Search

Many of us have already concluded the 13-year war and military involvement in Afghanistan has been a horrific waste of blood and treasure with no ideal resolution in sight. But among the many throttled programs the U.S. has tried to implement in this proud, landlocked country is one especially laughable if not absurd.

In 2010 the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in a partnership with the American Soybean Association and SALT International, launched SARAI, or the Soybeans in Agricultural Renewal of Afghanistan Initiative. The goal was to haul American soybean processing equipment, and of course soybeans, into northern Afghanistan to start a soy-farming industry under the guise of nutrition and economic development. Optimism was rampant even two years ago:

“It’s great to see the Afghan and U.S. partners get this soybean processing facility up and operating. It will help Afghanistan agriculture continue to develop.” -U.S. Foreign Agricultural Service Agriculture Minister Counselor Quintin Gray, in September 2012.

Then the stubborn reality hit.

John F. Sopko, an attorney from the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, revealed concerns over the “viability” of the project. In fact, for several reasons that one would think common sense would have sorted out, the project has failed. Among the factors: the American Soybean Association did not bother to conduct any feasibility studies before the program’s launch; a United Kingdom study a few years earlier confirmed soybean cultivation were not feasible in northern Afghanistan; and well, Afghans like their naan made from wheat. According to the Center for Public Integrity, despite the fact there is no history of soy consumption in Afghanistan, an informal 20-person taste test led to the conclusion that soy products could catch on in this country of 30 million people.

The outcomes: the first crop failed; more soybeans in turn were imported from the U.S. Midwest to Afghanistan for a special factory built to process the beans into flour, oil and other soy products; and despite a pledge to spend over $1 million on marketing and training bakers to use soy products in their breads, locals simply did not like the results. The factory that had received the expensive equipment may end up selling it off soon to close its operations.

You could argue the program had noble goals, which is true for just about every anti-famine and economic development program undertaken in developing countries. True, Afghanistan ranks low on many human development indices, which is hardly a surprise since the country has been in turmoil since the 1970s.

But the failed SARAI project is an example in which business groups’ self-interest trumps local sensitivities. Despite the depictions often given to us by media accounts of the recent wars in Afghanistan, the country’s cuisine ranks with that of Iran in terms of variety and sophistication in the greater Central Asian and Middle Eastern region. Afghan craftsmanship also reigns supreme, from woodwork to ceramics. Visit a souq in the Gulf region and you will see countless Afghan antiques and crafts—a testament to the quality of the work coming from Afghanistan and how tragically the country has been looted in recent years.

The $34 million is a drop in the bucket considering that $7 billion of the $120 billion spent on reconstruction in Afghanistan have been wasted on dubious projects. There exists other methods of ensuring infrastructure in Afghanistan improves, like teaching farmers new tactics to improve yields on foods people want to eat, and boosting citizens’ skills so that could provide for their families and build stronger communities. But instead, the U.S. government once again opened its checkbook to U.S. business interests, which should have fronted the money themselves if they were so confident this boondoggle would have worked, for a program that benefited no one.

Image credit: SALT International Facebook Page

Leon Kaye has lived in Abu Dhabi for the past year and is on his way back to California. Follow him on Instagram and nd Twitter.

An analysis of data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) Mission indicates the U.S. Southwest is more vulnerable to drought and water shortages than previously believed.

Studying 14 years of GRACE satellite data since late 2004 covering the parched Colorado River Basin, NASA and University of California, Irvine scientists found that groundwater loss accounts for more than 75 percent of total freshwater resource loss across the basin region.

Freshwater flowing through the Colorado River Basin is the lifeblood of cities and communities throughout the seven-state region and beyond into Mexico, supplying freshwater to 40 million people and irrigation for some 40 million acres of farmland in the southwestern U.S. However, the basin “has been suffering from prolonged, severe drought since 2000 and has experienced the driest 14-year period in the last 100 years,” NASA highlights in a news release.

Coping with drought

Results of NASA-UC Irvine's Colorado River Basin groundwater study – the first to quantify groundwater contributions to the basin's watershed – indicates “that groundwater loss may pose a greater threat to the water supply of the western United States than previously thought,” NASA states. That raises the stakes for farmers, factories and commercial businesses, as well as entire towns, cities and states throughout the region, as they try to conserve freshwater resources and identify and implement sustainable water resource management solutions.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis Center for Watershed Sciences peg the total economic cost of the ongoing drought in California's Central Valley – the state's agricultural heartland – at $1.7 billion.

Struggling to cope with severe or exceptional drought conditions, California farmers and ranchers have been drilling new water wells at a record pace, raising concerns about the sustainability of groundwater supplies.

Requests to drill new water wells “have soared, more than doubling over this time last year” in some counties, according to a Bakersfield Now online news report. The number of new requests for agricultural water-drilling permits in Kern County has more than quadrupled year over year.

The water lifeline of the western U.S.

Explaining the NASA-UC Irvine research team's motivation, report senior author Jay Famiglietti, a senior water cycle scientist at the U.S. Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a professor of Earth Sciences at UC Irvine, said:

"The Colorado River Basin is the water lifeline of the western United States. With Lake Mead at its lowest level ever, we wanted to explore whether the basin, like most other regions around the world, was relying on groundwater to make up for the limited surface-water supply. We found a surprisingly high and long-term reliance on groundwater to bridge the gap between supply and demand."

Changes in mass and gravity measured from space by the GRACE mission's twin satellites are related to changes in water on or below the surface, NASA explains. Studying monthly GRACE measurements from December 2004 through November 2013, the researchers found that the Colorado River Basin lost nearly 53 million acre feet (65 cubic kilometers) of freshwater over the period. That's nearly twice the volume of freshwater found in Nevada's Lake Mead, the largest freshwater reservoir in the U.S.

Groundwater loss represented more than 75 percent of the freshwater loss – some 41 million acre feet (50 cu km).

Shocking groundwater loss

Commenting on the surprisingly large amount of groundwater loss in the basin, Stephanie Castle, UC Irvine water resources specialist and study lead author, stated:

"We don't know exactly how much groundwater we have left, so we don't know when we're going to run out. This is a lot of water to lose. We thought that the picture could be pretty bad, but this was shocking."

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation manages waters above ground in lakes and rivers throughout the Colorado River Basin and documents losses. Pumping from underground aquifers is regulated by states -- and often isn't, NASA notes.

"NASA's GRACE satellites provide researchers with a view of regional groundwater resources that otherwise would be unattainable," Famiglietti added. "There's only one way to put together a very large-area study like this, and that is with satellites. There's just not enough information available from well data to put together a consistent, basin-wide picture."

The researchers' findings compounds “the problem of short supply by leading to further declines in stream flow in the Colorado River,” NASA points out.

"Combined with declining snowpack and population growth, this will likely threaten the long-term ability of the basin to meet its water allocation commitments to the seven basin states and to Mexico," Famiglietti said.

*Image credits: 1), 3): NASA; 2) SFGate

Apparently Michelle Obama brought a four-month-old Sasha with her to an interview for the Vice President of Community and External Affairs at University of Chicago Hospitals, and she was only willing to take the job if it came with tons of workplace flexibility.

I'm working from home today with my own four-month-old (who is thankfully going on 90 minutes in what is usually a 60-minute nap), so this video struck home for me.

http://youtu.be/9XGNDfm4gQM?t=4m44s

I'm very lucky that TriplePundit is a sustainable business and a very flexible place to work, but I have to admit that the addition of an infant to my life has created a ton of extra (miraculous, mostly enjoyable) work. Baby Frances is delightful, but my life was already pretty busy before she arrived. I can't shake the feeling that I'm not quite working up to my former potential, just because there are only so many hours in the day. Sheryl Sandberg argues in "Lean In" that it's possible to have a demanding executive-level job and leave at 6 p.m. if you just really focus while you're at work (and catch up on email after the kids go to sleep). The trouble is, my mind is now also full of issues like managing daycare schedules (How do they just close for two weeks in July but charge you for the full month?), when to start solids and how to do it, and the pros and cons of sleep training.

The brain of a sleep-deprived woman only has so much room for problem solving, and most of my job is problems solving of one sort or another -- truthfully, something must give and the infant is pretty effective at insisting that her needs get met first. Yes, she's still pretty young, but let's be honest, I wasn't really at peak performance for most of the pregnancy, so we're going on over a year now.
So what say you, working parents of the world? I'm all for flexible workplaces, especially now that I absolutely need one, but is the dark secret of all the work/life balance advocates out there that you don't actually accomplish quiiiite as much as you did before you became a parent? Or am I just in a rough spot? Inquiring minds want to know!

ExxonMobil said last week that it will comply with the protections for gay, lesbian and transgender employees required of federal contractors. But it’s unclear whether the oil major will formalize that by changing the language of its equal opportunity corporate policy.

A recent Associated Press story noted that President Barack Obama's signing of an executive order on July 21 expanded protections for federal workers and contractors from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The Labor Department has 90 days to issue regulations for how employers must comply.

“Exxon, which according to government records won more than $480 million in federal contracts in 2013 and more than $8 billion since 2006, has long resisted pressure from civil rights groups and shareholders to enumerate such protections in its formal policy,” according to the AP account.

In a statement to the AP, ExxonMobil spokesman Alan Jeffers said the company will continue to “abide by the law,” adding that it prohibits “discrimination on any basis.” He wouldn't say if that meant changing the language in the company's formal equal employment opportunity policy.

For 15 straight years, most recently in May, ExxonMobil shareholders have overwhelmingly voted down proposals to create specific LGBT protections. The proposal this year won 20 percent of voters holding roughly $41.5 billion in Exxon stock. The company claims that it has a “zero-tolerance” policy for discrimination, but the Securities and Exchange Commission has pointed out that this does not offer the same legal force as the regularly-rejected protections would.

"They say they don't need to because it's not an issue, but we don't agree. Without clear written policies that are very specifically stated, employees aren't clearly entitled to equal benefits," New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli said. The proposal to include specific non-discrimination LGBT language to ExxonMobil’s equal employment opportunity statement has been backed by DiNapoli since 2010 on behalf of the New York State Employees Retirement System.

Natasha Lamb of the private equity group Arjuna Capital, another Exxon Mobil shareholder, expressed confidence the company will comply with the executive order. "I can't imagine Exxon would compromise a federal contract over a couple of words," she said. "That would be juvenile. Once regulation is in place, they will follow suit and act in the best interest of shareholders."

The company began offering benefits to legally married same-sex couples in May 2013, a month before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, which previously allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted in other states.

Freedom to Work filed a complaint against ExxonMobil with the Illinois Department of Human Rights in May 2013, after resume testing found that the company would prefer a lesser-qualified candidate over one who identifies as LGBT. The case was dismissed in January on jurisdictional grounds, but this month the Illinois Human Rights Commission overturned the dismissal, allowing the complaint to advance.

After 15 long years, it is taking a presidential executive order to move ExxonMobil in the right direction, so heaping praise on the company for its “compliance” isn’t very impressive. It’s more like being dragged by the ear into the 21st century.

(Note: The company will discuss its second quarter earnings later this week. Will ExxonMobil or financial analysts address the LGBT issue?)

Image credit: Exxon Gas Station by T N Jones via Flickr

To enjoy much of the outdoors, one needs the proper clothing and equipment, but those very products have their own environmental impact — from petroleum-based polyester to the shipping required to move products from factories to stores. To that end, The North Face says it is making headway on its sustainability goals, according to its most recent corporate responsibility report.

The North Face is keeping up with outdoor gear companies such as its fellow VF Corp. brand, Timberland, and Patagonia in ensuring the messages it sends to its customers are reflected in how company operations perform.

So, following on its previous report, in which the company committed to more sustainable fabric and renewable energy, what exactly has The North Face accomplished and what are its future goals?

Clean energy is a large facet of The North Face’s commitment to reduce its environmental impact. Its new American headquarters in Alameda, California, which opened last year, generates more than enough electricity for the building’s requirements. The LEED Platinum-certified building also uses an evaporating cooling system that nixes any use of emissions-heavy coolants. Other regional headquarters and distribution centers also incorporate solar or water-saving features — and while leasing stores in malls limit the green building features a company can install, The North Face claims it will adopt as many LEED-Commercial features as possible. Those retrofits have helped the company continue its incremental drop in greenhouse gas emissions the past few years. While those efforts fell short of the 2013 target, The North Face is correct in focusing where most of a company’s impacts occur: within manufacturing.

And in manufacturing, the company is also making progress. It has a goal to use polyester from 100 percent recycled content by 2016. Considering the effects that will have throughout its supply chain, and that polyester comprises 80 percent of its total clothing line, two years is not much time. But the company is on its way with some of its popular Denali jackets, which use the equivalent of 51 plastic bottles. But the company is not just about recycling or using more sustainable and ethical materials. In an era where fast fashion has become the exasperating norm, the company’s lifetime warranty on its apparel and outdoors gear has led to more than 80,000 products being repaired and returned to customers annually; the rest are donated or downcycled.

Far too many clothes end up in landfill, the result of cheap manufacturing and the lack of systems to churn textiles into something other than garbage. But companies including The North Face are taking leadership on this enormous challenge. It’s an uphill fight, considering consumers’ preferences for quantity over the quality of clothes, but it is a fight other clothing companies, in the name of “responsibility,” are wise to follow.

Image credit: The North Face

Leon Kaye has lived in Abu Dhabi for the past year and is on his way back to California. Follow him on Instagramand Twitter.

Superstorm Sandy caused tremendous damage, as well as hardship and loss of life, in communities across New Jersey – with a total of over $37 billion in physical damages alone, according to a Rutgers School of Public Affairs and Administration study released in October 2013.

Given current and rising levels of atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases, New Jersey and states up and down the Eastern Seaboard, as well as across the U.S., can likely expect more in the way of extreme weather events and greater variability in weather patterns.

Aiming to strengthen New Jersey's resilience to power outages and energy shortages, the Christie administration on July 23 announced it has taken a big step forward in establishing the New Jersey Energy Resilience Bank (ERB). It will be the first state-sponsored fund of its kind dedicated specifically to enhancing the resilience of energy infrastructure and supplies to extreme and variable weather patterns and conditions.

With an initial $200 million from the mid-Atlantic state's Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR), the ERB is to “support the development of distributed energy resources at critical facilities throughout the state,” according to a New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJ BPU) press release.

The legacy of Superstorm Sandy

Superstorm Sandy caused extensive damage to New Jersey's energy infrastructure, leaving some 5 million residents without electricity. Infrastructure and supplies of petroleum and natural gas were damaged or disrupted, as well as those for electricity.

Residents of coastal Monmouth and Ocean counties were among the hardest hit, though the monetary value of damages were nearly as large inland in Bergen county, N.J. Spotlight highlighted in March 2013. Residents of Toms River were not allowed to return to their homes for more than three months after Superstorm Sandy hit in late October 2012.

“More than 8,800 residences, nearly 90 percent of those individual houses, were damaged, 1,000 severely, according to the state Department of Community Affairs,” N.J. Spotlight reported.

Nearly 5,100 businesses were affected as well. A rollercoaster in neighboring Seaside Heights washed into the sea. All told, nearly 60 percent of Seaside Heights' residences (1,929 of them) were damaged, along with over 200 businesses, many along its famous boardwalk.

The benefits of distributed energy resources

Critical facilities, such as hospitals, wastewater treatment plants and universities, where distributed energy resources – combined heat and power (CHP) co-generation, fuel cells and off-grid solar inverters with battery storage – were able to weather Superstorm Sandy better than others. It's these sorts of distributed energy resources the ERB intends to finance.

According to state Board of Public Utilities (BPU) President Dianne Solomon: "The launch of the Energy Resilience Bank, the first of its kind in the nation to focus on resilience, is yet another effort of the Christie administration to increase energy resilience at critical facilities throughout New Jersey.

"Increasing energy resilience, whether through the Energy Resilience Bank, the BPU approved resiliency improvement measures implemented by utility companies or N.J.’s Clean Energy Program, will minimize the potential impacts of future widespread power outages due to major storms like Superstorm Sandy.”

In addition to enhancing the resilience of the state's energy infrastructure, spurring greater deployment of distributed energy resources will also benefit residents in terms of lower and more stable energy costs, a cleaner environment and improved energy efficiency. As state Economic Development Authority (NJ EDA) CEO Michele Brown elaborated:

“Distributed energy resources proved extremely resilient following Superstorm Sandy; unfortunately, due to high initial costs, many critical facilities do not have these energy resilience solutions in place. The ERB will help address this unmet need by providing technical and financial support to critical facilities across New Jersey to ensure they have a path for building energy resilience.”

The New Jersey Energy Resilience Bank

According to New Jersey's Action Plan amendment, ERB will focus on providing capital, primarily in the form of low-interest loans and grants, so that critical facilities, such as waste and wastewater treatment plants and hospitals, can deploy distributed energy resources. It's envisaged funding will expand to include other critical facilities, including police, fire and emergency services buildings, as well as schools that can function as emergency shelters.

In addition to the initial $200 million in CDBG-DR funds, the BPU approved a sub-recipient agreement with the state's Economic Development Authority to work jointly to establish and manage the ERB. This includes collaborating on the program's design, which in turn includes technical, operational and financial conditions that applicants will need to meet to qualify for ERB funding.

The BPU and EDA also announced the hiring of two individuals to fill two leadership positions with the Resilience Bank. Mitch Carpen was named ERB's executive director, and Thomas N. Walker was named deputy director. As director, Carpen will be responsible for managing ERB's project investment pipeline, which includes overseeing the selection and closing of individual deals as well as setting ERB's strategic direction. Walker, as ERB deputy director, will serve as head of policy and internal operations.

*Image credits: 1) NASA; 2) Fox News; 3) U.S. Coast Guard

WhiteWave Foods met its 2015 goal to source Certified Sustainable Palm Oil for 100 percent of its liquid creamers in 2012, three years ahead of schedule. The company, whose brands include Silk, Horizon and Earthbound, set the target in 2010. Palm oil is an ingredient used in many of its liquid creamers, and the palm oil industry has a high impact on the environment due to deforestation.

WhiteWave Foods recently released its first corporate social responsibility (CSR) report, which goes on to detail other environmental achievements, including reducing packaging, waste and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Despite production volume increasing in both North America and Europe, WhiteWave has managed to reduce GHG emissions. It cut GHG emissions in North America by by 32 percent per gallon of product while production volume increased by 57 percent since 2006.

Meanwhile, the company also slashed carbon emissions by 39.5 percent per ton of product in Europe, where product volumes have grown by 22 percent since 2007. While cutting emissions, the company also increased onsite renewable energy production by 30 percent and reduced waste sent to landfill by 47 percent in its European operations.

Packaging

When it comes to packaging, WhiteWave Foods has three sustainability principles:

1. Minimize the environmental impact by selecting the right materials.


2. Optimize our packaging for both upstream and downstream impact.


3. Engage and educate consumers and retail customers about packaging best practices.

Examples abound of how the company incorporates those three principles into its packaging. Its redesigned carbon packaging caps use 33 percent less material which resulted in 920,000 pounds of resin saved in 2013. It removed Polyvinylidene chloride (or PVDC, more commonly known as saran) material from its International Delight creamer singles, which eliminated 1.1 million pounds of material from the waste stream. Its Horizon Mac & Cheese and Snacks cartons contain a minimum of 35 percent post-consumer content and are made with 100 percent recycled paperboard. Alpro’s margarine bottle and Provamel’s margarine cup are packaged in polyethelyne terephthalate (PET), which helped reduce the amount of plastic used by 14 kilograms in the Alpro bottle and 8.48 kilogram in the Provamel cup.

Water conservation

Through training programs, WhiteWave is increasing awareness among its employees about water conservation. In 2012, WhiteWave required employees to participate in an online training module that provided background on important issues about water conservation, plus provided practical suggestions on how to use less water. Several of its North American plants have created teams that focus on water efficiency and ways to reduce use.

WhiteWave also works to preserve water systems: It is a charter sponsor of Change the Course, an initiative that works to preserve the Colorado River. The company buys Water Restoration Certificates (WRCs) to balance 100 percent of the water used to manufacture Silk products at its company-owned facilities. Its International Delight brand invested in a new water-flow restoration project in California in 2013, and bought WRCs to balance 100 percent of the water used to produce its iced coffee beverages. Its combined investments in WRCs have helped restore more than 485,000,000 gallons of water to ecosystems, according to the report.

Non-GMO soy

It's also worth noting that WhiteWave  is one of the largest purchasers of organic soybeans in North America, and the majority of conventionally-grown soy in the U.S. is genetically modified (GMO).

The company is also making moves toward sustainability in this area: All of the company's Silk plant-based beverages, including soy beverages, are enrolled in the Non-GMO Project’s Product Verification Program (PVP) and display the verified seal.

Additionally, WhiteWave is vocal about its support of labeling GMO foods, stating in the report that it advocates “national mandatory GMO labeling in the U.S.” The company gave over $1 million to labeling efforts since 2012 through Just Label It and other initiatives.

Image credit: Earthbound Farms

What's the size of a clunky ice cooler and essential to that off-grid lifestyle you’ve always dreamed of? If you guessed a solar power inverter, then you may be just the techie Google is hoping to hear from. At a time when computers can fit in the palm of your hand and miniaturized pacemakers can be less than 42 millimeters in size and less than 2 cubic centimeters in volume, it may seem surprising that we’re still dealing with solar inverters that can be as big as your grandmother’s knitting chest.

Google's Green Team has come up with an ingenious answer: Offer what every hobby industrialist has always wanted -- $1 million for the guy or gal that can come up with a way to shrink the technology.

For those who are unacquainted with power inverters, it’s that essential piece of equipment that allows us to actually utilize the power we gain through the solar panels or wind turbines. It converts the direct current (DC) that’s stored from say, a solar array, to the alternating current (AC) we use to power appliances.

Reducing the size of the power inverter would not only make it easier to install solar panels in isolated, undeveloped areas of the world, like Central America or India, but will also invariably open the door to better, smaller forms of renewable energy.

Google admits that the task won’t be easy. After all, if its techies haven’t come up with the know-how to shrink a small box down to the size of a tablet or IPad, chances are the task will take some ingenuity.

“There will be obstacles to overcome; like the conventional wisdom of engineering," admits Eric Raymond, from Google’s Green Team.

He explains in a blog post on EVNewsReport:

“We want to shrink it down to the size of a small laptop, roughly one-tenth of its current size. Put a little more technically, we’re looking for someone to build a kW-scale inverter with a power density greater than 50 watts per cubic inch.”

Interested candidates need to register their team by Sept. 30.

More  deets:

• Once registered, teams will have until July 22, 2015 to submit their technical approach and testing application.

• Approximately 18 finalists will be notified in October 2015 to bring their tiny inverters to the testing facility by Oct. 21, 2015.

• The winning team will be announced in January 2016.

More helpful information can be found on Google Green’s Little Box page, including a list of wide bandgap semiconductor manufacturers and related information for candidates. There’s also a FAQ page with specifics about who owns the intellectual property, etc.

Grants are available to academic institutions that take up the challenge. “We’re expecting university teams and private companies,” says Google, “but we’d love anyone with a good idea to throw their hat in the ring.”

Image: Google - Little Box Challenge

Power inverter: Lauren Wellicome

Growing up as a hockey-obsessed kid in a small New York suburb, there was no single event to which I looked forward more than The Day the Lake Froze Over.

For most of my hockey-playing years, I had the great fortune of living across the street from a large lake (Lake Mahopac), and a short drive from a smaller pond (Teakettle Spout), the latter of which attracted a disproportionate amount of pickup hockey talent.  I still remember rushing out the front door on Saturday mornings to check the integrity of the ice -- “Solid enough to skate on?” -- or waiting for the inevitable phone call imploring me to get down to Teakettle because a game about to get underway.  None of us who gathered on those lakes and ponds took for granted the free ice-time we were afforded, but I don't think any of us considered that these opportunities might, some day, disappear.

This same spirit -- that of the eager kid entertaining his or her professional hockey playing fantasies on the local lake or pond -- animates much of the National Hockey League's (NHL) first Sustainability Report, which was released last week.  The NHL's report is the first of its kind in major professional sports, and its scope and ambition are impressive.  Hopefully, the work the NHL did on its inaugural report will set the tone for the rest of professional sports and encourage the other major leagues -- the MLB, NBA and NFL -- to follow-suit.

Sweet Emotion: What the report does right

The future of hockey is directly threatened by global warming and the declining availability of frozen lakes and ponds.  The NHL recognizes this and the report is at its most compelling when it makes the importance of environmental sustainability into an issue that is deeply personal to the league's past, present and future players.  This emotional connection gives the report an added dimension, one that goes beyond the usual “Here’s how we’re impacting the environment, and here’s what we’re doing about it.”

Take, for example, the introductory statement by league Commissioner Gary Bettman:

The NHL represents the highest level of hockey in the world. But before many of our players ever took their first stride on NHL ice, they honed their skills on the frozen lakes and ponds of North America and Europe. Our sport can trace its roots to frozen freshwater ponds, to cold climates. Major environmental challenges, such as climate change and freshwater scarcity, affect opportunities for hockey players of all ages to learn and play the game outdoors.

That's a powerful statement, and it is supplemented throughout the report by quotes from some of hockey’s living legends -- Bobby Orr, Owen Nolan, Wayne Gretzky, Mike Richter.  Each explains in personal terms the pivotal role access to lakes and ponds played in their development, both as players and individuals.  Orr notes that, whether he was skating or fishing, his free-time as a child was spent on the water.  Nolan points out how “[g]etting outside” has always helped his “peace of mind.”  The Great One admits that, from the ages of 3 to 12, he spent “eight to 10 hours a day” on the ice.  Richter calls “[t]he beauty of a frozen lake . . . more than free ice time; it is freedom itself.”

Yet, as Richter notes in the report’s afterword, a recent study published by the Institute of Physics' Environmental Research Letters: "Researchers found a 20 to 30 percent decrease in the length of Canadian skating seasons over the past 50 years.” The practical hockey-specific consequences of this are real.  According to Richter, “The world's largest natural frozen skating rink had to close before March 1, making its skating season a much-abbreviated 28 days.”

The NHL and water use

While the future of the sport depends on access to (frozen) water, the NHL is contributing to the resource's depletion.  According to the report, most of the water used in the league's hockey arenas is devoted to ice-making, landscaping, cooling, plumbing and food service operations; total annual water use by all NHL clubs is more than 321 million gallons, which translates to almost 250,000 gallons of water per game.

So, what are the NHL and its constituent teams doing about it?  For one, the league is now, for the first time, tracking and analyzing water use.  This will allow it to better understand the gravity of the problem and how best to solve it.  Second, since the launch in 2011 of its “Gallons for Goals” initiative, for every goal scored during the regular season, the league has pledged to restore 1,000 gallons of water “to a critically dewatered river.”  According to the report, by the end of the initiative’s inaugural season (2011), the Gallons for Goals program restored more than 6.7 million gallons of water.  The league claims to have donated ~20 million gallons since the program's launch.

Individual teams and their arenas are also working to minimize their water usage, mostly by retrofitting or replacing bathroom fixtures -- sinks, urinals -- with more sustainable models.  For instance, the report highlights the Florida Panthers’ BB&T Center, whose sink retrofitting program “decreased restroom-sink water consumption by close to 75 percent from baseline consumption,” and the Los Angeles Kings’ Staples Center, "where all 178 conventional urinals were replaced with waterless urinals, for total annual savings of more than 7 million gallons of water."  On the more creative end of the spectrum is the Winnipeg Jets’ MTS Centre, which now uses “reverse osmosis to filter water instead of treating it chemically.”  This system produces “demineralized water that is free of impurities and typically forms into a harder ice surface. Pure, hard ice requires less maintenance, flood water and refrigeration energy, and also saves on wear of the ice resurfacers.”

Tone deaf? Where the report comes up short

So what does the report do wrong?  Well, I’m loathe to criticize a first effort that is so ambitious and, at least in appearance, so emotionally tied to its sustainability programs.  I'm especially hesitant where said report is the first in its “industry.”  Yet, while I admire the NHL’s focus on how warming and water scarcity impact the league’s own future and the future of its players, there’s literally nothing here about how these issues are threatening the lives of actual human beings, plants and animals.

One could certainly read the report as a bit tone deaf in this regard.  Minimizing water usage, for instance, isn’t really about ensuring the development of star athletes -- it’s about human health.  According to The Water Project, for example, “nearly 1 billion people in the developing world don't have access” to clean drinking water.

And should melting ice really be made into a sports issue?  After all, global warming’s impact on ice sheets -- which, as they melt, lead to rising sea levels -- “could bring about disastrous effects for people and wildlife.”  In places like the Arctic, this means that polar bears, whales and other species are being forced to alter their feeding and migration patterns, “making it harder for native people to hunt them,” according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).  Moreover, “along Arctic coastlines, entire villages will be uprooted because they're in danger of being swamped.”

Of course, these environmental problems are well-documented, analyzed and discussed by experts (like the NRDC) and other stakeholders, and nobody is looking to the NHL for new information on the effects of global warming.  Yet, it would have been nice to see the league at least acknowledge that there are other consequences of global warming that don’t necessarily have anything to do with ice skating.

Image credit: Flickr/michaelrighi

By Chi-Pong Wong

We have seen recent report cards on corporate social responsibility (CSR) with remarkable results from institutions like Tata, Morgan Stanley and Infosys. The question is: Have these and many other CSR maneuvers made notable global impacts?

Well, not quite. By examining the CSR scores of those multinational companies that are top rated in customer experience (CX) or annual profit respectively, one would find that their overall CSR achievements are far from ideal. And from a different angle, flag-waving CSR winners did not capture sizable market shares to make a difference.

This study demonstrates that institutions renowned in CX or net earnings are not necessarily rated highly on their CSR activities -- contrary to what many believe.

Businesses with highest customer satisfactions do not shine on their CSR operations

Marketingcharts.com recently published the leading CX global brands based on Foresee’s customer experience findings, but these brands are no CSR medalists according to CSRHUB’s database.

The following line chart is created to show how irrelevant those global brands’ CX ratings are to their CSR ranks. The case that the No. 1 CX ranked company, Amazon, had a much below average CSR score really hammer the point home loud and clear.

The evidence that companies' CX scores and CSR grades do not correlate indicates that customers do not really value CSR that highly when they engage with the brands. If CSR outcomes do not contribute to CX, which is a key driver of customer purchases, then there will not be any strong incentive for businesses to embrace or strengthen their CSR efforts.

World’s most profitable companies are also pretty dismal on their CSR achievements

If the CSR tally of the top CX score receivers are disturbing, then the CSR grades the world’s most profitable corporations earned should be outright perplexing. Yahoo Canada published a list of the world’s 25 most profitable companies last year on its finance page, and those institutions’ respective CSR marks dug up from CSRHub are utterly frustrating.

The chart below is created to show not only how bad they are on their CSR performances, but also how uninspired CSR must have been to their profitability.

There are plenty of reasons why these companies were most profitable, but the fact that they could get away with disappointing CSR results is frustrating. The message from this study is clear: The shoppers did not care too much about these firms’ CSR attainment status when they made their purchases. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is perhaps one most striking example among many to demonstrate this point. It was the world’s fifth most profitable team last year despite its disheartening CSR performance. This says a lot about the broken connection between consumer behavior and the conflicting message conveyed in CSR surveys.

Coda

Okay, the world has not been serious enough about CSR according to the data that have just been examined. How about CSR on a smaller scale? Has there been any particular country where its residents really walk the talk on CSR matters?

I know that it’s a daunting task to go through the same analysis on every country in the world, so I decided to sample a couple of countries with very active CSR evangelists just to validate. I triaged the CX data for USA and U.K. and charted them against their CSR values from CSRHub; sadly their results confirmed the worldwide phenomena uncovered in this inspection. Furthermore, I did a reverse inference exercise by looking up the CX scores and net proceeds for the top CSR performers. The findings were expected and equally dispirited.

From the aforementioned investigations, businesses highly praised or handsomely awarded with purchase orders by their patrons were no dignitaries, some were outright laggards, on CSR matters. This has revealed the reality that CSR is not among buyers’ primary considerations during their inquisitions and acquisitions. Although CSR sound bites have been gaining popularity online and in print, and clientele claim to have embraced this noble course, business transactions and consumer behaviors have demonstrated just the opposite. Overall, CSR still has a long way to go; its proponents need to enhance their games to better steer consumer behavior toward the desirable path.

Image credit: Flickr/itia4u

Charts courtesy of Chi-Pong Wong; Image

Chi-Pong Wong is a seasoned professional proficient in customer experience, vendor and partner relations, marketing and branding, supply-chain strategy, and program and project management. He has published articles on leading online magazines including Customer Think, UX Matters, Marketing Profs, CEO World, Service Director Business Review, Project Times, PM Hut, Project Management, Supply Chain Brain, Supply Chain Digital, and other popular journals. He earned a MA in Economics at SUNY @ Stony Brook and a MS in Computer Science at Duke University. He is currently with Hewlett-Packard, and has previously worked at Arrow Electronics, IBM, STMicroelectronics, and NEC Electronics. He can be reached at http://www.linkedin.com/in/chipong.