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This story is part of From the Frontline, a guest-contributed column where we hear directly from climate justice advocates and those who are impacted by climate change. If you're interested in contributing your perspective on climate justice and clean energy to this column, please get in touch with us here. 

The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) recently announced a long-awaited Grid Expansion Rule that requires regional utilities to create 20-year plans for updating the electric grid. The build-out of power lines has historically been sluggish and siloed, leaving the expansion of the grid ill-equipped to meet increasing energy demand. The outdated and fragmented grid also poses major barriers to clean energy expansion, limiting the benefits of solar and wind projects like affordable energy costs and good-paying green jobs.
 
The rule itself is resource-neutral — meaning it doesn’t prescribe a certain energy mix of renewables or fossil fuels — but progressives and conservatives agree that the rule will accelerate the expansion of clean energy projects while making the grid more resilient and reliable. However, the FERC’s new rule alone will not be enough to produce clean energy where it's needed. Getting permission to build clean energy projects poses perhaps an even greater threat to progress.
 
That’s why we need permitting reform. Even with record investments in clean energy from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), we won’t be able to maximize those funds without seriously improving how we build and maintain essential infrastructure.  Those who will pay the cost of inaction are disadvantaged communities that are most impacted by climate change, have the least access to clean technologies, and struggle most to afford their energy bills.
 
Permitting and transmission reform can provide jobs and economic opportunity while reducing pollution, making electricity more reliable, and creating better health outcomes. This is about people and communities, especially those most impacted by poverty and pollution. Accelerating the deployment of clean energy and accompanying infrastructure means cleaner air and water, good-paying jobs, and energy bills that don’t break the bank.
 
However, the transition to cleaner technologies must be intentional. Speeding up permitting processes cannot come at the expense of thorough environmental reviews and robust community engagement. This is critical to not only confront environmental racism that plagues low-income communities and communities of color, but also to steward an inclusive green transition for communities that have relied on the fossil fuel industry for their livelihoods.

After decades of working to extract and refine coal, oil, and natural gas, many rural communities are at risk of being left behind. New clean energy and transmission projects need to be built sooner rather than later to stimulate rural economies and tackle air and water pollution. 
 
The current process for obtaining permits to build energy projects is agonizingly slow. Approvals take an average of four years, but oftentimes that process can take over a decade. The Grain Belt Express is one example. It’s slated to connect renewable energy generated in Kansas to surrounding states, delivering over $13 billion in energy cost savings and creating over 22,000 jobs. The project has been caught in the throes of permitting since 2010, culminating in 14 years of delays that hinder the expansion of clean, affordable energy in the Midwest.
 
Getting permission to build energy projects is not only slow, but it also does not sufficiently protect communities. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires federal agencies to consider the environmental and public health benefits of proposed infrastructure projects. It was designed to prevent environmental harm and harm to communities, but much harm has occurred since its inception.

In a growing number of instances, NEPA is used to prevent clean energy projects that would clearly benefit both the environment and communities. This is demonstrated by the fact that lawsuits are currently blocking solar projects more often than fossil fuel facilities or pipelines. The current process was designed with good intentions, but it is time to adapt it to better meet its goals.
 
Communities deserve access to cleaner, more affordable and more reliable energy. With new rules and funding dedicated to modernizing our outdated grid, now is the time to improve permitting processes. It won’t be easy; conducting meaningful community engagement, deploying new technologies, and finding common ground come with their own unique challenges. But we can’t afford to wait a decade to see the benefits of clean energy — especially for communities most impacted by climate change. They have waited long enough. With permitting and transmission reform done the right way, we can unleash the clean energy economy and create unprecedented environmental, economic, and health benefits for communities across the nation.

When summer arrives, it brings plant sales and the urge to garden along. As you take home a new collection of plants this season, you might wonder what to do with all the plastic plant pots they come in. If you live in the United Kingdom, B&Q can solve your plant pot waste debacle. Launching over 100 plastic pot recycling stations across the country, the home improvement company has high hopes of starting a sustainable gardening revolution. 

“At B&Q we have a strong connection to nature and have many sustainable products available in our gardening ranges,” Sanita Garley, the company's responsible business manager, told TriplePundit. “Understanding where we could help gardeners limit their impact was therefore a key place to start with this new initiative.” 

The company built the recycling program as a closed-loop system, Garley said. 

“We collect plant pots and plastic waste from the stations in our stores,” Garley said. “This is then sent to recycling, and we make the product out of the recycled plastic. The plant pots are taken to a reprocessing facility that makes them into plastic pellets which are then used directly in the making of a new plant pot.” 

The final product, the Blacksmith Planter, is weather resistant, made of 100 percent recycled plastic and retails at £4. 

Growing as a business means more than profit 

B&Q is a trusted home improvement retailer. This endeavor was not a need for the company. If anything it might provide a challenge, something Garley said they didn’t shy away from. But improvement as a business isn’t as simple as making the most profit for B&Q, Garley said. Communities and the environment are also a key concern for the company.

“Our goal is to continue making changes to improve as a business and help build a better world for our customers, colleagues and communities,” she said. 

The plant pot recycling initiative is already a hit in B&Q stores, “The response has been great, they’ve already become popular — in fact we sold out of the first production volume of planter pots in the first couple of weeks.” 

Consumers care about sustainable practices 

Concern for the environment is growing among Millennials and Gen Z, according to a 2023 survey by the consulting firm Deloitte. This concern is motivating their career decisions. They're holding companies to a higher standard and choosing businesses that offer sustainable policies and opportunities. 

This trend is opening a space for companies to step up and create accessibility within their businesses for both employees and consumers, something B&Q is aiming for with its recycling initiative. 

“As a business, we want to make a positive difference through tangible actions and continue to put innovation at the forefront of our approach to helping our customers make more sustainable choices,” Garley said. “These new recycling stations will allow us to repurpose something that would normally be discarded and help us in our goal to make more sustainable choices easier and more convenient for our customers.”

As the new adults of the modern world continue to grapple with rising temperatures and looming food scarcity associated with climate change, gardening is on the rise. And B&Q’s plant pot recycling initiative is helping the growing population of gardeners reduce their environmental impact. 

Along with ongoing labor shortages across the U.S. workforce, the maritime industry is facing additional challenges. Crowley, a leading logistics, marine and energy solutions company, is among those turning to workforce development strategies centered on DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) for solutions. 

After testifying as part of a panel of industry leaders at a recent congressional hearing in Miami, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Crowley Shipping, James C. Fowler, pointed out that the most critical need facing the maritime industry is the shortage of mariners.

“The critical need that we have now is ensuring that we have adequate mariners in our system. Today we’re in a mariner shortage, a crisis across our industry. And we certainly need some support in ensuring that we can solve this together,” he said. 

Fowler explained that this challenge has two facets. The first is attracting new talent and making them more aware of the industry, which Crowley has partnered with MARAD and others to address. The second is career progression, as the in-person requirements and out of pocket costs can turn mariners away. The certification process needs to be modernized to reduce the cost to mariners and provide materials and coursework digitally to make it easier for mariners to upgrade their licensing and advance their careers.

Besides efforts to broadly enhance mariner development and credentialing with the U.S. government, the company’s approach is particularly noteworthy because it integrates DEI to support traditional recruiting, development, and workplace safety approaches, helping to cement diversity as a feature in employee talent acquisition and engagement practices to broaden the pool of potential U.S. mariners.

Leveraging inclusion to make existing workforce programs more effective

Crowley is a family- and employee-owned business that began with a single rowboat plying the San Francisco Bay in 1892. Today, it spans 7,000 employees and a fleet of more than 170 vessels that the company owns outright or runs in an operator or management capacity.

The Crowley umbrella also covers a wide range of facilities on land, from office buildings to tank farms, and a diverse fleet of trucks, trailers, cranes and other heavy-duty vehicles.

It can be challenging enough to engage prospective employees in the various training, licensing and certification regimens from the government involved in Crowley’s operations. That’s why drawing from a diverse labor pool is increasingly critical.
In a conversation with TriplePundit, Ira Douglas, vice president of labor relations, explained how the company integrates DEI into its workforce planning by building on existing recruitment avenues. 

“Knowing that maritime academy cadets are future vessel leaders, Crowley began integrating diversity, equity and inclusion components into our cadet shipping selection process, resulting in greater diversity selection,” Douglas said. “Additionally, we implemented a new recruiting system for the Thomas B. Crowley Sr. Scholarship Fund in 2021 to integrate DEI components into applications and focus on broadening the talent pool.”

The Scholarship Fund initiative was particularly effective, increasing the number of female cadet scholarship awardees from 6 percent to an impressive 40 percent.

“We are also working with our union partners on working groups to address cultural issues and develop benefits that allow for more inclusivity, such as maternity leave policies and programs,” Douglas said. 

Centering workplace safety

A successful diversity hiring initiative does not necessarily translate into equity in the workplace. One-off diversity training sessions have gained a reputation for ineffectiveness. Equity and inclusion principles must be integrated with daily practice to accomplish lasting, long-term goals. At Crowley, he company’s prioritization of workplace safety, operationally, physically and psychologically, supports this holistic approach.

“Safety is core to our culture and Crowley has a zero-tolerance policy for harassment and discrimination,” Douglas said.

Crowley’s in-house workplace safety policies are fortified by the Every Mariner Builds A Respectful Culture (EMBARC) Standards recently adopted by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Maritime Administration and the various U.S. merchant marine academies.

The standards are designed to support compliance with existing guidelines aimed at preventing sexual assault, harassment and other forms of misconduct. They are required for every U.S.-flagged commercial vessel operator that intends to employ members of the merchant marine industry. 

“Crowley was the first company accepted into the U.S. Maritime Administration’s EMBARC program — which requires that all our vessels have crews fully trained on harassment and discrimination, multiple avenues for reporting incidents, timelines for performing investigations, and visible signs and posters with further information on these,” Douglas said.

The company also supports voluntary, employee-run business resource groups, including a mariner-based group, to provide developmental guidance and foster a culture of respect in alignment with the company's goals. Open to all employees, the groups span many parts of the workforce, including people identifying as Black, Hispanic, and Asian American Pacific Islander as well as veterans, women, LGBTQ+, multi-denominational Christian and multigenerational collective to break down generational silos. 

In addition to in-house support, the business resource groups platform also supports Crowley’s external diversity outreach efforts. 

The Black Resourceful Individuals Dedicated to Growth and Education (BRIDGE) group, for example, participates in a career and personal skills program with the youth mentorship organization Big Brothers Big Sisters. It also partners with local organizations like Lift Jax in Jacksonville, Florida, to donate school supplies and talk to students about maritime careers.

Collaborating and coordinating with other industry groups is also essential. For example, in working toward cultivating a female workforce, Douglas points out that Parker Harrison, Crowley’s chief risk and legal officer, served as president of the U.S. branch of the Women’s International Shipping and Trading Association for three years. Shandee Bowman, Crowley’s vice president of culture and inclusion, has also been recently appointed the chair of the Florida Diversity Council board of directors.

Next steps for the workforce of the future

In 2022, Transportation Institute, a nonprofit organization, surveyed maritime carriers and they received answers from 163 respondents. “Over 75 percent of responding fleets are currently struggling to fill or are delayed in hiring positions,” Douglas said. Almost half of respondents experienced delays and missed opportunities due to labor shortages.

“Additionally an expected 1,300 mariners will be needed through 2054 to operate new vessels to meet sealift capacity needs, and the offshore wind industry is expected to require as many as 4,400 mariners to support operations, according to the survey,” Douglas said.

Crowley also focuses on career readiness and scholarships for maritime students, including people in traditionally underserved communities.

“This is part of a larger educational ecosystem we are developing to advance the industry and support equity efforts with a heightened emphasis on women, Black or African American, and LGBTQ+ talent,” Douglas explained.

In 2023, the company completed an employee “Self ID” campaign to capture the makeup of its global workforce and help build appreciation for diversity. Other actions include support for LGBTQ+ equity.

Crowley is an excellent example of a company founded in the 19th Century that is preparing for the risks and opportunities of tomorrow. This includes a diversified workforce, new workplace safety standards and capitalizing on the emergence of new industries. Rather than letting challenges get in its way, the company is charting its own course for the future.

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

Image courtesy of Crowley

Dick’s Sporting Goods faced criticism and calls for a boycott from gun ownership activists when the company first began scaling back the sale of guns and ammunition in 2012. A dozen years later, the criticism continues, but Dick’s continues to respond to public concerns about gun violence — and expand into new and profitable lines of business instead.  

Raising the bar against gun violence, and taking the heat

Dick’s Sporting Goods began removing assault-style rifles from its stores in 2012, after a 20-year-old murdered 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut with the same type of firearm. Considering the company’s position as one of the top firearms retailers in the U.S., the decision was an attention-getter

Gun rights activists and gun safety advocates paid attention again in 2018 after Dick’s restricted gun sales to ages 21 and over. The company also removed some firearms and ammunition from hundreds of stores and destroyed its inventory of military-style, semi-automatic weapons after a 19-year-old student murdered 17 of his classmates at Parkland High School in Florida.

The decision to destroy the guns touched a raw nerve at the National Rifle Association. Dick’s “isn’t focusing on the actual problem, what it is doing is punishing law-abiding citizens,” the organization tweeted in April 2018, as reported by Fortune and other news organizations.

Among other actions since then, Dick’s removed all firearms and hunting equipment from one of its stores in Portland, Maine, in 2022. Its remaining three Maine stores also stopped selling firearms and hunting equipment between January and March of this year, following the murder of 18 people in Lewiston, Maine, by a U.S. Army reservist in October 2023.

Coincidentally or not, last week the National Center for Public Policy Research, right-wing organization, announced plans to criticize Dick’s gun policies at an upcoming shareholder meeting. The announcement cited a loss in shareholder value of $250 million due to former CEO Ed Stack’s “value-killing decision to halt gun sales,” calling it a “costly prioritization of progressive politics over profit.”

The organization also took aim at Stack personally, stating that the former CEO “thought his political beliefs about gun ownership gave him a license to treat the company like a personal plaything.”

But its announcement somewhat obscured the timeline and the facts.

When boycotts (don’t) work

Stack himself cited the $250 million figure in a 2019 interview with CBS This Morning, but he was not referring to lost shareholder value. His executive team calculated that the company would lose $250 million in sales after the gun restrictions in 2018.

In the same interview, Stack also expressed his personal feelings about discontinuing the sale of guns. That is different from treating the business as a “personal plaything.” As detailed in a Harvard Business School case study in 2022, Stack and his team meticulously weighed financial risks and benefits to the company before deciding to restrict gun sales after the Parkland massacre.

“Dick’s Sporting Goods did lose millions in sales in the months immediately following Stack’s announcement, but the chain’s revenues ultimately recovered through other sales in subsequent quarters,” wrote Jay Fitzgerald, the case study’s author. 

Since then, Dick’s has continued to diversity its offerings, a practice it calls “omnichannel.” That includes emphasizing more ways for shoppers to buy, including in-store, curbside pickup and same-day delivery. In March of this year, the company announced that Q4 2023 delivered the largest sales quarter in its history.

“Our growth opportunities are significant, and we continue to prioritize investments in our future to fuel long-term omnichannel growth,” Stack, who moved from his CEO position in 2021 to take the title of executive chairman, said in a March statement.

Dick’s goes back to its roots

The current CEO of Dick’s, Lauren Hobart, also emphasizes the benefits of diversification. "With the continued success of our new store formats and our omnichannel experience, we will accelerate our investment in our growth strategies to drive our business forward and continue gaining market share in a fragmented $140-billion-dollar industry," she said in a statement.

Hobart was referring, in part, to the rollout of a new retail format called Dick’s House of Sport. First launched in 2021, the new venues feature turf fields, batting cages, and other indoor and outdoor elements focused on competitive sports. The company expects to have 20 such venues in operation before the end of the year, toward a total of 75 to 100 by 2027, along with other supporting programs like its new youth sports mobile app.

In 2021, Dick’s also introduced a specialty concept store in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, area focused on promoting outdoor activities and encouraging public land conservation. The concept has since expanded to include locations in eight states, and last year Dick’s acquired the Walmart-affiliated Moosejaw outdoor apparel brand in support.

The emphasis on land conservation circles back around to the company’s roots as a single local store, Dick’s Bait and Tackle Shop. The shop was founded in 1948 by Ed Stack’s father, Dick, who is described as an avid fisherman.

By restricting gun sales and continuing to diversify into new retail and community formats, Dick’s is drawing on the lessons of recreational fishing — where discipline, community responsibility, and an appreciation of natural systems are all needed to sustain fish populations for everyone to enjoy. Meanwhile, the company is exposing itself less to the reputational risk of a customer buying a gun with murderous intent.

This exercise in community-building sets an example for other businesses to follow, and that is increasingly important at a time when a strong majority of the public is concerned about gun violence.

“Six in ten U.S. adults say gun violence is a very big problem in the country today, up 9 percentage points from spring 2022,” according to a 2023 survey by the Pew Research Center. An additional 23 percent of respondents said that gun violence is a “moderately big problem.” “Looking ahead, 62 percent of Americans say they expect the level of gun violence to increase over the next five years,” according to the research. 

On the heels of last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down a short-lived federal ban on “bump stocks,” devices that can be attached to semi-automatic guns to enable more rapid firing, the expectation of ever-increasing gun violence could soon be realized in horrifying ways. Dick’s new business models can’t do anything about that, but all business leaders can help advocate for a restoration of common sense on gun safety.

Green hydrogen is a key driver of the global decarbonization effort, but it faces a scale-up problem. The electrolyzer systems that generate green hydrogen are expensive and cumbersome to manufacture. A faster, cheaper manufacturing strategy is needed, and industry stakeholders are developing solutions.

From tape to the energy transition

The well-known U.S. firm 3M provides an example of stakeholder interest in new electrolyzer manufacturing systems. The company launched in 1902 with a focus on new kinds of sandpaper.

Since then, it compiled extensive background in two areas that apply directly to the electrolyzer problem, materials science and roll-to-roll manufacturing, which involves feeding a flexible material through a system of rollers to print on it, cut it, or coat it, among other things. That experience is reflected in the company’s roster of products manufactured with roll-to-roll systems, including the introduction of recording tapes in the 20th century.

The roll-to-roll difference

Tape recorders have faded from use in the 21st century with the rise of digital technology, but the rapid-fire pace of roll-to-roll manufacturing is still at work in the energy transition. The U.S. Department of Energy, for example, promoted roll-to-roll systems as a means of scaling up the manufacture of new thin film solar cell technology.

To get a picture of the difference roll-to-roll manufacturing can make in the electrolyzer field, consider its impact on the printing industry. The first printing presses emerged in the 15th century, requiring operators to place a single piece of paper on a flat surface, stamp it and remove it. The stamping method held sway until the 19th century when printing houses incorporated cylinders. Instead of breaking the process into steps, cylinders enable a continuous flow of material from one roll to another.

The high speed of cylinder-based printing was showcased to dramatic effect in famous films of the 20th century, such as “Citizen Kane,” where newspapers are shown whizzing around machinery the size of an entire factory floor in a seamless flow.

Roll-to-roll printing and green hydrogen

Electrolyzers are composed of cells arranged in stacks. They push hydrogen from water with an electrical current. When that current is provided by renewable energy, electrolyzers offer a green alternative to the fossil resources needed for conventional hydrogen.

The implications for the energy transition are widespread. In addition to decarbonizing fuels and industrial systems, green hydrogen production can contribute to grid reliability and stimulate further investment in renewable energy projects.

“With the expansion of renewables as a clean energy input, we can align supply and demand on the grid, and we can use those otherwise unused electrons and put that in a water electrolyzer,” Andy Steinbach, senior research specialist at 3M, told TriplePundit. “This is an opportunity from a technology standpoint.”

Before that opportunity can be realized, the cost of green hydrogen needs to be competitive with fossil resources. Estimates vary, but the U.S. Department of Energy uses the standard figure of $5.00 per kilogram for green hydrogen. It’s set a goal of reducing that by 80 percent within 10 years, down to $1.00 per kilogram, with an intermediary step of $2.00 per kilogram by 2026.

In terms of competition with fossil energy, the gap is narrowing. The cost of making hydrogen from natural gas ranges from $0.50 to $1.70 per kilogram depending on the market, according to the International Energy Agency. Attaching carbon capture systems to the process bumps up the range to $1.00 to $1.70 per kilogram, further closing the gap.

The Energy Department’s goal is consistent with a 2020 report on electrolyzer manufacturing issued by the International Renewable Energy Agency. It concluded that the cost of electrolyzer systems could drop by 40 percent over the short term and up to 80 percent over the long term if the industry scales up, standardizes and draws lessons from early adopters.

As viewed by 3M, one of those lessons is to move electrolyzer manufacturing from partial to full automation.

“A lot of the components are [currently] built in a semi-automated process,” Tim Yamaya, a corporate entrepreneur at 3M, told TriplePundit. “They are partly hand-assembled, and the industry is trying to get to fully automated production.”

Yamaya also drew attention to the impact of electrolyzer costs on the competitiveness of green hydrogen.

“3M’s focus is to enable renewable hydrogen to be cost competitive. We want to enable that through high-performance materials and process expertise,” Yamaya said, referring to the $1.00 per kilogram goal of the Energy Department.

Investing in the green hydrogen industry of the future

Towards the goal of reducing the cost of manufacturing, 3M Ventures, the company’s venture capital arm, invested in the electrolyzer firm Evoloh.

Evoloh is developing a roll-to-roll system for manufacturing low-cost electrolyzer “stacks.” The company is also cutting costs by eliminating expensive or rare materials in favor of inexpensive, locally sourced materials including steel and aluminum as well as plastic. Among other cost-cutting measures, Evoloh won a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy aimed at deploying plain tap water instead of the purified water required by conventional electrolyzers.

Bill Weber, the business building director at 3M Ventures, told TriplePundit that the company plans to contribute its experience driving down material costs in the direct air carbon capture field to help Evoloh scale up its manufacturing system.

“Evoloh’s ambition is to do electrolyzer stacks roll-to-roll,” he explained, “And we also do carbon capture materials roll-to-roll, so we can rapidly create the scale that the world needs.”

More support for roll-to-roll systems

The potential to introduce rolls-to-roll systems in electrolyzer manufacturing has also caught the attention of the U.S. Department of Energy. The agency announced the launch of the new R2R Consortium, a collaborative effort involving five of its research laboratories, this year.

“Roll-to-roll manufacturing can reduce costs by increasing process efficiency and reducing material waste, but there are challenges related to materials synthesis, coating, drying, and quality control that need to be addressed to scale up these processes for industry adoption,” according to the department.

The focus on roll-to-roll printing is a timely one. In its latest global hydrogen market review, the International Energy Agency warned that demand for electrolyzers is “highly uncertain,” as the industry continues to struggle with costs.

And in May, the International Council on Clean Transportation advised that “where costs will land in the future can’t be known with certainty.”

Nevertheless, investor interest in producing green hydrogen continues to show signs of life, as recently illustrated in the U.S. by the announcement of two new projects totaling 8 gigawatts in Texas.

If 3M, Evoloh, the Energy Department and other stakeholders realize their plans for reducing the cost of electrolyzer manufacturing, the future of green hydrogen will look much more certain than it does now.

In May, about 2,000 young scientists from high schools around the world presented research and solutions for critical societal issues such as climate change and diseases. 

Students can only compete at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair after winning the top prize at a local, regional, state or national science fair. TriplePundit sat down with three of these young scientists to discuss their research and the tools they created for wildfire mitigation and adaptation.

Measuring long-term human health impacts from wildfire smoke exposure

“Here in Montana, and Missoula specifically, wildfire smoke seasons have been getting worse over time,” said 18-year-old Amy Boote. After noticing health effects in herself and her family, she became interested in discovering more about how wildfire smoke affects lung function over time in otherwise young, healthy adults.

There are not many studies on the long-term health impacts of wildfire smoke exposure. So Boote looked for historical data from the Environmental Protection Agency on particulate matter — microscopic solids and liquids — emitted by wildfire smoke. She focused on PM2.5, or particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter. 

“PM2.5 can penetrate into your lungs and cross into your bloodstream,” Boote explained. She recruited 18- to 30-year-olds with no history of smoking or vaping and surveyed them to determine their medical history and total lifetime exposure to wildfire smoke based on where they lived every year of their lives. She then tested each participant’s lung function.

“After analyzing the data, I saw there was a significant correlation between lifetime wildfire PM2.5 exposure and decreased lung function,” Boote said. “Capacity continued to decrease with repeated exposure.”

She also noted that more time spent living in Missoula significantly correlated with lifetime increased exposure to wildfire smoke.

“It was surprising that [the participants] were seeing decreased lung function because they were younger, healthier and more active,” Boote said. “They were not in sensitive groups, like being older with pre-existing conditions.”

Moving forward, Boote wants to see more research on mitigation strategies to reduce exposure to wildfire smoke, including which strategies are most protective. 

“This is so important because more and more people are being exposed to repeated wildfire smoke events,” she said. “Human-caused climate change is driving the increase in wildfires globally and here in Montana. Here, our wildfire season has gotten three times longer, and total wildfire smoke exposure is increasing globally.”

Monitoring park visitor safety and forest fires with radio technology

“Every year, 2,000 hikers go missing in the U.S., which makes up half of all missing people in the country,” explained 17-year-old John Parsons. “I wanted to do something that can help people.” 

Parsons developed a system of solar-powered transceivers, which are wireless communication devices that use radio waves, to keep hikers and park visitors safe while monitoring for forest fires. The transceiver sits inside a weatherproof box about the size of a shoebox with a small solar panel attached.

“The idea is that when hikers enter parks, park rangers would give them a small device to take with them,” Parsons explained. “The transceiver boxes could be placed in the trees in the forest, and as hikers go through, it records their location with GPS. They can also hit a button on their device if they are in distress.” 

The boxes also contain smoke detectors that notify park rangers of the location of fires via the transceiver system.

The most common methods for monitoring forest fires are satellite imagery or using fire watch towers, but those are less effective at night or in misty conditions, Parsons said.

“The reason that this system is needed is because you cannot build major infrastructure in a national park, but the transceiver is tiny,” he said. “They are unobtrusive to the environment and barely noticeable. There is no visual impact.”

Parsons acknowledged that, currently, the system has a limited range of up to 60 meters. However, he believes that the range can be improved. “I have a bunch of ideas for other improvements, too,” he noted. “I would love to put a small keyboard on the hikers’ modules to encode a message into radio waves, so it could specify the problem and location for the rangers.”

This was Parsons’ first year doing a science fair, and he received the Soumyanath Memorial Award, winning a cash prize for himself and his school. Before starting the project, he taught himself circuitry and soldering using online videos and brushed up on his coding skills. 

Reflecting on what he learned at the fair, he said, “If you have a good idea, work on it. You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”

Low-cost, rapid response solutions for wildfire hotspot detection

“The 2023 wildfire season was the most disruptive ever in Canadian history,” said 17-year-old Jason Zhao. “I decided I wanted to help speed up the firefighting process.”

Zhao designed and built a rocket that deploys drones to detect and monitor wildfires. “The first step of wildfire suppression is identifying hot spots,” Zhao explained. “You need to get an infrared camera above it to make a plan.”

Typically, wildfire hotspots are detected using helicopters, butt helicopters are not very fast and need specialized airports nearby to take off from, Zhao said. 

“Most importantly, helicopters have people inside of them,” he said. “In the past four years, 12 firefighters have died monitoring wildfires. That is the system I am trying to improve.”

Zhao set meetings with his local fire department to better understand its needs. To increase production efficiency, he used 3D printing technology to design and manufacture many of the rocket components. The rocket takes off with the drone inside, and once reaching the forest, separates from the drone, deploys parachutes and falls to the ground. The drone continues on to monitor hotspots. 

“The advantage of my system is that a rocket does not need to take off from an airport,” Zhao said. “It could be stored at the fire department. Rockets are much faster than helicopters. And the worst-case scenario is that you lose a drone, but in that case, nobody has died.”

Zhao has tested his rocket twice. During his first launch in Tri-Cities, Washington, he flew the rocket 1.7 kilometers high. He adjusted the design, and on his second launch in the Mojave Desert, the rocket reached heights of over 3 kilometers and flew at 1.4 times the speed of sound. 

Zhao is continuing to improve some of his system's current limitations, including improving drone efficiency, increasing the drone’s battery life, adding more sensors and instruments, and improving the software to run on autopilot. His project won a special award and a second-place award in the aerospace category.

Building a global community of solutionists and innovators

While the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair provides students with an opportunity to demonstrate the quality of their work in a competition setting, it also fosters international collaboration among young students. Zhao attended with the intention to compete but was surprised by the friendships he built. 

“Going to ISEF was one of the best experiences of my life,” he said. “I was able to make lifelong friends in just seven days.” 

Parsons’ comments echoed Zhao’s: “It was mind-blowing. It was life-changing. I’ve never had an experience like that.”

And so did Boote’s. 

“It was really cool to meet people from all over the world who had put a ton of work into doing a science research project and were knowledgeable and passionate about their areas of research,” Boote said. “People around me were from Sweden, Puerto Rico, Hungary and Turkey. And people were speaking all kinds of different languages, but in the end, we were all high schoolers who had done scientific research.”

A fear of greenwashing has led to another problem for many companies: greenhushing. Greenhushing, or the downplaying of ESG (environmental, social and governance) efforts, is on the rise as companies seek to avoid changing political headwinds and outside scrutiny. But 83 percent of Europeans believe companies have a moral obligation to improve society and the environment with the resources they have, according to research from the visual media company Getty Images. Additionally, 71 percent of American consumers believe it is important for companies to have ESG guidelines and practices. 

TriplePundit sat down with Sammy Malave Jr., manager of creative insights at Getty Images, to understand how organizations can use images to authentically communicate their sustainability commitments and, ultimately, reach more consumers. 

“There is a lot of global pressure around brands getting ESG messaging right, given the importance and weight of meeting the UN goals by 2030. Brands want to get it right and are fearful of greenwashing,” Malave said. “Our research tells us in many ways that ESG, specifically, is very important to consumers … ESG is up there with profit as a metric of success.”

1. Your sustainability visuals should reflect consumers’ daily lives

While companies might be tempted to use aspirational imagery in their sustainability communications, visuals are most effective when they are authentic representations of the present. 

“We know from the image testing we do … that consumers relate best to images that feel reflective of everyday life,” Malave explained. “An ad for an electric vehicle should feel like a slice of life of a family that just so happens to operate an EV. That philosophy should extend to all brands. If you are authentic to yourself as a brand, it will feel authentic to consumers.”

Visuals are most impactful when they accurately and authentically depict the ways in which consumers interact with a company. 

“We need to understand the way that, as a brand, you are attempting to make an impact,” Malave said. “Be honest and visualize it in a way that makes sense, showing what impact looks like for the brand and what it looks like for consumers.” 

2. Visuals should accurately reflect financial priorities 

Visuals should be used to emphasize the areas that companies have adequately resourced. 

“We should be asking brands to be introspective,” Malave said. “When you do your ESG or CSR reports, where are you placing your emphasis and investment?” 

Visuals that do not align with well-resourced corporate priorities are at risk of being labeled as inauthentic or greenwashed.

“Sustainability is not about using green imagery, but it is about holding the supply chain accountable and doing the DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] work and decarbonization,” Malave said. “The emphasis and investment will differ company by company, but brands should take an honest look of where they are making the impact so it can show up in marketing and seem authentic to both the brand and the consumers’ way of life.” 

3. For authentic visual representation, stakeholder engagement is key

To understand what kind of sustainability imagery will best resonate with consumers, companies must have robust stakeholder engagement strategies. Sustainability is critical for developing customer loyalty over the long-term, but the messaging must be authentic. 

“You do that by listening and paying attention, being honest about what consumers want, and how your brand can participate in community empowerment and DEI and all of the things that ladder up to make a sustainable business,” Malave said. “We must ask brands to understand the holistic nature of ESG and understand where consumers fit into that.”

When selecting images for marketing and corporate communications, brands should lean on the ways in which they help consumers in their own personal sustainability journeys. 

“Authenticity is important in the depiction of sustainable imagery,” Malave said. “Companies cannot rely on tropes and the color green and surface level representations of sustainability, like the very stale image of someone dropping something into a recycling bin. It is a challenge to move past that. It is difficult to go a level deeper, but it is not impossible.”

Natural disasters are terrifying enough in their own right. Imagine being unable to understand warnings, directions, emergency declarations, or how to access post-disaster relief because the information is broadcast in a langue you aren’t proficient in. That’s the reality for many immigrants and refugees, and it’s more than just an inconvenience. Lack of language inclusivity puts lives at risk.

While there are laws requiring language accessibility where federal funding is concerned, enforcement is lax. When speakers of a specific language make up less than 5 percent of the total population in the area, those laws might not apply anyway. Compounded with systems that create challenges to accessing emergency information in various languages, immigrants are often left in the dark — literally. 

“Some people were in the dark, were in the heat, and didn’t have access to get to the cooling center, and didn’t have access to call us and let us know that they needed help,” Quỳnh-Hương Nguyễn, the senior communication associate at Woori Juntos said, referring to a deadly storm that swept through Houston, Texas, in May. Similarly, emergency notifications for a chemical fire in the city last year were only sent out in English and some Spanish, leaving many without proper warnings or instructions.

Woori Juntos aims to address these issues by empowering the Asian, immigrant and migrant communities in Houston. The organization focuses on helping them navigate local services and organize to advocate for policy.

Jumping through hoops for language access

“No one was informed about it,” Nguyễn said of the recent storm. “It was only afterwards where people were getting information … like, ‘There's a few cooling centers, there's a place to charge, there's a place to get to get rid of tree debris.’ Now the problem with that, again, is it’s all English focused. So if you are a Korean member or a Spanish-speaking member, and let's say this big tree is in your house right now, how do you get that [removed]?”

Instead of automatically supplying emergency notifications and recovery information in all relevant languages for an area, English is often the default. In Houston specifically, community members have to sign up for alerts online, and that form is also in English, Nguyễn said. This creates a huge barrier for people who are not tech-savvy, especially the elderly, who are the most vulnerable in emergencies. 

Further complicating emergency response — whether it be due to a natural disaster or personal health crisis — first responders don’t speak many of the languages present in the community. As a result, many immigrants struggle to get the help and treatment they need from police and medical professionals, Nguyễn said. This leaves organizations like Woori Juntos scrambling to help with translation and access to services to keep community members who would otherwise slip through the cracks safe during emergencies.

Bridging the language gaps 

Woori Juntos means “we rise together” in a combination of Korean and Spanish. The organization works primarily with Korean, Vietnamese and Spanish-speaking immigrants, many of whom are from Central America. But it also works with smaller immigrant groups such as those from Laos and Cambodia. The organization doesn’t turn anyone away for language reasons and works with interpreters to bridge any gaps.

“On the service side, we focus mainly on helping a lot of our Korean elders, or Korean folks in general, to navigate a lot of the public system if they do not have a relative who can speak proficient English,” Nguyễn said. This includes navigating health care, citizenship, financial resources, disaster recovery and emergencies.

During the storm in May, for example, Woori Juntos immediately pivoted to a rapid response situation to ensure members could safely get to cooling centers in blackout conditions without access to public transportation, Nguyễn said. This is expected to be a regular part of Woori Juntos’ operation. 

“We know that this is going to keep happening every year,” Nguyễn said. “I hate to break it to everybody I'm so sorry. But climate change is so real.” 

The climate crisis is a big part of Woori Juntos’ organizing and policy work, with members listing it as one of their biggest concerns in addition to language access and community safety. The organization uses its translation services to assist members in testifying at the city council and the state capitol. 

“Our programming is very language accessible driven,” Nguyễn said. “Meaning that when it comes to our civic engagement, our social navigation programs and policies, we make sure that it is in their language.”

Building trust 

That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily easy to connect with all of the immigrant communities in Houston. Outreach and notifications have to be tailored to the different immigrant groups, both culturally and language-wise.

Khmer people from Cambodia and Laotians have different ways of connecting, for example, Nguyễn said. Members of these communities were often hurt by the system, which means it takes a lot of work to build their trust.

“They are very protective of their people, especially when it's small,” Nguyễn said. This means staff often have to connect with trusted members of the community first and collaborate with them to reach others.

Making the most of limited funding

One of the biggest challenges facing immigrant organizations like Woori Juntos is funding, which comes from a combination of grants and private donations. 

Only 0.2 percent of all the funding awarded as grants in the U.S. is designated for work in Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, according to a report by the membership organization Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy. 

While Woori Juntos doesn’t turn anyone seeking assistance away, the organization has had connect Central American immigrants with other organizations because it doesn’t have the capacity to help everyone who needs it. The people the organization serves come to the U.S. for a variety of issues — from chasing the American dream to fleeing climate disasters, poverty, and government collapse or abuse — and it’s likely that immigrant groups will continue to grow as the climate crisis worsens and governments struggle to deal with the repercussions. This will only increase the need for groups like Woori Juntos. Whether these organizations will be able to meet the needs of incoming refugees and immigrants will ultimately depend on funding.

Renewable energy developers worked for decades to achieve cost parity with the fossil fuel sector, and today renewable technologies are cheaper than oil and gas in most scenarios. As a result, renewable energy projects are booming around the world, and investment in renewables is set to double investment in fossil fuels this year. The solar energy sector in particular is seeing major growth, with a host of large-scale projects coming online and new discoveries with the potential to revolutionize the industry even further.

That's great news, as research shows that meeting a quarter of global power needs with solar would bring us nearly a fifth of the way toward the emission reductions necessary to cap temperature rise at 1.5 degrees Celsius in the fight against climate change. Read on for some of the big solar news you may have missed in the first half of 2024. 

Foldable solar energy setups could make construction easier than ever

Solar panels are typically installed individually, which makes constructing large energy installations that can power thousands of homes a time consuming and laborious job. The Australian startup 5B is out to change that with a foldable design that can shrink solar construction time from weeks to days. 

The startup devised a way to wire 90 solar panels together into a foldable system that can be unfurled at the development site and snapped into place. Last year in Australia, the system allowed a team of eight workers to cover a soccer field's worth of space with more than 2,000 solar panels in a single day, Fast Company reports.

“Historically, solar farms have been built like a multimillion-piece puzzle ... often in extreme heat,” 5B CEO David Griffin told Fast Company. “It’s expensive, it’s high risk, and it’s increasingly difficult to cost-effectively scale, as solar farms become larger and more remote.”

Along with mainland Australia, 5B's setup was used for a cyclone-resistant solar energy system to power remote communities in the country's Tiwi Islands, which switched on earlier this year. Last month, 5B also inked a major contract for a new solar energy and energy storage system in Puerto Rico, a significant step as the island looks to shift from a highly expensive and fossil fuel dependent electric grid to using more renewable energy. 

The world’s biggest solar energy farm could power an entire country

China flipped on the largest solar farm in the world earlier this month, and it's roughly the size of New York City. The average U.S. solar farm generates about 5 megawatts of energy, enough to power roughly 10,000 homes. For comparison, China's new mega array can produce 5 gigawatts, or 1,000 times more energy, which is enough to power a small country the size of Luxembourg, The Independent reports. The massive system is one of many recently deployed in China as it increased solar energy capacity by more than 50 percent last year. 

While the installation is a historic feat from a renewable energy standpoint, some human rights watchdogs are concerned about China's solar boom. Investigations indicate the country's solar industry is likely “heavily exposed” to forced labor of the marginalized Uyghur ethnic group, which the Chinese government denies. 

This city wants to transform cemeteries into Spain's largest urban solar farm

The city of Valencia, located on Spain's western coast about 200 miles (350 kilometers) south of Barcelona, has a novel idea to turn places of remembrance into hotbeds for solar energy. The fittingly named Requiem in Power (RIP) project launched this month with the first of more than 6,500 solar panels set to be installed at local cemeteries across the city. 

If completed, the installation would generate about 440 megawatts of energy per year, making it the largest urban solar farm in Spain. About a quarter of the energy will power 1,000 low-income households, and the rest will be used for municipal buildings, Euronews reports. 

Scientists uncover a new way to generate high heat from solar power

While today's solar panels generate energy to power local homes and businesses, the electric grid is just one part of the overall energy system that needs to move away from fossil fuels.

Industrial processes that rely on heat — think: glassmaking, steelmaking and aluminum smelting — consume about 25 percent of the world's energy. Existing solar technologies are generally not well suited for high-heat applications above 1,000 degrees Celsius, but a new proof-of-concept study could crack this limitation wide open. 

Researchers at ETH Zurich university in Switzerland used filters made from synthetic quartz and water to absorb infrared radiation from the sun and maximize the absorption of heat. While more research is needed, the quartz-water system they tested was able to "achieve the target temperature with higher efficiency," potentially opening the door for solar power in high-heat industrial applications in the future, the researchers wrote in the journal Device. 

The U.S. could see an even bigger solar boom as tariff holiday comes to a close

The United States imposes tariffs on solar panels imported from China, partly due to concerns of forced labor and partly as a means to temper Chinese dominance in the global solar market. U.S. government officials say Chinese solar companies were shifting operations to Southeast Asian countries like Cambodia and Malaysia as a way to evade these fees, and tariffs on panels imported from Southeast Asia came into force this month. 

That marks the end of a two-year tariff holiday in which U.S. solar developers were able to source panels from Southeast Asian countries fee-free. Developers stockpiled an estimated 35 gigawatts worth of imported solar panels over the past two years, which is more than the solar energy capacity added across the entire United States in 2023. 

Those developers now have just 180 days to use the panels, or they'll have to retroactively pay the tariffs on them. The time crunch could result in a "mini-boom in already red-hot U.S. solar installations" this year, Reuters reports. 

Lithium is the material of choice for most electric vehicle (EV) batteries due to its high energy density and fast-charging capability. Still, over-reliance on a single technology raises concerns over supply chain security, recycling challenges and environmental impacts. The United States Navy is assisting in the effort to shepherd alternative battery materials into the market, in collaboration with the U.S. zinc battery startup Enzinc.

The long journey to zinc EV batteries

Zinc is a relatively abundant, inexpensive material. It was used to create the first modern battery more than 200 years ago, and it is still commonly used in disposable batteries today. But applying zinc to EV batteries has been a centuries-long challenge. The first electric vehicles of the 19th and early 20th centuries typically used rechargeable lead-acid batteries until lithium-ion batteries emerged in the 21st century.

It was not for lack of trying. In the 1990s, for example, the aerospace and defense technology company Northrup Grumman attempted to develop a mini-submarine with zinc batteries for the U.S. Navy. The batteries failed to perform as expected, and they were replaced with lithium-ion batteries.

That didn’t pan out, either. After the Navy finally took possession of the first mini-sub in 2008, it was destroyed in a fire that started while its lithium-ion batteries were recharging.

That, in a nutshell, sums up the problem. Lithium-ion batteries are high-performing, but without proper handling, their flammable electrolyte is a fire hazard. Zinc batteries are non-flammable but their performance in the rechargeable area is limited.

Energy storage solutions are emerging

The development of effective battery management systems allowed for the safe, widespread use of lithium-ion batteries, though the National Fire Protection Association advises that misuse, damage or improper storage can still lead to fire hazards.

At the same time, zinc technology has also progressed. The U.S. Navy continues to focus on zinc as a non-flammable alternative to lithium-ion batteries, with the U.S. startup Enzinc as a partner.

In 2014 Enzinc received a $452,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to collaborate with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory on a project aimed at applying a new sponge-like structure to the anodes in zinc batteries. The grant was issued through the Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) office, which supports new high-risk, high-reward technologies.
 
“Current zinc-based batteries offer limited cycle life due to the formation of tree-like internal structures (dendrites) that can short out the battery,” according to ARPA-E. “Enzinc’s technology will enable zinc-based batteries that accept high-power charge and discharge as required by EVs. If successful, Enzinc’s zinc-anode technology would reduce EV battery cost by more than 50%, double the amount of energy stored, and allow for greater rechargeability.”

Scaling up zinc battery production

Enzinc credits the ARPA-E grant with enabling it to raise more than $8 million in private and public funding.

“Receiving ARPA-E’s RANGE grant enabled us to work with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory to develop a revolutionary zinc microsponge anode that makes powerful, safe and sustainable batteries for vehicles, buildings and energy microgrids,” Michael Burz, Enzinc founder and CEO, said in an ARPA-E blog post.

Among the sustainability advantages cited by Burz is the potential for repurposing existing battery factories, rather than building new facilities.

Lead-acid, Nickel-Cadmium, and Nickel-Metal Hydride battery factories currently account for more than 400 gigawatt-hours of production capacity globally, and all three types can be upgraded to accommodate the new zinc battery, according to Enzinc.

Next steps for zinc batteries

The Energy Department has also provided financial support to other zinc battery innovators including the startup Eos, which specializes in stationary, long duration energy storage systems. Last fall, the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office announced a conditional loan commitment of almost $400 million for Eos to manufacture its new zinc-bromine battery in bulk.

Activity is also stirring elsewhere around the world, with a funding assist from the trade organization Zinc Battery Initiative. Launched in 2020, the initiative is a branch of the International Zinc Association.

The zinc supply chain is more geographically diverse than lithium, and it is more abundant, and a relatively robust global zinc recycling industry is already in place, according to the initiative.

New research is also revealing additional pathways for cutting costs and expanding the application of zinc batteries.

In one recent example, a multinational research team based in China and the U.K. developed an inexpensive alternative to pricey platinum and ruthenium, which are normally needed for zinc-air batteries to charge and discharge efficiently.

Their study, published in the journal Nano Research Energy, supports the use of zinc-air technology to fabricate lightweight, wearable batteries. So far, the team has tested their new battery on small devices including a fan, an LED screen and a mobile phone.

While lithium will continue to exert considerable force in the energy storage market for the foreseeable future, innovations in zinc and other alternatives will help ensure that the battery industry overall can meet the needs of the global economy as energy demand rises and electrification replaces fossil fuels.