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According to the UN, 6.5 million Ukrainians have been displaced within Ukraine, and according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) more than 4 million people have been forced to flee the country since the invasion began on February 24, making this the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. The scale of the unfolding humanitarian crisis in mind-numbing: experts estimate that 12 million people will be in need of humanitarian assistance.

At Cisco, we have long focused on helping vulnerable populations – those unhoused or displaced by conflict and natural disasters – meet their critical needs. We leverage our people, technology, and financial resources to support our nonprofit and non-governmental partners that are working tirelessly to help those displaced and in need.

Cisco employees have donated nearly $1M to 19 nonprofit organizations featured in our Ukraine Humanitarian Assistance Fund; with Cisco Foundation matching, we have raised nearly $1.9 million in total giving. In addition, Cisco has donated $1M to the UNHCR to support their relief activities and support services for Ukrainians fleeing the country, while our Cisco Crisis Response team is working with UNHCR to connect refugee centers and support hubs. The Cisco Foundation has also allocated $1M in donations to support local nonprofits efforts in and outside of Ukraine.

Here is more information on what some of our key nonprofit partners are doing to support those in need:

• Americares has Emergency Response Teams on the ground in Poland and Romania, assessing health needs and coordinating shipments of medicine and supplies for Ukraine. Americares response is focused on delivering medicine and medical supplies, supporting health services, and providing mental health and psychosocial support for refugees and survivors who have experienced trauma.
• Mercy Corps is on the ground in Ukraine, Romania, and Poland, providing funding and support to local organizations in their relief efforts and delivery of humanitarian aid. Mercy Corps is working with partners to provide emergency cash assistance, allowing those affected to meet their most pressing needs as well as providing up-to-date information in multiple languages to families on the move.
• Save the Children has been operating in Ukraine since 2014, delivering essential humanitarian aid to children and their families. Save the Children is in Ukraine, Poland, Romania, and Lithuania prioritizing cash and voucher assistance so families can purchase food and other essentials. Save the Children is also supporting the immediate needs of girls and boys with child protection, psychosocial support and education programs.
• UNHCR is assisting internally displaced persons (IDPs) inside Ukraine, and coordinating the delivery of protection, assistance, and solutions for refugees in collaboration with national authorities in neighboring countries. Together with UNICEF, UNHCR is setting up Children and Family Support Hubs with key protection and social services for children and families with specific needs.
• World Central Kitchen (WCK) began serving hot meals within hours of the initial invasion of Ukraine, and quickly set up at the eight border crossings with Poland. Since then, WCK’s Chefs for Ukraine response has grown rapidly, and is distributing nourishing food and almost 250K meals per day across 7 countries, including Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Moldova, Slovakia, Romania, and Spain. In addition to their field kitchen, WCK is working with local restaurants, caterers, and food trucks to provide fresh and comforting meals at border crossings, reception centers, shelters, and other locations along their journey. WCK is also distributing bulk food product including produce and dry goods in Ukraine to supplement the strained food supply chain.

If you are a Cisco employee, you can help by donating to the Ukraine Humanitarian Assistance Fund in Bright Funds. If you do not work for Cisco but would like to help, we have an external Ukraine Humanitarian Assistance Fund.

Also, please consider making a direct donation to one of the organizations listed above. Cash donations enable nonprofits to purchase the supplies and services they need, and to support the most immediate needs of the communities they serve.

View original content here and in the 3BL Media newsroom.

image credit: Mathias P.R. Reding via Pexels

Plant-based protein companies keep rolling out new products, and food tech companies keep making what was once unpalatable actually possible to nosh on. The result is an industry still poised for growth, a trend the Good Food Institute reaffirmed with its recent series of new reports that covered this industry in great depth. As TriplePundit perused through the reports, here are six big stories that we gleaned from GFI’s copious amount of research.

Investment keeps moving along, big time

If anything, the amount of money plunged into plant-based protein companies shows that this market will not be going away any time soon. Last year, almost $2 billion was invested in companies making plant-based meat, egg and dairy alternatives. That amount in 2021 alone represents about 30 percent of all-time investments in plant-based protein products when going as far back as 1980.

Growth in sales of plant-based protein is steady

Last year in the U.S., GFI estimated that plant-based food sales grew 6.2 percent. That may seem like a tepid number at first glance, but considering supply chain snafus, inflation and the global pandemic, that is a rate in growth that many sectors would envy. Such growth is three times faster than the total amount of food sales at large. While the sales of plant-based meat alternatives held steady during 2021 compared to the previous year, milk alternatives grew 4 percent. As for plant-based egg substitutes, this small segment witnessed a huge surge in 2021, as in 42 percent over the previous year to $39 million in sales.  

The taste is getting there, and new technologies are sorting out the texture

True, these aren’t your veggie burgers of the early 2000s, and now that companies have been able to find that blend of pea protein, vegetable fibers, soy, heme, all of the above or none of the above, the next frontier will be the ability to mimic the texture of meat and other animal products. On that point, companies have been able to improve how they apply food technology. One way is through shear-cell technology, a process that creates a more fibrous and chewable texture through applying pressure to plant proteins through two rotating cylindrical plates. The other is by turning to 3D printing, which can result in recreating (gulp!) food products that are similar to the makeup of whole-muscle meat cuts.

Plant-based pork options are definitely now a thing

For several years, much of the focus on plant-based protein was on finding alternatives to beef and chicken, which makes sense considering the potential fiscal sweetener of landing a contract with a massive fast food chain or food service company. But across much of the world, the meat of choice is often pork for a bevy of reasons: cost, versatility, and its relative efficiency when it comes to raising and production. The outcome could result in a long-term market bonanza, and companies are starting to get it. Along with Impossible Foods, the brands that have recently rolled out plant-based alternatives to pork products include Field Roast, Wicked Kitchen, Hungry Planet, Horray Foods and Heura.

Price parity is on the horizon

As prices for plant-based protein shift to the point at which they will be more competitive with animal-based products, the possibility of greater market share becomes even more promising. Data from 2021 suggests such a trend is already underway, and dovetails at a time when the price of meat-based products has increased by more than 10 percent. The companies that have cut prices, or say they have plans to make such reductions, include Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat and OmniFoods.

It’s a market for big brands, and more multinationals want in

Amongst the 10 largest plant-based protein brands based on U.S. sales, some independent names stand out: Beyond Meat, Dr. Praeger’s, Impossible Foods and Tofurky. But large multinationals comprise the rest of the list, including U.S.-based Conagra (Gardein), Kellogg (Morningstar Farms) and Kraft Heinz (Boca); Maple Leaf Foods (Lightlife) of Canada and Monde Nissen (Quorn) of the Philippines round out the list. Watch for even more global players to jump into this sector, as more large companies are seeking some plant-based skin in the game with new product launches, a roster that includes Nestlé, PepsiCo, Tyson and Korea’s soy and tofu giant, Pulmuone.

Image credit: Milada Vigerova via Unsplash

If you live in the U.S., your federal taxes are due today, offering many grim reminders. Here's one of them: While many of the largest and most profitable U.S. companies pay little or even zero income taxes and the wealthy have the means to evade paying their share, the federal government is continuing its war on the poor. One example of failure within U.S. federal policy is the ongoing practice of the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) disproportionately auditing poorer U.S. households.

Hence there’s an opportunity for companies within and linked to the financial sector to make good on any of their social impact agendas, notably as it’s currently Financial Literacy Month. For many families grossing $25,000 a year or less, how can the latest no-cost fintech apps or campaigns to improve how citizens approach personal finance do any good if there’s the specter of an IRS audit on the horizon? As more than half of Americans are estimated to have less than three months of savings to cover an emergency, an envelope in the mail from the IRS could be as frightening as an emergency room visit or the sudden need for a car repair. Bottom line: The less a person makes, the less likely he or she has an accountant on speed dial.

Going back to the threat of an IRS audit for working families: Current evidence suggests that the IRS has no plans to curb such plans any time soon. In fact, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University found that audits of wage-earners making $25,000 or less has increased by more than 25 percent so far this year when compared to the 2021 tax season.

“If IRS continues at this same pace for the rest of this fiscal year, audit rates would inch up to 13.5 per 1000 returns — slightly higher than the phenomenally high rates that occurred last year when IRS audited the poorest families claiming an anti-poverty earned income tax credit at five times the rate for everyone else,” concluded TRAC’s researchers.

The problem is starting to score the attention of Congress, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) among the leaders calling out both the U.S. Treasury and the IRS for these distorted audit rates.

Much of the problem lies in the feds’ decisions to slash the budget of the IRS over the period of several years, a trend that occurred during both the Barack Obama and Donald Trump administrations. But few observers are noticing as the IRS keeps losing staffers not through mass layoffs, but through attrition.

“The last time the IRS had fewer than 10,000 revenue agents was 1953, when the economy was a seventh of its current size. And the IRS is still shrinking,” Paul Kiel and Jesse Eisinger wrote for ProPublica back in late 2018.

Another problem is the lack of transparency as to how the IRS is conducting its audits now. “While the [Joe] Biden administration’s American Families Plan Tax Compliance Agenda committed to not increasing the rates of audits for those earning less than $400,000 annually, there is no consistent public release of audit data or a plan to release audit data, making it virtually impossible to monitor compliance with this commitment,” Warren and Chu wrote last month.

Years of bad headlines along with how the tax collection agency has been portrayed in popular culture have given the IRS a brand reputation that ranks about as high as the Ford Pinto and New Coke. Nevertheless, it’s clear having a crew of auditors that is smaller now than when Dwight Eisenhower was president — even with the transformation of technology now available at hand — makes no sense. The current head of the IRS, Charles Rettig, told Congress earlier this month that the federal government is losing about $1 trillion in paid taxes a year. But trying to extract that amount from hourly wage workers who are rightfully claiming a federal tax credit is the financial equivalent of getting blood from a stone.

Going back to financial inclusion, the IRS’s continued reign of auditing terror opens a door to financial and professional services companies. Offering support for poor families who get such a nasty-gram from the IRS would not only offer families relief, but also provides an engagement opportunity for companies as they allow their employees to tackle some much-needed community work within the neighborhoods in which they live and work.

Image credit: John Tyson via Unsplash

Among its many environmental impacts, it’s estimated that the fashion industry consumes about 10 percent of water used by industry worldwide. While some companies are tackling the adverse impacts of the global fashion industry with the type of raw materials they use, and others look to revamp one or more stages of the textile manufacturing process, Seattle-based Evrnu says it is creating systemic change. The company has recently launched what it claims to be the world’s first high-performance recyclable lyocell material made from 100 percent textile waste.

Evrnu’s mission dates back to when its co-founder, Stacy Flynn, spent a month in China, where she noticed the effects of toxic wastewater from textile factories on local communities. Founded by Flynn and Christopher Stanev, both former employees of big-name textile companies, Evrnu aims to address textile waste and pollution as a whole. With its textile engineering system, NuCycl, the company says it can generate its NuCycl r-lyocell fabric using only cotton textile waste as its base material.

The company's manufacturing process begins with the sorting of textile waste, then shreds it and in the end, purifies it. The recycled textile pulp is then transformed into a highly durable ‘r-lyocell’ fiber through a closed-loop method. The final fiber, says Evrnu, is one of superior durability, and can replace and even outperform virgin cellulosic and plastic-based fabrics, which account for 90 percent of all current textile fibers.

Evrnu recently debuted this material with a T-shirt designed by Carlos Campos; in the past, the company has worked with brands such as Levi Strauss that explored using waste materials to manufacture apparel.

How Evrnu disrupts the textile manufacturing process

Evrnu’s lyocell product is regenerative as it is made entirely from cotton textile waste.

For decades, man-made cellulosic fibers have been generated from dissolved pulp, often from virgin wood. Evrnu’s technology uses recycled textile pulp in the place of virgin tree pulp and processes it into lyocell. In contrast to synthetic fibers including nylon and rayon, which have a chemical makeup entirely different from wood-based cellulose, Evrnu’s lyocell product can be recycled multiple times as its structure has not been altered. That is in contrast to synthetic fibers such as rayon and nylon, which cannot be recycled due to the fabrics’ chemical structure. In industry speak, the process Evrnu uses is a non-derivative method, while conventional materials like rayon and nylon rely on a derivative chemical process.

The result is a bio-based alternative to polyester, nylon and other man-made cellulosic fibers. The resulting fabric also provides the apparel industry a means of reducing carbon emissions and plastic shedding. Evrnu adds that its lyocell material exceeds the performance of the polyester and man-made cellulosic fibers currently available.

Rethinking how fabrics are made

Evrnu sees discarded textiles as an untapped natural resource. The company designed its NuCycl technology with the goal of growing the global textile industry, and doing so sustainably and responsibly, by accessing the full potential of resources that already exist and do not need to be extracted. As estimates suggest that the world’s fashion industry generates about 92 million metric tons of waste annually, Evrnu says it is helping to reduce this global problem by turning what was once simply something to look at and then discard as waste into a renewable resource.

By diverting that textile waste from landfills, Evrnu’s process also prevents the leaching of chemicals and microfibers into the environment. The company’s system not only reduces the amount of energy and chemicals required during the dyeing process, but it is also highly water-efficient — in fact, it uses 98 percent less water than what is needed to manufacture fabric out of cotton, an Evrnu representative explained in an email exchange with TriplePundit.

Pushing the apparel sector into the circular economy

Evrnu’s current plans are to become a player in the global apparel sector’s value chain. Its current plan is to license out the company’s technology with the goal to ramp up the adoption of its fabric and to allow the NuCycl manufacturing process to scale up. To date, the company says it has raised $29 million, with the number expected to increase to $31 million by the end of this month. As part of its long-term strategy, the company is currently building a commercial demonstration factory in the U.S. so it can demonstrate to potential licensees what its technology can make possible. Once completed, the facility will have the capacity to process 17,000 metric tons of pulp and 2,000 tons of fiber.

The result of Evrnu’s efforts is a step forward for the circular economy and a bolder effort to divert textile waste from landfills and prevent more chemicals and contaminated water from leaching into the environment. The company joins other brands in their efforts to rethinking how clothing is both purchased and discarded, including Worn Again Technologies, For Days and Everywhere Apparel.

Image credits via Evrnu

There’s no shortage of data and stories pointing to the impacts that single-use plastics have on the planet. No one entity can take on this challenge alone, so partnerships will be instrumental in shifting society away from excessive packaging and closer to a circular economy.

One such partnership is the U.S. Plastics Pact, a coalition of brands, retailers, government agencies, and nonprofits that seeks the goal of having all plastic packaging be recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025. A group founded by The Recycling Partnership and the World Wildlife Fund, the U.S. Plastics Pact started in August 2020 as part of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s worldwide network of national and regional plastics pacts, which includes chapters across North and South America, Africa, and Europe. 

Here in the U.S., the Pact has set several targets to transform plastic packaging by 2025. In addition to that aforementioned goal of all plastic packaging being recyclable, reusable or compostable, the U.S. Pact’s roadmap aims for an average of 30 percent recycled or responsibly sourced bio-based content in plastic packaging by 2025. The group also seeks to ensure that half of all plastic packaging can be recycled or composted by that year.

“Recycling-alone isn’t going to end the plastics waste crisis,” said Emily Tipaldo, executive director of the U.S. Plastics Pact, which includes top consumer goods companies and retailers including Mars, Inc., Coca-Cola, Target and Walmart. “Instead it requires a suite of solutions and collaboration between business, government and civil society.”

One of the overarching challenges is defining what “recyclable,” “reusable” or “compostable” means in the first place. Just as individuals have their own definitions, the nuance applies to governments at all levels, too. “For every locality and state, ‘recyclable’ means something different,” Tipaldo said. As with any industry, stakeholders have to develop a set of consistent standards first. 

To that end, the U.S. Pact arrived at one of its first milestones earlier this year: defining the plastic packaging that its members have deemed “problematic and unnecessary.” Some of the materials are familiar to the U.S. public — including PET bottles that are opaque or pigmented; labels that include adhesives, inks or paper that can render the packaging non-recyclable; polystyrene and its cousin, polystyrene foam (or EPS, commonly known as Styrofoam); and PVC, often used in both building materials and packaging. Single-use coffee stirrers, straws and cutlery also appear on the list, unless those items are sold bundled at a retailer or wholesaler.

U.S. Pact members are already making progress on cutting these materials out, Tipaldo said. “66 percent of [business members] are already making plans and are rolling out initiatives to eliminate these materials, such as resins like PVC or polystyrene in plastic packaging,” she explained. 

Such scale is crucial to the U.S. Pact’s future success, as those same business members account for 33 percent of plastic packaging by weight in the U.S. Of that collective 5.6 megatons of plastic waste, the top three plastic packaging materials are PET bottles (generally used for beverages), HDPE bottles (often used for milk jugs and personal care products), and multi-material flexible packaging (which includes everything from snack bags and pouches to plastic seals that keep food fresh). 

Why does that one-third statistic matter? The fewer types of plastic resins that are used in packaging nationwide, the greater possibility that mechanical plastic recycling — and, more ideally, the advent of a more circular economy — can scale up. Evidence suggests this shift is underway: “Right now, our baseline is that 37 percent of the packaging that is put out by the U.S. Pact’s signatories is now recyclable, reusable or compostable,” Tipaldo said.

Such moves on the behalf of food companies, manufacturers and retailers are crucial if the world hopes to wean itself away from the excessive consumption of plastic. Companies have also had to find ways to innovate due to several recent changes in global markets, including the decision by China and other countries to stop accepting waste from U.S. recycling streams.

That shift was driven by the outcry over loopholes in the Basel Convention, a treaty that dates back to the late 1980s meant to prevent the shipping of hazardous waste to poorer nations. According to critics, the treaty had since become a tool for nations like the U.S. to use developing countries to process waste — and these lower-income nations overall had far fewer regulations to manage the safe disposal of waste when compared to richer nations such as the U.S. “We know that supply is a big challenge,” Tipaldo explained. “A couple of years ago when there were changes being made to the Basel Convention, they had the unintended effect of cutting off recycled plastic trade in a responsible way.”

Still, the work of the U.S. Plastics Pact is beginning to show how the largest companies in the U.S. are rethinking their packaging. Mars, for example, eliminated 98 metric tons of waste by removing the outer plastic wrap from the boxes of M&M’S sold in movie theaters and retail outlets like Walmart and Target; the company also redesigned some of the plastic in some of its Orbit-branded gum packaging so that it can be recycled in more municipal recycling streams. Last year, Mars launched a Terracycle project with its Karma pet food brand and is exploring additional programs across its petfood portfolio. 

In 2019, Mars committed to making 100 percent of its packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable, including a 25 percent reduction in the use of virgin plastics and piloting new reuse-based business models. The company says it is holding itself accountable by embedding these targets into how it measures annual success, and the top 300 executives at Mars now have remuneration linked to delivering against packaging targets. 

“Eliminating packaging waste today is a massive challenge, and Mars is eliminating unnecessary packaging, removing difficult to recycle materials such as PVC, and using recycled content wherever possible,” said Allison Lin, global vice president of packaging for Mars. “But fixing the fundamental issues in recycling plastic packaging cannot be done by businesses alone. Through our partnerships with the U.S. Plastics Pact and other industry leaders, we’re actively working to drive true systems change in support of a circular economy where packaging never becomes waste.”

Working with the U.S. Pact has also pushed more companies to launch new plans to overhaul their packaging, and working with this group also helps companies to level with their stakeholders about how they will prevent their packaging from ending up in landfills.

That shift certainly works for Tipaldo. “Forcing transparency and responsibility into the system is what the U.S. Pact is about,” she said.

This article series is sponsored by Mars and produced by the TriplePundit editorial team.

Image credit: Sigmund/Unsplash

To invest in disability inclusion is to tap into underutilized resources that can benefit not only the people employed, but also a company’s bottom line, concludes a recent report from the Global Business Coalition for Education’s (GBC-Education) Disability Task Force.

Roughly 15 percent of the world’s population — 1 billion people — live with disabilities, according to the GBC-Education report. “They amount to the world’s largest minority group, but everywhere children and adults with disabilities face barriers that prevent their full and equal participation in education, employment and society,” the report reads.

The report cites a recent analysis indicating that companies led by executives focusing on disability engagement experienced almost three times the amount of sales growth and more than four times the profit growth compared with their competitors.

The 1 billion people living with disabilities globally have about $8 trillion in disposable income, and as a consumer group, persons with disabilities comprise the world’s third largest economic power, the report claims. Nevertheless, the business community has yet to entirely capitalize on this potential market with both the quantity and quality of more inclusive and accessible goods and services.

A common misconception about investing in disability inclusion is that its costs outweigh its benefits, said Danielle Brown, a two-time Paralympic gold medalist for Britain in archery and the first disabled person to compete in the Commonwealth Games.

“Disability does not mean lack of ability, and it doesn’t always mean great expense. Sometimes small changes can have a huge impact,” Brown told TriplePundit. “The insight that a disabled person can bring to a business, particularly when thinking about tapping into the disability market, can create huge returns and help shape strategies so they better reflect the communities they serve.”

The report goes well beyond citing the potential benefits of investing in disability inclusion by suggesting various strategies. The report’s authors also highlight dozens of examples of businesses that have been successful in promoting disability inclusion within their ranks as well as providing products and services for persons with disabilities.

Persons with disabilities represent a tremendous pool of untapped talent. Globally, persons with disabilities have lower employment rates than the general population. In July 2018, for example, only 29 percent of Americans of working age with disabilities were participating in the workforce, compared with 75 percent of Americans without a disability.

Vaibhav Adlakha, an investigations lawyer with the global law firm Reed Smith who was born with cerebral palsy, told 3p that the biggest challenge to disability inclusion is changing “mindsets and perceptions as well as perspectives.”

“There are always solutions that can be inexpensive and do not disrupt the status quo. At the same time, one should not be afraid to challenge [the status quo] either,” said Adlakha, one of several persons with disabilities who shared their stories in the report. “It is just about evaluating and taking a step back to take three steps forward and move ahead.”

Adlaka told 3p that one of the most common misconceptions about disability inclusion is that it takes a lot of work, involves high costs, and “disrupts the current system if an organization chooses to embrace diversity, equity and inclusion.”

“It is often an unknown path that people are afraid to embark on due to lack of knowledge and experience,” Adlaka said. “Especially, as there is no ‘one size that fits all’ when it comes to adaptations.”

The report also points out that of the 1 billion persons with disabilities globally, approximately 240 million are children. In low- and middle-income countries, some 50 percent of children with disabilities are not in school. Children with disabilities are confronted by a range of barriers to education, including inaccessible school facilities and materials, teachers who lack the training to support them, a lack of appropriate assistive technologies, and cultural factors that keep them “hidden” at home.  

In many countries it is worse for girls with disabilities, as they are more likely than boys to face even more cultural barriers to education. Vibhu Sharma, a disability advocate who helped draft the GBC-Education report, has firsthand experience with these barriers. When Sharma began to lose her sight as a child, she did not get much support, sympathy or understanding at her school. One teacher even slapped her across the face because Sharma was unable to read from a book with small font.

Sharma told 3p that another “major misconception” about disability inclusion is that “inclusion of persons with disabilities happens just by bringing about accessibility, when in reality accessibility is just one part of being inclusive.”

“When you invest in accessibility, you invest in inclusion, and that is not the inclusion of just persons with disabilities, but rather the inclusion of everyone, irrespective of whether they have a disability,” Sharma said. “Inclusion has to be invested in because it yields higher benefits as it brings in more talent, fosters innovation and results in a better business performance.”

Image credit: Kampus Production via Pexels

According to a new study by Project Drawdown, the right climate mitigation tactics can also improve quality of life for the hundreds of millions of people who are living in extreme poverty in Africa and South Asia. This could be fantastic news for vulnerable populations who bear the brunt of multi-dimensional poverty, as well as the worst effects of climate change and climate-related disasters. That is, if financing can be secured to turn those suggestions into reality.

Half of the carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere in the past 170 years came from the economic activities of only 12 percent of the world’s population. Naturally, if the Global South followed that same route to industrialization, it would be catastrophic for the planet. Yet it is unreasonable and ineffective to expect people in Africa and South Asia to continue living in abject poverty as a form of climate mitigation in and of itself — especially considering that those countries that contribute the fewest greenhouse gases are suffering the worst consequences of climate change and are the least financially prepared to prevent and deal with those effects.

While economic development may appear to be at odds with attempts to eliminate extreme poverty, reduce greenhouse gases and limit climate change, there is no longer any need to see the two issues as competing for solutions or public attention. As Project Drawdown’s report states: “The world should not have to choose among human development, poverty eradication, climate mitigation, and climate adaptation; win-win solutions are at hand.”

One of the first steps in this process is to skip over carbon-intensive development and go straight to renewables. For example, in sub-Saharan Africa half of the population does not have electricity. This presents the opportunity for the implementation of renewable grids to begin with, instead of as an upgrade to dirty energy systems later on in the region’s socio-economic development. While implementation will be expensive, once renewable systems are in place, the energy produced is significantly cheaper than fossil fuels — a potential boon for countries looking toward increased manufacturing. In addition, the portability of solar power and its ability to produce power off-grid means functionality even in remote rural regions without pipelines or power lines to interrupt the biosphere. Not to mention portability will exponentially speed up the rate at which people in the region are able to access electricity.

The 28 solutions included in Project Drawdown’s report are those that demonstrated the most viability in regard to reducing poverty in addition to promoting equality, health, and well-being among rural and marginalized communities in Africa and South Asia. These are further categorized into groups with co-benefits listed on a factsheet for an easily accessible visual. For example, silvopasture, reduced food waste, and tree intercropping are some of the solutions included in the group’s suggestions for improving agriculture and agroforestry. The project lists the category’s direct benefits as food security, increased income from work, and improved water and sanitation. In addition, indirect benefits include improved health for the population, gender equality, education, energy consumption and housing.

The sum total of direct and indirect benefits is imperative considering that vulnerable populations are the most affected and, according to the report, “climate change already threatens decades of progress across multiple areas.” Investments in projects that simultaneously prevent the earth’s overall temperature from rising while lifting people out of poverty will go further than those that focus solely on one or the other. This is especially important for vulnerable populations such as women, children, the elderly, people with disabilities, and Indigenous and ethnic minorities, as they have access to fewer resources to cope with these changes on average. Add to that the economic and educational reversals that women and girls have experienced over the course of the pandemic — with 47 million more of them falling into extreme poverty since the outbreak of COVID-19 — and the need to take these sorts of synergistic actions to benefit both people and the climate becomes all the more obvious.

So far those countries responsible for the bulk of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere have not followed through on climate funds, minuscule as those pledges have been compared to what is needed. And yet, the cost of inaction will be astronomical. The global economy could tank, with an 11 percent to 14 percent worldwide downturn projected for the middle of the century.

The time for action is now. Project Drawdown’s report provides a blueprint for climate mitigation that promotes environmentally responsible development in Africa and South Asia while providing legitimate ways to reduce the effects of multi-dimensional and extreme poverty.

Image credit: YODA Adaman via Unsplash

A trailblazing environmental project launching in Colombia’s biodiverse Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains (shown above) promises to pair the construction of solar farms with newly built villages for the Indigenous Arhuaco people.

The project, dubbed Terra Initiative, is brought to life through a partnership between Greenwood Energy, a Latin American subsidiary of global conglomerate Libra Group, and the Confederación Indígena Tayrona (CIT), the organization representing the Arhuaco community. Greenwood Energy will sell clean energy generated from its six utility-scale solar farms to Colombia’s National Interconnected System while providing skills training and job opportunities to the Arhuacos.

The initiative also paves way for the development of three new towns for the Indigenous group, each to be furnished with schools, health facilities, tools needed for sustainable farming and solar energy systems. Crucially, for every kilowatt-hour generated by the farms, CIT will receive a commission to strengthen land preservation efforts.

Land preservation and land rights are a deeply personal matter to the Arhuaco people. Much aligned with other nations colonized by white settlers in the Americas, Colombia’s history of land rights among Indigenous peoples is fraught. When Spanish conquistadors arrived in the early 16th century, Indigenous groups including the Arhuaco fled to the highlands of the northern Colombian mountain range to seek safety and maintain their traditions. The very mountains they fled to 500 years ago have been under attack over the past several decades as land grabbers grapple for a slice of the biodiverse mecca ripe with gold, coal and other valuable minerals.

Despite recognizing Arhuaco land as protected in 1984, the government has granted hundreds of mining concessions — with hundreds more pending — without permission or consultation from the Arhuaco people. Opening up the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains to miners poses an onslaught of damages to not only the Arhuaco people, but also the ecosystem itself.

The UNESCO-recognized biosphere region was touted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2013 as “the most irreplaceable nature reserve in the world.” Land grabbing and a green light to miners from the government threatens the highly diverse yet highly susceptible ecosystem. The Terra Initiative, which was designed using key insights and engagement from the Arhuaco people, is projected to preserve land larger than the surface area of New York City while also creating a power generation offset equivalent to more than 1 million tons of carbon dioxide.

Land grabbing and new mining projects also lends itself to displacement for those previously abiding in those spaces. With nearly 5 million Colombians forced from their land, the South American nation has the third most internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the world, according to data from the Norwegian Refugee Council. Instead of planting the flag and tearing down villages, the Terra Initiative will do the opposite: build communities.

“This initiative goes hand-in-hand with the Arhuaco people’s objectives of conservation, protection, and care for nature, while also providing a housing solution and helping facilitate education, preservation of culture, and allowing for coexistence between modern and Indigenous life,” Arhuaco Leader Noel Torres said in a press release. “For the Arhuaco people, development is that which guarantees life today and in the future.”

The Terra Initiative is redefining what it means to run a sustainable project, creating a blueprint for other companies and developers to gain inspiration. Beyond powering clean energy, preserving sacred land and putting the Arhuaco people at the center of the work, they are upping the ante to assure long-term success. Following 25 years of operation, the ownership of the solar farms will be transferred from Greenwood Energy to CIT.

The Arhuaco people believe that the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is the heart of the world, and it’s their duty (no, privilege) to safeguard it. They hope the Terra Initiative, through its sustainable approach, will make the heart beat stronger.

Image credit: Giselle Cucunubá Manes via Unsplash

Droughts in the Andes, significant rainfall in Nepal and swarms of mosquitoes in the Alpine routes of Washington, all of which have long been notoriously snowy regions, are beginning to show strange and unpredictable weather patterns, and there's only one plausible culprit: climate change.

With the COVID-19 pandemic feeling like a distant memory to many people, many avid adventurers returned to the slopes this season for their winter vacation. However, many skiers faced a dilemma—the lack of snow. For example, a recent study showed that in approximately 35 to 60 years across the western U.S., mountainous states will be snowless if society continues emitting greenhouse gasses at current rates. Less snow on the mountains could prove to become fatal for the snow sports industry.

If you've watched the recent Netflix documentary Sherpa, you may know about mountain and ski guides' extensive knowledge of the mountains. They experience climate change first-hand as they guide tourists through mountains daily. To that end, the travel platform 57hours recently decided to survey 59 experienced guides to understand the effects of climate change in the mountains.

The survey revealed some intriguing results. To start, 98 percent of the surveyed guides answered "yes" when asked if they had noticed the effects of climate change, and 81 percent indicated that climate change had required them to alter the times of the year in which they can guide visitors across certain places.

The most significant changes observed by the surveyed guides were the retreat of glaciers and permafrost changes. Many guides commented significantly more rockfall due to receding glaciers, making glacier travel much more hazardous. In particular, guides are witnessing evidence of serac fall—collapsing glacial ice—causing specific routes to no longer be safe. Several survey respondents in the U.S. Pacific Northwest noticed that record-shattering heatwaves rendered glaciers and south-facing approaches extremely dangerous and unrecognizable; they observed that more glacier accidents occurred in the PNW this year than in previous years.

During TriplePundit’s interview with an experienced ski guide, Gregg Hill, he said, "I see the effects of climate change every day. I guide melting glaciers and more dangerous mountaineering routes, bigger and more irregular avalanche cycles and drier deserts."

Hill is one ski guide who believes it is essential to recognize that travelers are a part of the problem of climate change.

"We experience so many blissful moments in nature, yet we often disregard the impact we cause when exploring it,” said Hill. “Before, I would take more than ten flights a year without even considering the effect they were having. Now my philosophy has changed. I try to adventure in my backyard as much as possible, and I encourage others to do the same.”

He added, “With backyard adventures, you are a constant reminder of them. You look over and see that mountain you've submitted or that river you rafted on, and immediately the memory of that day is brought back into focus and savored again. There is so much more long-term value in these close-to-home adventures."

A recent study showed that tourism accounts for approximately 8 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, but the industry has been slow to adapt and work towards climate solutions. In light of this, Hill has taken matters into his own hands and has become a net-zero adventurer, teaching his clients ways they can do the same.

"The most important thing I believe I can do when tackling such a daunting issue is to have open and honest conversations with my clients about climate change,” Hill further explained to 3p. “When my clients come on a ski guide trip, I try to keep the conversation around climate change present throughout. From renting electric cars to eating local and sustainably sourced food, we are continuously looking for ways to reduce the trip's carbon footprint."

With climate change becoming a more prevalent issue by the day, watch for many travelers to become more conscious about their collective environmental impact on the planet.

Image credit: Luca Calderone via Unsplash

By the dawn’s early light in California today, Google Cloud released a new survey conducted by The Harris Poll of 1,491 executives in 16 countries who assessed their companies’ sustainability efforts. The survey reflects the good news that 80 percent of respondents rate their companies as above average in their environmental efforts.

However, a real disconnect surfaced when these leaders — vice presidents on up through C‑suites — were asked about quantifying progress on those actions. Only 36 percent stated that tools were in place to measure sustainability impacts, and only 17 percent said the information was being used to optimize implementation.

More than half (58 percent) of these executives believe their own company engages in greenwashing, i.e., claiming that the organization’s products, services or practices are more environmentally beneficial than they are in reality. About two-thirds of them (65 percent) have their hearts in the right place in wanting to achieve greater sustainability, but confessed they really don’t know how to go about doing it.

This is where the sustainably-sourced rubber must hit the road. 

The sense of urgency is rising — along with seas, heat, wildfires and storm severity — given the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report revealing that carbon emissions need to be cut in half by 2030 to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100. Numerous countries and regions are advancing regulations and frameworks for targets that must be met, including proposed disclosures by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Why the gap?

Ninety-six percent of the executives in Google Cloud’s study said their organization has at least one sustainability program in place. Most of the executives themselves (86 percent) feel they are making a positive impact. However, 82 percent also wanted more “room” to achieve results from their boards and senior leadership, which includes more information and transparency.

This need for clarity circles back to the executives’ expressed concerns about the lack of tools for measuring progress. Over 90 percent of the surveyed executives believe in the power of technology to help them achieve sustainability goals.

At the same time, however, over a third of them felt that finding the right technology to invest in was a barrier to achieving results. About the same number identified a lack of investment in initiatives, a “relentless focus on growth and profit,” and insufficiently understanding the issue to be additional obstacles.

Information tools for measuring sustainability progress are available

Executives can give themselves a crash course in understanding carbon footprints and measurements with overviews that spell out what terms like “Scope 1 emissions” mean. Information about the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol standards features calculation tools applicable to different countries, industry sectors and more.

Government sites like the U.S. EPA's Center for Corporate Climate Leadership offer abundant information about setting up measurement, reporting and action opportunities. Google Cloud makes its own contribution by way of its Carbon Sense suite of tools, which enables companies to quantify carbon emissions associated with the use of cloud computing.

Corporations can and do share information to help each other, even among competitors. For sectors like large retailers, the measurement pursuit may be more difficult since carbon emissions beyond transport may be hidden in supply chains. Apparel and shoe companies came together in the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, which promotes the use of the Higg Index suite of technology tools for measuring sustainability across all aspects of design, manufacturing, delivery and operations.

The case for optimism does not reduce urgency

Celebrating progress matters. Renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, have dropped considerably in price. The rate of carbon emissions growth slowed in the last decade. Innovators race to improve electric batteries and eliminate negative consequences of mining minerals. Consumers want more environmentally-friendly products and packaging from companies that reduce their carbon footprint.

But let’s not kid ourselves here. Coal-burning power investments are up in China and India, and even the U.S. has seen a recent jump in coal use. Oil company executives flat out told Congress they would not cut back on dividends to shareholders or on stock buy-backs made possible by record profits to provide gas inflation relief — which supports the concern of “relentless focus” on profit voiced in the Google Cloud survey.

Numerous opportunities for carbon emission reduction were missed — or more accurately, were not taken. A sick planet translates to illness and death for consumers. Recovering from catastrophes costs far more than risk abatement.

Worldwide, business can’t afford to kick the carbon can down the road any longer.

Image credit: Laura Penwell via Pexels