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"King Cotton," as it came to be known in the American South, has an unsettled past.

The crop has played a critical role throughout history. As with all things intertwined with human endeavor, cotton bears witness to our triumph and tragedy, often playing a central role in each.

Enduring the threefold challenge of economic, social and environmental issues, cotton production is often implicated as unsustainable and subject to the  allure and consequence of profit at all cost. Global cotton production comes increasingly from low-wage areas of the developing world like China, India, Africa, Bangladesh and Latin America.

Cotton accounts for 40 percent of global textile production, supporting the livelihoods of 300 million people or nearly 7 percent of all labor in the developing world. The scale of global cotton reflects how much we depend on it and how far removed most of us are from the effects of its production and consumption. The cotton industry reaches all the way from small-holder farmers living in poverty to the chic fashion salons of New York and Europe.

According to the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) the cotton industry accounts for about 10 percent of all agricultural chemicals used worldwide. According to the World Wildlife Fund, it takes about 20,000 liters (more than 5,200 gallons) of water to produce one kilogram of cotton, roughly the cotton required to produce one T-shirt and a pair of jeans.

Cotton represents 2.6 percent of the water footprint for all goods and services consumed globally. Irrigation supports 70 percent of global cotton production and, according to estimates by the Environmental Justice Foundation, 15 to 35 percent of those water withdrawals are considered unsustainable.

Demand for organic and fair trade cotton mounts in the face of this environmental impact, as well as the low incomes of tens of millions of cotton farmers in the developing world. But the challenge of meeting the global scale of cotton production demands a mainstream approach for which any niche market is ill-suited.

This is not to say that fair trade and organic certification programs do not play an important role, but making King Cotton sustainable, in a triple-bottom-line sort of way, requires a process that matches the scale of global impact from cotton production, using partnerships and core principles to make best practices mainstream.

Better cotton

The first stirrings of the what is now the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) began in 2005 when a group of commodity experts convened in a WWF-hosted roundtable discussion to consider solutions for global agriculture.

Any effective mechanism to impact change in cotton production requires a set of guiding principles. It took several years of preparation, but in 2009 the Better Cotton Initiative formally organized--publishing, in partnership with retailers, manufacturers, advisory groups and NGOs, its first set of global standards known as the Production Principals and Criteria, the foundation of the Better Cotton System.

The six core elements of the Production Principles and Criteria standard stress a holistic approach to Better Cotton:

1. Better Cotton is produced by farmers who minimize the harmful impact of crop protection practices.


2. Better Cotton is produced by farmers who use water efficiently and care for the availability of water.


3. Better Cotton is produced by farmers who care for the health of the soil.


4. Better Cotton is produced by farmers who conserve natural habitats.


5. Better Cotton is produced by farmers who care for and preserve the quality of the fibre.


6. Better Cotton is produced by farmers who promote Decent Work.

The Better Cotton Standard is a demand-driven mechanism aimed principally for capacity-building at the initial production stage. In-the-field training, support and measurement of production methods help farmers reduce environmental impact while increasing efficiency and productivity. Instead of being paid a premium for output of certified fair trade or organic cotton, small-holder farms, and indeed farms of all sizes, learn to better manage their cotton production and in the process increase their income.

Maintaining “standards compliance” is more effective when farmers improve their lives and incomes through better management. With no premium for certification, demand for sustainable cotton shifts to mainstream supply chains instead of relying solely on smaller niche markets for distribution.

Partnership is the nexus of positive change, turning theoretical principles into real impact. The key to Better Cotton is its collaboration with Implementing Partner organizations that are working directly with farmers to improve water efficiency, reduce cost and use of chemicals, and improve crop yield.

Levi Strauss & Co., is both an Implementing Partner and Pioneer Member with BCI--and not surprisingly, if not only for the iconic brand’s dependence on cotton but also for the company’s adoption of sustainability as a core component of its mission.

“Becoming a Pioneer Member of BCI this year reflects our company’s commitment since 2009 to transform how cotton is cultivated for our business, our consumers, and the millions of people in some of the world’s poorest countries who depend on it for their livelihood,” says Manuel Baigorri, director of global sustainability operations for Levi Strauss & Co.

“We have served on the BCI Board for a number of years and are a member of the Better Cotton Fast Track Program,” (BCFT).

Better Cotton Fast Track

Launched in 2010, the Better Cotton Fast Track is an independent coalition of private and public partners managed by the Sustainable Trade Initiative. BCFT partners channel funds directly into farmer training and capacity building around the Better Cotton Standard. As the name implies, Better Cotton Fast Track helps escalate Better Cotton as a mainstream sustainable commodity in the marketplace.

“This allows BCI and its partners to reach more regions, train more farmers and produce more Better Cotton, dramatically accelerating the scale-up of Better Cotton worldwide,” says Baigorri.

The latest available harvest report shows that in 2012 more than $9.6 million was invested in 31 projects throughout Mali, Brazil, Pakistan, India and China--producing 623,000 metric tons of Better Cotton lint (“seed” cotton is before ginning, “lint” cotton is after ginning). "This is increasing as we speak," Baigorri adds.

BCI monitors water and pesticide use at the local, field and farm level. Overall success is gauged by total number of hectares under cultivation within the Better Cotton Standard. Results so far from the first three BCI harvests show consistently positive trends in both increased water efficiency and reduced pesticide use. Case studies in India show a 30 percent reduction in pesticide use and a 17 percent reduction in water use, with a 14 percent increase in profitability over control farmers in the study.

Numbers help quantify improvement, but stories from the field bring the full impact of BCI into focus. Muhammad Ramzan farms five "sandy acres" of Better Cotton in Yazman, Pakistan. It is a challenging area for a cotton farmer where finding enough water is difficult and expensive. For Ramzan, the benefits of adopting the Better Cotton Standard are profound:

“I acted upon their advice even though this was a new technique for me. This was a turning point in my cotton growing history. The irrigation efficiency of my farm doubled, and I saved money and time. And the most important thing--my children went back to school.”

Water, cotton and a pair of jeans

In 2007 Levi’s conducted a lifecycle assessment for their two of their most iconic products: a pair of Levi’s® 501 jeans and Dockers® Original Khakis. Focusing on water, climate and energy impacts, what they found surprised them.

"Our study demonstrated that the greatest opportunities for reducing the environmental impacts of our products are at the beginning--that is, at the cotton agriculture stage--and at the consumer use stage (repeated washing and drying),” says Baigorri. The Care Tag for Our Planet Initiative, launched in partnership with Goodwill Industries, works to reduce impact at the consumer end. The Better Cotton Standard offers an effective response at the agricultural stage.

“The Better Cotton Initiative brings many stakeholders together to create scalable solutions designed to reduce water use in cotton cultivation. The Better Cotton Standard addresses water use in cotton cultivation and is one of our responses to the impacts created by our use of cotton in our products."

Chain of custody: Driving demand for Better Cotton

Building capacity and best practices at the production level are primary goals for Better Cotton, but without awareness and demand there is little lasting impact. The market is complex and diverse.

In the manner that BCI’s Production Principles and Criteria guide cotton at its source of production, the Better Cotton Chain of Custody Guidelines (CoC) “provide guidance on Better Cotton CoC requirements for all supply chain actors.”

The CoC uses a “Mass-Balance” (MBa) mechanism to monitor and verify flow of Better Cotton across the supply chain, from Implementing and Strategic partners at the farm-to-ginner level to retailers and brands making claims about Better Cotton procurement.

“This approach of the BCI is key to cotton transformation,” says Baigorri. “BCI is a multi-stakeholder organization that has focused on key components of the cotton supply chain–generating the supply of Better Cotton and also stimulating the demand for Better Cotton via its brand and retailer members.”

Increased demand is the obvious path toward mainstream acceptance. Major brands and retailers are key in communicating the benefit of Better Cotton to consumers and creating demand to procure from their suppliers cotton produced under the Better Cotton Standard.

“Brands and retailers work on creating supply chain links across the many intermediaries to procure the Better Cotton which has been produced using a system of claims units that can be exchanged between members,” says Baigorri. "At this moment, the ability to make claims about Better Cotton procurement directly to consumers is possible in-store and at a corporate level, although not on product labels.  As the project scales up, there is a focus to continuously develop the way brands and retailers communicate directly to consumers about Better Cotton.”

Going mainstream

By 2020, one-third of global cotton production will be Better Cotton. This is the ambitious goal of the BCI and given the “fast track” growth of the Better Cotton harvest in its first years of implementation--along with strong support from major brands like Levi’s, IKEA, Adidas and others--it is posed to achieve it.

But the list is long of great ideas limited by their inability to sufficiently scale and achieve real impact. The Better Cotton Initiative is not immune to these challenges especially those of funding expansion and matching demand with supply.

BCI measures the Gin Uptake Level (GUR), or the percentage of Better Cotton produced that is procured by ginners, at a relatively consistent 40 percent. The Retailer Uptake Level (RUR), or the amount of Better Cotton available at gins procured by retailers, fell from 35 percent in 2011 to 21 percent in 2012 A 2013 report written by strategy consultants Steward Redqueen, on behalf of the Sustainable Trade Initiative, warns that market demand for Better Cotton is not yet self-sustaining.

In response to these indicators BCI and IDH are planning a new business model based on charging retailers and brands a Volume Based Fee on their Better Cotton procurement. Fees collected support Better Cotton production and delivery. Continued work on a Better Cotton Demand Strategy seeks to further increase corporate participation and consumer awareness.

Better Cotton is king

And so the story of cotton continues to evolve. Could it be that as goes cotton, goes civilization? The implications of that question are best left to smarter people than I, but it is clear that the the Better Cotton Initiative serves as a framework for change.

Certainly the BCI is a work in progress, but it is work that, as Baigorri says, "is vital to the future of cotton."

Solutions rarely emerge fully formed. Given the scale of the challenge and the initial success of BCI, King Cotton may very soon be replaced with Better Cotton.

Cotton field image: Flickr/mocheeks

Better Cotton Initiative logo courtesy of BCI

By Erin McClarty

I'm in the throes of preparation for the Social Enterprise Alliance (SEA) National Summit in April, and while brainstorming I got to thinking about just how universal all organizations are.

We spend alot of time differentiating between exempt organizations, social enterprises, hybrids, traditional for-profits and the like. When in reality, the number of similarities is staggering. Similarities in challenges. similarities in concerns. Similarities in exposure. And to me, the biggest similarity is that feeling of "What am I not thinking about?" that all founders inevitably encounter after start-up.

Not too long ago I wrote a post about the top five things nonprofits should think about before forming. But I want to take it a step further and highlight a few things that all founders should be thinking about shortly after creating an entity. Be it a church, association, social enterprise, hybrid or for-profit corporation.

1. Taxes

The moment an organization forms it becomes subject to taxes. Aside from federal income or employment taxes, there are also state and local taxes such as property taxes, use taxes, franchise taxes, etc. Your best friend will be the IRS site (trust me, it's actually a pretty good site) and the sites for your state and local tax authority (ties).

Use the IRS site to guide the setup logistics in a way that maximizes deductions. If there are local tax exemptions you fall under, find and apply for these as soon as possible. Otherwise, you'll end up paying for taxes that could have been avoided. Oftentimes, there are also local initiatives (community rebuilding, organic gardening, etc.) where you may be able to get tax breaks. I also find it beneficial to create a tax calendar detailing when certain taxes are due.  Especially since I doubt the first thing you'll wake up thinking is, "Hmmm, what taxes am I responsible for today?"

2. Permitting

So impactful, but always an afterthought. You may be surprised how many permits the things you want to do might require. Occupying certain buildings, working out of certain areas, making certain services mobile, cooking in or for the public, selling, handling and disposing of certain items...these all could require different licenses, permits or filings. Many cities (Houston is one) have an office that educates businesses on what types of licenses or permits to think about and how to go get them. After all, I would hate for you to invest in snazzy promotions and send something to all your Facebook friends only to be shut down.

3. BYOD

You have Skype, Google Chat, Dropbox , Twitter, Androids, iPhones, yada, yada--all of which make it easier for teams to work together. But the problem becomes policing. What happens if an important document is needed, but it's on your ex-partner’s personal computer...the partner that you made mad six months ago and no longer talks to you? How many times have we read about employees losing computers that end up getting hacked?

It's important to set ground rules from the start. First, decide whether there is a preference for the devices used. If work devices are issued, make it clear to everyone that there is no expectation of privacy. Have a document retention or destruction policy drafted that outlines things like where documents must be saved, how and with what titles. If applications or accounts are opened, require passwords be centrally kept. Lastly, rotate out the responsibility for social media accounts to avoid losing an awesome Twitter feed due to questionable ownership.

4. Volunteers and interns

There are a few laws in place to protect organizations from volunteer liability where they are formally created (for example a corporation) and exempt in nature. The picture becomes a bit hazier when you start talking about social enterprises. And since insurance policies have started to resemble ancient manuscripts taking a "let insurance handle it" attitude, it could be dangerous.

The best line of defense will be identifying and managing the risks. If you operate in incredibly dangerous areas, or do incredibly dangerous work, why not leave some of that up to employees? Mrs. Weatherston wanting to deliver rations to a military zone in a developing country is noble. But she can be just as helpful assisting staff administratively.

Put policies in place detailing how volunteers are recruited, trained, used, disciplined and removed. Nowadays, organizations like VolunteerHouston will also help run background checks on volunteers.  If volunteers or interns will be around money, rotate them out and train them. And if you've somehow missed the THOUSANDS of articles about the dangers of using interns, read up on JDSupra and the IRS website. There are ways to appropriately set up and manage the arrangement that help you avoid getting sued.

5. General ops

Think about the risks in what you do as bread-and-butter. If delivering some type of energy or medical supplies, your supply chain is key. If a vendor screws up a delivery, your customers aren't coming after them. They're coming after you. Do you have the appropriate diligence in place for new vendors? What do your contracts say? I assume you, in fact, have contracts in place. If you don't, then just imagine me glaring at you right now.

How are your logistics set up? Are they done in a way that puts you at risk for losses or damage that isn't your fault? Do you have protocols in place that avoid you procuring items from sanctioned countries or people? Organizations don't realize how incredibly easy it is to slip up.

These of course are just the tip of the iceberg. Lucky for you, identifying and managing these things is what my presentation will be on at the Social Enterprise Alliance Summit in April. So now you have that much more incentive to go. But in the end, I always tell people the point is to identify as many exposures as possible and come up with resourceful ways to monitor. The key is awareness.

Erin McClarty  is Legal Counsel for a Fortune 300 company by day and a nonprofit advocate by night. You can read more about trending legal issues, her work and upcoming speaking events on her blog www.notationsonnonprofits.com, or hear her speak in person at the upcoming Social Enterprise Alliance Summit ‘14.

By Paresh Shah

What is wellness? Many people think that if you’re not suffering from a disease, then you’re well. However, there are many unseen factors to wellness that are critical to your employees’ creativity and productivity. If you envision a thriving company with healthy, happy employees, then it’s time to update your definition of wellness.

Expanding our definition of wellness

The traditional definition of wellness is typically based on a person’s physical state or a diagnosed mental or physical condition or malady. In a clinical sense, a lack of negative physical symptoms equals health.

Over the past two decades, we’ve learned that there is a direct link between mind, body and spirit that contributes to a broader scope of health. We now understand that wellness includes a person’s happiness and fulfillment. Whether your organization focuses explicitly on the triple bottom line or simple profitability, this type of wellness can be taken straight to the bank.

Wellness in the workplace

Dr. Halbert Dunn, known to many as the "father of the wellness movement," defines wellness as a method of functioning in which people progress toward their maximum potential. This understanding solidifies a connection between a high level of wellness within a company and higher levels of productivity and innovation from its employees.

People who are mentally and emotionally healthy also tend to be in better physical health. Healthier employees take fewer sick days, are more engaged in work and create a positive dynamic with co-workers. Combining the positive effects of good health and high employee retention with a superior culture gives your company a major competitive edge. Quality people want to work in a quality environment. By embracing this idea, you can form a stronger workforce that will surpass other organizations in your field.

Success through wellness

Companies across all industries are making wellness a priority. They’re designing products and services that promote well-being for consumers and adding benefits for employees to maintain a balanced life and nourish all aspects of well-being.

Here are some examples of companies outside the health industry that are truly embracing wellness:

• In entertainment: Contrary to its reputation for raising a generation of couch potatoes, many companies in entertainment have committed to promoting wellness among their viewers. Disney, for example, requires every TV series to have an episode each season devoted to a “positive, healthy lifestyle message.” Several TV personalities, like Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres, are attempting to improve people’s quality of life directly. Self-help has become a multibillion-dollar industry, and physical and emotional health drive topics for successful shows. Dr. Oz and The Biggest Loser are part of a self-help TV niche that teaches people the necessary skills to be physically and mentally healthy

• In technology: Tech companies are known for their demanding work cultures, but many companies are adding health-promoting perks for their employees. ReadyTalk offers employees 20 hours of paid volunteer time per year so they can give back to the community. LinkedIn holds regular meditation hours. Some companies, like HubSpot and Evernote, even offer limitless vacation time with the understanding that people are more productive in a flexible working environment.

• In marketing: Many advertising agencies offer an abundance of extras to keep employees fit, happy and centered. AKQA, Grey, Huge, and Wieden+Kennedy all offer yoga classes. Crispin Porter + Bogusky has an ex-Buddhist monk on its payroll to offer mindfulness sessions throughout the week, and 72andSunny employs a life coach.

Incorporating wellness in your company

Not all companies have the budget to implement an elaborate wellness program, but you can find a variety of ways to make employee wellness a priority. Here are some ideas that work, regardless of what industry you’re in:

• Improve your employees’ commute. Going to and from work sets the tone for your day. Try to locate your company where your employees can live nearby, or offer a shuttle service, a carpool program, or incentives for biking to work to reduce the stress of driving. A Harris Interactive poll commissioned by The Workforce Institute showed that 48 percent of people felt their commutes significantly impacted their job satisfaction.


• Bring in plants. One of the hardest things about working in an office is the stale air and lack of nature. Research shows that plants help people feel better—a simple but effective step toward improved well-being.


• Hold walking meetings. Walking is one of the best ways to create balance in the brain, and many meetings can be done on foot rather than in a stuffy conference room. If your office is located outside an urban area, you can even boost your team’s memory by 20 percent.


• Encourage employees to bring children to work. Kids are a huge part of many people’s lives outside the office. Their presence at work can build continuity between work and home and help people see their co-workers as real people.


• Teach and practice true listening. Non-judgmental listening and being fully present with another person helps increase empathy and bonding. When people feel they are truly heard, it creates a tremendous connection with the other person and can serve as a type of therapy.


• Encourage individual passions. Allow people the time and space to pursue what they love while they’re at work. When you activate people’s ability to express their personal interests, it can lead to innovation and ideas for the company as well.

We all desire true wellness—not just to live, but to thrive. When you value your workers as people, they sense that and work to return that respect to your business through increased dedication and contributions. Achieving a sense of well-being builds community and increases overall productivity. Open your eyes to your employees’ needs, and find a way to improve the physical and emotional health of your staff. Your sense of self, creativity, and energy will flourish—as will the triple bottom line.

Paresh Shah is an experienced entrepreneur, executive, and innovation consultant. He is currently the founder and CEO of Glimpulse, creating products, services, and platforms for well-being via self-expression. Prior to Glimpulse, he co-founded a wireless multimedia company and raised $130 MM. He has served as an adjunct professor in strategy and entrepreneurship and earned an MBA at Harvard University. 

Marks & Spencer (M&S) has become the first retailer to receive the triple award of certification for achievements in carbon, water and waste reduction from the Carbon Trust.

Tom Delay, chief executive of the Carbon Trust, commented: “M&S has a well-deserved reputation as a leading business when it comes to sustainability. By achieving independent certification the Carbon Trust Standard for each of carbon, water and waste then M&S is able to demonstrate year-on-year progress in achieving its Plan A goals.”

Since the launch of Plan A, M&S’ much lauded eco and ethical programme, it has achieved zero waste to landfill and become a carbon neutral company. It has also reduced energy use in stores, offices and warehouses by 31% and reduced store refrigerant gas carbon emissions by 60%.

 

Last week, Tesla announced that it would build a new "Gigafactory" to produce lithium-ion batteries at a rate able to support the manufacture of 500,000 electric cars per year. By 2020, the plant will be capable of producing as many lithium-ion batteries as the entire world produced in 2013.

The Gigafactory, Tesla says, will support 6,500 jobs directly, and according to a post on the company's blog, the company expects that volume manufacturing of its mass-market vehicle will drive down the cost-per-kWh of its batteries by 30 percent in the first year.

The mass-market vehicle, yet to be released, will be designated the Model E. According to a report in TechCrunch, it will be 20 percent smaller than the current Model S, with a target range of 200 miles. While that's fewer than the maximum range of the Model S, it's ahead of any other pure EV currently on the market. Cheaper batteries may be crucial in cutting costs sufficiently to allow the company to produce the more affordable car, but the new factory also plays into more diverse plans for the company.

Last week, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that as well as supporting vehicle battery production, documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission detailed that some of the lithium-ion batteries will be used for "stationary storage applications;" that is, batteries for storing energy for use in homes, commercial sites and utilities.

This makes sense, since Elon Musk, as well as heading Tesla, is also the chairman of California-based Solar City, an installer of solar energy systems to homes and businesses with a national reach. The Chronicle reports that the market for grid-scale storage could reach $30 billion by 2022, and a Morgan Stanley report published recently, argues the company could seize a commanding role in the the energy storage industry. Evidently, the new factory is more forward-thinking than just meeting EV production goals.

In the meantime, the location of the Gigafactory has yet to be determined, though Tesla has announced it will be in one of four possible states: Nevada, Arizona, Texas or New Mexico. According to USA Today, these "finalists" were chosen because each has both the climate and terrain suited for Tesla's plan to power the factory largely with a sprawling farm of solar panels and wind turbines. The plant will need up to 1,000 acres, or close to 2 square miles.

USA Today reports that competition among the four states has set off a bidding war to try to attract Tesla's business, stating that incentives being offered could reach new heights--including $200 to $400 million for site infrastructure and worker job training, and $300 to $600 million in tax breaks.

The choice of the winning state could also set up an interesting opportunity for Tesla to leverage some marketing opportunities, too. Many states, have challenged the legality of Tesla's direct-to-customer sales model, whereby the company side-steps dealership involvement in the sales process. Lawsuits have been filed in many states based on existing automotive franchise laws, and Texas is one such state that has disallowed the company to sell to customers directly. USA Today suggests Tesla might demand the state change its laws to take dealer middlemen out of the equation as part of a winning deal.

But wherever the factory lands, it will be expensive. Tesla plans on selling $1.6 billion in bonds to help finance the plant; the company will invest $2 billion, while speculation exists that Tesla's existing battery partner, Panasonic, might pitch in another $1 billion as well.

Image Credit: Sam Felder

Follow me on Twitter: @PhilCovBlog

Barbie recently started the latest of 150+ careers: Entrepreneur Barbie. It's a timely topic because female entrepreneurship has been growing exponentially in the past several years, but Mattel sticks to their formula Barbie and misses a great opportunity to branch out and really inspire young girls.

With Entrepreneur Barbie, Mattel had a chance to show more than one image of a female business owner--but stayed with generic Barbie. Mattel reported that Barbie sales have been steadily falling in recent years (Barbie revenue was down 40 percent in the U.S. in 2012), and this would have been a way to show that Barbie was adapting to a new reality, one where girls see more realistic role models. Many women who start their own businesses are older, experienced businesswomen, or moms with a unique idea, or both, along with a dozen other iterations besides a shiny, plastic businesswoman. The description of the doll gives no specifics about Barbie's business, except that she has all the latest toys (her business must be well-funded).

Mattel is ignoring many of the latest trends, including companies like GoldieBlox, a woman-owned business that encourages girls to learn engineering principles (STEM careers) and recently won a contest to have an ad in the Super Bowl, and Girls Will Be. This popular Kickstarter-funded company makes girls clothing that isn't "pink and sparkly" and whose latest line of shorts is generously cut, not "short-shorts" in response to parents and girls who are rejecting the skinny-fit, pink and tight lines of girls clothes available today.

Entrepreneur Barbie's release also coincides closely with Sheryl Sandberg's LeanIn.org and Getty Images' campaign to change the image of women entrepreneurs to be more empowering. Bloomberg Businessweek found that searches for "women in business" were turning up images of women massaging their male colleague, crawling under their desks in short skirts (for reasons unknown) and walking down an aisle of leering men, among others.

Now, searching for "female entrepreneur" or reviewing the Lean In Collection on Getty shows a wide variety of female-centric images of women that look creative and hardworking, not just sexy. One woman is in a hard hat doing inventory, another is in an apron, leaning over an ice chest full of fish, and many are in front of laptops, although not many seem to be so dressed up as Barbie, and they come in all shapes, sizes, ages and ethnicities. They are also featured with male colleagues in a more equitable manner.

Why does stock photography matter? Often, it is the way that companies find images to represent their business in ads, catalogs, annual reports and websites. Increasingly organizations are realizing that these images are not the face they want to put on their business, but good images of women in business (along with men) were hard to find. As Sandberg told AdWeek, "You can't be what you can't see. In an age where media are all around us, it is critical that images provide examples that both women and men can emulate."

Is it unfortunate that Barbie is not only clinging to its stagnant image, but taking things one step further by starring as Sports Illustrated's cover image for its swimsuit issue this month--doubling down on its unrealistic measurements and plastic visage. Sports Illustrated and Mattel stood by their choice despite widespread criticism.

Now, Entrepreneur Barbie hits the shelves. While some female entrepreneurs may well look this way, it is such a small part of the story, and Mattel fails to tell it. What would be great is if they released other versions of Entrepreneur Barbie (although they do have the same doll available in brunette and African American versions), or featured a tableau where an older version of Barbie sat behind a laptop (or did inventory or sorted fish) and Ken vacuumed and Barbie's child set the table. That would be something that would at least tell another version of the story.

Coffee is on the minds of many these days–coffee grounds, that is. And no wonder. Pondering the meaning of life over that cup of java naturally leads to pondering the values of sustainability and eco-claims for businesses (it does for me at least), and what’s a more sustainable, multipurpose ingredient than the dregs from our favorite brew?

After all, gardeners have been using coffee grounds to benefit their plants for eons. Housekeepers use them to clean their pots and tone up furniture scratches, and cooks use them to scour off the stain and smell of their favorite foods (and you thought that was all there was in the pot after you finished your morning brew).

But all of those uses won’t absorb the left over grounds found in say, London, England, where its plethora of coffeehouses produce more than 200,000 tons of filtered coffee grounds per year.

And that’s why both researchers and private companies have been so intent upon finding ways to use those grounds in mass production.  The University of Nevada (Reno) experimented with extracting and converting the coffee oils to biofuels through transesterification in 2008. Converting spent coffee grounds to burnable pellets that can be used to fuel boilers and pellet stoves has already been done as well. Coffee grounds were already in use as a burnable supply for boilers in 2009 when entrepreneur Paul Kalenian was trucking his coffee grounds to a steam-fueled plant for use.

But using these two technologies in synchrony to take the benefit of both the coffee bean’s oils and its woody, burnable pulp has been a challenge for some years–and interestingly, one that would take an architecture graduate and a green entrepreneur to figure out.

Arthur Kay and Benjamin Harriman are the brains behind Bio-Bean, a company that aims to put London’s bounty of coffee grounds to good, recyclable use. Their company, which is still in nascent stages, has already received some thumbs-up, including a significant one from Mayor Boris Johnson, who wants London’s young entrepreneurs to step forward in support of green business.

Bio-Bean plans include a pickup service for London's coffeehouses and roasters, that will then allow it to extract the oils from the grounds, convert them to biodiesel, and then produce burnable pellets with the remainder of the bean. Both products can be easily used in the U.K., since London’s buses all run on biodiesel and the pellets can be used for heating fuel.

Their idea also gets around one other challenge: It diminishes the use of food crops for diesel production.

Bio-Bean hopes to have its factory up and running in the London area by the end of the year.

http://vimeo.com/biobean/elevator-pitch

Image: Alex Upshur

It is no secret that education is the surest route to a better life, but for tens of thousands of low-income students in developing nations, high costs mean that access to it continues to be the stuff of fantasy. Student loans are notoriously hard to come by outside of the U.S. and Europe, largely due to the fact that banks have no track record of repayments that can be used to assess risk, and students generally don’t have collateral or a credit history to prove that they can pay back loans.

The answer to this classic "chicken-or-the-egg" problem could lay with crowdfunding, which not only presents an opportunity to get tuition loans to students who need them, but also to build a “track record of repayment” that will encourage financial institutions to offer more loans to students.

Vittana.org uses crowdfunded student loans to help people in regions where higher education is out of reach but job opportunities exist for graduates of colleges and technical and vocational schools. The nonprofit partners with local organizations and micro-finance institutions (MFIs) to create tuition loan programs for students who are close to graduation but need money to pay final tuition in order to graduate. Loans average $750, and a repayment rate of 99 percent, which shows that students will pay back their loans if given the opportunity. As students continue to successfully repay their loans, they are creating that repayment history and opening the door for millions of other students in the future.

Beginning on April 2, all student loans sourced by Vittana.org will be posted on Kiva’s website for crowdfunding rather than on the Vittana website. Visitors will be able to browse through the stories and profiles of students and select one they want to support with a loan of $25 or more.

Kiva connects millions of people around the world through lending to alleviate poverty in areas lacking access to traditional banking systems. With as little as a $25 loan, anyone can help a borrower to start or grow a business, go to school, access clean energy and realize his or her potential. Since its inception in 2005, Kiva says more than 1 million people have used its crowdfunding platform to lend more than $500 million in loans to over 1 million borrowers, with a 98 percent repayment rate.

In 2014 Kiva and Vittana expect to help 20,000 students access crowdfunded tuition loans in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa. The partnership will allow Vittana to focus its efforts on expanding technical assistance for both student applicants and MFIs wanting to create loans tailored for student needs.

"Access to education sits at the crux of poverty and economic development,” said Premal Shah, co-founder and president of Kiva. “With Kiva and Vittana working together, we can help to break the cycle of generational poverty and expand access to higher education by proving to financial markets that students can and do pay back loans.”

According to Vittana’s 2014 comprehensive impact report, among Vittana.org students surveyed, 85 percent were employed a year after graduation. Students also were able to increase their incomes by an average of 93 percent. The collective increased earnings of 20,000 students is more than $65 million per year, helping lift themselves, their families and their communities out of poverty.

“Through education we can empower the youth of the world to alleviate poverty, gender inequality, violence, malnutrition, pollution and many of the other battles constantly faced around the world–nourishing a virtuous cycle of change,” said Robin Wolaner, CEO of Vittana.

Just as Benjamin Franklin once said: “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”

Image credit: Kiva.org

Based in San Francisco, Mike Hower is a writer, thinker and strategic communicator that revels in driving the conversation at the intersection of sustainability, social entrepreneurship, tech, politics and law. He has cultivated diverse experience working for the United States Congress in Washington, D.C., helping Silicon Valley startups with strategic communications and teaching in South America. Connect with him on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter (@mikehower)

China is infamous for its dangerously high levels of air pollution, and now one man is suing the government for failing to reduce the toxic smog.

Li Guixin, who lives in a major industrial region of northern China surrounding Beijing, filed a complaint with a district court, urging the city’s environmental department to improve its efforts to control air pollution, Reuters reported last week. Li is the first person to bring such a lawsuit forward against the government.

Li also requested 10,000 yuan ($1,635) in compensation for face masks, an air filter and a treadmill to exercise indoors in December when air quality is particularly bad, according to Bloomberg News.

"The reason that I'm proposing administrative compensation is to let every citizen see that amid this haze, we're the real victims," Li told the state-run Yanzhao Metropolis Daily, the BBC reported. "Besides the threat to our health, we've also suffered economic losses, and these losses should be borne by the government and the environmental departments because the government is the recipient of corporate taxes: It is a beneficiary."

The smog levels in Li’s hometown of Shijiazhuang in Hebei province regularly top levels considered to be hazardous by the World Health Organization, according to the BBC. China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection ranked Shijiazhuang as one of the 10 cities with the worst air pollution in the country, Bloomberg News reported.

“Li Guixin couldn’t take a walk or run like the past as air quality worsened, and he also has to wear a mask now when he goes out,” Li’s attorney Wu Yufen told Bloomberg News. “His case is relevant for everyone in our city.”

The Chinese government said in September that it planned to curb air pollution by closing outdated steel and cement facilities and reducing its use of coal in Hebei province, Reuters reported.

While it is unclear if Li’s case will even make it to trial (the BBC noted that the suit has already been rejected by several high courts), it is an interesting example of the Chinese government being forced to face the externalities of its recent economic growth. Will the government be required to compensate Li for health effects caused by the air pollution it failed to regulate, or should the companies with the factories actually spewing out the smog be forced to pay?

Li’s grievance with country’s air pollution also represents a growing concern among average Chinese citizens about the environmental cost the country’s economic growth has brought. Much like the environmental protests in the U.S. in the late ‘60s that led to the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency and landmark legislation like the Clean Air and Water Acts, perhaps Li’s lawsuit is a baby step towards building a grassroots movement that changes the way China regulates and manages its environmental resources.

Image credit: Flickr/woggle

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

By Jay Apt

It is natural for our optimistic and energetic MBA students to look at the upside of decisions, and to maximize the returns on their firm’s investment in the minimum time. But that isn’t always a strategy for sustainability, either for the firm or for the planet.

Imagine that you are the leader of the largest railway signal-and-control company in the world’s fastest-growing economy. Your firm supplies its technology to more than 20 countries. Your market share in those countries far eclipses your competitors’ shares combined, and your investment of profits into reducing manufacturing costs will keep it that way. Life is good, and you are happy that you have balanced profit maximizing with mitigating business risks by investing in meeting the needs of your customers. You are grooming your daughter to take over the business, and look forward to the third generation coming along shortly.

Then a low-probability event of enormous consequence happens. Lightning strikes a high-speed rail line, and wrong signals are flashed. One high-speed train crashes into the rear of another on a bridge. Forty people are killed and 191 injured. A Cabinet investigation receives worldwide coverage. The investigation finds flawed development of the signaling equipment, poor quality and slipshod inspections by safety professionals. Your dreams of a generations-long business lie with the wreckage of the ruined trains.

Catastrophic risk can end corporate life. Catastrophic risks are unanticipated losses or damage that cripple an organization and often lead to a survival mode. BP systematically underestimated physical risks, costing the company $20 billion and the CEO his job. Physical risk management failures forced the Johns-Manville company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy for five years. A toxic gas leak at a Union Carbide plant killed 14,000 people in India, and the company nearly repeated the disaster in West Virginia within a year; it was forced to sell off profitable subsidiaries to survive a hostile-takeover attempt when the disasters drove down its stock price. On the other hand, one man in China turned around that nation’s once-dismal airline safety record.

Since 2007, I’ve been teaching our Tepper MBA students a course in Catastrophic Risk Analysis and Management. What is the connection between sustainability and catastrophic risk? The core concept is understanding, analyzing and managing high-consequence events (that may be of low probability) in the presence of irreducible uncertainty.

These uncertainties can be about the types of events or about modes of the failure chain. But the largest uncertainty is one internal to the firm and to its leaders. It is a question of time scale. Potentially catastrophic events can be ignored for a while, but if the firm plans to be in business for a long time, managing these sorts of events must be considered.

It is this very question of time scale that is critical to the question of sustainability, whether of the firm or of our planet.

While only one of the course modules is on a topic that is explicitly related to “sustainability," greenhouse gas emissions, every module deals with developing a culture that considers long-term risks. Those are the low-probability events that can rock a company to its foundations.

The Tepper School of Business attracts very quantitatively-inclined students. Our MBA students leave the course with five core lessons:

1. Students learn how to identify and quantify physical risks in real-world problems.


2. They are trained to structure their thinking about physical risks.


3. They are familiarized with risk models and tools that include stock-and-flow analysis, toxicology and epidemiology (and the good and bad points of each), probabilistic risk analysis including Monte Carlo analysis, event trees and fault trees, benefit-cost analysis, and decision analysis.


4. Students are exposed to practical examples of risk perception and risk communication.


5. We leave the students with examples of both excellent and poor leadership in physical risk management.

Graphically, the course structure looks something like this:

One of the first class of models introduced in the course are stock-and-flow models. The MBA students readily understand that if income exceeds expenses (both are flows of cash) that the bank balance (a stock) will increase. The initial example used is the buildup of Radon gas in homes constructed in certain regions of the U.S. The flows are the leakage of Radon into and out of the home, and the stock is the concentration in the living spaces.

You could be invited to that home for a dinner party and not appreciably increase your risk of lung cancer. But if you lived there for 40 years and the concentration was high enough, it would be a different story. Time scales matter.

Similarly, the risk to firms due to greenhouse gas concentration depends on time scale and concentration. The flows here are the emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases and their natural absorption sinks, while the stock is the concentration in the atmosphere. Like a bathtub with more water flowing in than is leaving through the drain, the level of greenhouse gases in the air will rise if emissions exceed the natural sinks.

Time scales in this problem are of two types. First, CO2 and most other greenhouse gases are not like conventional pollutants that leave the air in days or weeks. Most of a ton of CO2 that is emitted today will be in the air in our great-grandchildren’s day. Second, there is very little harm to those of us living today from the greenhouse. Controlling emissions requires short-term discipline today so that people living well after we are gone can benefit. Some firms understand this well. Bloomberg News reported in December 2013 that Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, and Total are all basing plans for future capital investments on the assumption that they will have to pay for carbon dioxide emissions at a rate of up to $60 per metric ton.

The idea that a firm must take the long view has been largely out of favor in recent years. While my course acknowledges the arguments for short-term profit maximization, I also want the students to leave with an understanding that ignoring the low-probability, high-consequence events has been catastrophic for firms. True sustainability requires the discipline of putting resources into mitigating the chances of catastrophic events even at the risk of lower short-term profit. There are no correct answers, but by giving tomorrow’s business leaders examples of both good and poor decisions this course has been successful in making sustainability part of the conversation.

Image credit: Flickr/Green Fire Productions

Jay Apt is a Professor of Technology at the Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business and director of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center.