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This is a little ironic; no, it’s more than a little ironic. Congress won’t act on climate change for fear of adversely impacting businesses. So, cities and states are picking up the slack, taking aggressive action, in order to protect their… wait for it…businesses.

A new report entitled Protecting Our Capital, released by the CDP, claims most cities recognize that climate change poses a considerable risk to their local businesses and therefore their economy and well-being. Of course, it’s only a small fraction of businesses that are actively lobbying against climate action -- mostly those in the fossil fuel industries who have the most to lose. Most of them now acknowledge the problem and, even as they hope to slow government action, are moving to address the challenges.

The report, which is based on responses from 207 cities, documents the recognition of the interdependence between cities and businesses. Of those surveyed, 76 percent of cities said that climate change could impact business, while businesses said that 75 percent of their biggest climate-related risks could also be seen as threats to their respective cities.

What kinds of risks are they talking about? These could include rising insurance costs, loss of tourism, supply chain issues and a lack of raw materials. Drivers of these costs will stem from storms and flooding, sea level rise,  temperature increases, drought, and other weather-related disruptions and destructions.

A total of 757 carbon reduction drivers were reported.

Notably, the cities of Denver (U.S.), London (U.K.), Madrid (Spain), Durban (South Africa) and Taipei (Taiwan) combined to reduce their emissions by a total of 13.1 million tons CO2-equivalent since 2009. That’s a 12 percent reduction.

Joint efforts between businesses and cities include:

• Fire risk management and water monitoring (Sempra Energy/San Diego)


• Water management and flood preparedness (Sabasep/Careiras Brazil)


• Flood defense and infrastructure resilience (CLP/Hong Kong)


• Reduced energy demand and heat island effect (Caixa Geral de Depósitos/Lisbon)

In a similar vein, Recyclebank just announced a top 10 list of the most inspiring U.S. sustainability programs, most of which also involve cities and business working together. Among these are:

• Green buildings in Chicago. This features the city working in conjunction with the Chicago Center for Green Technology. The city currently has 295 LEED certified projects.


• Wind energy in Corpus Christi, Texas. The city has partnered with the Port of Corpus Christi and Texas A&M University to establish America’s Wind Power Port.


• Xeriscaping in Denver. The city has partnered with Denver Water to make plans and design information for this water-conserving type of landscaping available to every resident.


• Organic food in La Farge, Wis. Organic farming co-op Organic Valley has used state, village, federal and private funding to turn the area in a sustainable dream town. There is the Kickapoo County Fair hosting sustainability workshops and more organic farms than any other area in the country.


• Solar in Long Beach, Calif. Both the convention center and the airport are examples of how the local government has made it easy for businesses and individuals to install solar PV systems, going so far as to provide a manual to help residents to apply for government tax credits.


• Landfill Rehabilitation in New York. The former site of the world’s largest landfill, is being converted into a park with remediation measures that will exceed all public health and safety regulations. At 2200 acres, Freshkills park, which will be situated on the west shore of Staten Island, will be almost three times the size of Central Park.


• Climate Positive Community in Oberlin, Ohio. The city and the college are working together to achieve a goal of reducing emissions by 50 percent by 2015, and utilizing local food to meet 70 percent of demand.


• Sustainable engagement in Philadelphia. The cities Greenworks initiative has set sustainability goals for energy, equity, environment, economy and engagement. They have taken actions including enhanced recycling, increased use of renewables, home weatherization and tree planting.

Portland, Ore. and Wilmington, Del. were also called out for their efforts in sustainable transportation and recycling of organic wastes.

Because of the interdependent nature of our climate vulnerabilities, alliances between disparate sectors can, as these efforts show, make a significant dent in the problem.

Image credit: Seth Oliver Photographic Arts: Flickr Creative Commons

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

Follow RP Siegel on Twitter.

Apple’s carbon footprint shrank 3 percent from 2012 to 2013. It's a modest decline, but this is the first time the tech giant has seen a year-over-year decrease in greenhouse gas emissions since it started tracking them in 2009.

Despite this and other accomplishments detailed in Apple's 2014 Environmental Responsibility Report released this week, the company acknowledged it has a long way to go to reduce its environmental impact, including tackling emissions from its manufacturing partners and addressing its recent increase in water consumption.

The greenhouse gas emissions from Apple’s energy consumption fell by almost a third over the last three years, the report found, even though the tech giant’s overall energy use jumped 42 percent during the same time. These avoided emissions are equivalent to taking 75,100 cars off the road or powering 49,100 homes for one year, according to the report.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company said its investments in clean energy were responsible for the impressive drop in its energy-related carbon footprint: All of Apple’s data centers – which run services like Siri, the iTunes and App stores, and Maps – run on 100-percent renewable energy sources, including solar, wind and geothermal power.

“So every time a song is downloaded from iTunes, an app is installed from the Mac App Store or a book is downloaded from iBooks, the energy Apple uses is provided by nature,” the reports authors wrote.

As of this year, Apple powers 145 of its U.S. retail stores and all of its Australian stores with 100-percent renewable energy, according to the report. Five of its corporate campuses, including its Cupertino, Calif. headquarters, also run on 100-percent renewable energy. Apple is currently building a new Cupertino campus and said the new facility will also operate on 100-percent clean energy and be ultra-energy efficient, using natural ventilation for 75 percent of the year.

In addition to cleaning up its energy consumption, the maker of the iPhone is reducing greenhouse gas emissions from its employees’ commutes. Its commute alternatives program – which includes transit subsidies, biodiesel buses that shuttle employees to and from work, and carpooling incentives – provided more than 1 million trips last year and cut carbon emissions equivalent to taking more than 15,000 cars off the road for one year.

The company is also addressing what happens to its products at the end of their useful life, reporting that every Apple retail store in the world now takes back its devices for free and recycles them responsibly. Since 2010, Apple has collected 85 percent of the total weight of the products it sold seven years earlier, the report said.

But Apple’s Environmental Responsibility Report also called out challenges the company needs to work on. Apple’s water consumption climbed from 20 cubic meters per employee in 2012 to 29 cubic meters in 2013, the report said, due to construction of the new Cupertino campus, the addition of new server rooms and testing equipment in existing facilities, and general company expansion worldwide. The tech giant said it has established a clean water program to tackle its high water use and keep its suppliers on board with its conservation efforts.

Another obstacle the report noted is the carbon emissions from Apple’s manufacturing partners – which make up the largest portion of the company’s overall carbon footprint. While Apple said in a blog post that it is “committed to addressing” these emissions, the report is noticeably silent on ways the company will clean up operations at the notoriously-polluting Chinese factories it contracts with.

On this year’s Earth Day, Apple announced it would provide consumers with more frequent updates on the company’s progress towards greater sustainability. The new Environmental Responsibility Report fulfills that promise and demonstrates how far the tech icon has come in its environmental initiatives and corporate transparency in recent years. Previously lambasted by environmental groups like Greenpeace for lagging behind other companies in sustainability and failing to disclose the environmental impact of its operations, Apple has proven it is making strides in the right direction – though there is still more work to be done.

“Apple is still far from perfect – it has issues that it must address throughout its supply chains for materials, energy and labor, including in China,” Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International’s executive director, wrote in a blog post in April, “but by being so open about its sustainability goals, Apple is indicating a willingness to be held accountable for its impact.”

Image credit: Apple

Passionate about both writing and sustainability, Alexis Petru is freelance journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area whose work has appeared on Earth911, Huffington Post and Patch.com. Prior to working as a writer, she coordinated environmental programs for Bay Area cities and counties. Connect with Alexis on Twitter at @alexispetru

Foster Farms has a problem, a big problem.

No, it isn’t its long-standing battle with Salmonella Heidelberg infections in the chicken in its processing centers, or the ongoing investigations by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, whose enforcement arm announced a recall of Foster Farm chicken the day before the Fourth of July holiday.

Its looming problem is with its insurance carrier, which is refusing to accept a claim for the $14.2 million that the manufacturer says it has lost from tainted chicken.

According to Lloyds of London, which insured the poultry manufacturer, Foster Farms' losses don’t fit the profile for a compensatable claim. But the interesting thing about this story is the wide spectrum of interpretations about just what has happened over the past 16 months and why Foster Farms is left holding the bag.

According to a letter from the USDA  to Foster Farms dated Oct. 7, 2013, the agency advised the company that it planned to “withhold the marks of inspection and suspend the assignment of inspectors at the three facilities in California unless the firm submitted plans to prevent the persistent recurrence of salmonella contamination.” In the letter, the FSIS warned Foster Farms of its responsibility to ensure that its product was not “adulterated.”  But it didn’t actually ever say that Foster Farms chicken was adulterated.

The U.S. Poultry Products Inspection Act, says the letter, “provides FSIS (Food Safety Inspection Service, the USDA’s enforcement arm) program personnel the authority to refuse to allow poultry or poultry food products and meat or meat food products to be labeled, marked, stamped, or the sanitary conditions of any such establishment are such that product is rendered adulterated, and provide definitions for the term 'adulterated.”

It continues with this warning by saying that the Livingston, Calif. plant “has been implicated as a producer and supplier of poultry products associated with this ongoing Salmonella Heidelberg illness outbreak. As a result, on Sept. 9, 2013, FSIS initiated intensified salmonella verification testing of various poultry products at this establishment, as well as three other Foster Farms establishments (Establishment 6137 in Livingston, Calif.; Establishment 7632 in Fresno, Calif.; and Establishment 6164A in Kelso, Washington).”

The “intensified testing” confirmed that salmonella was found both in one or more of the processing plants as well as in the products.

Yet four days later, Daniel Engeljohn, USDA’s assistant administrator for FSIS field operations, went on record saying that the FSIS found no evidence of adulterated product, and therefore did not ask for a voluntary recall.

“[The FSIS’] decision was that we did not believe the product being produced in the marketplace was adulterated, which would be what we would have to conclude to have it removed from the marketplace,”  Engeljohn said in an interview with Meatingplace.com.

In the end, the USDA may not have done Foster Farms any favors by not ordering a recall, either when the salmonella was first detected, or in January 2014, when FSIS ordered the Livingston plant closed due to cockroaches. When the company attempted to file a claim with Lloyds, the insurance carrier rejected the claim because no recall had been initiated, even though the plant had been closed by FSIS due to infestation.

“We agree that ‘recall’ is not defined within our policy, however to attempt to expand the definition of this word beyond the common meaning is clearly misguided and we do not agree that any ambiguity exists,” said Jonathan Kelly, claims manager for Lloyds’ underwriter XL Group.

Foster Farms calls the decision an “exceedingly narrow definition of the word 'recall,” and has launched a suit against Lloyd’s underwriters for $12.5 million.

One of the issues at the heart of this debacle is the USDA method of determining that a recall is necessary. In its letter, it painstakingly lays out the steps it took to determine that the antibiotic-resistant form of salmonella was in the product that consumers had bought.

“The majority of case-patients reported chicken consumption prior to illness onset; among those with brand information, 80 percent reported consumption of Foster Farms chicken during case-patients' interviews,” notes the letter. “A high proportion of case-patients were hospitalized. Foster Farms has been implicated as the producer and supplier of poultry products associated with an ongoing Salmonella Heidelberg illness outbreak in several states.”

Yet determination that a recall was necessary did not come until the agency was able to definitively link the poisoning to the case of a 10-year-old child who had been hospitalized for food poisoning in June. The USDA then announced a Class I recall, which is done when the USDA feels “there is a reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death.”

Whether Foster Farms wins the suit against XL Group et al, it may still be in for more litigation. At least two different lawyers have announced that they are interested in speaking with consumers who were sickened from tainted Foster Farms meat.

For its part, the company says it has attempted to caution consumers of the importance of washing their hands and notes the apparent failure of many to do so when handling raw chicken. It sponsored  a study by a UC Davis expert that shows that many consumers can potentially contaminate their food by not washing their hands often enough.  Unfortunately, while the study reiterates some pretty important standards for safe handling of raw meats, its lessons may well fall on deaf ears. After 600 cases in 29 states and evidence of infection in more than one plant, consumers may be less worried about whether they should wash their hands than whether they can risk buying chicken from Foster Farms -- at all.

And with the news that the USDA's recall only extends to three days of production in March 2014, the agency may find that consumers' growing loss of faith extends well beyond the company label on their supermarket shelves.

Image credit: Public Domain/Dnor

What? Ch-ch-ch Chia Seeds?

If you didn’t have a Chia Pet at some point growing up, then you were denied a normal childhood (unless you’re from the Bay Area, where owning a Chia Pet would have denied you the “hipster” label for life). These lovable terra-cotta figurines, which have spanned the animal kingdom from hippos and gnomes to Newt Gingrich and Barack Obama, brightened up many a room with their fast-growing chlorophyll afros.

After almost 40 years of selling these equally coveted and mocked figurines, Joseph Enterprises, the keeper of Chia Pets, has entered the health food business. The company has finally started to market chia seeds. And not just any chia seeds: Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia Seeds!

Naturally the question comes up of why Joseph Enterprises waited so long to market the seeds in addition to their iconic ceramic menagerie. After all, chia seeds have joined the lofty status on par with quinoa and goji berries, displacing the passé superfoods of yesterday such as flax seeds and tofu. But this is also a company that has made a mint selling other products including the Clapper, Pogo Whisk and Ove Glove. So while the adjacency appears a bit odd at first, the company’s track record bodes well for these tiny slick seeds.

As the testimonials show, chia seeds are a nutritional jackpot: rich Omega-3’s, calcium and fiber are among the nutrients these prized little seeds boast. And, unlike farmed salmon and fish oil capsules often processed from dubious sources, they are vegan. Their taste is pretty benign, too. Like those tapioca balls plunked in boba teas, they also have a slimy texture when wet, but are far more healthful and are easier to chug down.

So what Joseph Enterprises missed in timing will be compensated by the market they will corner. While chia seeds have long been in the corner health food store, and then of course scaled thanks to the likes of Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and even Costco, the market for Joseph Enterprises’ new product has its crosshairs on a slightly different consumer base.

Just watch the television commercial and you will see: Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia Seeds are directed at the same folks who would pick up a Chia Pet at the neighborhood store. They are available at chains such as Walgreen’s and the big box stores Target and Walmart. Whether their sales will perform well at stores more known for Russell Stover candies and Red Vines remains to be seen, but in a country where obesity and related health problems are on the upswing, this is a trend much welcomed.

So what was once a niche product has become mainstream, and prices are increasing. Originating from South and Central America, entrepreneurs are trying to grow chia in North America — and, as the Wall Street Journal has recently profiled, chia is now growing in Kentucky’s Bluegrass Country. A new cash crop would certainly be welcome by farmers -- and could skirt controversies that have plagued popular foods like quinoa, which have boosted farmers’ incomes but have become priced out of range for many people whose families relied on them for centuries.

Image credit: Joseph Enterprises

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

From finance to operations, there is a "dizzying landscape of options" for MBA careers in sustainability. Many MBA candidates who are entering the sustainability job market are on uncharted waters. Katie Kross provides clarity, tips and resources for navigating the diverse paths to sustainability careers for MBAs in the soon-to-be released second addition of her book, "Profession and Purpose: A Resource Guide for Careers in Sustainability."

Kross states that the path for sustainability careers can take numerous off-campus routes, diverging from a largely on-campus career search for many traditional MBA careers. Her book is bursting at the seams with job hunting tactics and inspirations, providing structure to a potentially daunting task. It is written both for people just beginning their careers or those wishing to switch careers after earning an MBA.

Part I: Something for everyone

Despite a variety of potential career paths -- from renewable energy to green marketing -- Kross identifies specific themes that are helpful across the board. She gives numerous examples of specific sustainability job titles, helping job seekers gain insight into potential career options. In addition, she mentions additional training and certifications specific to sustainability, such as LEED Green Associate and GRI Reporting Certification, helping career-seekers hone in on an expertise.

Some of her advice was broad enough to apply to most job-seekers, such as tips on using social media channels and networks, and others were specific to green careers, including specific websites and networking opportunities. Every paragraph, however, had some emphasis on business and sustainability -- setting it apart as a useful resource to job-seekers within this niche.

From job boards to informational interviews, the resource guide explores a variety of avenues for getting prepared and creating a career path, through both formal and informal approaches. Kross recommends throughout the book that career-seekers to do their homework by reading sustainability reports, relevant trade publications and blogs, and she says it's always a good idea to speak with people to gain insights into the market.

I found the section, "organizing our search" in Part I to be especially helpful. It even provides a general timeline for MBA candidates on specific activities and intentions, with many suggestions specific to sustainability, such as making the most of a Net Impact membership or attending U.S. Green Building Council and Sustainable Brands events.

Parts II and III: Choosing a career path

Part II of the book focuses on specific career paths, including corporate sustainability, green building and environmental conservation, with sections on trends in the field, skills needed, sample employers and key resources. It profiles people that acquired jobs in each field, with information on how they found their current position and job search tips. Each section is a goldmine for current, specific information on each career path, with insights from industry leaders.

The final section of the book is filled with job search resources, again specific to sustainability careers. It's also extremely thorough, with job posting websites, books, reports, and conferences. Even career seekers that have done a lot of previous research are likely to find some really valuable resources in this section, as it is up-to-date and very comprehensive.

"Profession and Purpose" is a must-have for MBA candidates wishing to enter sustainability careers and a very useful tool for anyone wishing to start a career in sustainability. Its 200 pages are densely packed with so much information that even the most aimless green business career-seekers will gain direction and insight for a new career path.

Image credit: "Profession and Purpose: A Resource Guide for Careers in Sustainability"

By Gary Groff

The organic and Fairtrade food company Alter Eco has boosted revenues by more than 40 percent annually, from $7 million in 2012 to a projected $14.5 million in 2014 — while actively advancing its mission. How did the company do it?

A key factor for any sustainable business is getting financing right. That means not only choosing the right mix of financing — equity, debt, nontraditional alternatives — but also choosing funders that understand opportunities in your sector and support your mission. The following examples show how three mission-driven companies that have used this strategy successfully.

Alter Eco: Mission-aligned investors enable impact to rise with revenue

When Alter Eco began vying for supermarket shelf space nine years ago, the company’s biggest asset was a passionate pitch. “We wanted to show that we could be a profitable business while having a positive impact on our ecosystem, our planet and the people who live on it,” said Edouard Rollet, Alter Eco’s co-founder and president.

For example, Alter Eco buys cocoa for its chocolates from the Acopagro Cooperative in the Peruvian Amazon, paying a Fairtrade price plus a premium directed to meeting community needs, such as medical coverage for farmers. Alter Eco also supports the co-op’s reforestation projects: Along with several other companies, it has helped finance the planting of 2 million trees and expects to help fund 8 million more in the next five years. As a result, Alter Eco can claim carbon-negative operations.

Alter Eco’s business model carries costs that other packaged food companies don’t face, and that added to its start-up challenges. For the first two years, Rollet and CEO and co-founder Mathieu Senard lived and worked in a one-room San Francisco apartment, with a couple of beds beside their desks. The company grew with investments from individuals and social enterprise funders Good Capital and Renewal Funds, which were as interested in Alter Eco’s mission as in its business prospects.

When the company broke even, it obtained asset-based debt financing from New Resource Bank, which has helped Alter Eco to pay quinoa farmers at the time of harvest and to buy raw materials for its innovative compostable packaging. Additional debt financing from New Island Capital, a values-based investor focused on community and environmental sustainability, is also funding increased quinoa purchases. Alter Eco expects to maintain its growth pace over the next few years.

Blue Bottle Coffee: Deliciousness, hospitality and sustainability rule

 

Since 2002, Blue Bottle Coffee grew from one man roasting coffee in a converted potting shed in Oakland and selling it at farmers markets, to seven Bay Area locations, six in New York and more cafes under development.

“It’s nice to have a plan, but I didn’t,” founder and CEO James Freeman told the audience at a New Resource re:think event last year. “I meet people who are so into their plan they lose their product. We just grew every year. We do a lot of things that spring out of my desire to have them.”

People organized around a clear purpose is one thing that allows spontaneous ideas to take off successfully. Challenged by his managers a few years ago to come up with a mission statement, Freeman boiled it down to three words: deliciousness, hospitality and sustainability. “Any question that comes up we can basically answer by appealing to those words,” he said.

Another key factor: “The investors and bankers I’ve chosen to work with haven’t said, ‘Well, James, you have to open 6.2 stores in the next year,’ and put me in a position where I had to do something that didn’t feel right.”

Veritable Vegetable: Organics pioneer bases all decisions on mission fit

 

Veritable Vegetable is a trailblazer in many ways. It was founded in 1974 as a worker collective — a part of the People’s Food System, a group organized to create an alternative food system. Over its 40 years as a dedicated distributor of high-quality organic produce, the company has helped drive demand for organics throughout California (and parts of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Hawaii), influenced organic certification standards, advocated for sustainable food and agriculture legislation, and advised other organic distributors on successful business models.

Veritable Vegetable’s revenues have grown from $45,000 in 1975 to close to $50 million in 2013, and it now serves a network of more than 600 farms, grocers, cooperative markets, restaurants and schools.

The company’s original credo, “food for people, not for profit,” is still core to its operation and translates into transparency in pricing, ethical business practices and wages, support for local food banks and wellness programs, policy-reform advocacy, and other sustainability initiatives. For example, a 2007 loan from New Resource allowed Veritable Vegetable to expand production capability while conserving energy with state-of-the-art cooler systems, heavy-duty doors and specialized lighting. A 2008 loan funded the solar panels that now supply 70 percent of its energy.

Veritable Vegetable also applies its mission standards to choosing financial and other business partners, said Daria Colner, director of marketing communications. “We make business decisions based on our values and take a long-term partnership approach to our business relationships.”

While each of these companies followed a different growth path, there is a common theme here: They’re all guided by a clear, powerful vision, and they all found funders who share their vision.

Images courtesy of Alter Eco, Blue Bottle Coffee and Veritable Vegetable 

Gary Groff helps sustainability-oriented businesses obtain growth capital and make key connections. An avid surfer and environmentalist, he’s senior vice president of commercial banking at New Resource Bank and has worked with Alter Eco and Ritual Coffee, among others.  Learn more about New Resource and its planet-smart banking at:  www.newresourcebank.com.

With a busy week behind you and the weekend within reach, there’s no shame in taking things a bit easy on Friday afternoon. With this in mind, every Friday TriplePundit will give you a fun, easy read on a topic you care about. So, take a break from those endless email threads, and spend five minutes catching up on the latest trends in sustainability and business.

In a world where terms and conditions pages read like Russian novels, it's unfortunate that exemplary customer service is more the exception than the rule. But Friday isn't a day to focus on the negative.

With that in mind, this week we're tipping our hats to five companies that prove the stereotype wrong and are rewarded with happy customers and healthy bottom lines.

1. Zappos

Zappos has a reputation for providing one of the best customer experiences out there. Its attention to customer service -- and its efforts to put customers at the heart of its business model -- is an inspiration to businesses the world over.

To better understand how important customer service is to the online retailer, check out CEO Tony Hsieh's speech from SXSW 2009. You have to see it to believe it, but here's a teaser to wet your palette: "Our whole philosophy is: Take most of the money that we would have spent on paid marketing and instead put that into the customer experience," Hsieh said. Watch the whole thing below.

2. Amazon

Amazon has taken a lot of flack from environmental groups for its use of "dirty" energy and failing to file climate risk disclosures with the SEC. But when it comes to customer service, the online retailer is one of the best there is.

In fact, it topped MSN Money's Customer Service Hall of Fame list for four years in a row and also made the top five in customer service rankings from Temkin, JD Power and Forrester Research. Its user-friendly website, one-click shopping, no-hassle returns and free-shipping options have attracted some 180 million happy buyers. (Their foray into frustration-free packaging doesn't hurt either.) Combined, Amazon customers buy an average of 9.6 million items a day, according to MSN Money.

3. USAA

When you think of a banking and insurance company, a joyful customer experience may not be the first thing that comes to mind, but USAA has proven to be an exception. Its banking business took the top spot in the 2014 Temkin Customer Service Ratings, which rates 233 companies across 19 industries, and its insurance arm tied Amazon for No. 2. It also received high marks from MSN Money and JD Power.

So what makes USAA's customer experience so great? For starters, it has inarguably the best insurance program for military families and veterans -- offered at rates affordable on a military salary or pension. Additionally, one out of every four employees USAA hires has direct military experience or is the spouse of someone who serves or has served, according to the company.

Beyond its outstanding commitment to soldiers and their families, USAA also boasts a whopping 13,000 customer-service agents -- meaning customers are guaranteed to connect with a real, live human on the phone rather than waging an endless battle with an automated system.

4. Marriott

Marriott, along with its Courtyard by Marriott label that caters primarily to business travelers, is the best of the best when it comes to hotel customer service. It received the highest score out of all hotels in the 2014 Customer Experience Index from Forrester Research and also scored high marks from MSN Money -- which used a small budget hotel in Tampa, Florida as an example of the company's commitment to its customers.

"It's right there on the hotel's website: Marriott, a multibillion-dollar worldwide chain, credits the success of one Florida property to the lady who puts the muffins out in the morning," wrote Karen Aho of MSN Money. She's speaking of Jinney Byrne, who not only bakes tasty morning treats, but also regularly checks on guests in their rooms at the Fairfield Inn & Suites in Tampa, where many stay while receiving cancer treatment. This is only one small example, but the high ranks prove it's one of many.

5. Costco

Costco proves a long-forgotten edict true: Happy employees equal happy customers. The bulk retailer is one of a select few American companies that pay a living wage to all workers, starting its employees at $11.50 per hour with an average wage of $21 per hour, not including overtime. Coincidentally, it also scored top ranks from Temkin and Forrester Research for exemplary customer service.

Did we miss your favorite company? Tell us about it in the comments section! 

Image credit: Flickr/gazeronly and USAA

Based in Philadelphia, Mary Mazzoni is a senior editor at TriplePundit. She is also a freelance journalist who frequently writes about sustainability, corporate social responsibility and clean tech. Her work has appeared in the Philadelphia Daily News, the Huffington Post, Sustainable Brands, Earth911 and the Daily Meal. You can follow her on Twitter @mary_mazzoni.

By Jennie Wetter

Today was World Population Day, and the planet celebrated by registering 165 new births every minute.  Global population is currently 7.2 billion and counting, and projected to grow to 10.9 billion by 2100.

If that sounds like a lot, consider this:   Those estimates are only valid if fertility rates, which have declined in recent decades, continue to drop.   That’s a big “if.”   If fertility rates fail to decline further,  the world population could soar to 27 billion!  Here is a new set of shareable infographics and short information that explains this.

The infographics make it clear that there’s a vital link between keeping birth rates falling and fighting hunger, poverty and environmental damage.  Rapid population growth has already complicated efforts to reduce poverty and eliminate hunger in Africa, whose population of 1.1 billion is expected to more than double by 2050.

Over the next year the United Nations will be crafting its post 2015 development agenda. This plan will decide where the world commits its resources. Part of that process is happening next week at the United Nations where the Open Working Group will meet for the 13^th and final time to craft the Sustainable Development Goals before official negotiations begin. We don’t yet know whether they will include universal access to reproductive health care and contraception, but they absolutely should, because that’s  key to keeping fertility rates declining. If they don’t, the consequences of letting the population triple or quadruple are unthinkable.

As it is, with 7.2 billion of us on the planet,  one out of eight of us experiences hunger. We’ve made great strides in reducing the number of people living in extreme poverty, but there are still 1.2 billion people who live on less than a dollar a day, and 2.4 billion people living on less than $2.00 a day. This means over a billion people are hovering on the edge of extreme poverty.

We already we use more resources than nature can renew each year.  Every year that continues,  we apply more pressure to the planet.  The atmosphere gets more saturated with greenhouse gasses, forests and rivers shrink, water levels fall, and fisheries collapse. The Global Footprint Network estimates that by 2030 we will need two Earths to meet our demand for renewable resources, and if everyone in the world lived like the average American, we would need at least five planets to support us.

These trends are already unsustainable now.  Imagine how they’ll track if global population growth accelerates.

Thankfully, for the time being, fertility rates are falling.. In 1989, when the first World Population Day was declared, women worldwide were having an average of 3.3 children.  Today that average is down to 2.5. More and more women are using contraceptives and that is a great thing for women, their families, communities and the planet.

But many women around the world who need them still can’t get access to them.  Some 287,000 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth every year. We could cut that to 105,000 women a year just by meeting the unmet need for contraceptives.  The United Nations estimates that there are 222 million women in the developing world who want to avoid a pregnancy, but who are not using a modern method of birth control. Getting them contraceptives would only $3.5 billion a year – less than FIFA will make this year on the World Cup!

We also need to empower girls and women, make sure they’re allowed to stay in school and not forced to become child brides. They need to be able to make informed choices about using family planning services and have children by choice, not by chance.

In moving forward on the post-2015 development agenda we need to recommit ourselves to a healthier and more sustainable world, and that begins by promoting gender equality and providing universal access to family planning and reproductive health services. It’s a rights and health issue, but it’s also a matter of survival for us all.  If fertility rates stop declining and the population quadruples, there won’t be any sustainable development.

Jennie Wetter is the Population Institute's director of public policy.

Go small or go home. That's my motto. Or it would be if I had a motto. And it seems that's something Walmart is embracing -- to the benefit of walkable communities and of those in food deserts where lower-income people suffer limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables.

Walmart has announced it will nearly double its number of "small format" stores in unconventional locations, adding up to 300 more units around the U.S. focused on "perishables" such as fresh fruits and vegetables and meats. One of the major factors in the format's success is how it uses pharmacies -- another benefit to communities with walkability issues -- as traffic builders.

This is not to say that the stores are specifically intended to address food desert issues. Back in 2011, Walmart committed to building stores in rural and urban food deserts, but that didn't include the smaller format stores. However, the company did say stores like Walmart Express "will likely" serve food deserts. Ultimately, though, the intent of the smaller stores is to get a foothold in dense urban centers that aren't cut out for the huge, sprawling format. Heck, some cities like Chicago have been downright politically hostile to Walmarts within the city limits.

The new format seems to be a huge hit, already. Walmart expects to see up to $20 billion in growth each year from these wee little outlets by 2018.

I have mixed feelings about Walmart, of course. On one hand, there are the low wages and questionable labor conditions of their sources, and frankly, on the occasions I go there, I get the distinct impression they don't give their employees the freedom to do their jobs well; they have to call a manager for every teeny weeny thing while I, the customer, wait and wait and wait and the employee apologizes and apologizes. On the other hand, Walmart is the largest private producer of solar energy in the U.S., and they do come up with ways to serve the low-wage community. In my city, the Super Walmart with a grocery section has a bus that goes out to underprivileged areas, and that's a really important service.

When you live in a city with scant mass transit and you neither have the resources to have a car nor even know anybody with the resources to have a car, any food assistance you might get loses serious practical applications when all you have access to is food from the gas station or convenience store: overpriced bread and canned goods, potato chips, Honey Buns, and soda pop. It's a very serious matter when the neighborhood liquor store is the only thing within walking distance and has a sign that says "We Accept Food Stamps." There's not going to be anything to buy there but crap.

Walmart's foray into small urban stores with fresh foods and pharmacy access may turn out to be a huge deal for underprivileged communities, especially as it shows other retailers there's money to be made serving them. Other stores such as Target and Whole Foods are following suit, with Whole Foods experimenting with lower-cost options for staple items.

Image credit: Walmart: Source

Former Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency Terry Tamminen came up with an interesting question the other day. In a post on Fast Company, the author and founder of the NGO 7th Generation Advisors asked a simple question regarding the carbon-producing fuels that we are now bent on relegating to the environmental trash heap: Can we really afford to divest from fossil fuels?

What a great question. It’s the kind that only one who has sat in the proverbial hot seat and lobbied for consensus and compromise would be asking right now.

Divestment strategies have gained a lot of media steam these days, despite their debatable success at times. As Tamminen points out, they worked in slowing down the tobacco industry – until investors realized there were now a whole lot of cheap stocks out there to buy up. And of course, they’ve worked in some humanitarian issues, like the South Africa Apartheid in the 1990s.

But they haven’t always worked as well in either the political or corporate arena. A research team at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium found that companies under pressure for political or environmental reasons to divest an operation from a given international region were less likely to do so if they only had one investment than companies that operated a broad spectrum of operations in different countries in the same region. In other words, those that had all their eggs in the same basket felt less able to divest than those who had other “flexibility options.”

Tamminen points out that while it’s great to see increasing dialogue about fossil fuel divestment, we haven’t really grappled with the full impact or requirements of such a sweeping measure.

“We’ll need alternatives in more than the transportation sector,” points out Tamminen. “What about making plastics, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics? Or making artificial rubber, something that other environmental advocates applaud as they try to end the deforestation caused by rubber tree plantations?”

But the question that I’ve found myself wondering recently is: Why isn’t more attention given to incentivizing investment changes by the companies that have all or most of their money tied up in fossil fuel industries?

We use tax credits and retraining stipends like crazy to bolster the U.S. economy. We offer tax credits and other incentives to small businesses, to farmers we want to encourage to grow new crops, and families who have dependants. We offer systems to train unemployed workers, to train soldiers returning from war, to aid disabled veterans who aren’t able to work and other individuals in need of new careers. Recently, we encouraged millions of uninsured citizens to get health insurance by offering tax credits to defray the cost of monthly premiums. It’s a step that, however controversial, is expected to improve  the economic wellbeing of not just those now insured, but also the country as a whole.

While it’s debatable whether oil and gas companies need tax credits to diversify to other industries, it seems to me that the real question is what we ultimately want to see from any successful divestment process. If we want companies to change their mindset, maybe we need to make it a bit easier to find a new path, rather than expecting them to simply absorb the losses that come from decreasing demand and increasingly hostile pressure of those who want change.

Perhaps establishing industry-specific federal tax breaks that encourage companies to diversify into new research areas is an answer. Or perhaps it’s graduated tax credits for new forms of renewable energy that benefit regional power companies still relying on coal power. Or perhaps it’s establishing retraining incentives that take some of the financial sting out of transitioning from fossil fuel industries.

And yes, most of these incentives would come with legislative considerations that help to ensure that political and legal quagmires such as what Minnesota recently experienced wouldn’t occur.

As we learned with the tobacco industry, simply divesting from the fossil fuel industry isn’t going to make gasoline investments go away, any more than it will transform kitchens that have relied on plastic dishes and microwave-safe bowls and manufacturing companies that have built empires from plastic fittings. The cost of restarting such industries will just become cheaper as companies loose money and struggle to dump their losses. But creating incentives that make it worthwhile for those companies to diversify into renewable energies and use the decades of expertise to retool our energy sector does more than start businesses. It helps to change mindsets about where we’re really trying to go.

Image credit: Cjp24