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People have long been moving to cities for a host of reasons, mostly economic. The struggle many cities have faced, however, is that they haven’t been able to build infrastructure fast enough to keep up with population growth. Now, add the long-term risks of climate change, and many of the world’s largest cities will struggle even more to keep afloat by mid-century — literally.

A C40 Cities report released earlier this week presents a grim outlook for many of the world’s largest cities — visually and financially. At a higher level, the climate change risks are spread across four pillars: flooding, drought, healthcare and energy.

The big numbers? C40’s researchers suggest that 7 million-plus people in the largest cities will be prone to river flooding annually, costing cities a total of $64 billion annually. Add in the other costs to risks related to climate change, and that figure could approach close to $200 billion a year. To describe the costs in another way, that money which will be used to repair and bolster infrastructure after future climate change events won’t be spent on other needed infrastructure investments, nor on basic needs for citizens such as healthcare and social services.

There’s no shortage of 21st-century news accounts of urban areas that have suffered from flooding: Recent years have exposed the saga through which residents of Houston, Kuala Lumpur, New Orleans, São Paulo and Venice have endured. It’s hard to wrap our heads around the amount of water that could inundate these cities by mid-century, but C40 gives it a shot. The cities within the C40 network, say the organization’s researchers, could experience a combined river flooding of 10.5 million cubic meters annually, or, more than four times the volume of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

But it’s not only flooding that will force city leaders to face a reckoning. For every city that has little choice but to plan for excessive flooding, there are other cities that need to prepare for extreme drought. California and its cities have been in the drought spotlight during 2022, but large cities in China, India and Latin America also have the specter of severe water shortages in the coming decades. As groundwater reserves and the capacity of dammed rivers all diminish, large cities could encounter a combined surface water loss of more than 16 billion cubic meters of water by 2050 — and if you need a visualization, C40 says that’s the equivalent of Sydney’s harbor drying up 30 times over.

The data surrounding potential flooding and drought connected to climate change conjure up images of distressed infrastructure like roads, waterways and residential areas. But these climate change risks also threaten many cities’ essential services for its citizens, such as healthcare. When looking at the C40 cities, researchers concluded that approximate 2,400 hospitals across these urban areas are at high risk of floods. Almost half of those hospitals are in India alone, a sign that the country’s future economic growth (and literally, health) could confront huge challenges. To be clear, it’s not only flooding that can shut down hospitals and other healthcare services: Severe drought can also affect hospitals’ ability to deliver services, as they require copious amounts of water to remain clean and sanitized.

The fourth pillar, energy, by this point should be a seamless one to explain. Bottom line, if there’s too much water, and especially if there’s far from enough, now we’re talking about the constant disruption of electricity services in the world’s largest cities — especially if they rely on hydropower, which is the case of Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, as well as many major Brazilian cities. 

As for what C40 actually recommends as solutions, they are, depending on one’s point of view, obvious or basic. The short answers come in all sizes, as in massive investments in infrastructure, or micro-sized solutions such as instituting behavioral changes that can nudge people to use even less water on a day-to-day basis. But in these humdrum suggestions lies a massive hint for the world’s largest companies, which rely on cities for its peoples’ talent as well as for their local infrastructure. These same companies also benefit from the investments that cities have already made, while sharing little of the cost when a major climate change-induced event such as a hurricane or prolonged drought hit. Companies will have to cope with the reality that they’ll have to open up their pocketbooks to share in this collective climate change pain; and these cities’ leaders shouldn’t expect anything less.

Image credit: Jonathan Ford via Unsplash
 

We’ve been familiar with fair trade products here at TriplePundit for ages, from chocolate to tea to fresh produce and even the occasional item of clothing. But when it comes to other products such as luggage or gear, fair trade sourcing is still at a very early stage. But don’t tell that to California-based Peak Design: The company has long been designing sleek, minimalist travel gear and other accessories that can take a punch, and now the brand is committed to fair trade standards. Fair Trade USA, which certifies farms, fisheries and now factories, worked with Peak Design to audit the company's Vung Tau factory in Vietnam. 3p recently caught up with Peak Design to get a handle on the brand's fair trade journey.

Fair trade: An investment in patience

As Peak Design recently explained to 3p, the company a while back ran into compliance problems within its supply chain. The answer: a shift to fair trade sourcing in order to bring the company’s manufacturing and ethics into closer alignment with its values. The result is Vung Tau, which Peak Design says is a fully fair trade-compliant factory in the eponymous city in Vietnam. Annie Nyborg, Peak Design’s sustainability director, told 3p that securing a decent living for the factory’s employees was the driving factor in partnering with Vung Tau.

“We primarily wanted a mechanism for ensuring that our factory workers were earning a living wage. Ensuring that international factory workers are getting paid appropriately can be challenging if you don't have direct oversight of a factory,” Nyborg said. “Fair trade provides a third-party option for overseeing that certain environmental and social standards are met in a factory and that the factory workers are earning the higher premium that we as a brand pay.”

For companies seeking to invest in more responsible and sustainable sourcing, the name of the game is patience — with the added challenge that there’s a good chance your company may not get it right the first time. “We have been working with the same manufacturing partner in Vietnam for over seven years. Our partner had been subcontracting out factory space to manufacture our products and because they didn't have full control over those factories, the audit findings consistently came back very bad. We attempted to support those factories and invested in capacity building to bring them up to our standards but were unsuccessful,” explained Nyborg. 

Peak Design’s journey was similar to many brands that contract with overseas factories: If your supply chain relies on subcontracting or leasing space in a factory that produces goods for other companies, there’s a very good chance that your company’s sustainability and ethics goals won’t be entirely met by that manufacturer. “Operating consistently out of factories that could not meet our environmental and social standards wasn't going to work for us,” Nyborg added, “so our Vietnam partner proposed building a brand new factory that they would manage directly and see to it that our standards were met.”

That patience paid off, as the factory’s construction was finished around three years ago. “Our partner knew our strict environmental and social standards — through our Code of Conduct and Environmental Compliance Standards — so they incorporated those standards into their physical space and operations from the get-go,” Nyborg continued. “When we engaged with Fair Trade [USA] to certify the factory, our partners were able to relatively quickly implement the few additional elements to qualify for certification.”

Benefits for factory employees

The benefits are starting to pay off, Nyborg noted. Fair Trade USA audits the factory annually, and part of that audit process is to ensure that factory employees are being treated well and fairly. The audit looks at hiring practices, overtime policies, safety conditions within the factory, compliance with worker wellbeing laws, and the proper tracking of hours worked and logged. “In addition, Peak Design pays an additional 1 percent FOB (freight on board) on all product coming from the factory,” Nyborg said. “That money goes directly into a bank account that is managed by the factory workers themselves — it never passes through factory management to ensure that workers receive the full amount.”

Workers can opt to divide the funds equally among themselves, harness them to build amenities like a childcare facility or invest in items such as bicycles. Nyborg added that after the first cycle of these fair trade premium payouts, the factory workers agreed to divide the money equally amongst themselves as a cash payout.

That extra step to pay an FOB is necessary, explained Nyborg, as some factories have encountered problems with management skimming from the funds; others have not adequately accounted for the paying hours compensated to their employees.

Building trust absolutely matters when shifting to fair trade sourcing

If it’s still not clear, investing in a fair-trade certified factory not only requires a commitment with money and time — brands must be willing to invest their trust in a manufacturing partner. “There are always a range of hurdles and certifications inevitably take time. It took us several years to achieve fair trade because we didn't have a factory space that could meet the social and environmental standards,” Nyborg told 3p. “So, it took working with and developing a strong relationship with our manufacturing partner to get to a point where they felt it warranted building a new facility.”

Those lines of communication are crucial, Nyborg said in wrapping up her chat with 3p. “We made it very clear over the course of several years that meeting environmental and social standards was a priority of ours, and that we wouldn't ultimately work with a partner that couldn't meet them. So, it made economic sense for our partners to invest in a new space.”

Peak Design’s plunge into fair trade sourcing certainly has resulted in a product line that is not only ethical, but high-performance. 3p recently tested out its 45-liter travel backpack, the shell of which is made from recycled plastics. Despite the pummeling it took during a couple recent road trips, the bag held its shape; the zippers never snagged; its plethora of pockets may require those who space easily to keep a spreadsheet to log what went where; the waterproof exterior is also stain-proof, based on an unfortunate run-in with a to-go coffee; and its padding made it comfortable to haul around, from shoulders to the lower back.

Image credit: Leon Kaye

The ongoing U.S. Congressional hearings have provided the American public with hard evidence about the people who organized a violent insurrection against the U.S. government on January 6, 2021. That attempt failed by the narrowest of margins, but Pride Month has now become a proving ground and recruiting tool for the next effort. More violence is all but certain to come unless corporate leaders do their own organizing, and expand their DEI efforts outwards into community action and political force.

Violence has already come for your DEI program

To the extent that leading brands and local businesses publicly support Pride Month events, the violence has already come to their doorstep.

Last week, 30 men reportedly affiliated with white supremacist organizations attempted to infiltrate Pride festivities in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho with violent intent. An alert citizen and quick action by law enforcement thwarted their plan, but now the officers themselves have become the targets of white supremacist threats.

The Coeur d'Alene incident was not a one-off. White supremacists have been purposefully grooming anti-LGBTQ sentiment for more than a year, beginning with a fresh spate of state based anti-trans legislation that followed closely on the heels of the January 6 insurrection.

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While state legislatures continue to focus hate and bigotry on vulnerable trans youth, an organized effort to ban LGBTQ-themed books from school and local libraries across the nation has also gotten under way. The Guardian and other media have linked the effort to high-profile conservative funders including Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, who is credited with securing the extremist conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mainstream media is taking notice of Pride Month violence

The upsurge in anti-LGBTQ violence has not escaped the notice of mainstream media. On June 17, Ben Collins and Doha Madani of NBC News wrote a long form article detailing the attacks. They took particular note of the attackers’ focus on transgender and drag queen events. Not coincidentally, some of these events routinely take place in libraries, in the form of the popular “drag queen story hour” programs.

“Inundated with threats during Pride Month, LGBTQ+ rights advocates and allies have been forced to cancel events and involve local law enforcement authorities after a group of white nationalists were arrested outside a Pride event in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho,” they wrote.

The two reporters interviewed California state Senator Scott Wiener, who observed that “there is a very orchestrated network of right-wing accounts and personalities to coordinate on whatever the current attack message is and who’s going to be targeted. And they have an army of social media trolls who amplify their messages…It’s a very orchestrated attack machine.”

“Far-right influencers and militias have been particularly focused in the last month on “Drag Queen Story Hour” events, which have been hosted at libraries throughout the U.S. since 2015,” Collins and Madani observed.

The white supremacist connection

Earlier in the month, Amanda Seitz of AP News also took note of the organized nature of ginned-up social media focusing on LGBTQ and other vulnerable communities. 

“White nationalists and supremacists, on accounts often run by young men, are building thriving, macho communities across social media platforms like Instagram, Telegram and TikTok, evading detection with coded hashtags and innuendo,” she wrote.

“Their snarky memes and trendy videos are riling up thousands of followers on divisive issues including abortion, guns, immigration and LGBTQ rights,” she added.

Seitz referred to a Department of Homeland Security warning posted on June 7, in which the agency assessed that emotional overload and entitlement are in play.

“Threat actors have recently mobilized to violence due to factors such as personal grievances, reactions to current events, and adherence to violent extremist ideologies, including racially or ethnically motivated or anti-government/anti-authority violent extremism,” DHS warned.

Don’t just stand there: do something

Historians and political observers have long warned that the raw emotions and personal entitlement are effective weapons in the hands of power-hungry authoritarians. They have raised serious concerns that the rise in white supremacist violence, and the willingness of Republican office holders to dismiss or outright support violence, are already leading to long-term political instability including the risk of street violence, assassination, bombings and other hallmarks of a collapse in the principles of democratic representation and compromise.

If you’re still having trouble taking any of this seriously, consider that the seeds of a false flag conspiracy theory involving the nation’s food supply have already blossomed into full effect, thanks to Fox and other right-wing echo chambers.

It doesn’t have to happen. Pride Month has provided white supremacist organizations with opportunities to grow their movement, but it also provides business leaders with a solid platform for pushing back against right-wing hysteria. Top brands and local businesses alike can and should ramp up their Pride activities and mobilize their employees, clients, customers and communities to rally in support of their local Pride Month events.

Business leaders can also ramp up their support for established human rights organizations, and they can seek opportunities to support new local and grassroots efforts that push back against book bans and other white supremacist activities.

Above all — once and for all — business leaders have to stop providing financial support for Republican candidates and office holders. They have to stop treating the Republican and Democratic parties as two sides of the same politics-as-usual coin. The Republican Party has been hijacked to serve the purposes of authoritarian rulers who seek to attain and hold power regardless of the rules and principles of democratic government, and they have already assembled an army of violent thugs to serve their purpose.

Business leaders can either sit back and let the violence continue to unspool, or they can do something about it. There is no in between, any more.

Image credit: Colin Lloyd via Unsplash

Being told to watch a rom-com in order to understand what’s going on with diversity in the workplace probably wasn’t on your employee engagement bingo card. But if you want a snapshot of what your employees might actually be thinking about what’s going on in the office, virtual or otherwise, then watch Fire Island, released earlier this month on Hulu.
 
Epic comedian Joel Kim Booster wrote the screenplay and stars in the film. It’s another movie based on, yes, the plot driving Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, only the property in question is in danger of being sold or even foreclosed, not entailed as there is no male heir; unlike Austen’s Hertfordshire, there’s no St. Albans Abbey, but there is an Ice Palace; and instead of balls at which polite society waltzes in poofy outfits and tut-tuts over status, there are tea dances where the tut-tutting is over six-pack abs and who does or doesn’t belong.
 
So why stream this film, which also stars SNL’s Bowen Yang? The heartache and resentments mixed in with plenty of light and hilarious moments really aren’t all that different from what might be going on at your organization: It’s just that there’s a very good chance your workplace has much fewer light and hilarious moments. Caution: If you haven’t streamed the movie, there are some spoilers to come.

Elizabeth Bennet, meet Joel Kim Booster

Let’s start with Booster’s Noah (Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet), who’s smart and usually nails it when it comes to observing what’s going around him. But his harsh comments often get in the way, and if he worked for a company, his HR file would probably be thicker than his employer's code of ethics.

Howie as second-fiddle Jane Bennet

Then there’s Yang’s Howie (Austen’s Jane Bennet, Elizabeth’s sister), who’s far more low-key than Noah, and is probably a more reliable and dedicated employee, only that he feels so beaten down for being overlooked for his accomplishments (and, sadly, for what he perceives as his looks).

Like Austen’s Bennet sisters, Noah and Howie are close, only with one twist: The first, obviously, is that they are both Asian American, and the bond started to form when they worked together years earlier at bougie Sunday brunches, where they served bottomless mimosas to entitled and racist white patrons. Yes, now you’re starting to get it: You’ve got employees that haven’t been told as such explicitly, but they’re being typecast, constantly expected to act a certain way due to their background, but the rewards and recognition aren’t coming their way.

Now, the sparks are flying: Will vs. Noah is Elizabeth vs. Darcy

Added into the mix is Conrad Ricamora’s Will (Austen’s Fitzwilliam Darcy), both of whom are successful (well, one was born into wealth, the other earned it through hard work). In the case of the uptight Will, he’s not too keen on Noah, and for fans of Austen and the movies she inspired, here’s where it gets fun.
 
Just as Darcy describes Elizabeth with the backhanded, “She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me; and I am in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men,” Will’s first impression of Noah is summed up with a biting comment that Booster’s character is “not hot enough to be that annoying.”
 
But just like the protagonists in Austen’s classic, as Darcy and Elizabeth slowly become closer, so, too, do Noah and Will, as they realize the assumptions they had made about each other after meeting for the first time were way off-base.

Fire Island may give you a clue as to what your employees really think about the company

Fine, call this out for being a stretch, but if they worked within a U.S.-based company, Will could be the company’s chief sustainability officer with Noah running diversity programs: And both are tired about the company’s proclamations about ESG performance while, in truth, hiring people of color has stalled, while emissions are more the result of masterfully cooking the carbon accounting books instead of meaningful GHG reductions.

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As for matchy-matching Booster's characters to Austen's, we're almost done — just watch the film and have fun figuring out everyone else.

But, we have to mention Dex, the hot guy (among many in the movie, self-assumed or otherwise) in Fire Island who wins some sympathy at first, but like Austen’s George Wickham, this fellow has a long history of nefarious behavior. It turns out that the problem with Dex isn’t his OnlyFans account, but that he exploits guys — and is about as morally bankrupt as Wickham, who had a long history of scamming people out of their money. Dex is like the C-suite "bro" executive who Noah and Will would come to despise, as in Dex’s case, the problem isn’t that he uses the company’s digital assets to waste time buying Tom Brady swag on eBay; instead, he mouths off about women, guys who don’t look like him and climate science: And all the while, he’s the company’s public-facing figure touting all of its good work on ESG and DEI.
 
Dust off that old paperback version of Pride and Prejudice, fire up Hulu on your Fire TV, and we’ll leave the rest going down the rabbit hole of “who would be who at my company” to you. Bottom line: If you’re not seeing the facial expressions and signs of exasperation of the characters of Fire Island in how your own employees interact with you and each other, there’s a good chance you’re not paying attention.
 
Sidebar: As for Fire Island — as in the real place, which was where much of this movie was actually filmed — well, here’s your climate change reminder: There’s a good chance that rising sea levels could put the popular resort area under water in 50 to 60 years.
 
Image credit: Hulu pressroom

The green hydrogen trend has been sparking interest among leading oil and gas stakeholders for the past couple of years, and now it looks like the floodgates are open. The baby-step phase is coming to an end. Serious money is in play, at a scale needed to hasten the transition to a more sustainable low-carbon future.

Spotlight on green hydrogen

Bloomberg covered the latest green hydrogen news earlier this week. Under the headline, “Big Oil Bets That Green Hydrogen Is the Future of Energy,” reporters Will Mathis, Laura Hurst and Francois De Beaupuy noted that “major oil companies are finally planning the kind of large-scale investments that would make green hydrogen a serious business.” 

“They’re chasing a very particular vision of a low-carbon future — multibillion dollar developments that generate vast concentrations of renewable electricity and convert it into chemicals or clean fuels that can be shipped around the world to power trucks, ships or even airplanes,” they added.

To be clear, it is important to distinguish green hydrogen from other terms.

Most of the activity in the green hydrogen area involves deploying wind and solar power to generate electricity for electrolysis systems, which push hydrogen gas from water.

Biomass, biogas and organic-rich wastewater are other emerging renewable resources for green hydrogen. 

Harvesting hydrogen from recovered, synthetic resources, such as industrial waste gas or recycled plastic is another emerging area. It does not fit the consensus on “green,” as a term applied to renewable resources. However, recovered resources can be a more sustainable alternative to the conventional means of producing hydrogen, which has long relied on virgin natural gas and, to a lesser extent, coal.

What’s the matter with “clean” hydrogen?

In contrast to the burst of activity around green hydrogen, fossil energy stakeholders have struggled to make “clean” hydrogen happen.

“Clean” hydrogen generally refers to natural gas paired with carbon capture systems. That approach may have passed muster years ago, but it is out of step with the demands of the 21st-century supply chain. 

Hydrogen is widely used throughout the global economy, in agriculture, toiletries and pharmaceuticals as well as manufacturing. Fresh demands are being placed on the hydrogen supply by the transportation sector, as the fuel cell industry grows alongside interest in hydrogen and ammonia fuels.

Leading brands and other manufacturers are scrambling to decarbonize themselves upstream as well as downstream. Steelmakers, for example, are beginning to invest in green hydrogen systems because auto makers are beginning to demand “green” steel, in accord with the growing consumer demand for low-carbon products.

The global supply of green hydrogen is minuscule now, and costs are high relative to conventional hydrogen from fossil sources. However, as economies of scale kick in for green hydrogen, and the supply increases, the appeal of fossil sources — and their heavy environmental baggage — fades away.

The U.S. could be a green hydrogen leader

Much of the shovels-in-the-ground activity is taking place overseas, but the U.S. is poised to catch up and become a green hydrogen leader in the global marketplace.

“Owing to its large refining and chemical sectors, the United States is already one of the largest producers and consumers of hydrogen,” the International Energy Agency pointed out in a recent overview of the global hydrogen market. 

The IEA also noted that, due to its sprawling network of pipelines and other infrastructure, the U.S. has a running start on the green hydrogen trend, compared to parts of the world where renewable resources are abundant, but transportation infrastructure is lacking.

Proposals for the creation of green hydrogen “hubs” have been emerging in a number of U.S. states in recent months, from California and Texas to an ambitious tri-state initiative launched by Connecticut, New York and New Jersey.

Another leading example in the U.S. is the “ACES” Advanced Clean Energy Storage project in Utah, which leverages an unusual underground formation for bulk green H2 storage.

As one sign of growing momentum for the green hydrogen movement in the U.S., last April the Department of Energy (DOE) revived its long-dormant Loan Programs Office to issue a loan guarantee of $504.4 million for ACES, citing its massive scale and innovative use of electrolysis.

“Advanced Clean Energy Storage will capture excess renewable energy when it is most abundant, store it as hydrogen, then deploy it as fuel for the Intermountain Power Agency’s (IPA) IPP Renewed Project — a hydrogen-capable gas turbine combined cycle power plant that intends to incrementally be fueled by 100 percent clean hydrogen by 2045,” the Energy Department explained.

The DOE is also promoting the hydrogen hub trend in other regions of the U.S. with a new $8 billion round of competitive funding through the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The program includes a carveout for natural gas, but it also mandates funding for at least one green hydrogen hub deploying renewables, and another hub deploying electricity from nuclear power plants.

Oil and gas giants to the rescue?

Fossil energy stakeholders have much work to do before they can claim credit for slowing down, let alone reversing, the catastrophic damage wreaked under a high-carbon economy.

Still, green hydrogen is a good place to start. The renewable energy angle makes this source of fuel a logical next step for oil and gas giants that are already investing in wind or solar energy.

Shell and Equinor, for example, are participating in the EU’s sprawling NortH2 project, which leverages offshore wind power in the North Sea. Shell has also been participating in exploratory talks for a green hydrogen hub in Texas.

TotalEnergies is in the mix with a 10-year, $50 billion green hydrogen partnership with Adani Group. In other recent news, BP announced a 40.5 percent stake in the AREH green hydrogen project in Australia, which is billed as one of the largest in the world.

Of course, many outliers still remain. Chevron and ExxonMobil, for example, are leaning on natural gas with carbon capture. Nevertheless, the green hydrogen die has been cast. Corporations that don’t fit the mold risk being left out in the cold as the global supply chain shakes free of the fossil energy burden.

Image credit: Gerd Altmann via Pixabay

The tide is turning on how Americans view responsibility for plastic pollution. This year’s updated survey on plastic waste and consumption from WWF found that more than 50 percent of consumers want businesses to be held accountable for how they reduce and recycle that waste. This shift in attitudes toward prioritizing the role of plastic producers in pollution should finally signal to policymakers that this is a problem that needs to be tackled at its source. 

There’s a reason the phrase goes reduce first, reuse second and recycle last. Yet, by putting the onus on the consumer instead of the producer, the first two have been all but forgotten in favor of a largely ineffective market-based recycling system. Until recent shifts in consumer sentiments, manufacturers have had little motivation to reduce plastic production, especially packaging. And why should they? Packaging can act as advertising — the bigger and more colorful it is the more attention it can draw away from competitors on the same shelf — and as a theft deterrent, such as with clamshells.

So not only does recycling after the fact instead of reducing at the source make no logical sense, but successful recycling is dependent on a whole range of factors. Consumers have to care enough not only to recycle but to educate themselves about how to do so correctly. Contamination from unwashed food containers leads to whole batches of recyclables being thrown out. "Wishcycling" items that are not actually recyclable can wreak havoc on sorting machines, require extra labor to resolve and add to more contamination in the system.

There also has to be a market for all of those recyclables — somewhere for them to go after they are collected. The U.S. lacks an internal recycling infrastructure that can handle the sheer volume produced, which historically meant selling our recycling to China. Except that doesn’t mean the materials were all recycled even after reaching the other side of the ocean. Thirty percent of all recyclables (not just plastics) sold to China were contaminated and unable to be processed, effectively exporting U.S. waste and pollution to the Chinese landscapes and seascapes. The logistics of that all changed in 2018 when China switched up its standards and was no longer willing to accept most plastic. The U.S. tried to send its waste to other Asian countries, including Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia after that. However, those nations’ governments quickly instituted bans of their own after communities were inundated.

Still, the U.S. continues to ship off over a million metric tons of plastic each year. So, where does it go now? Cambodia, Ethiopia and Senegal are a few examples of countries that are being overwhelmed by the deluge, of which it is estimated that 20 to 70 percent is actually trash. Once the plastic is overseas much of it is burned or ends up in a landfill, whether it is actually recyclable or not. The environmental and health costs of this are not only staggering but point to our present system of curbside recycling as more feel-good for American consumers than it is effective. 

In its State of the Planet report from 2020, Columbia University quoted Stephanie Kersten-Johnston, an adjunct professor at their Sustainability Management Master’s Program, as saying: “It will only ever make economic sense to recycle a small subset of materials, which means we will have to look beyond recycling alone to solve for our broader waste. We need to tap into new business models that allow us to reduce our consumption in the first place, and re-use materials where we can.”

With only 9 percent of plastic produced ever having been recycled, it’s obvious that we are approaching the problem from the wrong direction. Policymakers must deal with the overwhelming amount of plastic being made at the source by encouraging a huge reduction in production and a transition to reusable containers and products. It is time for producers to take heed of shifting consumer opinions and not only reduce the amount of waste they produce but look towards making as much packaging as possible reusable. This creates an opportunity for new ways of doing business, including refill shops and returnable container programs — the latter of which are viewed favorably by 50 percent of survey respondents. The fact that only 20 percent viewed them negatively, begs the question: why aren’t more widespread programs already in the works?

Image credit: A DLT via Pexels
 

Leading tech companies have been fending off the reputational damage that can occur when their own employees point out contradictions between their mission statement and their actual track record on climate action, sexual harassment, human rights and other concerns. Now SpaceX is taking a turn on the hot seat. However, instead of taking steps to put out the fire, as some have done, SpaceX has driven itself into risk territory, facing the prospect of losing out in the race to attract — and retain — top talent.

Employees warn SpaceX on behavior

The dustup began last Wednesday, when The Verge published the contents of an open letter to SpaceX management, posted on an internal Microsoft Teams channel. According to The Verge’s reporter, Loren Grush, more than 2,600 SpaceX employees are on the channel. In a follow-up story, Grush reported that more than 400 employees signed the letter before it was taken offline, less than two days after it was posted. The Verge also cited a source who claimed that many employees used other means to voice support for the letter without facing the risk of being fired.

The letter was composed by a group of employees concerned about SpaceX CEO and Chief Engineer Elon Musk’s habit of hurling insults and other embarrassing comments on Twitter, and the impact of his behavior on their company’s reputation. They were especially concerned over his dismissive response to sexual harassment allegations that recently surfaced against him.

“It is critical to make clear to our teams and to our potential talent pool that his messaging does not reflect our work, our mission, or our values,” the authors warned.

The authors of the letter also raised substantial concerns over the company’s mishandling of harassment reports.

“To be clear: recent events are not isolated incidents; they are emblematic of a wider culture that underserves many of the people who enable SpaceX’s extraordinary accomplishments,” they wrote.

Taking a detour in the race for top talent

The authors of the letter emphasized that the behavior of SpaceX management, up to and including its CEO, was putting the company at risk by undercutting its ability to attract and retain top talent.

“SpaceX’s current systems and culture do not live up to its stated values, as many employees continue to experience unequal enforcement of our oft-repeated ‘No Asshole,’ and ‘Zero Tolerance,’ policies,” they advised, later adding that “The collaboration we need to make life multiplanetary is incompatible with a culture that treats employees as consumable resources.”

Naming a key DEI policy with an expletive is both insulting and dismissive, and the letter notes that the terms of the policy were never outlined in detail.

“Is the culture we are fostering now the one which we aim to bring to Mars and beyond?” the authors conclude.

A giant step backwards for free speech and employee activism at SpaceX

Considering that Musk’s interest in free speech has ramped up during his negotiations to purchase Twitter, the response of SpaceX to the letter was either extremely ironic, extremely hypocritical, extremely dangerous or all three.

As reported by Reuters and other media, SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell summarily fired at least five employees, who were presumably responsible for composing or circulating the letter.

The threat of being fired without warning is certainly one effective way to curtail employee speech, but Shotwell went far beyond that. 

In a classic case of victim-blaming, Shotwell wrote: “The letter, solicitations and general process made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that did not reflect their views.”

“We have too much critical work to accomplish and no need for this kind of overreaching activism,” she added.

Those few, simple lines reflect an entire opus of Orwellian, white supremacist thinking, in which intolerable behavior is used as a weapon against those who fight intolerance. The theme of hurt feelings is the common thread running through a series of phony controversies bouncing around the white supremacist echo chamber, raising a cacophony of lies over voter fraud, critical race theory, diversity training, trans rights and other matters that have an impact on corporate diversity, equality and inclusion programs.

Intolerance, entitlement, violence

If the language deployed by Shotwell sounds familiar, that is no accident.

It is the same, disingenuous “diversity” argument weaponized by Mark Zuckerberg in his public defense of Facebook board member Peter Thiel, who played an instrumental role in the 2016 campaign of former president Donald J. Trump.

“We care deeply about diversity. That's easy to say when it means standing up for ideas you agree with. It's a lot harder when it means standing up for the rights of people with different viewpoints to say what they care about. That's even more important,” Zuckerberg wrote on an employee message board in October 2016 (emphasis added).

Whether intentionally or not, in that brief note Zuckerberg raises feelings – “what they care about” — to the level of a sacrosanct, inarguable truth that is more important than any moral, ethical, legal or constitutional judgement over what is actually being said, or done.

From there, it is a straight line to the eruption of post-election emotion, entitlement and physical violence that culminated in the almost-successful insurrection of January 6, 2021, and which continues to this day in the attacks on Pride Month events across the nation by organized groups of white supremacists.

The previous insurrection failed, but the Pride Month attacks have become a proving ground and recruiting tool for those bent on succeeding the next time.

Companies that ignore the warning signs – or which, like SpaceX, argue for the entitlement of personal feelings – need to stop suppressing employee activists and start paying attention.

Image credit: Bill Jelen via Unsplash
 

In December 2018, Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100 came to Johannesburg. It gave us thrills, great music, and most notably, major commitments in the fight toward ending extreme poverty. Among these, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, Tyler Perry committed to donating $1 million to support 50 young changemakers across the African continent.

It was the birth of the Global Citizen Fellowship Program, powered by BeyGOOD, which provides young people with opportunities to gain experience working on social impact projects through a paid year-long fellowship.

So far, since its launch in 2019, the fellowship program has empowered 35 Africans — including the three of us — between the ages of 21-25 with the skills and tools we need to thrive — not only during our time with Global Citizen, but in any and all future endeavours. The recipients of this fellowship opportunity, powered by BeyGOOD, also do not shy away from giving back to the communities that raised us.

In May this year, the young people that make up the fellowship's third cohort, hailing from Nigeria and South Africa, embarked on a project — which we named “We Can. Period.” — to raise awareness on the issue of period poverty, so common here in Africa.

As part of the “We Can. Period.” project, we brought workshops to schools in Lagos and Johannesburg in the week of Menstrual Hygiene Day on May 28. In alignment with Global Citizen’s 2022 campaign to Empower Girls NOW, the key objective for our project was to support girls to better manage their periods, provide free sanitary products, particularly more eco-friendly period products such as reusable cloth pads and menstrual cups, and advocate for better menstrual health education and policies.

Partnerships and Donations

To support the project, we partnered with UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, in Nigeria, and the Menstrual Project and Palesa Pads in South Africa to help leverage collective efforts to drive real and sustainable change in the Lagos and Johannesburg communities. The UNFPA Nigeria team provided 100 reusable sanitary pads and 60 yards of fabric for the girls who participated at the school workshop.

Meanwhile, the Menstrual Project donated over 200 sanitary products, and gave the schoolchildren a 45-minute workshop based on a comprehensive curriculum that consisted of period poverty, menstrual health and management, and more. The fellows in South Africa collected 100 sanitary pads to donate to the schools on the day of the workshop, and the remaining pads will be provided to the school in the coming months. Palesa Pads also gave a great interactive demonstration on using reusable cloth pads that the children absolutely loved.

Quiz Action

As a Global Citizen, you know the importance we place on taking action. So, as part of our project, we also launched a pan-African quiz that you can join us in taking, A Period Should Not Be a Full Stop in a Girl’s Life, Find Out Why. The digital quiz action helps Global Citizens learn more about the severity of period poverty as a public health, human rights, and socio-economic issue globally.

The Workshops — South Africa and Nigeria

Our first workshop took place on May 25 at Aiyetoro Grammar School in Lagos, Nigeria, where the fellows were joined by Global Citizen Champions of Change, Kiki Mordi and Seyi Oluyole. Talking to the students, both Mordi and Oluyole emphasised the importance of good menstrual health management and also the role that boys can play in supporting girls during their period.

“Boys, remember that you’re supposed to be a support system for your classmates,” Mordi said during her session. “If you see any girl struggling, ask for ways you can help.”

Oluyole’s session focused on her personal journey and experience with menstrual health. During her session, called Period Poverty: My Personal Journey, she talked about growing up in a rural community in Lagos with limited access to sanitary products.

“I was once like you,” she said. “If I can make it to where I am today, you can too.”

Students were also taught how to use reusable sanitary pads, calculate their menstrual cycle, and advocate for better hygiene facilities in a series of sessions coordinated by the BeyGOOD fellows. At the end of the workshop, sanitary products were handed out to the students, including the reusable sanitary pads donated by UNFPA, and a pad bank was set up at the school.

A couple of days later in South Africa, our second workshop took place, at Yeoville Community School in Johannesburg on May 27. As well as the schoolchildren and BeyGOOD fellows in South Africa, Global Citizen Champions of Change Penny Lebyane, Amonge Sinxoto, and Patricia Kihoro also joined the workshop in person; while Champions of Change Takkies Dinwiddy and the “Minister of Menstruation'' Candice Chiwa supported the #WeCanPeriod campaign digitally on their social media platforms.

During the workshop, the Menstrual Project asked the grade 4 and 5 girls (aged 10-12 years old) what they have heard about periods. “Bad, embarrassing, disgusting”, were just some of the responses from these girls. One student said: “I talked to my dad about my periods, and he told me this is something I have to talk to my mom about.”

The girls were then told that the negative things they’d heard about periods were all part of the wider issue of stigma and taboo connected to menstruation, which often leads to a sense of shame or embarrassment — particularly for younger girls and women — when talking about their periods. It can also lead to the idea that periods are somehow not normal or are dirty, when they’re just a natural part of life.

This provided a great segue for Simphiwe Mahlangu from Palesa Pads, who explained more about using reusable cloth pads and how to have a healthier relationship with your periods and your body. Our Champions of Changes, Lebyane and Kihoro, then spoke of their own personal experiences with menstruation and why they advocate to combat period poverty.

“When I was advocating for period poverty in Kenya [as a part of the movement #TrekforMandela], they were surprised to learn that it is also such a problem in South Africa,” said Lebyane. “And I was like, ‘Yes!’, so that is why I was climbing Kilimanjaro. To create awareness.”

Previously published in the 3BL Media newsroom.

Image credit: Global Citizen

Federal recognition of Juneteenth came more than 150 years after the holiday began in the Black community — and yet only the second year into official, nationwide status, and a slew of businesses have already tried to capitalize while others have even insulted the community with stereotype-laden offerings. 

Walmart led the pack in exploitative marketing this year with its “Celebration Edition” Juneteenth-themed ice cream. The corporation — which is majority-owned by a family of white billionaires — even went so far as to put a trademark logo on the package after the word Juneteenth.

TriplePundit asked DEI expert Kimberly Lee Minor to comment on the fiasco. Her response: “The Walmart Juneteenth ice cream debacle was the latest example of lack of cultural competence as well as lack of diverse power in the room where it happens. Do we think that the slaves had red velvet cake on June 19th, 1865, and is that why they thought it was a great idea to make artificially flavored red velvet ice cream and label it for Juneteenth? It was not only culturally incompetent, but it was also offensive. The problem could have definitely been avoided with more diverse leadership weighing in, but not just weighing in, having authority to make a decision. Being in the room without agency isn’t enough.”

HerSuiteSpot founder Marsha Guerrier broke the issue of leadership and authority down for TriplePundit last March when she described how part of her motivation to start her own company came from the unshakeable feeling that corporate America was just using her to tick a diversity box and wasn’t really utilizing her full set of leadership skills. In a way, such corporate DEI failures mimic what is happening when businesses try to make a quick buck off of Juneteenth as it is an attempt to profit off of Black people and culture while simultaneously failing to create real equity and inclusion at the C-Suite level.

While Walmart has since removed the exploitative ice cream from its freezers, the apology falls flat considering the retailer should have known better to begin with. TriplePundit asked Minor about the appropriateness of non-Black-owned businesses creating products or services with Juneteenth in mind, as in — “Is it ever okay?”

“I believe commercially benefitting from the holiday that celebrates another culture’s recognition of legal freedom is inappropriate.  I can’t think of a situation where this would feel right. The savagery and de-humanizing nature of slavery is a dark stain on America that was based on making profits off the backs of a race of human beings,” said Minor.

So, what should businesses interested in recognizing Juneteenth do instead? Minor encourages honoring the holiday instead of exploiting it. “The best way for businesses to approach Juneteenth is to allow their employees to observe the holiday. Provide educational materials to the team to explain the significance of the holiday.”

An Amazon facility could have benefited from such advice in 2020 when it offered its majority-Black employees chicken and waffles in celebration, though the educational piece certainly would have been reversed had management listened to and learned from its workers. Sybil R. Williams, the director of African American and African diaspora studies at American University encourages employers to avoid such culturally insensitive mistakes by having conversations with their Black employees. She is quoted in HR Dive with this advice for starting the discussion: “What is it that you would like to see that furthers actual Black engagement at this company? How can we incorporate Black history in a given subject area or at a given time?”

The Indianapolis Children’s Museum set a horrifying example of a non-profit serving up stereotypes instead of conversation and education. The museum recently sold a watermelon salad as a part of its Juneteenth-themed food court offerings. The non-profit places the blame for the offensive salad on their food court vendor, which suggests that neither entity has taken DEI seriously. Both would do well to take the rest of Minor’s advice personally — “They can also use Juneteenth as a catalyst, if necessary, to make the work culture more inclusive.”

Image credit: Derek Lamar via Unsplash
 

Regarding this year’s commemoration of Juneteenth, it’s appropriate to share the good news; and, there is bad news. 

The good news is that on June 19, 1865 (known as “Juneteenth”), Union General Gordon Granger traveled to Galveston, Texas, to announce General Order No.3: Slavery had been abolished. For Texas slaves in particular, the Juneteenth declaration signaled the beginning of a new life. In the context of significant dates in American history, the day freedom is awarded becomes a milestone like no other. And now, the holiday is celebrated in most states.

The bad news is that in the span of the last 157 years, the notion of “being equal” for most Blacks has not been fully realized, maybe not even by half. 

In terms of wealth inequality, the median Black household has a net worth of about $24,000, as opposed to the median household figure of $188,000 for white households. And white people own 86 percent of the wealth in the United States versus less than three percent for Blacks.

Black men earn only 87 cents for every dollar a white man earns, and historical data shows that “no progress has been made in reducing income and wealth inequalities between black and white households over the past 70 years.”

In this age of keen focus on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and in spite of self-congratulatory reports and announcements, including those filing in right around this year’s Juneteenth, these numbers seem to suggest that most companies don’t really incorporate pay equity analysis into their program scheme; otherwise, would the percentage be so skewed? 

In terms of one of the most consequential indices for predicting upward mobility and wealth in the United States — education — again, the numbers reflect a gap in achievement, likely attributed to lack of inclusion in the systems that produce the greatest rewards. 

For the school year 2018-2019, the high school graduation rate for whites was 89 percent; for Blacks the number was 80 percent. 

Today, only 57 percent of Black students have access to college-ready courses, compared to 71 percent of white students. And the five-year college graduation rate is 62.2 percent for whites, and 40.5 percent for Blacks. 

But the fine points of what encompasses racial disparity for Blacks are not always considered or purposefully ignored. 

For example, Blacks are the only minority in American history to enter this country as slaves. And the self-awareness and cultural comfort of traditions once known to the free man or free woman in their own land were rapidly and often violently extinguished. This peculiar status created an immediate and continuing imbalance permeating the nature of the relationship between Blacks and other Americans, especially whites. 

Equally injurious is the fact that Black Americans, far before the first Juneteenth, had their start in America as “less than human.” In 1787, the status for Blacks was established by an article in the Constitution called The Three-fifths Compromise, which calculated Congressional representation based on population. Slaves were to be counted as three-fifths of a human being.

And, the negative impact from the practice of name-changing created personal and cultural insecurity within this social group. Leaving out racial epithets, Blacks have been Negros, “colored,” African American, and now Black with a capital “B.” 

Whether self-proclaimed or assigned, this unsettling practice has created a diversity of thought and expectations that exists within the Black population that is often ignored. Depending on when you were born, the experience of each generation will factor into behavior and outcomes in the workplace differently; meaning that inclusion is not a one-size-fits all. 

Instead of the American dream, after the Civil War came a baptism into the realm of racism in the form of  Jim Crow laws which re-segregated the south. The “emancipated” relationship between Blacks and whites was characterized by firehoses, dog attacks and lynching for decades to come. Today this continues in the form of law enforcement brutality and teenagers who intentionally commit mass murder where Blacks live and work. 

Abject poverty, illiteracy and the absence of adequate healthcare have become generational for some Blacks. 

With this history as a backdrop, 157 years is both a long time to struggle for change without sustained success, yet not enough time to have realized the American dream.

Where Black Americans are concerned, the DEI topic must include these ugly nuances. In fact, all societal groups should be afforded the same consideration of the whole person; that is, if the goal of a corporation is to achieve authentic DEI. 

Yet, a 2021 study based on 357 corporate respondents showed that only 40 percent of companies offer DEI-related learning and development opportunities to all employees. Less than half say that their workforce reflects the demographics of today’s marketplace. 

Racism is not a white problem, or even a corporate problem. But it lies within the authority of both to effect change. And such a lofty destination as equality demands equal participation. The path to success is realized at the intersection where willingness along with self-determination and personal responsibility meet—factors immune to legislation.

Should Blacks and the rest of the nation celebrate Juneteenth? To the extent that it was a glorious day in 1865 but requires some context to be relevant today: yes.

Image credit: Tasha Jolley via Unsplash