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When I spoke with Cisco Systems last week about their latest strategic partnership on smart cities, with AGT international, I asked them how they interface with the non-technical world and how they ensure that they don't merely produce solutions that are looking for problems. As a former R&D worker in a technology company, I know firsthand how easy it is to look at some cool new technology and imagine how well it might work in an application that we only know a little bit about. You can read what Cisco said here.

But today, I want to talk about an example of where, in a critical, potentially life-saving application, inventors have, according to some, repeatedly failed to come up with an effective solution that can fully meet the wide-ranging demands found in the developing world.

We have written before about the challenges and opportunities surrounding the simple act of cooking in developing nations, where some 20 percent of total energy use comes from preparing daily meals. Most cooking in these areas is done using wood or charcoal, often burned in open fire pits. Millions of people are still using this highly polluting and dangerous method, some using simple cookstoves that are not properly vented. All totaled, cooking causes some 4 million deaths every year, for the lack of a better alternative.

According to a story in the Guardian, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), T. Alexander Aleinikoff, says that despite a steady stream of innovative new stoves being offered, he has yet to see one that fully meets the needs of the population.

“We're in the situation,” says Aleinikoff, “where everybody and his brother has invented a cookstove and none of them have really worked well for us.”

He cites example where he has seen “large, beautiful solar cookstoves” that were being used as storage cabinets because they didn't cook food fast enough.

He blames his organization's drive for a one-size-fits-all approach to the problem. Meanwhile, as refugees continue to use charcoal, many are dying from smoke inhalation, while forested areas surrounding the camps are being stripped of wood, which, in turn, leads to topsoil runoff.

The Ikea Foundation has decided to weigh in here, figuring that this is an area where philanthropy could help to tip the scales. It sees the cookstove problem as something it can get involved in, supplementing its current efforts in flat-pack housing and LED lighting. Per Heggenes, the foundation's CEO, says this problem has not attracted the attention of major product developers because "this product...can only be bought by a very limited number of organizations."

At the same time, a nonprofit like the UNHCR does not have the resources to undertake a full-scale product development effort. So, there is a gap, he says, that potentially "can be filled by an organization like ours, by a foundation that is willing to take some investments and take some risks and fund the developments to the point where it can be a commercial success."

Radha Muthiah, executive director of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (GACC) said that the "process is complicated by the fact that the market is fragmented," both on supplier side and the consumer side. On the supply side, the market is mostly being serviced by small- to medium-sized entrepreneurs with limited product development resources. On the consumer side, a study conducted by Accenture Development Partnerships found that "problems related to cookstoves are unique to different geographic regions," requiring unique interventions.

Effective solutions vary by region, based on a number of factors including, available construction materials, available fuel, cooking practices, geographical factors and cultural preferences.

For example, while the ceramic-based, wood-fired, high-efficiency Justa stove has been successful in Honduras, where ceramics are common, saving both energy and lives with its “rocket elbow” and chimney that vents dangerous gases outside, the ethanol-fired NDZiLO stove has thrived in Mozambique -- savings lives, creating jobs, and reducing pollution and deforestation.

Meanwhile, the New Lao Stove (NLS) which addresses the same problem in Cambodia, uses a design suited to regional requirements, using wood and charcoal as fuel, reducing their consumption by 22 percent.

Given this diversity, it makes sense then, that GACC is working with the International Organization of Standardization to develop a standard, namely ISO 285 specifically for cookstoves, which is expected to be ready in the next two years.

While the standard will not dictate design, it will provide a basis for comparison and will, hopefully, eliminate dangerous and ineffective practices.

"Once the standard is implemented,” says Muthiah, “people will be able to see how many stars a product has been awarded and what product is therefore most appropriate."

Refugee camps, of course, have their own special problems. GACC is working with the UNHCR there, focusing not only on the equipment but also on the lack of training.

In an effort to reach their target of providing clean cookstoves to 20 million households by 2020, the GACC has taken a number of actions including the launch of a $3 million carbon finance loan fund to attract private-sector money. Within the alliance, the funds will be drawn from The Spark Fund, Pilot Innovation Fund and the Women’s Empowerment Fund. The alliance is also partnering with the Gold Standard Foundation and the Nexus Carbon for Development, because, says Muthiah, "Until now, the lack of commercial financing for clean cookstoves and fuels has served as a barrier to entrepreneurs and others to develop a thriving market for these technologies."

Moving these millions of refugees and villagers, from dirty unvented wood and charcoal fires to either more efficient stoves or stoves using alternative fuels, will solve a multitude of problems all at once. It will save lives, reduce pollution, carbon emissions, deforestation and topsoil runoff, and could, in some instances, create meaningful work and jobs producing local equipment and/or fuel -- thereby reducing poverty and hunger, as some successful projects have already done.

Image credit: Cookstoves: Flickr Creative Commons

RP Siegel writes about sustainability for Triple Pundit, Justmeans and other publications. He is also the co-author of the eco-thriller Vapor Trails, the first in a series covering the human side of various sustainability issues including energy, food, and water.  Like airplanes, we all leave behind a vapor trail. And though we can easily see others’, we rarely see our own.

Follow RP Siegel on Twitter.

Guaranteed lower electricity bills enabled by innovations in the financing and insuring of energy efficiency and renewable energy projects will soon be transforming the commercial real estate industry. These innovations enable zero-down financing. Project payments are tied to measured "negawatt" results. No “negawatts," no payment made by the property owner. And most critically, performance insurance supplied by a creditworthy financial institution satisfies the risk of non-performance for the building owner and the bank that supplies project financing.

These breakthroughs hold the potential of dramatically reducing the 33 percent of operating budgets the commercial real estate industry pays to utilities. It could meaningfully reduce the commercial real estate industry’s greenhouse gas emissions that currently represent 20 percent of total U.S. emissions. The greatest potential from these innovations is their ability to fund net-zero energy buildings.

How it works

A lack of assurance that an energy efficiency investment will generate a lower electricity bill has been a major barrier to winning project approvals from building owners, their CFOs and bank sources of capital. Most current utility rebates for energy efficient equipment can reduce investment cost, but they still require a building owner to invest or borrow money on the expectation that savings through lower electricity bills will cover the loan interest and repayment. Real estate investors and owners are often hesitant to put their money down on a project with this type of uncertain economic result.

At the same time, banks are hesitant to make loans on energy efficiency projects without guarantees of payment. They view projects that do not have a direct financial assurance as having “technology risk,” or the uncertainty that the technology investments will generate a reduced payment to the utility, a failure that could then threaten loan repayment. Banks do not take technology risks. They take credit risk, or the ability of the borrower to fulfill their loan obligations on time. Banks traditionally make loans on energy efficiency projects if the borrower has qualifying credit status and will guarantee payment.

The solution now being pioneered is to wrap the financing of building energy efficiency projects with insurance from a creditworthy financial institution that will assure the building owner of lower electricity bills and the bank of payment on the enabling loan. The steps that enable this assurance include:

• Portfolio Design: Aggregating and implementing a portfolio of energy efficiency projects at a building to mitigate the risk of any single energy efficient technology failing to achieve targeted results.


• Performance Guarantees: Securing performance guarantees from creditworthy contracts and equipment suppliers implementing the energy efficiency project.


• Maintenance Contract: Implementation of a maintenance contract to insure that the installed equipment is appropriately maintained and, if required, repaired or replaced in a timely manner.


• Performance Insurance: Wrapping the portfolio of energy efficiency investments and performance guarantees with creditworthy performance insurance that assures the building owner of lower electricity bills and loan payment to a bank.

Metrus Energy Kuakini Medical Center project

Metrus Energy at the Kuakini Medical Center in Hawaii has developed an example project that is guaranteeing lower electricity bills. Metrus managed the 100-percent funding of a $6 million investment in energy efficiency at the center. Under the company’s energy services agreement, the center only pays for actual results of energy and money saved. The project is projected to save more than $1 million annually, a 25 percent reduction in the center’s total utility bill. It is also projected to reduce total CO2 emissions by almost 3,000 tons. This project includes ongoing maintenance, and the installed energy efficiency equipment will be repaired or replaced as needed. Metrus lined up performance insurance from Energi and bank financing from New Resource Bank.

In this exclusive (three minute) video interview with President & CEO Bob Hinkle of Metrus Energy conducted at the Verdexchange, he profiles the innovations in finance and insurance that have enabled this pioneering Kuakini Medical Center Project:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxAU6xu0aHQ

Bill Roth is an economist and the Founder of Earth 2017. He coaches business owners and leaders on proven best practices in pricing, marketing and operations that make money and create a positive difference. His book, The Secret Green Sauce, profiles business case studies of pioneering best practices that are proven to win customers and grow product revenues. Follow him on Twitter: @earth2017

My family is now living in an airtight home in Maine with a passive house design. We have no exhaust fans, triple-pane windows and doors, a solar orientation, and thankfully, we have a heat recovery ventilation system (also known as an HRV or air-to-air heat exchanger) that brings in outside air and captures heat from stale indoor air before it leaves our house. Airtight homes need fresh air to ensure high indoor air quality and avoid moisture and mold issues. HRV systems are an energy efficient solution in extremely cold climates.

HRV systems, which can be used in both residential and commercial buildings, are most common in Germany, where they grew in popularity by 17.6 percent in 2012. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland, nearly 215,000 residences were equipped with systems last year. Just over half are for new construction, the majority being centralized systems. For retrofits, single-room systems are common.

The market is expected to grow by 8.6 percent in 2014 after many years of double-digit growth. This market growth is part of an energy efficient building trend towards airtight buildings in Germany, ventilated with HRV systems. These units are gaining traction in the American market, too, both for retrofits and new construction in extremely warm or cold climates. Both Energy Star and LEED-certified homes have requirements for fresh air ventilation, and HRV systems can meet the challenge.

Some of the hurdles for the American HRV market include a shortage of contractors trained in designing, installing, and maintaining HRV systems and lack of consumer awareness surrounding the benefits. If the systems are not understood, they are not likely to be installed. It is best to consider an HRV system early in the project-planning phase for new construction, as it may integrate with the HVAC system.

Although system design and efficiency vary, our Zehnder HRV system supplies fresh, filtered air to the bedrooms and draws air out of the kitchen and bathroom. Our home doesn't have exhaust fans because these systems vent warm air out of the home in the winter without recovering the energy, thus being very inefficient. Our HRV system takes in outside air, filters and heats it with a heat exchanger before it is supplied to the bedrooms. The system is designed this way because people spend much of their time in bedrooms, and they do not contain doors to the outside (where fresh air enters when people come and go), thus there is the greatest need for fresh air.

Our system contains a booster, so we can turn it up if we want to increase the ventilation speed. We tend to do this if we burned food while cooking or notice condensation on the windows. We also turn down the system to the lowest setting when we are out of town. Our system is up to 90 percent efficient, thus the majority of the heat is captured before the air leaves the home.

Like any mechanical system, the HRV system requires some maintenance. It is recommended to vacuum the dust filters in the system every six months and replace filters every year. The systems are relatively quiet, but it does make a noticeable sound similar to a fan. Our unit is housed in the bedroom closet, which could be disruptive for a very light sleeper. The systems are least efficient when the indoor and outdoor air temperatures are similar, thus it may be more efficient to open windows and turn off the system during these times.

HRV systems allow buildings to become more and more efficient without compromising indoor air quality. The average American spends 90 percent of their time indoors, and it is common for indoor air to contain up to five times more pollutants than outdoor air. Indoor air pollution is caused by a variety of sources, such as air fresheners, offgasing from pressed wood products and solvents in cleaning products.

The market demand for high indoor air quality is rising and bringing in outside air dilutes pollutants. For more information on how these systems work, check out the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Fuv1PdJxbY8

Image Credit: Zehnder America

By Wayne Dunn

"That is shared value not corporate social responsibility."

That is the reaction I received two weeks ago after sending a note about my value-centric approach to CSR and highlighting the economic sustainability inherent in CSR projects that have robust value propositions that can align the social, economic and developmental interests of companies, communities, shareholders and other stakeholders.

CSR is a complex, evolving and exciting area that is finding new ways to create and distribute value. Simultaneously, the language and frameworks around CSR are evolving rapidly and helping executives, practitioners and academics with practice and understanding. We are all learning and none of us is an "expert." I want to share some of my thoughts on CSR, shared value and a framework that has helped me to be more effective in this space.

The concept of shared value has been eloquently described with powerful voices that have done well to help business and society understand what it is, to think about how to develop it and realize the compelling value propositions that it can create. Professor Michael Porter and his team, through their work, their writing and the gravitas they carry, have helped many to see and think about business differently. As they wrote, shared value “generates opportunity, innovation, and competitive advantage for corporations—while solving pressing social problems.” To my thinking, this makes shared value an important aspect of CSR and good business strategy.

I believe that we do a disservice to business and corporate social responsibility if we place shared value actions outside of the scope of CSR, and I don’t think this is what Professor Porter and others intended at all.

I’ve spent a couple of decades developing, analyzing, evaluating and supporting CSR-related projects and programs around the world and across industries and sectors. Working on more than 60 projects in that time, I’ve developed some frameworks and tools that I find very helpful to allow me to analyze and understand specific situations and strategies. One I nearly always use is the CSR Value Continuum. It helps to look at the various CSR programs, projects and initiatives that a company is doing and place them on a continuum ranging from value distribution through to value creation.

Clearly, shared value is at the value creation end of this continuum, focused on finding those opportunities where 1+1=3; identifying value propositions that can align corporate, stakeholder, community, environment and other interests -- creating new value by making the pie larger. At the other end of the continuum are value distribution actions. These too are important. They are where companies share or distribute value in a voluntary and strategic manner so that communities, stakeholders, environment and other interests receive new value, and some level of value is created for the company through goodwill, reputational capital, social license enhancement, etc. Notice that at both ends of the continuum the actions produce value for the company, that there is some alignment of shareholder and stakeholder interest. If there wasn’t, why on earth would the company do them?

The mistake that people sometimes make is to assume that those CSR projects and initiatives that are at or closer to the value creation end are necessarily more important, that companies should do more of these and less of other projects. The full range of CSR actions -- grants, donations, scholarships, education, training, community development, environmental restoration, local institutional development, local infrastructure, employment and skills development, local procurement and business development -- are all important tools.They can be important for the company and for local stakeholders.

Depending on the specifics of each one, they will situate differently on the continuum. But in general something like grants, donations and scholarships would fit more towards the value distribution end of the continuum, while local procurement and business development would tend to be closer to the value creation end. The value continuum is useful in revealing to companies how their actions fall on a distributive-to-creative scale, and this understanding can help both strategically and tactically to optimize value return from CSR investments.

Companies and projects stand to maximize benefit by consciously thinking of their CSR projects and activities in terms of the value continuum and have a spectrum of activities that span the continuum. This benefit includes discovering new strategies and opportunities for creating and capturing more value from existing activities -- opportunities which risk being overlooked if focussing only on one end of the spectrum.

CSR is a complex and evolving field. There are some great projects and great innovations happening, and value is being created in exciting and innovative ways. I’ve found that practical tools and frameworks like the value continuum can help companies and practitioners to enhance their understanding of the value aspects of their CSR activities and to be more efficient at creating and distributing value.

Wayne Dunn is a Professor of Practice in CSR at McGill University in Canada (he calls himself an accidental academic). He has over two decades of practical experience in CSR at all levels and all over the world. His work has been used for a Stanford Case Study and has won many awards including the first ever private sector project to win a World Bank Development Innovation Award. He is currently the Executive Director of the CSR Training Institute and is developing and delivering Executive Programs around the world. He is a Stanford Business School Sloan Fellow and lives on Vancouver Island in Canada. He can be reached at wayne@csrtraininginstitute.com.

The introduction of a ‘greener’ petrol to meet EU regulations could increase harmful CO2 tailpipe emissions, says What Car? .

The move to introduce E10 fuel, which is expected to happen this year, has been branded as “irresponsible” by the consumer car buying guide after it undertook the first ever real-world tests on the new blend of petrol. Until now, the fuel had only been tested in laboratory conditions.

The E10 fuel contains 10% bio-ethanol and is being rolled out across the UK as part of the Government’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and conforming to the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive. This requires 10% of road transport energy to be from renewable sources by 2020.

However, What Car?’s  testers discovered that E10 is less efficient than the current E5 (up to 5% bio-ethanol) blend of fuel across every engine type tested. This means cars have to use more of the new fuel, costing drivers much more each year.

Editor-in-chief Chas Hallett is calling for the Government to carry out comprehensive, UK-focused testing in order to better understand the financial impact of the new petrol.

“The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the detrimental effect of E10 on fuel economy is between three and four percent, but even our small sample of tests proves otherwise,” he said.

“To lead consumers into E10 without fully communicating the significant impact on fuel economy, particularly for drivers least able to absorb the extra costs, is irresponsible.”

What Car? tested E10 against E0 ‘pure’ petrol so it could directly compare its results with the US EPA’s. The cars used were a three-cylinder turbo (Dacia Sandero), a naturally aspirated car (Hyundai i30), a hybrid (Toyota Prius+) and a four-cylinder turbo (Mini Paceman).

It’s not just economy that is harmed by the use of E10, says the magazine. CO2 tailpipe emissions also increased in every vehicle tested by What Car?, although the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership asserts that these increases would be partially offset by the renewable properties of bio-ethanol and the fact that the crops used to produce it absorb CO2 while growing.

Click here for more.

 

Submitted by Guest Contributor

By Koen Boone, Managing Director, Europe, The Sustainability Consortium

The Ecolabel Index includes 444 different sustainability labels. Thousands of other initiatives exist around the globe across levels and purposes. Can we use their combined power to create a more sustainable world? And how?

International and National Initiatives

The most overarching initiatives are probably the well-known Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and Sustainability Development Goals (SDG). Both set the sustainability goals on a global level.

While the MDG were set nearly 15 years ago and focus on social issues, the SDG are a follow up of the Rio+20 meeting and focus on environmental issues. Both sets could potentially merge into one set of indicators on the global level.

Many similar initiatives also exist at the national level. One group of indicators that have become popular over recent years are the OECD Green Growth Indicators, designed to support policy makers in combining economic growth and sustainability.

Another example on the national level is the United Nation’s Human Development Index that can be calculated for 187 countries. Some countries like the Netherlands even produce a sustainability report that not only includes sustainability performance but also links it with policy-making.

Regional and Project-Level Initiatives

Numerous indicator sets are available on the regional level as well for provinces/states, cities, neighborhoods, etc. Some of these are going into the direction of an integral policy evaluation instrument, recognizing that all policy-making has a relationship to sustainability and should be analyzed in an integral way. This development is comparable to the move from sustainability reporting to integrated reporting by companies.

However, sustainability measurement on a wide scale was first introduced at the project level. By the 1980s, methodologies such as (Social) Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) were introduced for large infrastructural projects and soon became obligatory in several countries around the world.

Company and Product Level Initiatives

Despite the origins, most initiatives – hundreds in the last 15 years – remain at the company and product levels.

On the company level, tools may support the internal management of sustainability within a company (all large consultancies have their own tools), are targeted for sustainability reporting (like the Global Reporting Initiative or SASB) or for selection of sustainable companies by investors (Dow Jones Sustainability Index).

On the product level, measurement may be targeted to consumers (organic, fair trade, GoodGuide, Product Environmental Footprint) or for Business-to-Business communication (The Sustainability Consortium).

A smaller number of initiatives also exist on other levels like the industry level (for sustainability reporting on industry level by trade or producer organizations or for comparing industries by statistical institutes) and consumer level (Global Footprint Network).

Needed: Better Alignment Between Scale Levels

While people have argued for a decrease in the number of initiatives and for more harmonization for a while now, I would like to argue instead for more alignment between these levels. The MDGs and SDGs, for example, would have much more impact if translated to the levels with strong decision power and in actionable language.

While final success can only be measured on a global scale, recent history (UNFCCC/Kyoto, WTO) has proved that decision power is very limited on this scale. Ideally, indicators on the global level should be translated into specific improvement opportunities of decision makers on all levels.

Another reason to align these different levels is so that the initiatives can learn from each other. In most cases, those implementing initiatives on the same level know of each other, meet often and profit from new insights and developments. But they hardly know anything or anybody from other levels, although nearly all the methodological issues are the same across these levels.

Bringing people together from different levels can lead to real improvements and innovations in sustainability measurement as seen by the Societal Cost Benefit Analysis, for example, which has been applied to infrastructural projects for decades but has only become popular in the business community recently (TEEB, PUMA environmental profit and loss account).

The Sustainability Consortium

This is where The Sustainability Consortium's (TSC) efforts to develop methods to measure sustainability on product levels together with its members (universities, governments, NGOs and companies) are useful.

Using a combination of product category and product level analysis, TSC identifies hotspots (sustainability bottle necks) based on quantitative scientific analysis (like Life Cycle Assessment). To measure the performance of an individual product within that product category, a combination of outcome based (e.g., kg CO₂ emissions) and input/process oriented indicators (e.g., using renewable energy) are used.

The use of input/process oriented indicators not only has the advantage of making a direct connection with improvement opportunities for the companies involved but also improves the scalability and the answerability of indicators by all companies around the world. We also stimulate alignment by participating in stakeholder consultations for the SDG setting, for example, and working to make the connection between SDG and initiatives across levels.

But like previous attempts, TSC cannot work in a vacuum. Alignment and cross scaling will require a collaborative effort. And that's where we need your support.

Related: The Leaky Faucet: Using Supply Networks to Prioritize Product Sustainability Decisions

About the Author:

Dr. Koen Boone is Managing Director Europe of The Sustainability Consortium (TSC) and works at LEI part of Wageningen University and Research Centre. Koen has nearly 15 years of experience on measuring sustainability on all kinds of levels (product, company, sector). He worked together with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) on the development of GRI guidelines for sustainability reporting for the Food Processing Industry.

About The Sustainability Consortium:

The Sustainability Consortium (TSC) is an organization of diverse global participants that work collaboratively to build a scientific foundation that drives innovation to improve consumer product sustainability. TSC develops transparent methodologies, tools, and strategies to drive a new generation of products and supply networks that address environmental, social and economic imperatives.

The Sustainability Consortium advocates for a credible, scalable and transparent process and system. The organization boasts over 90 members from all corners of business employing over 8.5 million people and whose combined revenues total over $2.4 trillion. The Sustainability Consortium is jointly administered by Arizona State University and University of Arkansas with additional operations at Wageningen University in The Netherlands and Nanjing University in China. Learn more at www.sustainabilityconsortium.org.

The North American cold wave has wreaked havoc on energy systems this winter, plagued by natural gas shortages, rising peak power demand and power plants going offline due to extreme weather conditions. The displaced polar vortex, with its frigid temperatures and strong winds, has caused energy use to soar--creating supply shortages and rising energy costs. But wind power has performed well overall.

Natural Gas Shortages

Natural gas shortages are emerging across the country, brought on by unusually high natural gas use due to record cold temperatures, as many households use natural gas furnaces and boilers. The situation is compounded by freezing gas wells, slowed production and other infrastructure complications due to low temperatures and high winds. Natural gas inventories fell by 262 billion cubic feet two weeks ago, causing prices to rise. Stocks of natural gas are low, and winter is only half over.

"We're seeing very high prices because of freeze-offs and storage concerns. Utilities are concerned because it's been so cold that they are buying spot gas to make sure they have enough in storage to get through the withdrawal season," said Aaron Calder, market analyst with Gelber & Associates.

Peak Power Demand

Shortages are causing natural gas prices to rise, reaching a four-year high earlier this month but coming down slightly since. Electricity generators are asking customers to conserve power, which would require fewer natural gas power plants to come online. To compound the situation, California has been depending more on natural gas to generate electricity since the decommissioning of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. Unfortunately, cold temperatures this winter have also caused electricity use to climb due to high heating demand.

Some utilities have set records for peak winter power demand. Such high winter demand is relatively rare, with summer demand spikes being far more common. Some utility companies, such as Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD), are choosing not to use gas-fired plants, because prices are 300 percent higher than power from other sources.

Extreme Winter Weather Causes Equipment Failure

Dozens of power plants have failed during cold snaps this year, caused by a variety of weather-induced complications. "We lost about 3,700 megawatts of generation," said Dan Woodfin, director of system operations for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. "About half of that was weather-related and the remainder were due to non-weather-related issues." Monitoring equipment failed at two power plants, requiring them to shut down, according to Woodfin.

Wind Power Eases Woes

“NPPD was able to meet this highest level of demand, in part, due to our steady and stable supply of power generated by our nuclear and coal-fired facilities,” said Pat Pope, president and CEO of NPPD. “But the wind also worked in our favor yesterday, contributing more than 216 megawatts for NPPD during the time of peak demand.”

Wind power is often criticized for producing far more energy in the winter, when energy demand is more moderate and tapering off when demand spikes in the mid-summer. Renewable energy advocates often point out that solar energy output increases in the summertime, allowing the two sources to work well in tandem.

Wind energy, however, is uniquely capable of handling high winter energy demand, which has been particularly important this year. The cold weather has allowed wind energy to fill supply gaps in regions with large wind energy capacity, as the cold temperatures have been accompanied by high wind speeds.

During times of peak demand in late January, wind energy was saving $1.5 to $2 million per hour as it supplied 3,500 MW of electricity to PJM (the power grid agency for 13 Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states), according to the American Wind Energy Association. This strong supply of electricity during peak demand also helps ease power costs overall, resulting in greater cost savings to consumers.

The same phenomenon has been true this winter in Ireland, where wind power has been reducing reliance on natural gas. "The substantial contribution of wind energy helped reduce the monthly average wholesale electricity price by 5 percent," says John Heffernan, gas and power trader of Bord Gais Energy, a leading energy provider in Ireland.

As wind technology advances, wind turbines will perform even better in harsh weather conditions. Icing can be an issue on wind turbines in the winter, reducing energy output and even requiring machines to be shut down. Deicing technology is advancing, helping to make winter wind energy production more reliable.

The extreme weather this winter demonstrates that all types of power generation can fail, or in the case of natural gas, become far more expensive. Ultimately, a diverse energy mix boosts resiliency, especially as climate change causes severe weather. Higher energy costs also make the renewable energy systems installed by corporations such as Google and SC Johnson more appealing to mitigate the effects of fluctuating energy costs.

Image credit: Flickr/niXerKG

Chart courtesy of Ontario IESO

Sarah Lozanova is a regular contributor to environmental and energy publications and websites, including Mother Earth Living, Energy International Quarterly, 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.

Last week one of the largest fast food companies decided to remove a chemical from its food after a public outcry on social media led by an influential blogger. Now, you might have heard similar stories before, but what makes this one even more interesting is the identity of the company.

This time it is none other than Subway, the restaurant chain that prides itself on providing a healthier and better alternative fast food.

The story begins last Tuesday, when Vani Hari, who runs the blog FoodBabe.com, launched a petition for the removal of a chemical called Azodicarbonamide from Subway sandwich bread.

Azodicarbonamide, Hari explained,  is used in yoga mats, shoe rubber and synthetic leather, the World Health Organization has linked it to respiratory issues, allergies and asthma, and it is banned as a food additive in Europe and Australia. However Subway, she added, uses it in the U.S. as a bleaching agent and dough conditioner in order to produce bread faster and cheaper.

Hari said she tried in the past to receive answers from Subway about the use of Azodicarbonamide, but never heard back from the company. This time the company couldn’t ignore her -- within 24 hours the petition received more than 50,000 signatures (more than 80,000 by the end of the week), and “Subway’s social media channels were completely overrun by concerned citizens and the Food Babe Army,” according to Hari.

The company’s reply came eventually and was somewhat surprising. "We are already in the process of removing Azodiacarbonamide as part of our bread improvement efforts despite the fact that it is USDA- and FDA-approved ingredient," the company said in a statement. "The complete conversion to have this product out of the bread will be done soon."

I’ll get back later to Subway’s choice to ignore the petition in its statement. First, let’s look at the facts included in the statements. The FDA indeed allows the use of Azodicarbonamide in very small amounts (0.0045 percent or 45 parts-per-million by weight of the flour used) as a dough conditioner in bread baking.

So far, so good. However, this is not just a matter of compliance with the law, as we can learn from the fact that Subway decided to stop using Azodicarbonamide even though it’s perfectly legal to do so in the U.S. If it was only about compliance, then why would Subway stop using it? More likely, then, this is a matter of corporate responsibility.

When it comes to corporate responsibility, the name of the game in the case of Subway is health. The company positioned itself as a provider of healthier and fresh fast food choices, supported by reports like the one conducted last year by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) on kids’ meals, where Subway was the only chain that met CSPI’s nutritional criteria.

This year the company decided to take a step further and teamed up with first lady Michelle Obama’s Healthy Eating Initiative, pledging to take a couple of significant steps, including only offering items on its kids' menus that meet the new federal nutritional standards for school lunches and spending $41 million in the next three years on marketing healthier options to children.

On the day of the announcement, the first lady visited a Subway sandwich shop a few blocks from the White House, and had lunch and a news conference there with famous athletes (Michael Phelps, Nastia Liukin and Justin Tuck) and kids from a nearby elementary school. The Washington Post reported that the first lady ate a turkey sandwich on wheat stacked with banana peppers, green peppers and spinach, most likely without knowing that, if it this was a nine-grain wheat bread, her sandwich probably included Azodicarbonamide.

My guess is that if the first lady was familiar with controversy around this issue, she may have reconsidered some quotes in her press release, including “Subway's kids' menu makes life easier for parents, because they know that no matter what their kids order, it’s going to be a healthy choice.”

Yet, an even more important quote in the press release is one made by Suzanne Greco, VP of R&D and Operations at Subway: “... We hold ourselves to the highest standards in the industry when it comes to speaking to children and their families. Now we are letting everyone else know what that standard is.”

It’s quite obvious that you can’t claim to hold yourself to the highest standards, get involved in a national campaign with the first lady and not walk the talk. I believe that after Hari’s petition went viral Subway finally understood that they can’t continue to claim using Azodicarbonamide goes hand-in-hand with having the highest standards in the industry.

While Subway should be credited for doing the right thing, we can’t avoid the question of whether or not customers can truly trust the company and its commitment to provide “better choices for families.” I’d like to think that it can, because the company seems to be truly interested in positioning itself as the healthier choice for families.

At the same time, the fact that in its statement Subway totally ignores the public outcry and made no effort whatsoever to engage with the blogger who led this campaign (Hari) is a bit worrisome, as it bring into question the company’s willingness to engage with stakeholders, its openness to criticism and its commitment to transparency.

Without raising the bar on these components it would be very difficult for Subway to regain the trust of many of its customers and be framed again as everything that McDonald’s isn’t.

Will you trust Subway? If not, what does the company need to do to regain your trust?

Image credit: freddy, Flickr Creative Commons

Raz Godelnik is an Assistant Professor of Strategic Design and Management at Parsons The New School of Design. You can follow Raz on Twitter.

Women delivered a strong and very frank message to the business community at the Feb. 6, 2014, EPA hearing on carbon pollution standards tied to electric utility generation. Their message was that protecting the health of their loved ones is an absolute. And they see coal-fired power plants as a health threat to themselves and their families. Reinforcing their testimony was the more than 3 million messages the EPA received on the issue of carbon pollution standards.

Listen or face the business consequences

I recommend every businessperson seeking to win or keep women as customers reflect upon the following tweets shared by Moms Clean Air Force from this EPA hearing:

• "Clean air keeps our children in schools, and people on the job...increasing productivity."


• "Clean air is vital to healthy women and healthy babies."


• "A fossil fuel based economy is a bad business decision."


• "We're not buying the argument that strong, bold carbon regulations are going to hinder the economy"

This next tweet is one that should keep business leaders up at night if they source electricity from coal-fired power plants that represent the leading source of mercury pollution: “Who bears the costs of pregnant women w/ mercury in their bodies?" On a human level, what business or business leader wants to have this type of impact upon a mom and her baby? On a business level, what could the damage be to sales and profits if women hold this viewpoint toward a business based upon its purchase of electricity sourced from coal-fired power plants?

Corporate America has lost the trust of moms

"The American people can't trust polluters to police themselves." This tweet is the gauntlet being thrown down by women toward American businesses. Ford Motor Company's market research published in 2013 found consumers now trust only one out of every four brands. A .250 batting average is underperforming even in baseball. It is an absolute profit-threat confronting corporations at their cash registers.

Coal-fired power plants and pink slime

Pink slime is a business case study that highlights the ramifications when a business violates customer trust. At one time pink slime was accepted as a low-cost, lean, finely textured beef. But then this product lost the consumer’s trust, most especially with moms. The impact on companies that had products containing pink slime was an absolute shutdown of sales.

The testimony submitted by moms at the EPA hearing on carbon standards for coal-fired power plants raises the question of whether these plants could become the next pink slime threat to business revenues? If your business is located in the Midwest or South, where up to 50 percent or more of electricity generation is sourced from coal, then the idea that customers will not buy from your business because it uses coal-based electricity probably seems absurd. The only caution is: So did the idea that moms would turn against low-cost, lean, finely textured beef.

Retailers get it!

Retail is the business segment that may be the closest to the customer. Is it a coincident that retailers are the leading installers of rooftop solar systems and the shift away from fossil-fueled electricity generation? Are you aware that Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, is aggressively working to fulfill its commitment to source 100 percent of its electricity from renewable energy?

Yes, retailer adoption of rooftop solar does reflect the dramatic drop in cost that has made solar power a good investment compared to buying grid-supplied electricity sourced from fossil fuels. But the other driving factor is that retailers are astutely attuned to their female customers. Their experiences, shaped by products like hazardous Chinese-manufactured toys and pink slime, have made them acutely aware of the business ramifications tied to failing to protect the loved ones of women. This consumer perspective, plus a demonstrated commitment to move away from coal-fired power plants, is something every business should not lose sight of.

Women have the answer on who pays for pollution

Women control 80 percent of household budgets. Daily, they struggle between balancing their budgets and buying goods and services that are protective of their loved ones. From this prospective, the following sentence submitted at the EPA hearings will be obvious to most women: "The price of carbon pollution must be paid by the polluter...not the people." Share that sentence with your company’s CFO the next time they object to an investment in energy efficiency or renewable energy because they view the financial payback to be too long or the return on equity to be too low. Ask them to reevaluate their spreadsheet by assuming that someday there will be a carbon pollution tax because of a campaign driven by women to tax polluters rather than people. In fact, today a broad range of companies, such as Google and ExxonMobile, now include a carbon tax estimate in their financial calculations on investment alternatives and budget choices.

Grow sales by meeting the expectations of 'Concerned Caregivers'

Aligning values with values is a proven best practice for increasing sales with Concerned Caregivers (moms and dads focused on the wellness of their loved ones). The price sticker is the foundation of this strategy because 90 percent of customers have not seen actual wage increases over the last 15 years. In today’s economy, a product must have a price that the consumer views as competitive.

Aligning value with values creates a path to being price-competitive, selling products with sustainable profit margins. Aligning with customer values is now cost-effective, as sustainable solutions gain economies of scale that are driving down their implementation costs. Or, as Jeff Rice of Walmart captures it, “Sustainability absolutely supports everyday low prices.”

And most fundamentally, sustainability will also grow sales with moms by winning their trust. What was presented by moms at the Feb. 6, EPA hearings on carbon standards for power plants was a growing awareness that companies using electricity sourced from coal-fired power plants are not to be trusted. Considering that women represent $8 trillion in annual U.S. buying power, this shift in their trust criteria holds the potential of being a “pink slime” challenge that should not be discounted by any business or business leader.

This article is dedicated to Jen Boynton, Editor of Triple Pundit, who is expecting her first child next month.

Bill Roth is an economist and the Founder of Earth 2017. He coaches business owners and leaders on proven best practices in pricing, marketing and operations that make money and create a positive difference. His book, The Secret Green Sauce, profiles business case studies of pioneering best practices that are proven to win customers and grow product revenues. Follow him on Twitter: @earth2017

Did the International Olympic Committee (IOC) violate the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) by allowing Russia to host the 2014 Winter Olympics?  I think it did.

Unless one has been living under a rock during the entire Putin reign, one probably knows – or, at least, can (rightly) assume – the following things about the current Russian government:  it is anti-gay; it is totalitarian; it treats the environment like a toilet and environmental activists like, well, excrement; and it is in the midst of a protracted war against an ethnic minority, one that makes its home not too far from the home of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

The International Olympic Committee’s decision to host the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi has shone a brighter light on some of these issues, particularly Russia’s antipathy towards the LGBT community, and that increased scrutiny is a good thing for human rights.  Perhaps the pressure of being under the international community’s microscope will force policy change.  It seems unlikely and entirely antithetical to the Putin administration’s core operating principles, but who knows.  It’s not like Russia is a stranger to media coverage of its abysmal human rights record, but maybe the games and the attendant scrutiny will force the government’s hand. Or perhaps not.

One issue that seems to be receiving scant attention in the media, though, surrounds the IOC’s decision to host the games in Russia in the first place.  Maybe this debate played out in the public sphere back when the decision was announced in 2007, or maybe nobody really cares since the point is now moot and so much attention is focused on the prospect of a terrorist strike in Sochi.  But I think the IOC’s decision, and its obligations under international law after making such a decision, bears (renewed?) consideration here.

First, a brief primer on the current state of international law as it relates to the human rights obligations of businesses:

According to the UNGPs, in order to act in compliance with international law, a business enterprise must "avoid infringing on the human rights of others"  (UNGP 11). This obligation extends not only to infringements "caus[ed] or contribut[ed] to . . . through [the enterprise’s] own activities," but also to "adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to [the enterprise’s] operations, products or services by [the enterprise’s] business relationships, even if [the enterprise] ha[s] not contributed to those impacts"  (UNGP 13; my emphasis). In other words, while an enterprise is clearly in violation of the UNGPs if the enterprise itself directly causes an adverse human rights impact, the enterprise may also be in violation if one of its business partners or entities in its supply chain, without any knowledge or assistance of the enterprise itself, causes an adverse human rights impact.

The UN’s Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights’ (OHCHR) commentary on the UNGPs helps clarify the situation.  According to the OHCHR, an enterprise can be involved in an adverse impact on human rights in one of the following three ways:

1. It caused the impact through its own activities;


2. It contributed to the impact through its own activities—either directly indirectly;


3. Though it may have neither caused nor contributed to the impact, it "may be involved because the impact is caused by an entity with which it has a business relationship and is linked to its own operations, products or services."

Now, back to the games. There haven’t, to my knowledge, been any allegations against the IOC for violating human rights directly, and it doesn’t appear that the IOC is "contributing" to adverse human rights impacts in any way. But what about that third category, which covers violations "caused by an entity with which [the IOC] has a business relationship?"

Let’s imagine the IOC as a traditional product-making corporation based in Switzerland. In this case, instead of a smartphone or a laptop manufactured somewhere in Asia and sold everywhere around the world, the IOC’s product is the Olympics and, in this cycle, it is being "manufactured" in Russia (and also sold all over the world).  The host country is responsible not only for literally hosting the games and all the athletes and country delegations, but also for constructing the relevant facilities, hiring workers to build and work in those facilities, and so on.  Russia, then, would appear to be a material link in the IOC's supply chain.  In fact, the relationship is not so different from Apple's association with Foxconn in China or Walmart’s connection to workers in Bangladesh.

So the IOC could be on the hook for human rights violations perpetrated by the Russian state, but to what extent?  The OHCHR’s examples for this type of tertiary “liability” are illustrative:

1. Providing loans to an enterprise for activities that, in breach of agreed standards, result in forced evictions;


2. Embroidery on a company’s clothing products that are subcontracted to child laborers, counter to the parties’ contractual obligations;


3. "Use of scans by medical institutions to screen for female fetuses, facilitating their abortion in favor of boys." In each case, the enterprise is in trouble because its product is being used in or in furtherance of a violation by a third party, without the enterprise’s knowledge.

When I first started thinking about this question, I wondered whether the IOC was in violation of international law simply by choosing Russia as host. Yet, the foregoing makes clear, at least to me, that this conclusion is not supported by the UNGPs. After all, if it were really the case that the IOC was on the hook simply for letting Russia host the Games, no businesses could operate in any countries whose governments abuse human rights. Not a bad outcome if you ask me, but not the type of outcome likely to be supported by business (which the UNGPs were).

It’s also clear, however, that the IOC could be in trouble to the extent that Russia’s Olympic-related activities have had adverse human rights impacts.  Recall the above: a violation occurs where harm is caused by an entity with which the enterprise has a business relationship, and the harm is linked to the enterprise’s operations, products or services. Here, Russia is the business with which the IOC has a relationship and the link is that the harm is in furtherance of Russia’s duties as host of the Olympics.

So, what’s the verdict?

It should probably come as no surprise that there have been extensive reports that Russia’s Olympic-related activities have had adverse impacts on the human rights of the Russian people and those working to support Russia’s duties.  For instance:

• Sochi families have been forcibly evicted and their houses demolished to make room for Olympic facilities;


• Migrant workers are being exploited;


• Workers are not being paid;


• Waste from Olympic-related construction is being dumped irresponsibly and may be contaminating the water supply.

Under the UNGPs, the IOC had a duty to ensure that these things did not happen.  It failed, and in doing so, appears to have violated its obligations under international law.

Check out HRW’s long list of Russia-related human rights resources here.  The Business & Human Rights Resource Center also has extensive Sochi coverage.

Image credit: Olympic Organizing Committee