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In an effort by the U.K. Parliament to reach the ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse gas emission by 34 percent by 2020, the House of Commons is now looking to the parliamentary estate and considering installing solar panels on the face of Big Ben in London. Parliamentary passholders were submitting ideas for reducing carbon emissions and boosting energy efficiency on the estate, when the solar idea was suggested.

Big Ben, officially renamed the Elizabeth Tower in 2012, was constructed in 1859 and contains 6.9-meter clocks on a 96-meter tower. It is located on the north end of the Palace of Westminster and has become one of the most prominent symbols of the United Kingdom, particularly in visual media and the chimes in audio media. It is a popular landmark in the United Kingdom, thus installing solar panels would be an iconic gesture.

Other energy efficiency estate plans include insulating the Palace of Westminster roof with sheep wool -- a material that has been found to significantly reduce heat loss, while preventing leaks. Several green initiatives are underway this year, such as installing voltage optimization technology to mitigate wasted energy, identifying energy efficiency improvements for all estate buildings, and replacing light bulbs with LEDs. Parliament has already reduced waste water and increased recycling.

The Climate Change Act of 2008 set legally binding greenhouse gas emissions targets for the United Kingdom of at least a 34 percent reduction below 1990 levels by 2020 and an 80 percent reduction by 2050. The government has been on track to meet its first three carbon budgets, says Energy Secretary Ed Davey, which is very impressive given the scope of the goal. Such a significant carbon reduction initiative is a huge task, which has been partially obscured by sluggish economic growth.

“The U.K. takes its obligations under the Climate Change Act to cut emissions by 80 percent by 2050 extremely seriously,” Davey said in a statement. “As the world’s most prominent climate scientists have said, we must not rest on our laurels if we want to avoid dangerous climate change.”

The government will have to increase the speed of its emissions-reduction efforts by a factor of four to continue to meet future targets, which is an ambitious goal. The United Kingdom has committed to decarbonizing its energy supply, which is vital given that  the sector generated an estimated 40 percent of the country's emissions in 2012. The United Kingdom has become a leader in offshore wind energy production to assist in this goal.

Overall, solar energy growth in 2014 is expected to be strong in the United Kingdom, at an estimated 2.5 GW of additional capacity, compared to an estimated 6 GW in the U.S. This could make the United Kingdom the leading European solar photovoltaic installer during 2014, which is a major feat. Several factors shaping the solar market are lower solar panel costs, a slow German market and high acceptance rates for large photovoltaic projects.

This potentially iconic solar installation on Big Ben may in fact be frosting on the cake for a larger greenhouse gas reduction movement in the United Kingdom.
Image credit: Flickr/Rachel Hobday and  kevinthoule

Sarah Lozanova is a regular contributor to environmental and energy publications and websites, including Mother Earth Living, Green Building & Design, Triple Pundit, Urban Farm, and Solar Today. Her experience includes work with small-scale solar energy installations and utility-scale wind farms. She earned an MBA in sustainable management from the Presidio Graduate School and she resides in Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage in Midcoast Maine with her husband and two children.

Welcome to our series of interviews with leading female CSR practitioners where we are learning about what inspires these women and how they found their way to careers in sustainability. Read the rest of the series here.

TriplePundit: Briefly describe your role and responsibilities, and how many years you have been in the business.

Alice Korngold: I am President and CEO of Korngold Consulting. Together with members of my team, I assist companies in establishing NGO/nonprofit board-matching programs that help them to achieve their objectives for corporate growth and profits through leadership development, stakeholder engagement and productive NGO/nonprofit partnerships. We also train and place corporate executives on NGO/nonprofit boards of directors based on each individual’s interests and qualifications and the needs of each NGO/nonprofit.

Additionally, we consult to the boards of directors of global, national, and regional NGOs/nonprofits—including addressing board composition, recruitment, and leadership succession planning—to advance NGOs/nonprofits in achieving their greater ambitions and long-term sustainability.

I’ve been working in CSR since 1993, when I founded, built and ran a social enterprise in Cleveland, Ohio to provide CSR advisory services to corporations, in addition to nonprofit board-matching services for over 1,000 corporate executives and board development services to several hundred nonprofits. Our organization also trained and advised leadership programs in other cities, throughout the country, seeking to replicate our nonprofit board-matching model, which was financially self-sustaining through fees for services.

In 2005, I returned home to NYC to establish a consulting firm to provide CSR and board-matching services to global corporations, and nonprofit board consulting services to global, national, and regional NGOs/nonprofits.

I published numerous CSR and board governance chapters and articles since the early 90s, followed by two books. The first book was Leveraging Good Will: Strengthening Nonprofits by Engaging Businesses (Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Imprint, 2005). The second, quite recently, is A Better World, Inc.: How Companies Profit by Solving Global Problems…Where Governments Cannot (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

3p: How has the sustainability program evolved at your company?

AK: Through experience: Our approach with each client, whether for-profit or nonprofit, is to help them to envision their greatest potential—often gathering input from a variety of stakeholders. Then we assist our clients in finding innovative ways to maximize success; to do so, we often help to facilitate partnerships between companies and NGOs/nonprofits, stakeholder engagement, and effective board governance.

Success for each company is defined by its ability to reduce costs, mitigate risks, increase profits, and build long term value. Success for each NGO/nonprofit is defined by its ability to achieve its mission, while building financial sustainability. Both for-profits and NGOs/nonprofits achieve the best results, strategically and financially, by finding solutions to the world’s greatest challenges—economic, social, and environmental.

Through research: Based on research for chapters and articles as well as for my recent book, A Better World, Inc.: How Companies Profit by Solving Global Problems…Where Governments Cannot. Our research shows that leading companies are profiting by solving the world’s greatest economic, social, and environmental problems. Additionally, our research reveals that corporate-NGO partnerships, stakeholder engagement, and effective board governance are essential for success.

Our consulting experience and research informs how we develop and deliver services to help our clients to achieve their highest aspirations.

3p: Tell us about someone (mentor, sponsor, friend, hero) who affected your sustainability journey, and how.

AK: There isn’t one person. Rather, my sustainability journey has been and continues to be deeply affected by the many business and NGO/nonprofit people with whom I work, not only in a consulting capacity, but also in the context of blogging. Blogging is merely a sideline for me, a voluntary activity to learn about and showcase companies and NGOs/nonprofits that are modeling best practices in corporate-NGO partnerships or board governance. Many of the best examples have come out of the annual meetings of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), which I’ve been covering for Fast Company since 2008, and where I’ve ultimately had the opportunity to be a moderator and panelist.

The sustainability journey is really about trying to understand the challenges and opportunities facing the companies and NGOs/nonprofits with which I work, and helping them to find ways to work together to solve global problems. The best solutions benefit companies and NGOs in achieving success, while also helping to build a better world.

3p: What is the best advice you have ever received?

AK: Inspirational words I remember often were spoken by Reverend Peter J. Gomes in June 1997:

“God, grant me work until my life is over, and life until my work is done.”

3p: Can you share a recent accomplishment you are especially proud of?

AK: The publication of A Better World, Inc.: How Companies Profit by Solving Global Problems…Where Governments Cannot (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) represents the culmination of 20+ years of CSR consulting experience in addition to an intense period of research and learning to prepare the book.

3p: If you had the power to make one major change at your company or in your industry, what would it be?

AK: The biggest change I’d like to see is greater diversity on the boards of multinational corporations: having people with diverse backgrounds, perspectives nationalities, gender, and cultures, as well as a variety of areas of expertise and experience. When that is achieved, companies will truly unleash their greatest potential in profiting by solving global problems.

3p: Describe your perfect day.

AK: In a perfect work day, I am meeting with the board of directors of an NGO/nonprofit where our work together is culminating in their decision to transition to new approaches to achieve more ambitious goals. At lunch, I am meeting with the leadership of a multinational corporation where our work together is culminating in their decision to invest in an NGO/nonprofit board matching program that will support the company in achieving its ambitious plans for growth. In the afternoon, I’m speaking passionately to a group of corporate and NGO/nonprofit leaders about A Better World, Inc.: How Companies Profit by Solving Global Problems…Where Governments Cannot to reinforce their work together and encourage them to forge ahead. In the evening, I’m having drinks with a corporate executive whom I placed on an NGO board two years prior to discuss her decision to step up to become chair of the board.

A version of this post was published on the Center for Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE) "The Daly News" blog

By Herman Daly

Dr. Paul Brand grew up in South India as the son of British missionary parents. He returned to England to study medicine, then went back to take care of people with leprosy in India, mainly doing reconstructive hand and foot surgery — some 3,000 operations over many years. He also spent some time in Ethiopia doing similar things, and finally ended up as director of the only leprosy hospital in the U.S., located in Carville, La. I believe that hospital closed about 10 years ago, after Dr. Brand retired. He died in 2003.

His son happened to be a student of mine at Louisiana State University (LSU). Medically, he is credited with having established that leprosy is not the direct cause of decay or necrosis of the hands and feet universally observed in people with leprosy. Rather the damage to extremities is self-inflicted, resulting from the loss of sensation and inability to feel pain. Without pain there is no feedback to tell you that you are damaging yourself. Brand developed routines and practices to help avoid self-inflicted injuries, and wrote a book entitled "Pain: the Gift that Nobody Wants." He also wrote the standard medical textbook on hand and foot surgery.

LSU is a big football school, and an assistant coach invented a super-cushioned helmet that much reduced head pain on impact. This was thought a great thing until Dr. Brand pointed out that head pain was what kept football players from breaking their necks. Would you rather have a headache or a broken neck?

So much for background. I want to focus on a paragraph that Dr. Brand wrote in 1985:

"I would gladly give up medicine tomorrow if by so doing I could have some influence on policy with regard to mud and soil. The world will die from lack of pure water and soil long before it will die from a lack of antibiotics or surgical skill and knowledge. But what can be done if the destroyers of our earth know what they are doing and do it still? What can be done if people really believe that free enterprise has to mean absolute lack of restraint on those who have no care for the future?"

What led him to such a statement? Living in India, Ethiopia and Louisiana — and witnessing the same thing in each place.

In India he received his first lesson in soil management at age 6, from an old Indian farmer who reprimanded him and some other boys who carelessly broke the little turf dams on the terraced rice paddies along the mountain side while chasing frogs. The old man scooped up a handful of mud and said: "This soil will feed my family year after year. But the soil has to stay up here. The water wants to carry the soil down the mountain to the river, and then to the sea. Do you think the water will bring it back up?"

"No," they answered.

"Will you be able to bring it back up?"

"No, grandfather."

"Will rocky hillsides without soil feed my family?"

"No."

"Well, that is why the dams must be cared for. Do you understand?"

"Yes, grandfather," the boys said. "We’re sorry."

Returning to this area many years later Brand observed barren rocky hillsides — the result of government programs to use ex-prisoners to grow potatoes, but without first teaching them the wisdom of the old farmer.

In Ethiopia most of his leprosy patients were farmers, and that brought him again to the farms where he witnessed terrible erosion where there had once been trees and grasses. The Nile carried Ethiopian soil to Egypt. Farms grew poor crops, and the fields were full of large stones. But the stones were not so large that they could not be levered up and rolled to the edge of the field where they could have made useful walls instead of obstacles to tilling and harvesting. Why were such simple improvements not made, Brand asked. The peasants explained that if they made their fields look good and productive they would lose them to the ruling class. Someone from the city would claim that his ancestors had owned it, and the peasants had no chance in court. So injustice, as well as water and wind, contributed to erosion of the soil. People with leprosy who returned to the eroded farms did not have a good prognosis even if their leprosy was now under control.

The leprosarium at Carville, La, was just a stone’s throw from the Mississippi River. It dated from before levies had been built to contain the river. Therefore all the buildings and houses were built on stilts — maybe 4 to 8 feet high. For a week or so each year water swirled under your house, but you got around in a skiff or pirogue. (Nowadays a fiberglass bass boat with a 200 horsepower Mercury outboard engine is the standard mode of transportation in Louisiana bayous.) Meanwhile the water deposited its silt before returning to its banks, transferring Midwestern topsoil to the Louisiana delta or rebuilding the eroding marshlands or barrier islands. Now the river is contained between levies to eliminate annual floods, so the silt is deposited in the river bottom rather than on the land, necessitating higher levies. Or the silt flows all the way out into the Gulf of Mexico and over the continental shelf, no longer rebuilding coastal marshlands that are now disappearing — and would have served New Orleans as a buffer against Hurricane Katrina. In addition to silt, the Mississippi carries fertilizer and pesticide runoff from Midwestern farms into the Gulf, creating a dead zone the size of New Jersey. “Cheap” corn and soybeans do not include the costs of lost seafood in the Gulf.

So in light of these experiences in Dr. Brand’s life, let us reread the first part of his statement:

"I would gladly give up medicine tomorrow if by so doing I could have some influence on policy with regard to mud and soil. The world will die from lack of pure water and soil long before it will die from a lack of antibiotics or surgical skill and knowledge."

A physician treats our internal organs — heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, etc. in order that we may live longer and better. But our lives depend on external organs as well, environmental life support systems. What good are our lungs if there are no trees and grasses capable of photosynthesis? What good is our digestive tract if the land won’t grow food? What good are our kidneys if the rivers run dry, or are toxic? I think it is not much of a stretch for a good physician to realize that health and wellness now depend as much on care of our collective external organs as on our individual internal organs. Reconstructing a patient’s hands and feet, and then sending him to slowly starve on eroded farmland is at best a partial cure.

The other part of Dr. Brand’s statement, his questions, is also important:

"But what can be done if the destroyers of our earth know what they are doing and do it still? What can be done if people really believe that free enterprise has to mean absolute lack of restraint on those who have no care for the future?"

Environmental destruction, like other sins, is not just the result of ignorance. There is ignorance to be sure, but mostly we know what we are doing. We are caught up in structures that demand fast growth, rapid turnover, and quick profits. And that is facilitated both by ignorance of environmental costs, and by willingness to shift those costs on to others. Simple denial also plays a role — pie-in-the-sky savior fantasies of space colonization and belief in perpetual motion schemes — technological Gnosticism, I call it.

We all seem to suffer from a symptom of leprosy, we do not feel pain in our external organs and structures (our environmental extremities), and therefore do not stop the behavior that is damaging them. In part this is because often the benefits of the damaging behavior go to the people responsible for the behavior while the costs fall on others — the painful feedback is diverted to people who did not cause the damage. The fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico pay the cost of pesticide and fertilizer runoff caused by careless farming. Environmental costs have been shifted from those who caused them to those who did not.

It would be easy to say, “Well this is nothing new, just the same old prophets of doom in modern dress — there is nothing new under the sun.” But there is something new — the earth is now relatively full of us and all our stuff. In my lifetime world population has tripled, and the populations of livestock, automobiles, and refrigerators have vastly more than tripled. Meanwhile the size of the earth has stayed the same — so it is a lot more full. And the growing scale of the economy means that environmental and social cost-shifting is ever larger and more dangerous.

Consequently there are many more environmental problems than soil erosion. I focused on that because it was what led Dr. Brand to his realization. Other, newer environmental problems, many of them interrelated, include climate change, biodiversity loss, ozone layer depletion, overpopulation, oil depletion, etc. Not to mention modern warfare. I’ll spare you a complete litany.

Many environmentalists look at this list and despair. Humans, after all, they say, are just one more animal species and will over-consume and over-reproduce until they provoke a collapse — just like deer on an island or bacteria in a flask. But Christians like Dr. Brand, and other thoughtful people as well, cannot take that attitude. Yes, we are a part of the Creation, and share many commonalities with our fellow creatures, and we are kin to them by evolution. But we are inescapably the creature in charge — the one that bears the capability and responsibility of the imago Dei. Dr. Brand was an example and witness to that truth.

Photo by Alain

UK manufacturers could be inadvertently relying upon slave and child labourers in their supply chains because they are not always auditing suppliers and relying only on trust, according to new research.

The report from global supply chain risk management company Achilles found that only 51% of manufacturers are regularly auditing their direct (Tier 1) suppliers in terms of ethics, or checking their claims that they do not use child workers, slaves or conflict minerals. And only 38% of manufacturers are auditing their indirect (Tier 2) suppliers on the same criteria. In addition, around one in five large manufacturers said they are confident in suppliers’ ethical compliance purely because of personal relationships.

Richard Collins, an executive director at Achilles, commented: “This survey shows just how unsure large UK manufacturers actually are about the treatment of people within their supply chains.

“UK manufacturers may well soon have a legal, as well as moral, duty to tackle the use of slave and child labourers in their supply chains. We would urge large businesses to get ahead and map their supply chains to identify exactly who their suppliers are, and then audit each one in terms of business performance and ethics. This will help protect their reputation, bottom line and ultimately, the people at the heart of UK supply chains.”

 

Picture credit: © Samrat35 | Dreamstime.com
 

Voting is now open for this year's 2degrees Champions Awards.

There are 14 categories to vote on which highlight a variety of innovative projects, solutions, organizations and individuals that are making sustainable business happen.

The categories are: 

• 2degrees Member of the Year
• Building or Property Project
• Energy & Carbon Management – Long-Term Payback
• Energy & Carbon Management – Short-Term Payback
• External Communications Campaign
• Innovation of the Year
• Internal Engagement
• Personality of the Year
• Social Value
• Solution of the Year
• Supply Chain Management
• Sustainability Champion of the Year
• Waste & Resource Management
• Water Management

Everyone who votes will be entered into a prize draw to win five tickets to the Awards Ceremony which will take place on 9 July at Wembley Stadium.

Voting closes on Friday 18 April. 

Vote here.

Every Week, TriplePundit takes 30 minutes or so to chat with an interesting leader in the sustainable business movement. These chats are broadcast on our Google+ channel and embedded via YouTube right here on 3p.

On Wednesday, March 12 at 1 p.m. PST / 4 p.m. EST, TriplePundit's Founder and Publisher, Nick Aster, spoke with Dr. Neil Hawkins about sustainability at The Dow Chemical Co.

What are ecosystem services? Ever thought about putting a price on nature? We learned about Dow's work with the Natural Capital Hub, a project recently launched by The Nature Conservancy and Corporate EcoForum promoting natural capital, as well as some of the ways the company is working with nature to improve otherwise expensive and possibly toxic processes like water treatment.

If you missed the conversation, you can watch it right here or on our YouTube channel.

About Dr. Neil Hawkins

As the Corporate Vice President for Sustainability, Dr. Neil Hawkins drives strategy and implementation for Dow’s sustainability and EH&S programs, including the enterprise-wide 2015 Sustainability Goals. Since 1988, he has served at Dow in a broad range of functional, business, and operations roles.

Hawkins is a widely recognized authority on sustainable business practices, environmental policy and win-win solutions for business and ecosystems. He is a board member of numerous organizations and he chairs the strategic advisory council of the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise. He is also a trustee of The Nature Conservancy Michigan Chapter and a past member of the Science Advisory Panel for Green Chemistry for the States of California and Michigan. Hawkins holds doctoral and master’s degrees from Harvard University, and is also an alumnus of Georgia Tech.

This is the first in our new series of articles on sustainable seafood. Please follow along on our main landing page here. 

In many ways, the ocean is an open history book -- relaying grim tales of waste, pollution and shortsighted management of our planet's natural resources. The ocean covers 71 percent of the Earth's surface and contains 97 percent of its water, yet a growing number of factors continue to threaten the health of our oceans and, by extension, the sustainable future of our planet.

As the Earth warms, so do the oceans -- causing increasing rates of acidification that concern scientists and lawmakers alike. President Barack Obama noted acidification as a key climate-related concern in an Executive Order he issued last year urging Americans to embrace climate change awareness. Scientists note that acidification has happened before in Earth's history -- but never at such rapid rate. The most comparable event, which took place about 65 million years ago, is estimated to be 10 times slower than current acidification.

Though human activity indirectly impacts ocean health through climate change, direct actions may pose even greater concerns. To keep up with demand for certain species, massive commercial fishing vessels empty large swaths of water in one pass, then simply move on to another. Known as overfishing, the serial depletion of fish populations that leaves few adult fish to repopulate the seas, this phenomenon poses a real and imminent threat to ocean biodiversity -- which could endanger sea life all the way up the food chain and have potentially devastating effects on underwater ecosystems. Meanwhile, currents draw millions of tons of trash to an area the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean, known as the North Pacific Gyre or trash vortex, where it swirls in perpetuity and grows larger by the day.

Outspoken consumer advocacy, thoughtful legislation and greater industry transparency can go a long way to ensuring a healthier ocean for our children. But another factor may play an even greater role in determining a brighter future for the world's fish -- the power of story. Indeed, each fish we encounter has a story. Where did it come from? Who caught it? How many miles has it traveled before arriving on your plate? Answering questions like these with confidence empowers stakeholders at every step of the value chain -- from fishermen and farmers to buyers, restaurants and consumers -- and not only offers a reason to care about ocean health, but also gives them the tools they need to make an impact.

Take chef, sustainability advocate and Harvard lecturer Barton Seaver as an example. As a restauranteur, the Washington, D.C. native moved beyond the standard seafood fare served up at most American eateries. By embracing his product in a holistic way and sharing the stories behind the fish he served, Seaver was able to sell the "bait," or lower-quality stock, from his shipments for $28 a plate and sell out in mere hours. His former D.C. restaurant Hook was named by Bon Appetit magazine as one of the top 10 eco-friendly restaurants in America, and he went on to become director of the sustainable seafood program at Harvard University.

Likewise, Sea to Table, a small family business in New York City, has made a name for itself by buying from artisanal fishers and selling to restaurants with a complete story attached to each shipment of fish.

For an idea of how stories can make an impact on a larger scale, take Steve Vilnit, director of fisheries marketing at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and an unsung hero of the Chesapeake Bay. In his role at the Maryland DNR, it's Vilnit's job to help local fishers sell their product for more money. In doing so, he founded two grassroots programs that are exemplary of the power of story and the difference telling these stories can make.

Like many species in America, most crab sold as Maryland Blue Crab is mislabeled. Picking up on this unfortunate trend, Vilnit started an approval and referral program with the state to confirm that restaurants and other outlets were selling real Maryland crab. After spending about $800 on hats and stickers, he wound up reclaiming $7 million in local sales from distributors who were importing Indonesian crab, processing it in the state and labeling it as "from Maryland."

With a second program, aimed at reducing the snakehead fish population in the Chesapeake Bay, Vilnit succeeded in transforming what was once a disruptive and threatening invasive species into a money-making machine for local restaurants and suppliers. Vilnit worked with a group of fishers to figure out how to best catch the species (as it turns out, a bow and arrow is the best strategy) and assembled a network of restaurants and chefs to build a market for the fish. Today, the snakehead is a sought-after sushi fish that retails for somewhere near $29 a pound -- all because one man helped the market build a compelling story.

Over the next four months, Triple Pundit will tell many more seafood success stories with the support of lead sponsor Future of Fish. In an in-depth series, we'll explore what makes seafood sustainable and how fisheries and stakeholders prioritize competing issues to minimize impacts on people and the planet. If you miss an installment, you can catch them all here.

Do you know a business or organization with a compelling seafood success story to tell? Send it to contact@triplepundit.com for a chance to be featured in an upcoming story!

Image credit: Flickr/jay galvin

In an article posted last month on Salon.com, Julia Carrie Wong outs Silicon Valley for a lackluster response to the tech backlash embodied by protests of Google employee buses in San Francisco. She says “charity is not enough” and rightfully points out the relative stinginess of “community benefit agreements” that the city signed with tech companies in exchange for tax breaks. And while skyrocketing rents and higher-than-average eviction rates have their roots in a long-term housing shortage caused by intense bureacracy and local opposition to new developments, the effects of a booming tech industry in an otherwise slow-moving economy are very real in the Silicon Valley.

But to charge that tech companies and their now infamous employees are THE cause of displacement and gentrification seems misguided. It begs the question: Exactly how should tech companies be responding to their outsize effect on the local economy?

Protests against rising rents and evictions in San Francisco have not fallen on (completely) deaf ears. Salesforce.com founder Marc Benioff has publicly urged other tech CEOs to give more back to the community and just announced the formation of a new initaitive called SF Gives. Formed in partnership with nonprofit Tipping Point, SF Gives aims to raise $10 million for local anti-poverty programs over the next 60 days through donations of $500,000 apiece from 20 companies. But Benioff also told the SF Chronicle that not everyone in Silicon Valley is on board: “We still have some pretty epic companies that have had IPOs and aren’t giving….There is a dark side here.”

The tech industry is a bubble, and I don’t mean in an financial sense. Companies like Google and Facebook are situated in sprawling campuses that have pretty much every service their employees might need as they clock long hours: on-site gyms, dry cleaning, free lunch and dinner (which means working through dinner is a regular occurrence!), and of course, shuttles to ferry their precious human capital to and from work. Tech employees travel in similar social circles, are regularly poached from competing companies in incestuous cycles and don’t exactly have a reputation for being socially well-adjusted.

This insular mentality is reflected in the out-of-touch approach to charitable giving of some big-name tech firms.

Twitter, for example, signed a “community benefit agreement” (CBA) as part of the deal that included huge local tax breaks from the city. Part of the agreement includes $60,000 worth of “promoted tweets” to be donated to nonprofits -- a nice gesture, but hardly a burden to Twitter or a game-changer for nonprofits. Their CBA also includes a total of $388,000 in cash donations to local nonprofits. As Ms. Wong points out in her Salon Article, that’s just 0.69 percent of the tax benefit the company receives.

New initiatives like SF Gives highlight both the potential benefits and challenges of meaningful community contributions from the world of tech. And of course in comparison to other high-profile corporate contributors like Big Oil, Big Tech is a relatively new feature on the economic stage that is just starting to encounter pressure to give back more of its bottom line.

Yet it is still worth noting that to date we have only seen business-as-usual corporate philanthropy coming from an industry that defines itself as an army of “innovators,” “connectors” and “disrupters.”

Where is the innovation and disruption in their social responsibility programs?

Image credit: Flickr/eblaser

Giant corporations such as McDonald's and Walmart cast a long shadow across the planet with the enormous amount of resources that they use, process, consume and sell. McDonald’s flips and bags 70 million hamburgers every day and is responsible for a full 2 percent of the world's beef consumption. So when you consider the impact that beef production has on the environment, particularly with regard to climate change, a move by them to sustainable beef could be a really big deal.

After all, according to a 2009 article in Scientific American, the meat industry was, at that time, responsible for somewhere between 14 and 22 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. So, the article says, if you drove your 3,000-pound car five miles to buy a hamburger, the emissions given off by producing the meat for that burger were equivalent to those given off by your car as your drove there and back home again.

That report, which came from the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, turned out to be significantly understated. An updated analysis performed by the World Bank, which was published in Forbes of all places, showed that the more accurate number is closer to 51 percent. That means you'd have to drive somewhere between 23 and 36 miles to equal that patty's footprint.

In fact, the article goes so far as to say that replacing meat with with alternative foods such as dairy products and soy analogs, for people around the world would, “have far more rapid effects on greenhouse gas emissions and their atmospheric concentrations — and thus on the rate the climate is warming — than actions to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.”

So McDonald's pledge to switch to sustainable beef production starting in 2016 could have a huge impact, depending, of course, on what they mean by sustainable and how different emissions figures would be compared to those produced today. Considering the fact that Walmart is also making similar noises the stakes are even higher.

Clearly, McDonald's is not talking about substituting beef with soy analogs. So says Bob Langert, vice president of global sustainability for McDonald’s in an interview with Beef Magazine: “Beef is at the core of what we do past, present and future. We want the beef industry and McDonald’s to prosper as a result of ensuring that beef is sustainable long-term.”

Nor are they talking about switching to local, organic or GMO-free options that are generally regarded as more sustainable than conventional beef production.

“That doesn’t get us where we need to go. The definition needs to be holistic and account for people, the environment, food safety, animal welfare and economics. It’s multi-faceted.”

That sounds like quite a tall order. So what exactly do they intend to do? Where, if I may ask, is the beef?

The fact is, they don't know yet. They are hoping that their supply chain, fellow members of the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB), will help them figure it out. But they seem to have a pretty good idea what they want the answer to look like.

“Sustainability should be mainstream; it’s not niche, it’s not premium,” says Langert. “The customer wants it and wants to do business with companies that share their values. They want to see companies like ours and those of our suppliers also doing things with a sense of purpose, that we’re not in business just to make money but we’re here to serve them with food that is safe, affordable, high quality and now sustainable for our customers.”

So they want to be on the right side of history, so to speak. But it's not at all clear what they are willing to do or give up to get there.

When you consider the fact that, historically speaking, sustainability in this industry has meant continuing profitability, with more emphasis on keeping ranches in Texas from going underwater financially than anything to do with island nations like the Maldives, sharing their homes with starfish, there seems to be a bit of a disconnect here. So it might be premature to start breaking out those bottles of organic champagne just yet.

To get a sense of what kinds of things the company is looking at and thinking about, it might be instructive to consider some of the talking points that the Sustainable Beef Resource Center has published. In response to questions regarding the use of growth enhancing technologies (i.e. growth hormones and antibiotics), the center cites a study that found, using computer modeling, that raising the same amount of beef as we consume today, without the benefit of these technologies, would require substantially more cattle, more land, more water and would generate far more greenhouse gases -- 18 million more metric tons in the U.S. alone. So, using this logic leads them to assert that using growth hormones is the more sustainable choice. From there, they go on to say, that if production in the U.S. were to fall off, other countries would pick up the slack, leading to both economic hardship here at home and environmental disaster in places like Brazil, where, they claim 16.9 million more acres of rainforest will be cut down, leading ultimately to the emission of some 3 billion tons of CO2 being released into the atmosphere.

The problem with this kind of scenario-based analysis is that it's a bit like writing science fiction. It all depends on the kinds of assumptions that are fed into the model. For example, there is the assumption that demand will remain constant in the developed world and will grow to equal that in the developing world.

That is the same argument that asserts that renewables will never be sufficient to meet the projected energy demand, which has fallen considerably in the past decade. It's the one that claims we need nuclear power without taking into account changes in behavior and improvements in efficiency. It's the argument that Monsanto likes to use, pointing at population growth, and saying that only by using genetically modified food can we possibly produce enough food to feed all of those mouths.

All of these are supply-side techno-fixes, that ignore the possibility of changes on the demand side despite a growing awareness and commitment among consumers to make changes on their end of the transaction, that brush away concerns about the inherent risks in their approach, and completely ignore fresh alternatives that a broader, more holistic view of the problem may have spawned.

But this is all beside the point, which is that beef production as it stands, has a huge impact on climate change and that focusing on how much worse things would be without hormones is a smokescreen intended to divert attention away from that fact.

Other SBRC talking points, in the same publication that says feedlots are fine because they are legal, claim that the methane produced in the U.S. from beef production in 2001 was responsible for only 2 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. They fail to mention that methane is anywhere from 21 to 73 times more potent than CO2 in its heat-trapping potential depending on the time frame being considered, which means beef production is responsible for far more than 2 percent of the impact.

Whatever steps McDonald's ends up taking to earn a sustainable label from an association in which they are a dominant member will be helpful, but they will also likely be small. We can look forward to seeing them wrap themselves in sustainable colors and send out messages that those who covet their advertising dollars will be happy to spread.

I hope to be proven wrong on this, but my guess is, come 2016, that you'll be able to get that same burger with a good size helping of greenwashing on the side, no extra charge.

RP Siegel, PE, is an inventor, consultant and author. He co-wrote the eco-thriller Vapor Trails, the first in a series covering the human side of various sustainability issues including energy, food, and water in an exciting and entertaining format. Now available on Kindle.

Follow RP Siegel on Twitter.

Mars Inc. is upping the ante regarding the sustainable palm oil market. The manufacturer of the popular chocolate candy bars Mars Bar, 3 Musketeers and Twix announced its commitment yesterday to transition to 100 percent certified sustainable palm oil in its products by the end of 2014.

At present, Mars adheres to the guidelines of the Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil, which allows it to purchase sustainable palm oil in accordance with the organization’s “mass balance program.” The program is set up to assist companies as they transition to fully certified sustainable oil, by allowing them to mix the sustainable oil they purchase with conventional sources. According to the RSPO, it also helps support the fledgling sustainable palm oil market, by upping the demand in a way that can be met by suppliers.

“We will continue to source 100 percent RSPO mass-balance certified palm oil, but we are now strengthening our commitment as follows to ensure this palm oil is genuinely sustainable,” the company said in its press release.

To do this, it plans to “go beyond the RSPO criteria” by setting its own benchmarks for suppliers. According to Mars, suppliers must guarantee that their stock:

• Comes from traceable, legal sources


• Doesn’t exploit areas under conservation or high carbon stock forests


• Doesn’t come from peat areas “regardless of depth”


• Isn’t produced in areas where the land was burned to make way for new development

In addition, it underscores the rights of communities in the area to make decisions and “withhold their free, prior and informed consent for plantation developments on land they own legally, communally or by custom” and sets boundaries to ensure that human rights of workers are upheld.

“Mars has introduced a new sourcing charter that will require all its suppliers to have a fully sustainable and traceable palm oil supply across all their operations by the end of 2015 (or to have plans in place by the end of 2015 for doing so) and to have confirmed their commitment to the principles in its sourcing charter by end 2014,” the company said.

While all of these topics are addressed by RSPO, Mars’ wording in some cases goes further. RSPO for example, sets out a course by which to decrease impact on high carbon stock forests, while the company’s commitment moves its goalposts past that point. It has also said that it will not allow burning to be used in any instances of clearing, where the RSPO has set out a progressive plan allowing for controlled burns under limited circumstances.

In addition, the company has set a goal of 100 percent traceable oil back to supplying mills by the end of 2014. This puts it in league, with other food manufacturers striving to reach sustainability by the end of 2015. And hopefully, says Barry Parkin, chief sustainability officer for the company, it will encourage others to step up their move to certified sustainable palm oil.

"Rapid expansion of palm oil plantations continues to threaten environmentally sensitive areas of tropical rainforest and carbon-rich peatlands, as well as the rights of communities that depend on them for their livelihoods … We believe that these additional measures will not only help build a genuinely sustainable pipeline for Mars, but will also help accelerate change across the industry by encouraging our suppliers to only source from companies whose plantations and farms are responsibly run,” Parkin said. The Forest Trust, of which Mars says it is now a member, is helping the company set up its framework for sustainable sourcing.

Like many candy manufacturers, Mars has come under pressure recently from consumer groups to upgrade its palm oil sourcing procedures. And organizations like the Union of Concerned Scientists, which just developed a scorecard to rate packaged food, personal care and fast-food companies on their progress has added a further incentive.

With so many manufacturers climbing on board, more expansive listings in the vein of what the UCS has developed may soon be necessary to keep track of progress. But it sure is good to see companies like Mars stepping up to the plate.

Image of Mars Bar: Taken by Asim18

Image of progressive deforestation for palm tree plantation: Sandra Díaz