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A new series of legal setbacks have raised the chances that the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline will finally be shut down. Advocates for the pipeline claim that the oil it transports is needed now more than ever, but others argue that energy conservation is a more effective response to the twin crises of climate change and Russia’s murderous rampage through Ukraine.

Putin shoots himself in the energy foot

From the fossil energy market perspective, it is more than a little odd that Russian President Vladimir Putin chose to embark on his murderous rampage through Ukraine at this time. After all, Russia’s hold on the European gas market seemed stronger than ever with U.S. President Joe Biden in office.

If Biden’s climate policies succeed in curtailing U.S. gas production, and if activists continue to block new pipelines and other gas infrastructure in the U.S., domestic gas producers will see their European opportunities shrink, leaving the field clear for Russia for years to come.

In addition, just before Putin launched his invasion, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission proposed new rules that will make it more difficult to build new gas pipelines in the U.S.

The problem with supply-side solutions

Instead of continuing to dominate the European energy market, in a few weeks’ time Russia has created the conditions for losing that market entirely. Russian oil and gas have been exempted from international sanctions so far, but policymakers and the private sector are beginning to consider taking that step as atrocities mount.

That has provided oil and gas stakeholders in the U.S. with a golden opportunity to advocate for increasing domestic production and expanding exports.

On March 15, for example, the industry-friendly organization GAIN cited a public opinion survey that indicates support for a ban on importing Russian oil and gas — and support for the Dakota Access Pipeline, too.

“Perhaps the best example of domestic energy operation is the Dakota Access Pipeline, which has transported about 570,000 barrels of crude oil daily for more than the past four years,” GAIN explained. “The poll found Americans support the continued use of the pipeline by a 5 to 1 margin.”

However, an analysis posted on the national security blog War on the Rocks indicates that replacing Russian oil and gas in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere is no easy task. Infrastructure, long-term contracts and political obligations are formidable obstacles.

In addition, Russia’s decision to launch an unprovoked war in Europe has opened a gigantic geopolitical can of worms that cannot be resolved simply by ramping up new fossil energy production and transmission infrastructure.

Drawing on a comparison with the 1970s oil crisis, War on the Rocks authors Emily Holland and Marcos Giuli write: “Western governments now seem poised to repeat these mistakes: They are focusing on outbidding one another for alternative suppliers, rolling back coal phase outs, and trying to sustain demand by subsidizing fuel prices and cutting taxes on gasoline and diesel.”

“The lessons from the 1970s are clear: A disorderly supply-side-only approach to energy crises is a recipe for future strategic and environmental problems,” they emphasize.

The energy conservation solution and argument against the Dakota Access Pipeline

In the 1970s, energy conservation was portrayed as an inconvenience, such as turning down the thermostat and putting on a sweater. Holland and Giuli make the case that 21st-century technology has created a new opportunity to practice a more radical form of energy conservation that combines compulsory cutbacks with energy efficiency and alternative resources.

“Compulsory conservation and energy demand reduction is at once a moral, strategic, and environmental imperative, and will ensure the sustainability and credibility of sanctions policies,” they conclude.

The energy conservation response has already begun to gain traction in Europe. Political considerations may prevent the conservation argument from gaining as much force in the U.S., but advocates for fossil energy projects like the Dakota Access Pipeline may still find themselves at risk of losing their case.

In January, the Illinois 4th District Appellate Court ruled that the Illinois Commerce Commission overstepped its authority when it approved an expansion of the Dakota Access Pipeline, and in February the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal of a stakeholder lawsuit intended to block a new environmental review of the project.

Energy Transfer, the company credited with constructing the pipeline, also appeared to be hedging its bets in March when it narrowed the terms of a lawsuit against Greenpeace. As described by Greenpeace, the company is no longer contesting statements related to shortcomings in the initial environmental review.

In addition, a new, meticulously detailed analysis commissioned by the Indigenous-led organization NDN Collective makes the case that the pipeline has been operating illegally from the start.

As a broad matter of public policy, NDN Collective argues that enabling the illegal operation to continue signals that the federal government continues to enable recklessness and lawlessness in the fossil energy industry, up to and including the violation of treaty rights with Indigenous peoples.

NDN Collective states that the report, titled Faulty Infrastructure and the Impacts of the Dakota Access Pipeline, is “the first report to lay out a full and factual timeline of the DAPL process.” The report presents evidence that the project is technically unsafe, and that due process and legal integrity were absent from the approval process.

A draft of the new environmental impact statement is expected this fall, with a public comment period to follow. Fossil energy advocates are all but certain to raise the specter of an energy crisis fomented by Russian aggression in Europe. However, it is clear that a 19070s response to a fossil energy crisis, with its 50-year history of geopolitical turmoil and environmental disaster, is far out of date in the 21st century.

Image credit: Tony Webster via Wiki Commons

An old agricultural system could gain new traction as the meat industry and meat-eaters alike come to terms with the environmental effects — and for some, moral implications — of raising animals as food. Farming methods that include silvopasture present the opportunity to produce animal protein in a sustainable manner that benefits farmers, the animals themselves, the planet and even profits.

Our present system, which relies on open pasture grazing and supplemental grains, is not sustainable. As many scientists urge the population to cut back on meat for the sake of the planet and some governments even aim to curtail its consumption, a quality-over-quantity approach such as through silvopastoral agriculture is likely to encourage premium prices while improving the quality of life for livestock, the communities they are raised in, and the overall environment by discouraging deforestation and encouraging biodiversity.

Silvopasture is a type of agroforestry that introduces animals to graze in a natural, uncleared (or replanted) setting complete with trees, shrubs and hearty grasses. (Other types of agroforestry include alley cropping and forest farming.) This can be as simple as rotational grazing or a more intricate system that includes trees grown for harvest and sale, shrubs planted for their protein content or fiber, and specific grasses selected for their performance. This latter type protects the farmer by diversifying their agricultural portfolio as they are also able to produce timber, fruits, nuts and more from the same land.

Further economic benefits of this system include savings on pesticides and chemical fertilizers as well as grain feed. This is because by rotating grazing, which is a major part of the system, the parasites that normally infect livestock have their life-cycles disturbed and are less able to attach to a host. The trees also provide homes to birds which protect the livestock by dining on ticks and other bothersome insects while the livestock fertilizes the soil. And with 25 to 33 percent of cattle deaths linked to being fed grains they are ill-equipped to digest, it simply does not make sense to continue feeding our food 36 percent of the energy from our planet’s crops in the first place. As Vivian Arguelles Gonzalez of McGill University put it, “There’s no need for them to compete for crops that might otherwise be eaten by people, and challenge global food security.”

There’s no real need to clear forest land for livestock either when silvopasture is better for animals in many ways, including the more diverse diet that comes from grazing on a variety of grasses, shrubs and trees. Further, the shade provided by trees reduces stress and promotes a better quality of life for livestock. While that may not matter to many consumers, a quick internet search suggests that factory farms are one of the leading reasons cited by a sizable portion of vegetarians and vegans for not eating animal protein. Likewise, meat that has been labeled to suggest it came from healthier, happier, pasture-raised livestock fetches at a much higher price from some consumers than the standard cuts. These realities hint at the possibility of a premium market for silvopasture-raised meat — and profits that should encourage rapid expansion, an issue agroforestry faces as a whole.

Beef is the No. 1 cause of deforestation, but scaling up silvopasture — and agroforestry in general — can go a long way toward reforestation. It can also benefit the communities where animals are raised for food: When animals leave their waste in the forest, there is no need for a lagoon and sprayfield system, nor does the odor waft toward neighbors on the wind. This could be a likely boon considering the negative reaction many communities have upon hearing the news that a pig or chicken farm is moving in nearby.

Trees are certainly better at storing carbon than manmade poo-lagoons. And land that supports a variety of plants, animals, insects and birds will, without a doubt, make for a healthier and more sustainable environment. Farmers who have fruit, nuts, fibers, and timber to fall back on will not be devastated when the market for a given protein bottoms out or if their herd gets ill.

The argument for silvopasture is clear. While this system is still practiced on a small scale in much of the Global South, an expansion in size and geography predicated on its status as producing a premium product should lead to a growing market that will, along with declining overall meat consumption, help reverse deforestation and biodiversity loss while combatting climate change.

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In terms of workplace relationships and employee-employer interactions, today’s work environment looks and feels nothing like it did in the early 1900s, especially considering the increasing focus on DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). And the leap from the past to the present has often happened at the pointed end of a sharp stick in the form of labor laws.

For example, in 1910 as many as 1.75 million workers in the U.S. were between 10 and 15 years old. But in 1916, the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act not only set minimum age limits for young workers but defined what safety conditions had to be in place and introduced overall better protection for minors.

In 1935, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) was introduced and “collective bargaining” became a part of daily vernacular for management and worker alike.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 served as a broad blanket of protection for almost any form of prejudice based on race, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin.

In 1970, the Occupational Safety and Health Act established safe standards in the workplace, and Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 “prohibits discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities from application to termination, and all privileges of employment.”

As a result of these and other workplace restrictions, the labor force of today is more diverse and better educated, and working conditions are safer than ever.

But against the backdrop of a nation of laws and workplace programs that are now much more comprehensive than a collection challenges for human resources professionals, challenges remain. For example, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was intended to abolish wage disparity based on sex, yet women still only make 83 cents for every man’s dollar earned.

And when programs and laws fail, the fallout can be spectacular with a financial cost of noncompliance at least equal to the human tragedy. According to a study published by the Society for Human Resources (SHRM), in 2017, the top 10 employment-related complaints had a combined value of $2.72 billion.

But at the intersection of the law and the latest trend in employee relations is the effort from corporations to “do the right thing.” To that end, the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion is the largest CEO-driven business commitment to advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace and a model for an actionable response. Some 2,000 CEOs representing 13 million employees across 85 industries have pledged to engage in concrete action that seeks to reverse not only workplace inequalities but societal ills as well.

We can attribute the creation of DEI programs in part as having been inspired by shifts in societal norms, and in some cases even tragedy. Generally speaking, the 1960s saw an America less tolerant of discrimination, and many DEI leaders can point to the murder of George Floyd in 2020 as a catalyst that propelled their employee base toward introspection and change.

But a statement from Tim Ryan, CEO Action Co-founder and PwC Senior Partner, is relevant for the future. “Being outraged with action is not enough. We need to roll up our sleeves and help each other make progress.”

And therein lies the difference between mere laws and creating a work environment that seeks to elevate the social conscience—an initiative corporations didn’t pretend to undertake in the past; rather, being willing to overlook an employee’s interactions with racist social groups as long as there was a clear delineation between workplace comportment and, say, membership in the KKK.

As an example of the overlay between corporate responsibility and response to current societal events, on March 5, CEO Action published a CEO Action statement — one of many social commentaries — on recent LGBTQ+ legislation. Representing the 2,000 CEO signatories, the statement reads, “Recent legislation against the LGBTQ+ community across the US undermines years of progress in the fight against discrimination and achieving equality. As business leaders we must collectively do more to address societal issues that continue to impact our people and our communities. CEO Action remains steadfast in our pursuit to cultivate a more diverse, inclusive and equitable future for all. We will continue to work with our signatories to build a world where people can live openly in their truth without fear.”

In terms of the influence of DEI in the workplace and by extension, the community, TriplePundit posed questions of effectiveness and sustainability to three CEOs of companies that are participating in CEO Action. The following are the responses from Colleen Keating, CEO at FirstKey Homes; David Scorey, CEO at Keolis North America; and Jeffrey Solomon, Cowen’s CEO.

3p: How do we ensure that DEI Programs of today don’t become half-measures or failed attempts of workplace equality laws and programs of the past?

Keating: It starts with DEI being embedded in a company’s culture and clearly demonstrated in words and actions across the organization. When we stop thinking about DEI as a “program” and recognize it as an imperative that’s woven into the very fabric of our company then DEI can’t be a half-measure or a failure.

For our goal of furthering DEI to be successful and sustainable, we must acknowledge that it is, at its core, an evergreen work in progress, with ongoing conversations about unconscious bias, conscious inclusion, equity and belonging.

Scorey: We are looking around the corners of the transportation industry and we see changes that we want to be at the front of. That means building teams of people with different backgrounds, experiences, and talents that will help get us there. However, we have to take this a step further and ensure they feel supported and valued. This is where the CEO Action pledge comes into play: it’s another way to hold ourselves accountable.

Solomon: Cowen approaches DEI, as it does all of our core business functions such as finance, legal, human resources or marketing, through a strategic lens. In our view, to achieve the greatest impact, DEI should be embedded into all aspects of a company’s business.

3p: How do we gauge whether or not corporate DEI programs have a positive impact on their local communities and beyond?

Keating: Aligning a company’s offering, its values and mission with the right strategic community partners is at the heart of making a meaningful, positive impact in our local communities.

Scorey: We directly serve the communities where we operate every day. For instance, the fact is that 55 percent of overall transit riders are women, but most networks’ service patterns cater heavily towards the majority-male, 9-5 commuter. What might those service patterns look like if a working mother designed them? Representation matters, and it can have major impacts on how companies operate. Keolis Transit America – our bus operations subsidiary – was recently recognized by Keolis Group for having one of our industry’s highest percentage of female employees across the globe.

Solomon: Systemic change happens through metrics, accountability and deep leadership engagement. From our perspective, this is an opportunity for organizations to take a fresh look at their strategic goals and financial objectives to see if they are reaching their full potential. It’s an exciting journey, and while we are in our early stages, we know we are on the right path alongside the 2,000-plus other organizations who make up CEO Action and are dedicated to impacting meaningful change.

3p: How do we approach the concept of “hard work” that is inherent in a successful DEI program with a workforce that has been programmed for instant gratification?

Keating: We refer to our DEI commitment as our “DEI Journey,” which by its vernacular, suggests that we are progressing and furthering our mission, while neither short-term nor going to provide instant gratification.

Scorey: As executives, we need to be highly visible in our DEI efforts, approach these initiatives with a long-term perspective, and accept that lasting change takes time. Richard Branson has a line that sums this up nicely, and that is: “There are no quick wins in business – it takes years to become an overnight success.”

Solomon: To truly incorporate DEI into an organization’s DNA, there needs to be a focus on culture and systemic change. Culture change happens through education, awareness and honest dialogue.

Image credit: Yan Krukov via Pexels

When most people hear about the auto industry and environmental issues, they think of electric vehicles or tailpipe standards. Tires are often left out of the conversation, but the industry is proactively working to change that. 

Last year, the Tire Industry Project (TIP), a voluntary CEO-led sustainability collaboration under the umbrella of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, released the Tire Sector SDG Roadmap. This 49-page document takes a closer look at eight of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals where — based on relevance and sector competences — the tire sector can have the greatest impact. The report also lays out seven opportunities for the tire sector to maximize positive impact and minimize negative impact across the value chain.

Moving forward, TIP’s work “will have the Roadmap at its core,” the group pledged in the report, calling on “all members of the sector (including those who are not members of TIP)” to engage in moving the SDGs forward. 

This framework makes the group’s work in measuring the environmental performance of its members even more relevant. TIP is comprised of 10 major global tire companies that together represent more than 60 percent of the industry. TIP analyzes the energy and water consumption, carbon emissions, and ISO 14001 certifications of its members’ manufacturing operations in an annually updated report series, Environmental Key Performance Indicators for Tire Manufacturing.

The latest iteration includes a comparison of aggregated annual data for 2009 to 2020, leveraging key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess progress. 

“Our KPI reporting provides reference and inspiration for tire manufacturers’ ongoing efforts to improve the environmental performance of their operations,” Gavin Whitmore, communications manager for TIP, told TriplePundit. “We’ll continue to report on KPIs, and — in line with the aspirations of the SDG Roadmap for the tire sector — we have committed to strengthen reporting with the phased inclusion of any additional relevant KPIs beginning this year.”

What do tire companies need to measure?

One of the benefits of TIP’s approach is creating consistency and a level playing field on environmental metrics across the tire manufacturing industry. 

All TIP members “have processes in place that contribute to address the potential impacts related to manufacturing, emissions emitted during the sourcing of raw materials, and the product use phase,” Whitmore said. But importantly, standardizing the KPIs and enabling members to compare their progress against others in the industry allows them to “focus their attention on the areas of the manufacturing process where the most impact can be made toward improved environmental performance,” he added. 

While the data are helpful for assessing overall performance in the industry, TIP itself does not create a ranking or compare companies with each other. It instead views the measurement as a way for the companies to spur themselves forward. In fact, TIP does not have access to individual company data; the group instructs consulting company Deloitte to collect data and share aggregated results by KPI, rather than by company.  

How the tire sector can support the SDGs

The SDG Roadmap “reveals that the tire value chain interacts with all 17 SDGs and identifies company operations as one of the key stages in the tire life cycle with opportunity for improved sustainability,” Whitmore told 3p.

While each member company has policies and initiatives already in place to help achieve the goals of the SDGs, “these KPIs complement those efforts by helping to track improvements in the environmental performance of manufacturing operations,” he explained.

The Roadmap identifies the eight priority SDGs for the tire sector. SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and SDG 12 (Responsible Production and Consumption) were found to be the most impactful, followed by six other SDGs, including gender equality and clean water and sanitation. With an understanding that specificity and guidance in how to meet SDG targets can make success more attainable, TIP lays out Impact Pathways to “guide sustainability-driven actions toward specific SDG targets,” Whitmore said.

The bottom line

Taking the COVID-19 pandemic out of it — the industry saw a 16 percent drop in production in 2020 compared to 2019 — one important takeaway is that despite the pandemic, TIP members continued to improve their energy efficiency. Further, transitioning to cleaner energy sources, such as wind and solar, significantly increased over the period reviewed. Water intensity also improved, especially in regions with manufacturing facilities in water-stressed areas, and two members are using the Aqueduct tool from the World Resources Institute (WRI) to track water stress alongside their own consumption data. 

Again, the report uses aggregated data, but it does include specific examples of member initiatives and SDG-related activities, in the hopes of providing both inspiration and a dose of friendly competition for other members. 

TIP also says it is working on the next round of reporting. It plans to add further relevant KPIs to its reporting mechanism by 2023 and intends for a 2026 update of the Roadmap to include reflections on important developments in climate-related technology and innovation. 

Having CEO engagement in such initiatives can help ensure their success. Further, the involvement of the majority of the sector results in scaled impact across the industry, strengthening the tire businesses while providing consumers with additional transparency. At a time when many customers not only buy with their wallet but also with their conscience, a reporting structure like TIP’s for the tire industry can be a powerful tool.

This article series is sponsored by the Tire Industry Project and produced by the TriplePundit editorial team. Members of the Tire Industry Project (in alphabetical order) are Bridgestone, Continental, Goodyear, Hankook, Kumho Tire, Michelin, Pirelli, Sumitomo Rubber, Toyo Tires, and Yokohama Rubber.

Image credit: rh2010/Adobe Stock

U.S. President Joe Biden has just proposed a new tax on billionaires, and that is a welcome step forward in terms of a “fair share” tax policy regarding the civic obligation of those who reap outsized financial benefits from the American system of democracy. However, the focus on an elite group of 700 or so super-rich citizens distracts from a much broader wage inequality issue that has an impact on millions nationwide.

Where is the shared sacrifice?

The wage inequality issue was outlined earlier this month in an article posted on the Inequality.org blog, which is a project of the progressive nonprofit organization Institute for Policy Studies.

Written by Sarah Anderson, director of the ISP's Global Economy Project, the article takes note of the vast chasm between Wall Street bonuses and the federal minimum wage. That gap looms all the larger in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent inflation.

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In war and other times of great stress — such as a deadly pandemic — it is comforting to think that democratic governance would lean toward distributing resources more equitably, at least until the crisis has passed. 

That has happened to a small degree, in the form of relief distributed through the federal CARES Act. However, as Anderson described, the underlying problem not only persisted, but grew in depth and ugliness, as illustrated by the difference between the federal minimum wage and the bonuses earned by Wall Street executives.

What’s driving wage inequality

Anderson notes that it has been 12 years since the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill became law, with the purported aim of avoiding another financial crash on the order of the 2008 crisis. However, a key part of that law has never taken effect.

“Powerful Wall Street lobbyists have succeeded in blocking Section 956 of the Dodd-Frank legislation, which prohibits large financial institutions from awarding pay packages that encourage ‘inappropriate risks,’” Anderson writes.

“Regulators were supposed to implement this new rule within nine months of the law’s passage but have dragged their feet — despite widespread recognition that these bonuses encouraged the high-risk behaviors that led to the 2008 financial crisis, costing millions of Americans their homes and livelihoods,” she explains.

As a result, even under the twin crises of pandemic and inflation, Wall Street bonuses have soared through the roof, while lower-wage workers have effectively lost income.

According to ISP’s analysis of data from the New York State Comptroller, the average annual bonus for securities industry employees based in New York City increased by 20 percent from 2020 to 2021, exceeding the 7 percent inflation rate almost threefold.

Meanwhile, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that average weekly earnings for all private sector employees in the U.S. rose only 2 percent.

Closing the wage gaps in the U.S.

No one is suggesting that all workers in every field should all be paid the same wage. However, the failure to implement Section 956 over the past 12 years has occurred hand-in-hand with a failure to increase the federal minimum wage over the past 13 years, feeding the wage gap into its current state.

The federal minimum wage was $7.25 in 2009, and it has stood there ever since.

Meanwhile, ISP notes that the 2021 Wall Street bonus represents a 1,743 percent increase from the average bonus of $13,970 in 1985.

“If the minimum wage had increased at that rate, it would be worth $61.75 today, instead of $7.25,” Anderson notes.

Lessons from the oligarchy

The bottom line is that federal income policy has taken good care of Wall Street bonus earners, while virtually ignoring the needs of low-wage workers.

In terms of race and gender, the ripple effects of wage inequality are equally extreme. Anderson cites figures indicating that white men reap the lion’s share of benefits from the kid-gloves treatment of Wall Street income, while women and non-white men hold down low-paying service work that is vital to a functioning society, including child care and home care.

In this time of pandemic, climate crisis, inflation, a potential energy shortage and Russian warmongering, those in the most precarious financial position have been forced to shoulder the heaviest burden. Increasing the tax on a few hundred U.S. billionaires could help make a difference in terms of increasing the availability of federal aid for financially struggling households. However, the root of the problem is legislative inaction on wage inequality.

Increasing the federal minimum wage and implement Section 956 would not solve all problems, but those twin actions would help reinvigorate a sense of collective responsibility for the general welfare, as outlined in Article I of the U.S. Constitution.

Russia’s murderous rampage through Ukraine has exposed the misery and treachery of a self-described democracy that rewards the few at the expense of many. Those who assume such a thing could never happen in America need only look to the influence of money and power in the failed insurrection of January 6, the wave of voter suppression bills sweeping the nation and the corruption of the U.S. Supreme Court to realize how close to the edge we are all skating.

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Beverage brand Vita Coco Co.’s certification in late February as a B Corporation is not only a recognition of the company’s dedication to conducting its business as a force for good, but it also highlights the power consumers can have to effect change.

“If you’re a consumer, you have a lot of power. The decisions that you make in the store or online affects more than just you,” Jane Prior, Vita Coco's chief marketing officer, told TriplePundit.

Businesses can be certified as B Corporations after the nonprofit B Lab conducts a rigorous review of operations and their business model’s impact on workers, customers, communities and the environment. A company must meet a minimum verified score on B Lab’s impact assessment to be certified.

“We’ve always been on a mission to create more equitable access to natural, better-for-you products in a responsible way,” said Mike Kirban, Vita Coco’s founder and co-CEO, in a public statement. “Joining a network of like-minded organizations will create collective impact to democratize health and wellness. We are honored to receive this distinction and become part of the B Corp community.”

The Vita Coco Project is the centerpiece of the company’s efforts to have a positive impact on farming communities in the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Ecuador where it sources ingredients for its signature coconut water and other beverages. Through the project, the company says it has built more than 30 classrooms, distributed more than 25,000 coconut seedlings to smallholder farms, and increased grower incomes by more than 260 percent in the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

At the same time, Vita Coco’s plant-based energy brand, Runa, partners with the Indigenous Kichwa community of Ecuador to source caffeine-producing guayusa leaves in addition to the planting of 1.2 million trees, according to the project's website. The project’s ambition is to have a positive impact on 1 million people living and working within farming communities worldwide.

Prior told 3p that the coconut farming communities with which Vita Coco works are “incredibly innovative and diligent” but lack sufficient resources, and their remote locations often have deficient infrastructure, outdated farming practices and a shortage of schools.

On the ground, Vita Coco partners with HOPE, a social enterprise and the first B Corp in the Philippines, and Silvermill, an agribusiness group based in Sri Lanka that supports sustainable farming practices.

“Through our partnerships with HOPE and Silvermill, we advance education opportunities for children in the Philippines and Sri Lanka by building over 30 safe classrooms for K-12 education,” Prior said. “By equipping the families of coconut farmers with access to safe and fun schooling environments, we are helping to offset the classroom deficit and invest in their futures with our local on-the-ground partners.”

The Vita Coco Project’s website cites two success stories from coconut farmers in Sarangani Province on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. Diascora Martin is regarded as one of the project’s most successful farmers, who in a few years has managed to boost her income by 30 percent. This has enabled Martin to expand her farming to include rejuvenated coffee trees and vegetables. She was also able to send her teenaged son to high school instead of having him work on the farm. Abundio and Mimi Bacquiano have seen their family’s annual income increase by 12 percent, allowing them to invest in their youngest child’s college tuition, as well as livestock and a commercial herb garden for their local community.

“HOPE’s access to smallholder farmers in Philippine communities where Vita Coco is manufactured, 60 percent of which live below the poverty line, presented a unique opportunity to not only improve the farmers’ livelihood, but also support the communities as a whole,” Nanette Medved-Po, HOPE’s founder and CEO, told TriplePundit. “Projects like these force us to focus on offering a helping hand to those who are left behind, not due to lack of desire, but due to a lack of opportunity. Together, HOPE and the Vita Coco Project bring hope for the future, and security and dignity for our community.”

Prior said the Vita Coco Project expresses the brand’s commitment “to doing right by people and the planet."

“We partner with our coconut farming communities to encourage long-term sustainable growth in the regions we source from,” she added. “Through our community-led approach with HOPE, we bring our ‘Give, Grow, Guide’ philosophy to life to help coconut farmers increase their annual yield, diversify their crops and grow their coconuts efficiently and sustainably.”

Decisions by consumers help to propel these efforts forward, Prior said.

“By participating in the economy and creating demand for the products you enjoy, like coconut water, you can effect positive change,” Prior explained. “When you choose ethical brands, you help scale programs like the Vita Coco Project to build a thriving community of coconut growers.”

Vita Coco’s certification as a B Corp comes less than a year after it announced its incorporation as a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC).

Image credit: Jakob Owens via Unsplash

So far, the constant fears about cybersecurity attacks since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine haven’t quite materialized. But that doesn’t mean such attacks won’t happen as the siege on Ukraine continues into its second month. Although some experts say the success of cyberattacks as a tool of warfare are overstated, such attacks against many large companies over the past few years are a reminder that they can happen to anyone or any entity, regardless of size.

As the data have long shown, if an industry wants to be stronger, nimbler and more responsive to the ever-changing nature of business, a more diverse workforce is a way to forge ahead on such a path. Yet this is exactly where the cybersecurity industry falls short, as only about 25 percent of its employees are women.

While recent research on who’s working within this field actually found that the percentage of women employees in the industry is higher than what was previously assumed, there is still plenty of room for improvement.

Jen Easterly, the current director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), has made it clear recruiting more women into this space is a priority. Easterly has repeated ongoing calls to have women comprise 50 percent of employees within this field by 2030. The CISA has pledged to be more assertive in hiring qualified women, and says it's working with such organizations as Girls Who Code to open up young women’s minds to the possibility of having a career within this sector.

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More companies also appear to grasp that diversity within the cybersecurity field is necessary in order for the industry to adjust to the times and thrive in the long run. In a recent profile on ZDNet, Vasu Jakkal, Microsoft's corporate vice president of security, compliance, identity and management, agreed that women and other workers "with more diverse perspectives" were crucial to help take on ongoing threats as well as help take the pressure off understaffed information technology teams. Microsoft’s own research revealed that more women than men often make the assumption that men are seen as a better fit in the tech sector. And men, at more than twice the rate of women, assume they are more qualified for a typical cybersecurity job.

"I've always felt that cybersecurity is a calling but as our survey shows, the journey isn't always easy," Jakkal told ZDNet senior editor Owen Hughes. "I've often been the only woman or person of color at the table. And, while I've tackled every challenge thrown at me, I sometimes doubted myself and struggled with imposter syndrome. Most of us do — women especially. The important thing is that over time, we find our voice and learn to speak up."

Microsoft’s research found there are more than 2.5 million cybersecurity jobs open worldwide, meaning there is plenty of opportunity for anyone who is qualified. So, what can be done to recruit more women and underrepresented groups into this industry?

At a higher level, Gigi Schumm of Virginia-based ThreatQuotient suggests three overarching strategies. First, companies need to strive to fix those “broken rungs” within their hiring and retainment policies, including unconscious bias and the ongoing denial of offering women the chance to work on high-profile projects. “We tend to think of diversity in leadership,” Schumm wrote. “If you want diversity at the top, you must pay attention to every rung on the ladder. But the reality is, women start to fall behind at the first potential promotion up to the management level.”

Next, all companies need to be transparent in their hiring and promotion data — and this is a case where the federal government is actually ahead of the private sector. “Transparency in employee promotion leads to less subjectivity or unconscious bias, which helps give all candidates equal footing as they move from one rung up to the next,” Schumm added.

Finally, understanding that bias exists can actually boost inclusion and improve gender diversity in any industry, including cybersecurity. One-off events such as hiring someone a manager has known well for years, or hiring from the same small company or competitor, may appear benign on an individual basis. But over time, these habits can actually prove to be exclusive and deny qualified people the chance to excel, as their only shortcoming is not having that connection with the company or manager. “Given the research, it’s clear that many cybersecurity companies have a huge opportunity to improve gender diversity in the work environment. It’s also clear that diversity is good for business on many levels, so no company should want to be left behind,” Schumm concluded.

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Freshworks, a software-as-a-service company with headquarters in San Mateo, California and Chennai, India, recently introduced its Career Restart Program (CRP) in the U.S. The CRP return-to-work program is for women who have been on a career break for more than a year due to family commitments, raising children, the loss of a spouse during the pandemic, personal health issues or any other personal crisis.

Freshworks lays out a plan for women to re-enter the workplace

Freshworks first introduced the CRP in November 2021 in India as the Pledge For Equality program, with the goal of finding female talent in the areas of sales and marketing, product management, and engineering. Eighteen women were selected to complete a 16-week developmental training course, including competency development, on-the-job training and mentoring.

The U.S.-based CRP, in partnership with Women Back to Work, seeks out women for customer support and solution engineer roles, and the two groups works together to place these women for hire.

“We help companies that value diversity and inclusion hire career-ready returners with technical backgrounds through custom returnship programs,” said Sonu Ratra, founder of Women Back to Work, in a public statement. “We look forward to partnering with Freshworks as they continue to tackle gender parity and strive to ultimately reach a 50/50 workforce across the globe.”

In addition to the professional development opportunities provided by Women Back to Work, Freshworks has launched its own 12-week mentorship program, and most importantly, it has committed to offering full-time positions to those who complete the program.

“Our goal for women in leadership roles (director and above) was 20 percent in 2021, which was surpassed, reaching 25 percent globally, and 37 percent for the US at the end of last year," Jayne Gonzalez, Freshworks’ senior director of corporate communications, told TriplePundit. "Our 2022 goal is focused on reaching a saturation point of 40 percent women globally, across all levels.”

After decades of progress, the pandemic forced many women out of the workplace

The trend of working women over the decades has generally tracked with societal influences. For example, in the U.S. before World War II, men were the primary breadwinners in the family, and women were only 28 percent of the labor force. During the era of Rosie the Riveter, associated with the war effort, women flooded the labor market as the only available labor pool as many working-age men were fighting a war. The ranks of women in the workforce then swelled to 37 percent and higher. Necessity of the financial kind also drove women into the workforce. As men returned from the war, some women opted out of the workforce, but the number pursuing higher education increased. Starting in 1979, more women than men have been enrolled in higher education in the U.S.

The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has brought on the opposite effect, as it has largely had a negative impact on the numbers of women who are currently in the workplace.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 2 million women in the United States have left the workforce since the start of the pandemic, roughly since early February of 2020. In 2020, the share of women who took part in the labor force fell by 1.2 percentage points to 56.2 percent, the lowest rate since 1987, and nearly four percentage points below the peak of 60 percent in 1999.

Many women face a long road back to the workplace

In January 2022, almost 4 percent of all women were jobless. However, nearly 5 percent of Latinas and nearly 6 percent of Black women were unemployed. Women with disabilities were most affected, as nearly 8 percent of this group were jobless.

Women have long faced challenges in the workplace, which was usually due to evolutionary and societal circumstances and less with their capabilities, such as child-rearing, the overwhelming rate that women versus men assume the role of primary caregiver and the flexibility women often require based on those roles. Programs such as Freshworks Career Restart, however, offer a needed response has they can assist women with the skills and training to relaunch careers.

These gaps in the career trajectory of women add to the disadvantages that women face, in spite of being more highly educated than their peers were previously, and, to a certain extent, C-suite opportunities for women becoming more common.

Over time, training, employment and “returnship” programs such as Freshworks Career Restart could help close the gap in those disparities.

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Every year we dedicate the month of March to celebrating women’s contributions to society and culture. While women have shattered many ceilings over time, those gains have not been equal for all women. Take the Suffrage Movement for example: Ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allowed white women to vote in 1920, but it took another 45 years before Black women were able to vote. A considerable gap remains not only between women and men, but between women of color and their white counterparts as well.

In a recent gender workplace study commissioned by HP, 45 percent of women of color in the U.S. expressed a desire to be promoted this year, versus 26 percent of white women. However, only 31 percent of women of color received those promotions, compared to 44 percent of white women. Data like this suggest that barriers exist for women of color in attaining leadership positions. 

The opportunity to remove barriers starts with a vital mindset shift. A shift from just tackling the day-to-day work to doing it while embracing the value of diversity. In many ways, we’re still in the early stages of this transformation journey. In the workplace, talking about systemic racism and inequality used to be the purple elephant in the room, but the brutal murder of George Floyd opened people’s apertures on the injustices that people of color face. Now, let’s transform that moment into a movement where we keep intersectionality top of mind in everything we do. It’s not just the right thing to do — there’s also a business case for it. 

Companies that are ranked the highest in gender diversity in executive levels are 25 percent more likely to have above-average profitability than companies with the lowest gender diversity, according to a 2020 McKinsey report. Companies that ranked highest in cultural and ethnic diversity had 36 percent higher profitability than businesses that lacked cultural diversity. 

That’s why as we work to achieve 50/50 gender equality in HP leadership by 2030, we measure and monitor not just gender representation but also intersectionality data in heterogenous markets to ensure women of color have a seat at the table. Diverse representation inspires us to create innovations for all demographics — which, in turn, helps us reach more customers. And when that mindset is woven into how we work every day, we will unlock sustainable and meaningful impact for our business and our society. 

Equally important is building a mutually trusting relationship with women of color. It means getting to know them holistically, or beyond their identity as a worker to a deeper vision of who they are. The overnight shift to working from home as a result of the pandemic allows us to get to know our colleagues and their families better, and we’re able to be more compassionate and more vulnerable with each other. Building empathy and a strong personal connection must be prioritized no matter how we work moving forward. By putting the humanity of women of color at the forefront, white women can establish a foundation of trust with them. 

Building trust also requires white women to actively listen to women and not be afraid to change if necessary to create a more inclusive workplace. It’s not expecting women of color to act or think like the dominant group. The goal is not to work the same way, but rather to win together in a space where we acknowledge and celebrate our differences.  

We also encourage white women to be sponsors of all women, and not just those who look like them. Sponsorship comes in many shapes and forms. You call address bias and be an upstander when you see acts of microaggressions inflicted on women who are “Double Onlys,” a term coined by Lean In to illustrate women who have intersectional identities and who are more likely to experience microaggression than others. You can tap women of color on the shoulder when you see opportunities that help them grow. You can keep an eye out for ways that elevate their expertise on the team. You can advocate for them to executives and other stakeholders and encourage them to strive for leadership positions. Taking these actions will also help you win trust among women of color. Just like how many men have been allies to white women, white women should extend their influence to women from all walks of life. 

For Black women, it’s engrained in our culture to respect and honor the shoulders of those who came before us while continuing to lift others up. Stories of Harriet Tubman and Fannie Barrier Williams and the community-centric actions demonstrated by our grandmothers, mothers and aunts inspired us to bring others along. As we wrap up Women’s History Month and reflect on our accomplishments, it’s important not to get too comfortable. Women are making strides in every direction, but until those gains impact the women for whom things are still the most unequal, we will never fully realize the benefits of true gender equity. 

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