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Carbon emissions dipped last year as Americans stayed home rather than commuting and traveling during the pandemic, but they're set to rise once again as the nation becomes more active. To combat this upward trend, the Joe Biden administration is pushing American businesses to do their part to reach at least a 50 percent reduction in economy-wide emissions by 2030.

Transportation is the largest contributor to carbon emissions in the U.S., according to the EPA, making it a sector of the economy that is ripe for targeted reductions.

Electric shuttles: A community-centric mobility solution?

On top of environmental impact, carbon emissions disproportionately affect poorer and diverse communities, which are often underserved by traditional transportation methods like buses and taxis. The wellbeing of  communities and the planet must be taken into account to create a truly sustainable future of transportation for all. Electric, shared, autonomous shuttles present a major opportunity to drive a more sustainable future and offer compounding benefits when deployed in local communities to meet existing mobility needs.

The average all-electric vehicle sold today produces less than half the emissions of gas-powered vehicles both short-term and throughout their lifecycle, leaving no doubt that electrification of vehicles will significantly reduce emissions. Automotive manufacturers committing to produce 100 percent all-electric vehicles by 2040 or sooner are putting the U.S. on a path toward cleaner transportation. However, the industry still faces its challenges in gaining widespread adoption, including a lack of accessible charging stations and general acceptance of electric vehicles over fossil-fueled vehicles. Community-endorsed electric shuttles can remove the burden of personal vehicle ownership and the challenge of accessing charging stations, while propelling community electrification efforts.

Shared rides cut emissions and gridlock

Electrification only addresses one part of the challenge. The second key ingredient to increased sustainability is shared rides. Given that 45 percent of vehicle trips in the U.S. are three miles or less and tend to be concentrated in and around specific areas such as academic campuses, business parks and surrounding metro hubs, the use of pooled rides in these geographically constrained areas can lead to a major reduction in traffic congestion and carbon emissions.

The adoption of ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft have been shown to increase total vehicle miles traveled, as these alternatives generally perpetuate the single-passenger vehicle model while adding deadhead miles. By providing a convenient and affordable alternative to personal vehicles and ride-hailing, shared, electric autonomous vehicles can replace high volumes of single-passenger rides and traditional gas-powered shuttles. Shared rides also reduce the need for parking infrastructure, which negatively contributes to emissions and takes up valuable community space.

A joint Harvard-MIT study found that pooled rides are critical to supporting sustainable community transport. Yet, historically, there has been a recognizable trade-off between shared rides and rider convenience, with long wait times, inconsistent availability, limited service areas and other issues. As pooled rides and shared forms of transit continue to play a larger role in transportation and the path to a more sustainable future, rides must be both convenient for the rider and good for the environment and communities. Electric, shared rides are a huge step in the right direction, but the third critical aspect to unlocking the greatest sustainability potential is autonomy.

Autonomy brings it all together

Autonomy increases the cost-effectiveness and flexibility of shared, electric shuttles, enabling communities to address transportation needs with the balance of affordability and convenience. With lower operating costs, autonomous vehicles can be deployed more efficiently and dynamically than manually driven vehicles, providing a better match of supply with demand in real-time. Removing the costs and constraints of manually driven vehicles allows for longer and highly dynamic operating hours for vehicles in a fleet. Higher rider adoption of shared, electric, autonomous shuttles — due to increased rider convenience — creates a net-positive impact on sustainability by taking people out of single-occupancy vehicles. In addition, with dynamic fleet management, vehicle routing and optimization, congestion, and energy usage is reduced.

Further, as more vehicles become autonomous, there will be increasing efficiency gains in traffic mobility that reduce pollution. Algorithms that can use traffic data to seek the most efficient routes, whether for a single ride or on a transportation loop within a community, lead to reduced energy usage, less traffic congestion and lower transportation costs. It is estimated that shared, electric, autonomous vehicles can reduce emissions by up to 94 percent through a combination of better road utilization, driver productivity and energy savings.

Researchers in the joint Harvard-MIT study also concluded that the trio of electric vehicles, shared rides, and autonomous operation are “a means of offering both cost-effective mobility on demand and reduced energy consumption and emissions.” In fact, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) awarded Optimus Ride up to $4.3 million to launch the first autonomous vehicle (AV) system at Clemson University. The AV deployment at Clemson’s campus will be one of the largest to date, and it provides a unique opportunity to prove how autonomous, electric shuttles can reduce the environmental impact of transportation, increase the widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles, and provide valuable mobility services. This deployment will be a model for future benefit to other campuses and communities.

As the U.S. prioritizes a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, combining autonomy, electrification and shared rides is key to a more sustainable future for all. The fastest path to real impact on our carbon footprint and widespread adoption of this technology and these sustainable rides is through deployment in localized communities. Autonomous, all-electric shuttles are poised to chart a path to the future of sustainable transportation.

Image courtesy of Optimus Ride

Hundreds of thousands of youth activists took to the streets for a global climate strike on Friday, including in New York City where leaders gathered for Climate Week and the U.N. General Assembly. Their message was simple: Stop stealing our future. 

Considering today's youth will live through three times as many climate disasters as their grandparents, and nearly half of young people say fear about climate change impacts their daily lives, activism seems a natural antidote to festering concerns about an uncertain future. But as global climate negotiations fail to yield measurable results, youth activists sound increasingly fed up, and we can't say we blame them. 

Young people take to the streets in a global climate strike

The global climate strike included protests in more than 1,500 locations around the world, from the U.S. and Europe to Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

The demonstrations were organized by Fridays for Future, the youth climate action movement that launched in 2018 when Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, then 15 years old, started a solitary climate strike outside her home country's parliament to demand stronger action from governments. The movement took hold, and young people from around the world began rallying every Friday in support of climate action. 

Following two global climate strikes in 2019, which together gathered around 8 million people, Friday's action represents the largest in-person push since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, and analysts are hopeful it could put wind back in the movement's sails. 

“Demonstrations are not something that social movements can compensate for with other things," Sebastian Haunss, a political scientist at the Protest and Movement Research Institute, told Inside Climate News. "The idea that the internet would make it possible to demonstrate effectively without physical protests was contradicted during the pandemic.” Yusuf Baluch, a 17-year-old youth activist in the Pakistani province of Balochistan, agreed. "Last time it was digital and nobody was paying attention to us," he told Reuters at a strike in Pakistan last week. 

At the demonstrations, youth activists demanded action from business and government that meets the scale of the climate crisis and ensures the most vulnerable can cope. "Everyone is talking about making promises, but nobody keeps their promise. We want more action," Farzana Faruk Jhumu, a 22-year-old activist in Dhaka, Bangladesh, told Reuters. "We want the work, not just the promises."

"They simply don’t give a damn about us," Thunberg added at a rally in Berlin on Friday, speaking of lawmakers in Europe and beyond. "There's no going back now. We can still turn this around. People are ready for change, we want change, we demand change and we are the change." 

Youth activists voice skepticism at U.N. talks in Milan

This week, many of those same youth activists — 400 young people in total, from 180 countries — will meet for the Youth4Climate summit, a three-day event in Milan that will send recommendations to the U.N. COP26 climate talks in Glasgow next month.

U.N. organizers clearly had high hopes for the event, saying it will "provide young delegates an unprecedented opportunity to put forward ideas and concrete proposals on some of the most pressing issues on the climate agenda," but youth activists remained skeptical as the summit kicked off on Tuesday. 

"So-called leaders have cherry picked young people to meetings like this to pretend they are listening to us, but they clearly don’t listen to us," Thunberg said in Milan. "Our emissions are still rising. The science doesn’t lie."

She's not wrong: Global carbon emissions are on track to increase by 16 percent by 2030, according to the U.N., rather than fall by half, which is what's needed to cap global temperature rise at 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid the worst impacts of climate change. 

Thunberg didn't mince words when discussing how those projected increases reflect on business and government: “Build back better. Blah, blah, blah. Green economy. Blah blah blah. Net zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah. This is all we hear from our so-called leaders: Words that sound great but so far have not led to action," Thunberg said. "Our hopes and ambitions drown in their empty promises.”

In her opening remarks, lauded Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate called out wealthy nations for failing to make good on their promise to deliver 100 billion euros in annual climate finance to vulnerable countries. "Funds were promised by 2020, and we are still waiting,” she said in Milan on Tuesday. “No more empty conferences. It’s time to show us the money. It’s time, it’s time, it’s time.” 

At the Milan talks, youth leaders will break up into groups to discuss solutions to key climate challenges. Their proposals will be vetted by climate and energy ministers before making their way to leaders at the Glasgow talks, Reuters reports. But not everyone seems convinced those recommendations will actually reflect the concerns of young people. “They have people in the rooms who are watching what we say. The topics we have been split into have been decided for us,” Saoi O’Connor, an Irish activist in the Fridays for Future movement, told the Associated Press. 

Privately, many major figures involved in the Glasgow talks share the activists' skepticism about the outcome, with key players admitting to the Guardian the original aim of the talks — to rally pledges from major emitters that will halve global emissions by 2030 in alignment with the Paris Agreement — will be missed.  

Still, youth advocates are far from despondent. They are simply shifting where they place their hope — namely in themselves and other organizers, rather than in big business or government. “We can no longer let the people in power decide what is politically possible," Thunberg said in her remarks in Milan, as quoted by the Guardian. "We can no longer let the people in power decide what hope is. Hope is not passive. Hope is not blah, blah, blah. Hope is telling the truth. Hope is taking action. And hope always comes from the people.”

Image credit: Flickr/Stefan Müller and Twitter/Vanessa Nakate

The dust has not yet settled on a newly proposed federal incentive package for electric vehicles, but Ford is not waiting around for the ink to dry. The company has just released an ambitious new plan to accelerate its production of electric vehicles (EVs) in the U.S. The multi-state investment includes both manufacturing and workforce training, and it validates President Joe Biden’s plans for linking rapid climate action with green jobs and union labor.

Ford EVs, made in the U.S. with an assist from Congress

Ford watchers probably anticipated the company’s electric vehicle announcement on Monday, which includes a new “mega campus” for manufacturing EVs in Tennessee, two new battery plants for manufacturing EVs in Kentucky, and a $90 million electric vehicle workforce development initiative in Texas.

Others, though, may be surprised. After all, just a few months ago Ford weathered a storm of criticism from the United Auto Workers union and others after word leaked that the company planned to build new EVs in Mexico.

However, it seems that other activity behind the media curtain has paid off for Ford.

Reportedly at the behest of Ford and the United Auto Workers, earlier this month House Democrats in Congress proposed a package of reforms for electric vehicle incentives, extending far beyond the current federal tax credit.

The reforms also apply specifically to EVs made with union labor. If passed, the new incentives would hand Ford and other unionized, domestic manufacturers a powerful new opportunity to woo car buyers with a new generation of affordable EVs.

A win for unionized automakers

Conversely, the incentive package leaves foreign companies like Toyota and the notoriously non-union U.S. automaker Telsa Motors out in the cold. In particular, the proposal comes at a crucial time for Tesla. The company is an exclusive manufacturer of EVs with a made-in-the-USA pedigree. As such, Tesla initially had a significant advantage over existing U.S. automakers, and the company dominated domestic sales of EVs for a good 10 years. More recently, other automakers have begun to chip away at the EV market. Aided by cushy new federal incentives, unionized U.S. automakers could quickly turn the non-Tesla EV trickle into a flood.

Telsa co-founder and CEO Elon Musk may have read something in the tea leaves last spring when President Biden unveiled a job plan friendly to unionized workers and their employers. Last month, the president cemented his focus on union labor when he invited Ford CEO Jim Farley, GM CEO Mary Barra, Stellantis North America COO Mark Stewart, and UAW President Ray Curry to join him for a White House announcement on auto emissions.

The announcement was widely seen as a snub against Tesla, though that is not necessarily the case. As an exclusive EV manufacturer, Tesla was never impacted by emissions regulations. Its presence at a White House announcement on auto emissions would have been somewhat off-topic.

Musk could have used the opportunity to point out that Tesla solved the emissions problem many years ago, in contrast to other automakers. Instead, he took to Twitter to issue a veiled complaint that it seemed “odd that Tesla wasn’t invited,” which only underscored the impression that his company had been snubbed.

Additionally, Musk’s behavior during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic reinforced the impression that excluding Tesla from the event really was a snub, indicating that the Biden administration is not confident in Tesla’s ability to work with federal agencies, other automakers, and union workers to achieve crucial national goals such as tamping down the pandemic while boosting worker wages and bringing the climate crisis under control before it gets any worse.

A win for unions

In that context the new EV incentive reforms appear deliberately designed to send a message to Tesla. It’s still an open question if the message was received, but so far it appears not. Last week, Musk complained on Twitter that the reforms were “written by Ford/UAW lobbyists, as they make their electric car in Mexico.”

“Not obvious how this serves American taxpayers,” Musk added, neglecting to mention that Tesla received a taxpayer-supported shot of adrenaline in 2010 when the the U.S. Department of Energy issued a $465 million loan that enabled the company to attract high-dollar, private-sector investors. Tesla continues to negotiate tax deals with state legislators as it seeks to expand its U.S. operations.

More EVs for the U.S.

Making matters worse, last week Musk also deployed Twitter to amplify a false meme about the president’s health. However, it looks like Musk is the one caught napping.

It is not obvious that the EV incentive package proposed by House Democrats will ever be legislated into existence. On the other hand, Ford may have tipped the balance by forging ahead with ambitious, job-creating plans for manufacturing EVs in the U.S. That puts the pressure on legislators to come through with incentives that get the car-buying public in the mood to buy new cars.

In addition to pressure from auto industry lobbyists, the votes of union workers and job seekers are also in play. Tennessee, Kentucky and Texas are all known for undercutting the power of unions, but The Detroit News cited a statement indicating the UAW is on board with the Ford EV manufacturing plan.

“[Ford's] announcement will produce about 11,000 combined quality jobs,” UAW President Curry told the Detroit paper. “The UAW looks forward to continuing our long-time partnership with Ford as consumers transition to make electric vehicles in the right way.”

“The UAW has always taken a lead in manufacturing innovation with our employer partners. We look forward to reaching out and helping develop this new workforce to build these world class vehicles and battery components,” Curry added.

On its website, UAW also emphasized its support with a statement from one of its regional directors, Mitchell Smith, whose territory includes Tennessee and Kentucky. "Today’s announcement is a tremendous opportunity for working families in Kentucky and Tennessee to have thousands of industry leading jobs come to our area,” Smith said of Ford's plan. 

In addition, pressure could come from the large and growing renewable energy sector, including powerful corporate energy buyers and utilities that are eager to sell more clean kilowatts for EV charging into the nation’s electric grid.

There are still many legislative unknowns surrounding the proposed EV incentives, and so far Democrats in Congress are carrying all the water. However, with the additional prompting from Ford and other automakers, perhaps Republican legislators in Congress and statehouses could stop attacking American democracy and start working toward a more dynamic, sustainable economy.

Image courtesy of Ford

As momentum for the circular economy grows, some companies are finding ways to build a simple circle into a complex web that deploys more than one sustainability strategy. That is the case with the fiber and paper company Sustana, which has combined its focus on recycled paper products with the use of recycled biogas from a nearby municipal landfill.

Employee engagement is key to the circular economy

Municipal landfills provide ideal environments for microorganisms that digest food waste and other organic material. As they eat, they emit copious amounts of the potent greenhouse gas methane, which is also the key component of natural gas.

Under conventional practice, landfill gas is flared on site to produce carbon dioxide, which is a less potent greenhouse gas than methane. A more sustainable approach is to capture and deploy landfill gas to replace fossil energy sources.

As always, the main barrier is cost. Landfills are often located far from large industrial or commercial facilities, which adds to transportation costs. Depending on the use of the gas, it may also require additional processing and treatment.

Sustana’s experience in supplying biogas for its Rolland paper mill in Canada illustrates how landfill gas opportunities can materialize for decarbonization as well as cut costs and ensure a steady, reliable source of energy.

In Rolland’s case, employee engagement was the essential ingredient in introducing this process to the paper mill. With the Rolland mill located conveniently near a municipal landfill, in 2003 an employee in the purchasing department suggested studying the use of landfill gas instead of fossil energy for the mill’s heat-related processes. 

Gas from the landfill was first introduced to the Rolland facility in 2004. An initial adjustment period worked out the kinks, and by 2006 the system was fully operational. Fifteen years later, the landfill system is still running smoothly, and it currently supplies 93 percent of the thermal energy needs of the Rolland mill. What’s more is that leveraging this renewable energy reduces the mill’s carbon emissions by 70,000 tons a year.

Finding the right biogas solution

The conversion to landfill gas was almost as simple as it sounds, with a number of factors enabling the Rolland paper mill to take full advantage of its proximity to a municipal landfill.

The need for large amounts of process heat was one important factor that made landfill gas a reliable, economical resource for the Rolland mill — a scenario that may look different at facilities with less need for process heat and more need for electricity.

Fitting landfill gas into a company’s overall energy purchasing profile is a related consideration. Rolland’s electricity supply was already decarbonized through its location on a hydropower grid. That enabled the Rolland mill to focus on process heat for lowering its greenhouse gas emissions, as well as cutting costs.

Rolland’s experience also suggests that companies looking into landfill gas might be able to partner with nearby facilities, enabling these systems to scale up to an economical level.

Landfill gas and the human factor

Pierre-Michel Raymond, Rolland’s mechanical engineer and energy supervisor, also emphasized the role of employee engagement in the ongoing success of the landfill gas system.

Municipal landfills are, in a sense, living creatures influenced by biological processes. Their gas output varies along with seasonal changes, day-night cycles and temperature fluctuations. At Rolland, monthly meetings with the landfill operator were established from the outset and continue to the present time, providing staff at the mill with regular opportunities to touch base with their counterparts at the landfill and ensure the system keeps running smoothly.

The landfill gas system has also fostered additional opportunities for employee engagement at the mill. Over the years, staff at Rolland has been involved in maximizing output from the landfill and improving energy efficiency within the mill, as well as providing opportunities for facility managers outside the company to visit and learn how the system works.

“Fifteen years later, the landfill gas system  continues to work well,” Raymond told TriplePundit. “It was an easy transition, and the project is still alive because of the participation of each party. We still have monthly discussion about how the system is going.. We consistently work to refine the process and yield.”

Raising interest in landfill gas

When the Rolland mill first converted, few facilities were seeking landfill gas as an alternative to fossil energy. Now the interest is rising, partly thanks to outreach by Rolland and other early adopters.

That’s a good thing. In the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that municipal solid waste landfills account for more than 15 percent of human-related methane emissions, making them the third-largest source of methane from human activity. 

The agency points out that landfill gas is now displacing fossil energy in a wide variety of use cases across numerous industrial sectors, from automaking to pharmaceuticals and consumer products. 

In the U.S., about 70 percent of the landfill gas captured today goes to generate electricity in various kinds of turbines and engines, as well as fuel cells. It can also be used in boilers to produce steam, as is the case at the Rolland mill. Dryers, kilns and greenhouses are examples of other thermal applications. 

Another source for renewable natural gas

When further refined, landfill gas can also be upcycled to produce renewable natural gas. A project of that type is currently under way in South Carolina, where the firm Energy Power Systems is working on a system that will process landfill gas and inject it into a local natural gas system. 

As one indication that interest in landfill gas is accelerating, earlier this year a Pennsylvania company called Archaea Energy reformed through a special acquisition merger and announced plans to build onto its existing landfill and agricultural gas business. One key area of focus will be upscaling its roster of landfill gas-to-electricity projects into renewable natural gas production, possibly with an eye on recent activity including a new commitment by UPS to increase its use of compressed renewable natural gas from landfills in its fleet.

In California, SoCalGas has been instrumental in pushing that market, including gas from wastewater treatment plants and livestock operations as well as landfills. Industry stakeholders estimate that activity in that area could generate $14.3 billion in economic growth for the state and create more than 130,000 jobs in related fields including engineering and operations as well as maintenance and manufacturing.

A new report from the firm Allied Market Research also suggests that demand for landfill gas will rise alongside the increase in public awareness of climate issues. AMR notes that North America had the highest market share of landfill gas globally in 2020, and is “expected to dominate the market by 2030.”

“This lead is possible due to the rise in health and environmental awareness among the people,” alongside technology improvements that have expanded the opportunities for using landfill gas, the AMR researchers noted.

When the Rolland mill first converted to landfill gas, skeptics were everywhere, but persistence paid off. By supplementing activity in other renewable energy sectors, landfill gas can play a significant role in the circular economy and in accelerating decarbonization in the U.S. and elsewhere around the globe.

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

Image courtesy of Sustana

The United Nations Food Systems Summit, the first of its kind, was intended to overhaul the global food system to cope with the pressing challenges of a climate crisis, diminishing biodiversity and rising food insecurity. But many stakeholders left the table still hungry for change, among them smallholder farmers, indigenous groups and the U.N.’s own special rapporteur on the right to food.

Many of the critics were unhappy with what they perceived as the oversized influence of business at the table, not least because of the role the World Economic Forum played as a partner in the event. Over 300 global civil society organizations of small-scale food producers and indigenous peoples organized their own People’s Summit on Food Systems with calls to “end the global corporate food empire.” 

“Distressingly, the Food Systems Summit has offered governments nothing substantive to tackle the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the food crisis that it triggered,” the U.N. special rapporteur, Michael Fakhri, wrote in The Guardian. “The summit has offered people nothing to help overcome their daily struggles to feed themselves and their families. We must do better.”

Inside the virtual halls of the U.N. Summit, organizers had a very different view of its intention and outcome. Planning began over 18 months ago, with hundreds of dialogues involving more than 100,000 people, leading to a three-day pre-summit in July. Some 90 world leaders participated at the Summit itself on Sept. 23. In a press release, the U.N. cited the nearly 300 commitments from governments and other leaders around the world made at the Summit, including $10 billion from the U.S. to address food security over the next five years and $922 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation over the next five years to tackle nutrition. It also noted the launch of the Indigenous People’s Food Systems coalition, and the support of the Pan-African Farmers Organization, which represents 80 million farmers across 50 African countries.

“In terms of inclusiveness, I don’t know of a more inclusive process,” U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed said at a U.N. press conference.

Competing views on changing the food system

At the heart of the tension are two starkly different views of how to change the food system: one that argues for a rights-based, agroecology vision that secures livelihoods for smallholder farmers, and the other emphasizing science, technology and market-based solutions. The question is whether these two perspectives can find common ground.

What everyone agrees on is the urgency and severity of the problem. The stated goal of the summit was to “deliver progress” on each of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by “leveraging the interconnectedness of food systems to global challenges, such as hunger, climate change, poverty and inequality." 

With some 820 million people suffering from hunger, and 1 in 3 children malnourished and not developing properly, the need for that progress is painfully apparent. The COVID-19 pandemic increased poverty levels by up to 124 million people and undernourishment by around 9.9 percent.

A study released last week from the U.N. International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) called for sweeping policy changes in the global food system, focusing investments and policy decisions on rural food value chains. According to the study, the livelihoods of most rural residents depends on small-scale agriculture, and farms of up to 5 acres generate about 31 percent of the world’s food on less than 11 percent of global farmland. Yet while many small-scale farmers cannot earn a sufficient living from farming alone, these growers remain responsible for core food supplies in their countries, the report found.

In the view of the Civil Society and Indigenous People’s Mechanism, organizer of the alternative food systems summit, the problem is that “globalized, industrialized food systems fail most people.” They advocate for a human rights-based and agroecological transformation of food systems, highlighting the importance of food sovereignty, small-scale sustainable agriculture, traditional knowledge, rights to natural resources, and the rights of workers, Indigenous peoples, women and future generations.

These campaigners claim that agroecology, Indigenous and experiential knowledge were left out of preparations for the U.N. Summit.

Emphasizing support for regenerative agriculture

For proponents of food system solutions rooted in science, technology and markets, such as the World Economic Forum, key to the transition to sustainable food and agriculture business models will be the ability of millions of farmers to adopt regenerative and climate-smart agricultural practices.

It’s a view echoed by U.S. Farmers and Ranchers in Action, a group representing farmer- and rancher-led organizations and other leaders throughout the food and agriculture system. CEO Erin Fitzgerald, who participated in the pre-summit back in July, argues that producers need to solve for challenges in finance, value distribution and resilience, and that substantial collaboration and investments are required for them to succeed.

Her view, as shared in her keynote at the pre-summit: “All farms — no matter the commodity — are unique and can be a solution for communities and the planet, but they need authentic marketing and representation to the consumer, technology, and financial investment to secure their future.”

For U.N. special rapporteur Michael Fakhri, the meeting that really counts isn’t the one held last week but rather the annual meeting in October of the Committee on World Food Security. In his view, the Committee is “one of the few such bodies that prioritize a human rights-based approach” while the annual meeting also convenes the world’s governments, civil society organizations, international organizations, businesses and experts. The Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism will have a prominent place at the table.

For their part, organizers of the U.N. Food Systems Summit promised an annual progress report and a “stock-taking meeting” every two years to “ensure we continue to harness and direct this energy” towards building resilient food systems and achieving the SDGs," Deputy Secretary-General Mohammed said.

Image credit: Annie Spratt/Unsplash

Stakeholders in the carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) field have been promising a rapid, large-scale solution to the global warming problem. However, those promises ring hollow. CCS does not address the root cause of the impending climate catastrophe, a point that is so simple an ordinary pair of glasses can make it.

The real problem with carbon capture and sequestration

The carbon capture and sequestration field first caught public attention in the U.S. in 2003, when the George W. Bush administration inaugurated a project called FutureGen. It was designed to funnel carbon from an existing coal power plant in Illinois into a pipeline, and convey it to a permanent underground burial site.

In terms of climate action, the permanency of the FutureGen approach seemed to be a step up from an emerging practice in which captured carbon was injected into oilfields to improve well output. Somewhat ironically, though, the failure to participate in that market was one of the factors leading to the demise of FutureGen. After a series of cost overruns and reconfigurations, the Barack Obama administration pulled the plug on FutureGen in 2015.

The real problem is that CCS does nothing to interrupt the demand for fossil sources of fuel and energy. It simply sweeps up afterward. New research also suggests that CCS systems can be counterproductive due to the amount of energy needed to run them.

A better use for captured carbon

Captured carbon can be set to work in a more beneficial way, namely by deploying it to replace fossil sources for fuels, plastics and petrochemicals.

That gives rise to the question of where the supply of captured carbon would come from, if and when fossil fuels are no longer used to generate power. That would have been a good question just a few years ago. However, recent developments in carbon capture technology have provided pathways for recycling carbon from industrial processes. Excess carbon can also be extracted from ambient air.

Some of these technologies have been many years in the making, and are just now emerging into commercial use.

One interesting example is the company LanzaTech, which uses a microbial system to convert industrial waste gases into the chemical building blocks of fuels and plastics. LanzaTech received an assist from the Obama administration to develop its carbon recycling system for waste gas from steel mills. Since then it has branched out into other gases, including a a system to produce sustainable jet fuel from landfill biogas which won an award from the Energy Department.

“Black leaf” mimics photosynthesis for carbon capture and recycling

A different pathway is illustrated by the carbon capture and recycling company Twelve. Its roots also go back to the Obama administration when graduate students at Stanford University developed a unique catalytic carbon conversion system powered by electricity.

With support from the Energy Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the company’s co-founders refined their process into an electrochemical reactor they call O12, which they describe as a “shiny black leaf” that mimics photosynthesis on an industrial scale.

“It uses proprietary catalysts to transform CO2 into new products, using just water and electricity as inputs,” Twelve explains. “Pure oxygen is our only byproduct. O12 achieves the same CO2-transforming power as 37,000 trees, or 64 football fields of dense forest, in a module the size of a suitcase.”

Twelve prefers to use the term “carbon transformation,” rather than carbon capture and recycling, to reflect its emphasis on weaning industrial chemistry from fossil inputs. “Carbon transformation provides an enduring carbon management solution by eliminating the need for fossil carbon in chemicals, materials and fuels,” according to the company.

Raising awareness about carbon transformation

Carbon capture and recycling has not gained much traction in the public eye, partly because it is still a small field, and partly because it takes place deep within the supply chain.

That could be about to change dramatically. Last week, the sustainable brand Pangaia announced a new line of sustainable eyewear featuring polycarbonate lenses made with Twelve’s carbon transformation technology.

“The new partnership was created to promote the use of climate-conscious materials,” Pangaia announced in a press statement, making it clear that the intention is to focus considerable energy on publicizing the new technology.

“Our goal is not only to showcase the endless possibilities of science-based solutions, but also to promote industry-wide adoption that will help scale technologies and help rid the world of fossil-fuel based polymers and over industrialized materials,” explained Dr. Amanda Parkes, Pangaia's chief innovation officer, in a statement.

The new lenses will be the first commercial use of carbon captured by Twelve.

The eyewear is also the first product to emerge from Pangaia’s newly announced Pangaia Lab innovation platform, which aims to support “the most groundbreaking innovations in materials science with the goal of promoting consumer education and industry-wide adoption that will help scale the brand's fight against climate change.”

Sequestration versus transformation

Pangaia’s effort to raise public awareness about new carbon recycling technology comes at a critical time for climate policy in the U.S.

In its current iteration, President Joe Biden’s ambitious climate plan leans heavily on carbon capture for rapid action. That approach amounts to little more than wheel-spinning, enabling fossil energy extraction to continue at a pace that locks in catastrophic climate change.

Public- and private-sector pressure can make all the difference. The combination of corporate demand and public opinion has driven the market for renewable energy, and a similar dynamic can occur in the field of carbon transformation.

Forward-looking companies like Pangaia and Twelve have provided the blueprint for building public awareness about alternatives to CCS. Now it’s up to other manufacturers and supply chain stakeholders to take advantage of new sustainable technology and lead the way to a more sustainable future.

Images courtesy of Pangaia

Over 15 years ago, I had an "aha" moment. The year was 2005 and I was leading marketing and innovation for Ariel, one of Procter & Gamble's largest brands, in Western Europe. That "aha" moment began by watching Al Gore’s film, "An Inconvenient Truth," and realizing the gravity of global warming.

At the same time, to help save my brand from declining in market share and relevance, I developed Ariel's Cool Clean or Turn to 30 initiative — which encouraged consumers to wash their clothes in cold water. While this campaign was very successful and increased market share, I made a discovery that would forever change my personal and professional calling. I learned that 80 percent of a detergent’s carbon footprint was related to the temperature of the wash cycle.

Suddenly it clicked: I realized it is possible to grow your business and decrease its footprint at the same time. Success and sustainability aren’t enemies, they’re allies. At that moment, I decided to make sustainability my job and an integral part of how we innovate, build our brands, and run the business at P&G. I pitched the idea to our CEO, he embraced it, and from there, I grew to become P&G’s first Chief Sustainability Officer.

I’ve made it my mission to embed sustainability into everything we do at P&G. We work diligently to ensure that sustainability is built in — not bolted on — to the way we design our products, manage our operations, build our brands, and, ultimately, engage our consumers.

This month, Procter & Gamble announced our expanded global climate ambition — to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions across our operations and supply chain by 2040. We have laid out our comprehensive plan to accelerate climate action in our first published Climate Transition Action Plan. This moment, over 10 years in the making, reaffirms P&G’s responsibility to be a force for good in society and the environment, while also being a force for growth in business. Our journey to net zero is informed by three prevailing convictions:

The climate crisis requires bold goals supported by credible, science-based actions

The most recent IPCC report shows us that in addition to making long-term systemic changes, we must act with urgency to avoid the worsening effects of climate change. While establishing a bold, long-term ambition is critical, we think it’s just as important to have clear, credible interim targets to ensure we are making meaningful progress this decade.

P&G has set several 2030 science-based targets to pace our progress toward zero by 2040. These goals include reducing emissions across our operations by 50 percent and our supply chain by 40 percent, which we’ll achieve by accelerating our use of renewable energy, advancing technologies to decarbonize our supply chain, and increasing the transportation efficiency of our finished products.

We may not have all the answers, but we cannot let uncertainty hold us back 

In addition to achieving reductions with the tools available today, we need to innovate for the future. At both a company and brand level, we are working to create new systems and processes that produce superior products with a net zero emissions footprint.

For renewable thermal energy we have partnered with the World Wildlife Fund, manufacturers, and local governments to help create the Renewable Thermal Collaborative to identify and scale renewable, cost-competitive thermal energy solutions. We are also advancing low-carbon technologies, materials, and packaging to unlock new ways to decarbonize our supply chain. And exploring ingredients made from captured carbon dioxide which can create a potential fossil-free pathway for ingredient sourcing. Our Tide brand is working with Twelve, a Silicon Valley startup, to explore their carbon capture technology to incorporate CO2 from emissions into ingredients that could be used across Tide.

The future is collaboration

Reaching this ambition will require collaboration with partners across the public and private sectors and involve every aspect of our business. We are using our size and scale to make a collective impact, partnering with consumers to reduce GHG emissions from the use phase of products, creating alliances for carbon-efficient homes, and advocating for policy solutions to decarbonize energy infrastructure. We’ve also signed The Climate Pledge and joined the U.N.’s Race to Zeroinitiative via the Business Ambition for 1.5C, a partnerships that will help mobilize us and fellow signatories toward science-based action and accountability.

As I celebrate a decade in the greatest job on earth, I recognize that the nature of my role is evolving — from navigating intrapreneurial leadership to managing a mainstream business challenge. I hope that in another 10 years my job won’t exist anymore, as sustainability becomes an intrinsic part of every job. Until then, we have work to do. Hard work. We must drive regenerative and inclusive growth where all of us thrive in harmony with nature. While that is an ambitious goal, it doesn’t have to be complicated. Sometimes, it’s as simple as washing your clothes in cold water.

This article is sponsored by Procter & Gamble. 

Image credits: Karsten Würth/Unsplash and P&G

Well over a year into the coronavirus pandemic, and anyone who loves to travel is undoubtedly missing the adventure of  exploring parts unknown. While it will likely be years before global travel returns to pre-pandemic levels, a group of stakeholders are taking the pause as an opportunity to shift the sector in a new direction. 

Signatories of the newly announced Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism will commit to cut global travel emissions by at least half over the next decade and reach net-zero emissions "as soon as possible" before 2050. Specifically, each must deliver a science-based climate action plan within a year of signing on, or update their existing plans to increase ambition. 

Stakeholders call for a "decade of climate action" in the travel sector

Signatories will be able to officially sign on to the Declaration in October, ahead of its official launch at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow. 

A wide cross-section of stakeholders took part in information sessions on the Declaration during Climate Week last week, providing some insight into how it will be received in the travel sector. Participants included multilateral bodies like the World Tourism Organization and the U.N. Environment Program, national and regional tourism organizations like VisitScotland and the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association, destinations like Machu Picchu and the Oregon Coast, and travel companies like Intrepid Group, Radisson Hotel Group and Inkaterra. 

The need for action in the sector is clear: The United Nations estimates that transportation-related emissions from tourism will increase by 25 percent from 2016 levels by 2030, and air travel alone could consume as much as 27 percent of the world’s carbon budget by 2050. 

What "build back better" means for the travel sector 

The travel sector was among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, having lost an estimated $4.5 trillion in 2020. Considering less than half of the global population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, a figure that drops to 2.2 percent in low-income countries, the impacts on society as well as the travel sector are likely just getting started. 

The One Planet Vision for a Responsible Recovery of the Tourism Sector was adopted last year with the aim of embedding sustainability and social equity into the way the industry recovers. "This crisis has highlighted both the fragility of the natural environment and the need to protect it, as well as the intersections of tourism economics, society and the environment like nothing before in history," the plan reads. "It represents an opportunity to accelerate sustainable consumption and production patterns and build back better tourism." 

Climate action is a central piece of that plan: Among other things, the plan calls for monitoring and reporting carbon emissions from tourism, promoting the introduction of science-based targets, accelerating the decarbonization of tourism operations, and engaging the tourism sector in carbon removal. 

The Declaration is being pitched as the next step forward, with the aim of "defining a clear and consistent sector-wide message and approach to climate action in the coming decade." 

A number of the organizations that took part in information sessions last week are already taking some steps on their own: VisitScotland has an environmental action plan in place, Inkaterra is working with other local stakeholders to make Machu Picchu the first carbon-neutral destination in the world, and Intrepid Group hired a climate scientist to lead the way toward achieving its science-based targets, among other examples. As these industry leaders set an example, it makes sense to want to scale this type of action sector-wide, and it seems some stakeholders in the travel sector feel the Declaration can do just that. 

“With a few notable exceptions, travel and tourism has had a slow start in taking the necessary and urgent action to meet global climate targets," Jeremy Sampson, CEO of the Travel Foundation, said in a statement. "However, there are many organizations which want to take more action but have not, either because they are unsure what steps they can take, or because the change required is bigger than any one organization can deliver. The Glasgow Declaration is our opportunity, and COP26 is our moment, to unite and forge those pathways to halve emissions within this decade, so that tourism’s future, and those of the destinations it relies on, is assured.”

Image credit: Spencer Davis/Unsplash

Under normal circumstances, many people around the world face discrimination around menstruation as well as difficulty obtaining hygiene supplies, either due to unaffordability, lack of access or inadequate information.

The coronavirus pandemic has made matters even more challenging, as clinics serving women were forced to alter their services and some regions saw hoarding of menstrual products like pads and tampons, similar to the notorious stockpiling of other staples like toilet paper and disinfectants. Add that to the fact that women represent an outsized proportion of frontline workers, and it’s clear the pandemic has made an already difficult situation for some even harder. 

Why period equity matters

Around the world, 129 million school-aged girls do not attend classes. While those numbers cannot be directly linked to periods, in part due to the difficulty in recording absenteeism, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimates that girls miss four days every four weeks. This is a problem in richer and poorer countries alike: In a 2019 survey, 84 percent of menstruating teenagers in the U.S. said they have missed class during their periods or know someone who has.

There are several reasons girls may miss school during their periods, including lack of access to hygiene products or inadequate access to toilets, hand-washing facilities and hygienic waste management, as well as insufficient information and social stigma. 

All of this adds up to missed opportunities for women and girls around the world. Further, recent studies have shown a link between period poverty — one term describing the reality of not being able to afford sanitary products — and poor mental health among college-aged women in the U.S. In developing countries, where girls may miss 10 to 20 percent of each school year, possibly leading them to drop out altogether, the gender disparity for economic opportunity widens even further. 

Scaling up women-led startups focused on solving sanitation issues

To help address some of the world’s biggest sanitation issues, Kimberly-Clark, its foundation and the company’s Kotex brand partnered with the Toilet Board Coalition to create the Women in the Sanitation Economy Innovation Lab — which aims to cultivate and catalyze women-led, early-stage businesses within the sanitation economy. The Innovation Lab recently completed its first pilot including five startup businesses from Kenya, the U.S. and the U.K., along with 11 Kimberly-Clark employees who acted as mentors to the group. 

“We see there’s a gap in the business ecosystem around women’s menstrual health and personal care products,” said Alex Knezovich, director of operations at the Toilet Board Coalition (TBC), which was established in 2015 to drive private-sector engagement and contributions to Sustainable Development Goal 6 (clean water and sanitation).

“At TBC, we have a 30,000-foot view of the sector. We get to hear a range of voices and see a lot innovation,” Knezovich told 3p. “There are businesses out there for women’s health, but they’re not growing at the pace of other sanitation businesses. They need additional guidance and customized support to further their innovation and ultimately empower more women and girls.”

The Toilet Board focuses on scaling sustainable solutions within the sanitation space, centered on SDG 6.2 which calls for sustainable water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) access to women and girls in vulnerable situations. Here, the partnership with Kimberly-Clark made sense for both organizations. 

“We’ve always had mentorship at Kimberly-Clark,” Alessandra Castro, the company’s director of global brand purpose and social impact for its adult and feminine care brands, told TriplePundit. “But we never really leveraged why we were doing it, how or for what purpose. The Innovation Lab aligned perfectly with our Kotex brand, which exists to ensure that a period never gets in the way of a woman’s progress. Our partnership with the Toilet Board enabled us to work together and help these women-owned businesses develop and provide opportunities for others.”

Representation matters

In the end, what drives all of the women involved with the Innovation Lab — from the Toilet Board, Kimberly-Clark and participating businesses — is the power to make a difference for those who are held back by not being able to afford products like pads and tampons, and those whose progress is crippled by period stigma.

For Castro, seeing the struggle women experience due to the lack of access to hygiene supplies shifted her perspective. “I knew women didn’t have access, but when you get in there and see the gaps, it’s painful,” she told us. In the Toilet Board’s annual Accelerator program, the predecessor to the more specialized Innovation Lab, Castro mentored a team of entrepreneurs that transformed decommissioned buses in India into toilets for women. It’s a good idea in theory, but in the end, women did not use the buses because of the stigma associated with going to the bathroom. Working with the team in India, Castro and her team realized they had to take a step back.


“There was a huge gap between the team’s analysis of the issue and what was really holding back consumers,” she said. They ultimately opted to convert the buses into health centers where women could gain access to education and feminine hygiene products, as well as use the toilet. “Working with the team to positively impact so many women was a life-changing experience,” she added. “Kotex is more than a global brand. The product is only part of what the brand stands for, which is bringing a clear purpose for feminine care to eliminate stigma, educate and open doors for women and girls.”

With a background in women-focused media production and engaging more young women in the production process, Knezovich understands the power of representation. “You can’t be what you don’t see,” she told TriplePundit. “It’s amazing to see what happens when we connect the entrepreneurs with mentors at a leading multinational corporation who believe in them and their businesses. That’s the through line for me: getting the stories and relationships there for women to comprehend their potential.”

Jasmine Burton, former Innovation Lab manager at the Toilet Board, further noted that Kimberly-Clark mentors helped provide support for the Lab’s “female entrepreneurs as they aim to tackle some of their unique business challenges and positively contribute to some of the world’s most pressing sanitation issues.” And for her personally, as she left the project to start an MBA program, she added, “It is my personal mission to help support, amplify and lift other women in the Sanitation Economy as I climb.”

More still to come

With the success of the pilot program, Kimberly-Clark and the Toilet Board plan on expanding the Innovation Lab to include more entrepreneurs and make more partnership opportunities available. As the project moves into its next stage,  Castro emphasized the importance of the work ahead. “Women are addressing some of the biggest challenges facing our society,” she told us. “A period should never get in the way of her progress.” 

This article series is sponsored by Kimberly-Clark and produced by the TriplePundit editorial team.

Image credits: WaterAid/Jannatul Mawa