the condition of foods to combat spoilage and improve their sensory or safety properties. This holds new potential for food preservation because of recent advances in packaging, biotechnology, and material science. Solutions include packaging technology that removes oxygen in the product, antimicrobial packaging, ethylene scavenging to limit the overripening of produce, moisture migration technology to delay staling in baked foods, and packaging designed to reduce flavor loss. 

Alternatively, intelligent packaging enables tracking and monitoring of food which can ease decision making and improve supply chain operations, thereby increasing shelf life. Intelligent packaging can take the form of indicators and sensors that provide real-time information on the state of the food and its surrounding environment, and data carriers such as RFIDs that provide information or control the flow of food products. 

While these technologies have yet to penetrate the market because of the high implementation costs and challenges translating to the real world, they have potential to transform food packaging to benefit consumers, manufacturers, and retailers. According to Supply Chain Dive, applying sensory technology to increase traceability could reduce food waste by at least 5 percent within the supply chain.

Upcycling food byproducts is a win-win

Food production and processing generate a significant byproduct which is usually discarded. There is a growing movement to turn discarded byproduct into new food items. The Upcycled Food Association (UFA) defines upcycled foods as foods that “use ingredients that otherwise would not have gone to human consumption, are procured and produced using verifiable supply chains, and have a positive impact on the environment.” 

The UFA launched a new Upcycled Certification Standard in 2021 so companies can highlight products that incorporate upcycled ingredients and reduce food waste. According to a report by Future Market found that the upcycled food market is worth $46.7 billion with an expected CAGR of 5 percent over the next ten years. 

According to Project Drawdown, reducing food waste is one of the top solutions for reducing carbon emissions. It has the potential to draw 87 gigatons of CO2 out of the atmosphere, which is significantly more than other solutions such as a global plant-based diet (64 gigatons), electric cars (12 gigatons), and even utility-scale solar power installations (42 gigatons). 

Effective solutions will require partnerships between different parts of the food and ag sector and between businesses, consumers, governments, research institutions, and nonprofits. There is no panacea for food waste, this is an all-hands-on-deck effort.

Interested in having your voice heard on 3p? Contact us at [email protected] and pitch your idea for a guest article to us.

Image credit: Matheus Cenali via Pexels

The fact that New York state funding for 2022-2023 environmental initiatives increased from an original $4 billion to $6 billion in the final budget is all thanks, says Seventh Generation CEO Alison Whritenour, to the “tireless work” of advocacy groups like the 300-plus group coalition NY Renews, a Seventh Generation partner.

A boost for schools, but lost opportunities?

The state’s budget was finalized in early April. Climate justice measures within the budget include “green education” investments in infrastructure upgrades along with access to clean energy sources for schools in underserved communities.

Ultimately, the state’s environmental budget falls short of the $15 billion advocacy groups believe is necessary to fully fund the ambitions of New York’s groundbreaking Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (CLCPA) that passed in 2019. Despite the funding boost, many believe it’s not enough to contend with the numerous climate threats facing the nation’s fourth-most populous state. So what does New York’s future hold, especially when it comes to climate risks?

Going forward, Whritenour tells TriplePundit, both state governments and businesses have a huge role to play in future climate funding efforts around the nation.

On climate, New York’s budget is half-full to some, half-empty to others

Heavy rainstorms and rising water levels are leaving New Yorkers increasingly vulnerable. For example, Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and Hurricane Ida in 2021 have led to beach erosion, submerged lowlands and exacerbated coastal flooding. As a response, Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed new green infrastructure projects, claiming last month that the state’s new budget would help New York transition to a clean energy economy while creating jobs.

“This moment demands historic investments in renewable energy and environmental protection to bring us closer to a brighter, greener future,” Gov. Hochul said last month while announcing the budget’s details. “Our unprecedented commitment to the pursuit of clean-energy alternatives and green infrastructure will supercharge our economy and advance our climate goals.

Not everyone shares the governor’s optimism. Prior to the budget’s finalization, NY Renews said in a statement, “The law [CLCPA] made New York a climate leader, but it requires sufficient funding to deliver a just, equitable, and sustainable state as promised.”

The group added, “NY Renews’ $15 billion proposal is proportional to the scale of funding needed to avert climate catastrophe and invest in climate justice.” Assembly member Jo Anne Simon (D-Brooklyn) said anything less than $15 billion is a “half measure” that makes the CLCPA “just a piece of paper.”

Even with a 50 percent increase in New York’s environmental budget, much work remains to be done on the climate action front. According to Whritenour, climate pollution costs the state of New York over $27 billion every year. She adds that not only would immediate climate investments that meet the mandates of the CLCPA save the state between $80 billion and $150 billion over 30 years, but it would also lead to increased air quality, increased public transportation, and energy-efficiency interventions for low-and moderate-income homes.  

The passage of the CLCPA hailed the now-strongest GHG emission standards in the nation, including a pathway for New York toward carbon-free electricity by 2040 and a net-zero carbon economy by 2050. The included climate funding in the 2022-2023 state budget lays out, among other initiatives, a $500 million investment to develop the state’s offshore wind supply chains and port infrastructure, as well as $500 million in clean water infrastructure funding.

Seventh Generation calls for bolder climate leadership

Seventh Generation is a certified B Corp with a history of activism and policy advocacy. Though the company and NY Renews wish the budget outcome were more favorable, Whritenour also believes New York has set a powerful precedent.

“We know first-hand from our advocacy work that states are a critical venue for policy change, with the ability to drive impact nationwide,” Whritenour says about what shapes the company’s efforts. “NY state has the 10th largest economy in the world [so] what happens in a state like New York has an impact well beyond its borders.” This includes the CLCPA’s influence on U.S. President Joe Biden’s Justice40 initiative. 

It’s critical that elected officials continue to hear from businesses who support climate policy towards a cleaner, more just future. “As a leading sustainable business, and one that does significant business in NY State, it’s critical that we speak up, and that we organize our peers in the business community to speak up with us,” she says.

As part of its partnership with NY Renews, Seventh Generation teamed up with businesses in a variety of industries, including Carbon Credit Capital, Kickstarter, Omega Institute and Uncommon Goods, to write a letter to New York’s elected officials to ensure state leaders understand that a just transition away from fossil fuels would be good for the state’s climate, people and economy. The group also ran print ads in local newspapers across the state to help New York consumers understand how the climate funds would benefit them and their communities.

Whritenour says the current moment calls for corporate sustainability to be “table-stakes,” and that business plays a critical role in getting us out of the climate crisis. “Businesses must leverage their influence to advocate for systemic policy change, and to do that in a way that aligns with their values,” Whritenour adds.

To that end, Seventh Generation is currently working to organize the business community to provide feedback on New York’s Climate Action Plan. 

“For too long members of the business community have obstructed progress on the climate crisis. Elected officials need to and want to hear from business leaders who understand and are ready to support just climate policy,” Whritenour says.

Image credit: Andrew Stein via Unsplash

Our food systems currently contribute about one-third of human-produced greenhouse gas emissions. In endeavoring to lower emissions, we certainly can’t do away with food, but we can adapt. Greener methods of growing have been sprouting up over the years. Regenerative agriculture, for example, has been embraced by brands such as meat company Applegate and Danone, known for its dairy products. Through regenerative agriculture, farms and ranches restore their soils for healthier water systems and carbon sequestration. 

And then there’s regionalizing, which can tackle that 10 or so percent of the food system’s greenhouse gas emissions that come from transporting food. Regionalizing does not automatically guarantee sustainability, though. In Going Local, author Michael Shuman describes the process of creating a sustainable local economy as not, “walling off the outside world,” but “nurturing locally owned businesses which use local resources sustainably, employ local workers at decent wages and serve primarily local consumers. It means becoming more self sufficient and less dependent on imports. Control moves from the boardrooms of distant corporations and back into the community where it belongs.”

The business benefits of 'going local'

There are clearly bottom-line benefits to regionalizing. The pandemic has taught many businesses the importance of supply chain transparency and resilience. A post from the University of Birmingham affirms the value in cost, quality and time that a regional supply chain can afford a company, compared with a mainly globalized system of supply. And the region gains employment and economic value. In a report, Schuman explains that shifting 20 percent of food spending to local producers in Detroit would lead to an economic boost of half a billion dollars and 4,700 new jobs. 

New partnership strengthens regional food system in NYC

A recent partnership between two sustainability-driven companies is giving New York City’s local food system a boost. One of the partners, URB-E, provides an alternative for last-mile delivery using electric bikes and a containerized system that saves time and space in downtowns — increasing delivery efficiency by two to three times, according to the company. URB-E is delivering food from Square Roots, which has been using a cloud-connected system to grow veggies in stackable upcycled shipping containers. According to the company, the hydroponic system uses 95 percent less water than field farms. 

“By working with URB-E and utilizing their electric-powered vehicles, initially in New York City, Square Roots can quickly deliver our fresh produce to stores in a way that is better for people and planet, while making good business sense,” Tobias Peggs, co-founder and chief executive officer at Square Roots, said in a press statement. 

URB-E CEO Charles Jolley expanded on the potential of this partnership in an email interview with TriplePundit. “Today it's actually cheaper in many places to get fruits and vegetables delivered from halfway across the world than across town thanks to the effort put in by major global logistics companies,” he wrote. “Now that we're moving into an era where more people are looking for delivery from local suppliers, URB-E's infrastructure helps put local food suppliers, both urban farms and restaurants, back on an equal footing.”

URB-E hires local employees for delivery, and Square Roots provides jobs for year-long farming. 

No cookie-cutter solution for taking on greenhouse gas emissions

We can return to Schuman’s book for insight on the bigger picture of what it takes to build a successful regional food system. He writes, “A community can best strengthen its economy when it builds on its internal strengths.” 

For a successful regional economy, Schuman is saying, production, transportation and vending need to be customized to the location and its people, and the local people need to be involved. The flexibility of the URB-E and Square Roots partnership to different cities has yet to be seen. 

Jolley expresses the potential for growth in a statement, “Working with local farmers to deliver their responsibly-grown fresh produce — all while reducing emissions by using our vehicles — is part of building the greener and smarter cities of tomorrow, and that’s why we’re glad to partner with Square Roots.”

Image credit: Markus Spiske via Unsplas

When it comes to curbing the spread of disinformation about climate change, social media platforms are more opaque than transparent about their policies to combat the problem, according to a new scorecard released earlier this month by the nonprofits Avaaz, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace USA.

The scorecard, which is based upon the Climate Disinformation Coalition’s 27-point assessment of Facebook, Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube, found that none of them adequately disclosed comprehensive policies to combat climate disinformation. Each company failed to release regular transparency reports on the scale and prevalence of climate disinformation on their platforms or on internal mitigation efforts.  The nonprofits also claimed that these social media companies are not providing enough rigorous details for any actions they may have taken toward repeat violators of their policies related to climate disinformation.

Misinformation is getting in the way of climate action

This lack of transparency is preventing climate experts, researchers and advocates from tracking the problem’s severity and curbing the spread of misinformation about climate change when there is little time for society to tackle effective climate action, say the three nonprofits.

Companies were ranked using a 27 “yes-or-no” question assessment, with 1 point allocated for each question. Facebook, TikTok and Twitter had the worst scores, receiving 9, 7, and 5 points respectively due to a lack of transparency and thorough detail on how these companies hold repeat offenders accountable.

The highest marks were achieved by Pinterest and YouTube, both scoring a middling 14 points. Pinterest’s score was boosted by the platform’s recent new policy rollout, which includes a climate disinformation definition in its community standards. Pinterest has also adopted climate expert-informed definitions of climate disinformation, while the scorecard concluded that Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter had not.

That none of the social media companies scored more than half the points available means they “failing miserably to protect users from harmful climate disinformation,” said Julia Masters, campaign manager of the Climate Disinformation Coalition at Friends of the Earth, in a public statement.

A clarion call for transparency on misleading climate change information

“This is unacceptable and should be a wake-up call for Big Tech to strengthen policies and introduce transparency measures to better address climate disinformation,” Masters said. “Pinterest has proved it’s possible to address climate disinformation in community guidelines, and it’s past time for other companies to follow suit.”

The scorecard follows on the heels of the United Nations’ latest climate report naming climate disinformation as a major threat to climate action for the first time.

“As fossil fuel industry-backed climate disinformation pollutes users’ social media feeds and fans the flames of the climate crisis, tech companies are leaving the public in the dark about their responsibility in the face of this emergency,” said Rebecca Lenn, senior director at Avazz, in a public statement. “It’s time for Big Tech to answer the years-long call from researchers, advocates, and lawmakers for full transparency on the scale of climate disinformation online and their policies to combat it.”

If Big Tech fails to act, Lenn said lawmakers must act to “mandate transparency and accountability from tech platforms – not just to clean up our feeds, but to help end the climate crisis.”

More calls for reform

The United Nations is among several multinational bodies sounding the alarm about the dangers of misinformation about climate change. In its latest report, the European Union Special Committee Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, emphasized the urgency of curbing climate disinformation and welcomed efforts to adopt a universal definition. Climate and anti-disinformation organizations such as Conscious Advertising Network and Stop Funding Heat have been calling for a global action to tackle the threat of climate misinformation and disinformation, including the adoption of a universal definition.

“Social media companies’ passive and inscrutable response to climate disinformation has allowed them to boost their numbers while driving us towards total planetary collapse. This must end now,” said Greenpeace USA Senior Strategist Charlie Cray in a public statement. “We need more transparency and aggressive action before any of the platforms can credibly claim to foster the norms of digital discourse that are essential to our collective survival.”

The prospects for curbing climate change disinformation in social media have been thrown further into flux by billionaire Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter. To some observers, both Musk’s record on combating climate change disinformation and his commitment to free speech are mixed. Musk, who has received nearly $5 billion in government support since 2010, recently stated that he did not support the Biden administration’s Build Back Better legislation or government incentives in general.

Image credit: Yomex Owo via Unsplash

It’s difficult to wrap one’s head around 1.3 billion metric tons. It is the weight of 22.5 Great Walls of China, 197 hoover dams, and 130,000 Eiffel towers. It is also the weight of food waste generated worldwide every year.

Food waste is a problem across the entire value chain

Food waste happens at every stage of the supply chain, with inclement weather, overproduction, distribution and processing issues, and uncertain markets leading to losses even before the food arrives at retail locations, while overstocking, overbuying, and confusion over labels result in food waste in stores and homes. The source of the most significant loss differs worldwide. More than 40 percent of food loss in developing countries occurs at the post-harvest and processing stages, while in industrialized countries, more than 40 percent of such waste occurs at the retail and consumer level. In the U.S., our modern supply chain, which prioritizes efficiency and variety, exacerbated the issue over the last half-century resulting in the amount of food ending up in landfills nearly tripling between 1960 and 2020.  

Due to the far-reaching consequences of food waste for all populations, from economic to social and environmental, it is increasingly viewed as a critical area of focus and opportunity for innovation for governments, businesses, and nonprofits. And because there are so many ways in which this waste occurs, we need a wide range of solutions and an array of technologies to make an impact.

Waste not, want not

The economic ramifications of food waste are staggering. Those 1.3 billion metric tons of food wasted every year equate to $936 billion in economic losses. The U.S. alone spends $218 billion a year or 1.3 percent of GDP producing, processing, and transporting food that is never eaten. The social consequence is that one in eight Americans struggle to put food on the table despite there being more than enough food to go around. 

In addition to the economic and social implications, wasted food has an incredibly consequential and underappreciated environmental impact. According to an IPCC report, from 2010 to 2016, global food loss and waste accounted for 8 to 10 percent of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. If food waste were its own country, its emissions would rank third after the U.S. and China. These emissions result from growing, processing, and transporting food, and the methane generated when discarded food ends up in landfills. Additionally, the loss of this food represents a loss of already scarce resources, with 30 million acres of cropland and 4.2 trillion gallons of water used to produce the food wasted in the U.S. annually.

Overlooked opportunities abound from wasted food

Food waste is much more than just a sum of its consequences; it also represents a massive economic opportunity. According to Future Market Insights, the food waste market is valued at nearly $53 billion and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.6 percent to reach $83 billion by 2032. A 2020 analysis conducted by ReFED, a nonprofit working to end food waste and loss in the US, found that investments to halve food waste by 2030 would result in a five-to-one return in addition to creating thousands of jobs, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and water and land use, and saving billions of meals. 

Today, efforts to reduce lost food are already bearing fruit. A study by Champions 12.3, a group of executives across sectors dedicated to reducing food waste, analyzed 700 food and hospitality companies in 17 countries that took actions to reduce such waste and found that the median return on investment was 14 to one.

Adding to the momentum are the commitments countries worldwide have made to reduce food waste. The United Nations aims to halve all food wasted by 2030. In 2012 the European Parliament passed a resolution to halve food waste in the EU by 2025, while in 2015, the U.S. government declared a similar 50 percent goal by 2030.

Solutions taking on food that is lost across the value chain also have something that has become increasingly rare: Many of them garner bipartisan support. A bipartisan U.S. House caucus is looking at ways to reduce food that is wasted across the supply chain. Last year Senators Pat Toomey and Richard Blumenthal introduced the Food Donation Improvement Act, a bipartisan bill that would expand liability protection for donated food to reduce food waste. 

In the next article in this two-part series, we will explore innovations across the supply chain, including digging into prevention and recovery solutions that can stem the flow of food waste before it gets thrown out.

Image credit: Alejandro Duarte via Unsplash

U.S. employers are grappling with unprecedented recruitment and retention issues as inflation picks up on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some companies are making an honest attempt to bump up pay and perks to offset inflation without tearing their bottom line to pieces. For many others, though, the labor situation and challenges surrounding worker mobility comprise a giant self-own that predates the pandemic by many years.

Labor and inflation: What not to do

Leading employers like Starbucks and Amazon are dealing with a genuine union movement for the first time in their history, and the reason is not hard to find.

For generations, workers in the U.S. have seen inflation steadily chip away at the federal minimum wage. More recently, part-time workers have had to deal with new “on-call” scheduling and other burdens on their time, while the cost of housing, health care and higher education has soared.

Add in the structural racism that has denied the support of home ownership and intergenerational wealth to Black households and other people of color, and the stage was set for a worker movement.

COVID-19 was the spark that lit the growing pile of fuel. For all the businesses that suffered during the lockdowns, many thrived under the new normal of e-commerce, delivery services and remote communication. As a result, some of the world’s wealthiest business owners, executives and investors have grown noticeably wealthier. The impact of inflation will not touch them personally, even as millions of ordinary households continue to struggle.

Editor's note: Be sure to subscribe to our Brands Taking Stands newsletter, which comes out every Wednesday.

Earlier this year, the Washington Post drew attention to the wealth disconnect. Reporter Eli Rosenberg noted that changing jobs has is a course of action for workers seeking higher pay that predates the pandemic. The outbreak only exacerbated a common practice. Rosenberg suggests that workers are more inclined to seek raises when they know their company has garnered record profits, and they are probably more outraged than ever to be denied a raise when higher-ups and investors are rewarded disproportionately for weathering a history-making, once-in-a-century public health crisis.

The “what not to do” lesson is clear: if you want to prevent your workers from leaving, and you don’t want to provide raises that offset inflation, then don’t tell them about your company’s financial success, and don’t let anybody know the payout for executives and investors.

Employee retention and coping with worker mobility: What to do

Of course, many companies cannot hide their balance sheets from the public. In addition, many firms are not prospering and are not in a position to lean on raises to retain employees.

Some employers can offset small or no raises by providing other benefits. That doesn’t necessarily mean Silicon Valley-type perks like foosball tables and nap pods. Back in 2016, reporter Dave Roos of Money magazine took a look at office perks and employee sentiment, and he drew a key insight from a Robert Half survey.

“The CFOs surveyed believed that health and wellness benefits like free gym memberships were most important to employees, while workers were actually much more excited about flexible work hours and telecommuting,” Roos noted.

Those words about worker mobility certainly ring true six years later. Workers with free gym memberships got no value from that perk during the lockdown, but many did get enormous value from working at home. 

For many companies, a movement is already afoot to establish work-from-home as a permanent perk, at least on a hybrid basis. Employees receive value in the form of lower commuting expenses, and they also benefit from the time they save on commuting.

When remote work is not an option

Remote work is not an option for many employers, but flexible scheduling can help, especially for parents and other care givers.

Attending to the office environment is another opportunity. The company Armstrong, for example, designed its “Living Lab” headquarters in Lancaster, Pennsylvania as a model for post-COVID office design.

Armstrong paid strict attention to air flow and other physical aspects of a healthy indoor environment. The company also incorporated privacy and separation by including individual workstations in the design, but overall the emphasis is on collaboration through formal meeting rooms as well as an employee lounge, an onsite café, and outdoor workspaces.

The union movement bites back

Still, the rising tide of employee attrition shows no sign of slowing down, and many employers are keeping pace by raising wages. 

The result is a classic blame-the-victim scenario, in which workers themselves are being accused of fostering inflation.

While rising rages are one factor, there are others. In a company article posted on January 11 of this year, Intuit cited “the increase in the money supply, worker shortages and rising wages, supply chain disruption, as well as fossil fuel policies” among the leading causes of inflation.

As recently as April 11, an article in Forbes cited “supply chain disruptions and pent-up consumer demand for goods as the COVID-19 pandemic wanes.” The Biden administration has also underscored pent-up demand and supply chain disruptions.

Nevertheless, earlier this week the Wall Street Journal assessed the situation under the headline, “Workers are changing jobs, raking in big raises—and keeping inflation high.”

That’s one way of putting it. Another way is to face the facts: Many companies are unwilling or unable to do what it takes to retain employees, whether that means providing a competitive wage or providing other benefits of value.

Those other benefits can vary from one industry to another, but the IT advisory firm CIO has one good piece of advice to offer that applies across the board.

CIO’s list of top ten strategies for worker retention includes competitive compensation, but that comes sixth. CIO emphasizes that employers need to start at the beginning, by recruiting candidates that share their outlook, by providing for career development and by providing a path for internal advancement.

Employers that have depended on high turnover to keep wages low can point the finger of blame at their workers for fostering inflation, but many others are already pivoting towards a scenario in which workers share in a larger piece of the new, post-COVID economy.

Image credit: Christin Hume via Unsplash

Computing is one of the fastest growing career fields in the United States. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in computer and information technology fields is projected to grow 13 percent from 2020 to 2030, faster than the average for all occupations. What’s more, computer science majors can earn 40 percent more than the average college graduate, providing a path to financial stability.

Unfortunately, the number of open computing-related jobs nationwide far outstrips the number of graduates with computer science degrees. Currently, there are approximately 500,000 job openings in computing across every industry and state, and these jobs are projected to outpace other jobs at twice the rate. 

Research shows that providing children access to computer science at an early age builds a path to socioeconomic mobility for those who have not had access to these opportunities. In particular, Black and Hispanic students who take computer science classes before college are seven to eight times more likely to major in computer science, demonstrating the importance of — and impetus behind — expanding access.

Reaching students, especially in historically underserved student populations, is what inspired Capital One to create the Capital One Coders program in 2014. In addition to teaching coding skills to over 22,000 students (90 percent low-to-moderate income and 78 percent underrepresented minorities) at over 150 partners including schools and nonprofits in 13 communities across the U.S., U.K. and Canada, the program’s impact stretches far beyond a computer. 

“At the core of Capital One Coders we are driven by the desire to close the equity gap in technology through creative and fun programming,” said Emmanuel Offiong, VP, CTO of Small Business Bank at Capital One. “We’re eager to continue scaling our work so all students, regardless of geography or background, can succeed in a digital economy.” 

Democratizing access to opportunity in Delaware

One of the many schools impacted by the program is Thurgood Marshall Elementary School, a diverse community institution in Newark, Delaware, a small city in the Wilmington metro. 

The school — named after the civil rights activist and first Black Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court — has run two cohorts of Capital One Coders for its students, over 75% of whom identify as Black, Asian American, Hispanic or Latino. 

“The Capital One Coders Program gives our students critical skills and insight to be creative using technology,” said Alvin Pope, assistant principal of Thurgood Marshall Elementary. “It is a springboard to prepare them to pursue career paths in the field and raise the level of representation among women and minorities in the tech market.”

At Thurgood Marshall Elementary School, Capital One Coders is offered as an after-school enrichment opportunity for students to learn coding and other in-demand skills. 

“This partnership has enriched our students' tech skills, strengthened our community and sparked interest in tech careers,” said Liles Puleo, a teacher at Thurgood Marshall. “Capital One has been so easy to work with, flexible with our needs and generous with their time and talents. The biggest difference in this program compared to others is that there is no cost for our students to participate.”

The Coders program is part of the broader Capital One Impact Initiative, an initial $200 million, multi-year commitment that strives to advance socioeconomic mobility. The Capital One Impact Initiative seeks to create a world where everyone has an equal opportunity to prosper through advocating for an inclusive society, building thriving communities and creating financial tools that enrich lives.  

“All of our students benefited from the program, but the students I am most impressed with are the students who have gained emotional benefits,” Puleo explained. “The improved confidence of some students has enabled them to improve their overall academic performance. The camaraderie that formed through this program built a sense of community for a few students who were struggling to fit in other places, [and] it provided a social time that students were really missing during the remote learning environment. It was great for me to see so many students have the opportunity to indulge their passions.”

The Coders program connects Capital One technologists with students, and together they explore mobile app development, web design, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and other emerging technologies through engaging, hands-on mentorship. Capital One employees volunteered over 140,000 hours for this program to date.

For its part, the team at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School say they’ve already begun talks with administrators to bring Coders to secondary schools in the Christina School District, which serves more than 14,000 students in Newark and its surrounding suburbs. 

“The structure of Capital One’s teams and how they work with our students is a big reason why the program is so successful,” Pope said. “It goes well beyond the teaching of skills and results in relationship building. Students respond very well to the mentor-like approach used by the instructors.”

This article series is sponsored by Capital One and produced by the TriplePundit editorial team. 

The concepts of financial literacy sound intuitive enough if you’ve been immersed in them since childhood: the importance of budgeting, the power of saving, the power of letting your money work for you through compounding, the importance of saving for that first home, and tucking away a rainy day fund to cover those sudden emergencies that can cost $500 and up.

But about half of Americans can’t afford a $1,000 emergency for a bevy of reasons, with stubborn poverty being amongst them. Growing up in a paycheck-to-paycheck existence, or finding oneself in that situation upon adulthood, often means scrambling day after day just to get by. In many communities denied the opportunities offered by the transfer of intergenerational wealth, the long-term outlook for families is often dire, made even more complicated by the fact that they often struggle with the basic fundamentals of financial literacy.

Such is the reality for many Indigenous Americans, as research over the years has demonstrated that this community has confronted a long struggle with financial literacy. To that end, one community development financial institution (CDFI) based in northern Colorado has taken the lead in developing the financial tools needed to ensure that Native populations can not only survive but build wealth now and far into the future.

Editor's note: Be sure to subscribe to our Brands Taking Stands newsletter, which comes out every Wednesday.

Oweesta Corporation bills itself as much more than a community bank. The CDFI, which has been operating for more than 20 years, also provides financial education, matched savings programs and public policy advocacy for Native communities across the U.S.

Through an ongoing cobranded series with Forbes, Oweesta has showcased how its community-based approach is doing its part to help build wealth for Indigenous families. To date, by working with groups such as Partners for Rural Transformation, Oweesta has certified more than 2,000 trainers in various principles of personal finance; they in turn have held trainings for more than 40,000 people. The results are paying off, with a boost in average savings, a reduction in debt and an increase in credit scores. New financial literacy skills also help families escape the cycle of poverty often exacerbated by the likes of check-cashing services and other companies that end up punishing the working poor with high fees and interest rates.

“Further inequality in access to financial support has rendered individuals in persistent poverty counties unable to weather economic shocks and access opportunities to accumulate both short- and long-term wealth reserves,” wrote Essence Smith, a project manager for Partners for Rural Transformation, and Stephanie Cote, a senior programs officer with Oweesta, who together described many of their clients’ previous experiences with the darker players within the U.S. financial sector. “Members primarily operate outside the financial mainstream in the second tier of financial services: a market saturated by predatory, aggressively-advertised, high-cost credit products."

Oweesta’s track record over the years has helped it secure partnerships and funding from financial institutions including Wells Fargo and Bank of America.

The work of Oweesta and its partners is contributing to another outcome: Making the U.S. Indigenous population more visible. In a recent  Nonprofit Quarterly  article, the CDFI’s CEO and COO, Chrystel Cornelius and Krystal Langholz, noted how this community has long been overlooked. One such example is CNN’s categorizing of Native communities as “Something Else” during its 2020 election reporting; even worse, there’s also the tragedy of thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women whose fates have been unreported or not investigated. “Our lives, economies and land are afterthoughts — if we’re lucky — to mainstream U.S. society and philanthropy,” Cornelius and Langholz wrote.

Image credits: Oweesta Corporation via Facebook; Paul Marshall via Unsplash

The unfortunate reality for many employees is that corporate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs exist along a spectrum, from award-winning to somewhat effective to a total waste of time. It isn’t that failure is a particular vulnerability for DEI programs — by any other name, employee engagement programs have always been a tough prospect. And so, it was helpful to hear two DEI program specialists discuss the reasons why some programs fail and how to avoid the pitfalls. 

Alberto Jaen, the CEO and executive creative director for Plus305, and Nadja Scherrer, a partner, vice president and sustainability communications strategist within the firm, are in the business of helping organizations with purpose branding and creativity for sustainability in which value-based communication replaces, or at least complements, product-based communication.

The difference would be the emphasis one would place on the value of the written word, for example, as opposed to just the pens you manufacture. 

Plus305 bills itself as a social impact boutique, and one that won three awards from the American Marketing Association South Florida during the pre-COVID era: Best CSR Agency of the Year 2019, Gold for their World Aids Day MTV campaign, and Silver for their Voices for Children Foundation campaign with Peyton Witch.

Scherrer indicated several areas of vulnerability that cause DEI programs to fail, one being the discomfort that often accompanies frank discussions relative to race or gender equity, or even the discovery of our own unconscious biases. 

“DEI stirs up questions of identity,” Scherrer said. “And identity is almost entirely based on unconscious brain processes. Questions of identity are fundamental to how we communicate with each other. And there are layers of identity (intersectionality) which can make certain topics even more complex. Businesses have to create a culture where failure — getting it wrong sometimes — is welcome and accepted.” 

Also, some corporations assume that due to size or budget they just cannot afford to implement new programs. The financial deterrent might include the prohibitive cost of an employee to manage a program or giving employees time away from production to participate. The question ultimately becomes, how much is the company willing to spend to accommodate needed cultural change?

In the broadest sense, there must be a willingness to adopt a change in culture for a DEI program to be successful. Jaen and Scherrer emphasized that, starting with the CEO, there must be a willingness to dispense with old ways of doing business.

For example, for decades American business has been based on the siloed structure of individual departments with their own sets of goals. The sales department might be singularly focused on the bottom line to the exclusion of concerns from employees regarding long hours on the job that interfere with family life and even health. Or, a company may be satisfied with favorable minority representation based on department numbers and fail to recognize that there has been no advancement among certain marginalized groups above a certain job function level. 

“I believe in a more holistic approach to sustainability that trickles down into all areas to become part of the DNA and integrated into the overall mission and brand. We follow the triple bottom line (people, planet and prosperity) with a strong focus on people,” Scherrer said.

Based on their extensive experience in the field, Jaen and Scherrer have a positive outlook on the future being ripe for compromise. 

“Studies show that 80 percent of consumers want to purchase a brand that reflects their values, and points to a corporate shift of emphasis from the appreciation and value of tangible assets to intangible assets,” Jaen said. Intangible assets can be divided into two categories: intellectual property and goodwill. Tangible assets would be land, inventory, property and cash. 

According to the July 2020 Intangible Asset Market Value Study, in 1975 only 17 percent of all assets in the S&P 500 were considered intangible. As of 2020, 90 percent of all assets within the oft cited stock market index are intangible. In other words, relationships matter more than ever. 

With regard to those cultural differences, said Jaen and Scherrer: “Culture is shaped by many different layers. Wherever you find values you will likely find overlap between people who may on the surface appear ‘different.’ At the end of the day, there is commonality to be found in human rights. It isn’t about trying to make everyone agree. It is about finding a place of empathy where dialogue can take place. We find each other in consensus.”

Image credit: Keenan Beasley via Unsplash

The beverage firm AB InBev has crafted a good reputation for decarbonizing its own operations. Now the company’s Budweiser brand is demonstrating how corporate leaders can build sustainability outwards in order to affect the carbon footprint operations along their value chains.

Budweiser and its global energy collective

Last week, Budweiser announced the global launch of an initiative it calls The Energy Collective. The aim is to encourage local pubs to take advantage of renewable energy resources in their area for their electricity needs. 

Budweiser has been conducting the program on a large-scale pilot basis involving 2,000 pubs in Brazil and Ireland. Evidently, the trial was a success. The new announcement expands the field of locations to music venues and stadiums as well as bars. The goal is to have 250,000 locations in Brazil alone using renewable-sourced electricity by 2025.

Next steps include another pilot program in Colombia to be launched this year. Chile, Uruguay and the U.K. are among the countries next on Budweiser’s renewable energy to-do list. 

The idea seems simple enough. Through The Energy Collective, Budweiser will help connect locations that serve its beer with renewable energy assets. In Brazil, for example, the supplier is the startup Lemon Energia, which includes small-to-medium shops and restaurants in its portfolio as well as bars and other establishments. 

Because the cost of renewable energy is continuing to fall, many business owners can expect a lower electricity rate when they register for Lemon Energia’s app-based service, which connects them to a nearby solar power installation.

In cases where the rates for emission-free electricity are higher, Budweiser suggests that The Energy Collective can help with affordability issues, though the company did not spell out that part of the plan in detail last week.

Doing good on renewable energy, and doing better

The Energy Collective initiative is especially significant because the public relations benefit could ripple out to influence other beverage companies, which are free to tout the clean power profile of venues that serve their products. 

For Budweiser, it doesn’t matter if the venue serves other products from other companies. The point is to help decarbonize the value chain, not pick and choose among parts of that chain. 

That propels The Global Energy Collective a step up from other corporate sustainability initiatives, which tend to be brand-centric. 

In that regard, The Energy Collective is similar to the steps GM CEO Mary Barra has taken to ensure that electric vehicles have access to charging stations and renewable energy, too. GM’s initiatives in those areas are aimed at availability across the driving public. They are not exclusive to those who drive GM vehicles.

The agrivoltaics angle

Another interesting angle has to do with regenerative farming, a set of agricultural practices that prioritize soil health and water conservation. Researchers are finding that arrays of solar panels can assist with both of those goals, by creating cool microclimates with partial shade under the solar panels. 

As a result, the field of agrivoltaics has begun to gather steam. Instead of conventional solar arrays that replace farmland, agrivoltaic solar panels are raised to permit grazing, pollinator habitats and other agricultural uses to continue in and around the array.

To the extent that The Energy Collective helps stimulate the demand for new local solar arrays in rural areas, the regenerative farming trend could benefit local farmers.

AB InBev’s subsidiary, Anheuser-Busch, has already established a foothold in regenerative farming through a partnership with the company Indigo Ag, so it’s possible that solar energy could become intersect with The Energy Collective portfolio at some point.

Showcasing decarbonization for non-drinkers

Budweiser also notes that The Energy Collective has become a conversation starter that helps to stimulate barroom conversations about sustainability.

Anhueser-Busch is also bringing non-drinkers into the conversation by promoting its use of zero emission trucks. The company has been building on its partnership with the electric bus and truck company BYD, and it has just started showcasing fuel cell electric trucks through the startup Nikola 

Anheuser-Busch issued a pledge for 800 fuel cell trucks shortly after Nikola launched in 2018. After a rocky start, Nikola seems to have found its footing. The company delivered two of its zero emission trucks to Budweiser earlier this year for a three-month pilot run in California.