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The popular denim jeans brand Madewell has long stood out for its recycling policy: Bring an unwanted pair of jeans into a store and score $20 off your new denim threads. Speaking of threads, the brand is now partnering with the online consignment and thrift shop ThredUP to sell more second-hand Madewell apparel online.

Such partnerships are important as the evidence suggests far too much clothing is still ending up in U.S. landfills. Back in 1960, Americans tossed about 1.7 million tons of apparel into landfills. By 2018, that amount had surged to 11.3 million tons, says data coming from the EPA. That same year, of the 17 million tons of clothes Americans no longer wanted, only 2.5 million tons of them were recycled in some form.

That last number sorely needs a boost. The most effective way, of course, is for people to buy less clothes, as many consumers interpret “walk-in closet” as “fill to capacity.” Failing that, there is evidence suggesting that younger generations, including Gen Z, are embracing secondhand clothing – partly out of environmental concerns, but there’s also money to be made.

According to Madewell and ThredUP, the companies’ goal is to collect one million pairs of jeans, which otherwise could end up at the local landfill or incinerator, by 2023. Madewell and its customers, of course, will supply the denim; ThredUP will provide the technology, i.e., the online sales platform. For consumers who want to clean out their closets, the process will work the same - bring in any brand of jeans for a $20 voucher, and any pair that are deemed prime for resale will be sold on Madewell’s resale site.

The alliance is similar to a partnership REI has had with Yerdle; the outdoors clothing and gear retailer can tap into a steady stream of customers who are eager to find a bargain and trade up from that pair of hiking pants or tent; Yerdle, which launched a decade ago as a share-and-trade platform, developed a robust technology platform that retailers and apparel brands like REI can harness for selling used or unwanted goods.

Back to Madewell and ThreadUP: The resale site kicked off this week with 3,000 pairs of women’s jeans appearing for sale on the platform. ThreadUP’s technology allows the virtual thrift shopping to continue, as Madewell can add new styles hourly.

Image credit: Waldemar Brandt/Unsplash

As the world emerges from the global pandemic, more evidence suggests that a majority of consumers worldwide want to take personal action and join the global fight for climate action.

At the same time, consumers expect brands to do their fair share when it comes to such challenges as the climate crisis. Companies have a huge opportunity to harness this surging consumer passion for sustainability by offering new products and services that can result in change for the better.

To that end, join Kristina Kloberdanz, Mastercard’s chief sustainability officer, and Mary Mazzoni, Senior Editor of TriplePundit, on Monday, July 26 at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT to learn more about how companies can engage consumers to drive climate action.

Register for free here.

With about 3 billion cardholders across the globe, Mastercard holds a unique position in how it can engage consumers and businesses to take bolder action on climate change — and it has done exactly that. To start, Mastercard continues to build on its pledge to go net-zero by 2050, doing so with approval from the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

Mastercard’s net-zero goals are in addition to its existing GHG commitments that align with the Business Ambition for 1.5°C pledge. The brand is the first within the global payments industry to gain Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) approval for its GHG goals. Mastercard is also working towards its SBTi-approved goal to reduce its total Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 38 percent and Scope 3 emissions by 20 percent by 2025 from a 2016 baseline.

To be clear: there’s far more to Mastercard’s work on climate action than these long-term goals.

The company is taking its commitment yet another step forward, reaching out to consumers through new products and programs that help encourage and enable sustainable behaviors, in the end offering citizens the tools that will make a difference in their daily lives. What are they exactly?

Find out on Monday!

Image credit: Tima Miroshnichenko/Pexels

Photo: Critical race theory is a body of legal scholarship that is mostly taught and researched at law schools, such as the one at the University of Michigan (shown above). But as it has become a hot-button social issue, TriplePundit's Tina Casey explores what's behind the distortion of what critical race theory actually is.

Many leading corporations have already severed ties with the powerful lobbying organization ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. Previous defections were due to ALEC’s regressive influence on public policy relating to climate change, hate speech, gun safety and other issues of foundational civic concern. Now that ALEC has turned its attention to attacking critical race theory, some of the remaining holdovers may be forced to join the stampede for the doors.

From scholarly pursuit to screaming riots: this is not your father’s critical race theory

Critical race theory is a law school term. It was coined in the 20th century to describe the analysis of legal systems through their impact on race-based outcomes. By steering the attention towards systems of cause and effect, critical race theory encourages students to remove their emotions from a deeply emotional issue and keep the focus on logical conclusions from fact-based evidence — as one should do, in school.

That is certainly not the “critical race theory” that burst into the public square last year as a terroristic threat to America’s children, touching off a series of near-riots, and actual riots, at school board meetings that continue to ripple across the country. In fact, it is the polar opposite, and that is no accident.

The scholar and author of the widely read book How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi, is among those who have exposed the deliberate strategy behind the sudden appearance of a warped, topsy-turvy abuse of legal scholarship. Writing for The Atlantic last month, Kendi laid the blame squarely on Fox News, and he has compiled fact-based evidence to support that claim.

“After it was cited 132 times on Fox News shows in 2020, critical race theory became a conservative obsession this year,” Kendi wrote. “Its mentions on Fox News practically doubled month after month: It was referred to 51 times in February, 139 times in March, 314 times in April, 589 times in May, and 737 times in just the first three weeks of June.”

Kendi also noted that Education Week has counted 26 states that have acted to keep critical race theory out of schools and restrict the ways in which race can be addressed in schools, with nine implementing outright bans.

“The Republican operatives…have conjured an imagined monster to scare the American people and project themselves as the nation’s defenders from that fictional monster,” Kendi observed.

Who turned critical race theory upside-down?

Fox News is only part of the media machine that has worked aggressively to characterize critical race theory as an emotion-laden trope pitting Black citizens and their allies against the white defenders of a supposedly “real” America.

Last month, reporters Tyler Kingkade, Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins of NBC News described the role of conservative organizations in stirring up public opinion against school boards and teachers on account of their alleged plans for teaching critical race theory to school children.

The reporters also described a coordinated, national-level disinformation strategy that supports local activists. In particular, they cite the example of senior Manhattan Institute fellow Christopher Rufo. According to their reporting, last fall Rufo was instrumental in the decision to specifically mention critical race theory in a list of diversity training topics banned from federal agencies and contractors by executive order.

That was just the beginning. The reporters also draw attention to a more recent missive Rufo posted on Twitter on March 21 of this year, in which he “promised…to make critical race theory ‘toxic’ in the public imagination.”

“The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory,’” Rufo tweeted. “We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”

ALEC and the big money behind the “recodification” of critical race theory

Last week, the independent journalist Judd Legum fleshed out the picture of an organized strategy around the denigration of critical race theory.

Legum published a list of more than 20 high-profile conservative organizations, including ALEC, that have been aggressively promoting the critical race theory canard. Each of these organizations has the power to influence public policy through their media and outreach operations, and each has received significant funding from an obscure, media-shy non-profit organization called the Thomas W. Smith Foundation.

“There is a constellation of non-profit groups and media outlets that are systematically injecting CRT [critical race theory] into our politics,” Legum wrote in his newsletter Popular Information last week, adding that “many of the entities behind the CRT panic share a common funding source: The Thomas W. Smith Foundation.”

Legum’s list of Thomas W. Smith recipients includes well known and longstanding conservative foundations like ALEC, The Federalist Society, The American Enterprise Institute and The Heritage Foundation, as well as Turning Point, Prager University, The Daily Caller Foundation and other more recently established vehicles for far-right influence.

Corporate citizens on the hot seat

That certainly puts ALEC’s remaining corporate members in an awkward position.

Many leading corporate citizens ramped up their support for Black institutions, stepped up their internal diversity training and hiring programs, and participated in get-out-the-vote initiatives last year, as the Black Lives Matter movement surged  in the wake of the George Floyd murder.

However, some of the same corporations that professed to support Black Lives Matter have also provided support for members of Congress who supported the failed January 6 insurrection. Corporate financial support for state lawmakers who promote state-based voter suppression laws has also become a brand reputation issue.

ALEC’s promotion of the critical race theory canard raises new reputational issues for corporate members that claim to support progress for both civil rights and human rights.

UPS is one such example. The company has taken a series of steps to repair the damage after reports of racial harassment among employees at a UPS facility in Ohio surfaced, and a driver was caught on video harassing a Latino resident. Both episodes predated the murder of George Floyd.

In a coincidence of timing, less than a week after the Floyd murder, Carol B. Tomé was named CEO of the company, making her the first woman to run UPS in its century-long history. Tomé has quickly gained a reputation for prioritizing diversity and inclusion. However, ALEC’s warped promotion of critical race theory threatens to undermine the goals she has set for UPS.

Shortly before Tomé took her position last year, more than 70 civic, labor and religious groups wrote to UPS and approximately 30 other companies, asking them to drop ties with ALEC on account of the organization’s campaign against COVID-19 public health orders. Included in the list were Koch Industries, FedEx, UPS, Anheuser-Busch, State Farm, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Pfizer.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has also been pressuring UPS to pull out of ALEC since at least 2015. Last year the Teamsters sanctioned a series of organized actions in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, raising the pressure on unionized companies like UPS to combat racism in all forms, as a matter of personal behavior, corporate policy, and public policy, too.

In addition, in 2017 the organization CREDO targeted UPS over its ties to ALEC, citing the organization’s record on climate change and right-wing extremism.

This year, ALEC has come under fire for supporting the wave of voter suppression legislation that has swept across almost every statehouse in the U.S. On June 14, more than 300 groups wrote to dozens of companies that reportedly remain tied to ALEC, asking them to denounce the voter suppression movement.

UPS was included in the list of companies receiving the letter along with Alibaba, American Electric Power, Anheuser-Busch, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, EDP Renewables, Eli Lilly, FedEx, First Solar, GlaxoSmithKline, Marathon Petroleum, Novartis, Oracle, State Farm, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Pfizer was also on the mailing list, but it has already responded to the public exposure by affirming that it did not renew its membership in ALEC after 2020. Other companies on the list may have also followed suit, but apparently UPS is not among them.

The organization Common Cause is currently circulating a petition through the online portal Move On, calling out UPS and several other leading corporations for publicly condemning voter suppression, while continuing to support ALEC as members.

Common Cause claims that it has helped to motivate more than 100 companies to cut ties with ALEC over its “extreme agenda.” The petition could be just the beginning of a new pressure campaign.

If UPS is already among those ditching ALEC, then now would be the right time to announce it, loudly and publicly, as a significant gesture of solidarity in the face of insurrection, voter suppression and the critical race theory canard.

Image credit: Mathew Schwartz/Unsplash

Who knows when business travel will ever resume at pre-pandemic levels, especially considering the spread of the delta variant.

Right now, there are bigger corporate fish to fry than scheduling that next in-person all-team meeting. For example, companies now want us to believe they are focused on retooling how they attract, hire and retain talent a year after calls for racial equality erupted across the U.S.

A commitment to more diverse hiring practices certainly appears to be progress. The hard part, however, is actually executing on those promises.

Plus, companies should also look inwardly and gauge whether their current policies are getting in the way of having a workforce that looks like today’s America.

One current way of doing business in particular is making its own contribution to structural discrimination in the office, argues one Fortune writer.

Editor's note: Be sure to subscribe to our Brands Taking Stands newsletter, which comes out every Wednesday.

We’ve all heard that term “just expense it.” It sounds harmless enough: If you need something to do your job better, then it’s only in the employee’s and employer’s best interest to buy that subscription or product. So, what could possibly go wrong?

If you ask Stacy-Marie Ishmael of Fortune, quite a bit. Maybe the problem is not that occasional ream of paper. But if an employee is expected to take a work trip and put those costs on his or her personal credit card (or a corporate card for which that same employee is still personally liable), that is a huge sum for an employee to cough up and then wait a month or so for reimbursement.

“While we might not think of expense policies as tools of structural discrimination, the reality is that these are often written (and enforced!) by people whose relationship with credit is based on maximizing their points and getting that good lounge access,” Ishmael wrote in Fortune’s Race Ahead newsletter. “Just as unpaid internships reward people who can afford to work for free, requiring employees to carry balances and wait for reimbursement places an undue burden on people who can’t afford to extend a personal loan to their employer.”

What’s the message for employers, and more specifically, the human resources and accounting folks that often write and execute these policies?

Ishmael points to a 2019 bulletin from the Federal Reserve that looks at family wealth across U.S. society. At that time, the average white family had assets totaling almost $190,000 on average, compared to just over $24,000 for Black families. For younger Americans, the gap is even more stark: Young white families held assets that averaged over $25,000, while young Hispanic families’ assets totaled a tad over $11,000. The average amount of assets owned by young Black families: $600.

The Federal Reserve study also found that young Black professionals on average carried 20 percent more student loan debt than their white counterparts.

So, why does this matter come expense report time? While Lending Tree data found that less than 20 percent of white applicants had their applications for credit cards rejected, 44 percent of Black Americans’ applications were turned down.

The barriers continue as workers get older and seek home ownership: A 2018 Washington Post report found a similar racial and ethnic discrepancy on home mortgage and refinancing loan applications. If one can’t secure a decent credit record, then forget about buying that home in the future.

Not that having access to one’s own credit card solves the problem. The same company that has a 30-day reimbursement policy often won’t pay any interest charged to an employees’ credit card if they were not able to pay that work trip expense off in time.

One Forbes writer concluded last year that due to expense policies, during 2018 employees had provided the companies for which they worked $1.6 billion a month in interest-free loans. That’s a weight not equally shared by all employees. Promises of air miles or grocery points are hard to swallow if that burden is falling especially hard on a company’s younger employees or staff who happen to be people of color.

The bottom line is that when it comes to matters of race and equity, companies should look inwardly before embarking on a public campaign to make their companies more diverse and inclusive.

Image credit: Andy Beales/Unsplash

Many companies across the globe are using business as a vehicle for good. In particular, Certified B Corps meet rigorous criteria for social and environmental standards. Each year, B Lab honors the top-performing B Corps across the globe that use business to have a positive impact, and it recently released the 2021 Best for the World list.

This year, B Lab explored how companies responded to the global COVID-19 crisis to have a positive impact on their communities, customers, governance, workers and the environment. It recognized 767 B Corps across 50 countries, with companies ranging vastly in size and industry. Let’s explore a few of the best of the best and how they stepped up in a time of crisis.

A dozen roses for one of the leading B Corps

Hoja Verde: Located on the equator, Ecuador has many hours of sunlight, and the Andean highlands have warm days and cool nights, ideal for rose production. Hoja Verde, which means “green leaf,” cultivates over 120 varieties of roses (as in the ones pictured above) for export. The company sells its flowers to Europe and North America, and it is the leading supplier for Whole Foods.

Although the rose is a popular symbol of love, commercial rose cultivation can often lead to unsafe working conditions and environmental contamination from agricultural chemicals. By contrast, Hoja Verde is dedicated to using biological pest control systems and organic fertilizers. It even provides housing, educational support, pediatric services and low-interest loans to its workers.

In Ecuador, food shortages have caused price increases. Since the lockdown, many Ecuadorians have struggled with food security and meeting their basic nutritional needs, especially in remote villages. Hoja Verde has applied its skills and knowledge to better the local community to address these issues. Its experts lead community gardens and have training programs in self-sufficiency, skills that could have been priceless anywhere during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hoja Verde has been recognized as a "Best for Community" honoree in 2019 and 2021. In addition, its roses are fair trade-certified.

This Minnesota-based CDFI stands tall

Sunrise Bank: Headquartered in Saint Paul, MN, Sunrise bank calls itself “the world’s most socially responsible bank.” It is certified by the U.S. Treasury as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), a designation held by only about 100 banks in the U.S. This means that Sunrise works to create economic growth opportunities in some of the most distressed communities across the country.

The banking industry is often associated with social ills, such as promoting racial inequality and promoting the concentration of wealth – while the industry’s practices have been among the reasons why many people of color have not been able to benefit from accumulating intergenerational wealth. Further, the crushing economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis has had the harshest impact on communities of color.

Financial institutions can help promote equality and economic vitality by helping to eradicate racial disparities. As lenders, they can make capital available to customers, promoting equality. As influencers, they can help hold companies accountable with fair business practices. Finally, as employers, they can help promote inclusion and diversity.

Sunrise is dedicated to transparent corporate governance and is a mission-driven organization. One example is TrueConnect, a free workplace lending program that seeks to avoid the cycle of debt through payday loans from lenders that often use predatory or unfair practices. The TrueConnect program connects employees with affordable loans that are repaid through payroll deductions.

Sunrise was recognized among B Corps as a "Best for Customers and a Best for Governance" honoree in 2021 and has been a “Best for the World” honoree since 2013.

Raise your glasses for how this company looked out for its workers and communities

New Belgium Brewing Company: What had started in a small basement in Fort Collins, CO, has grown to become the fourth-largest craft brewing company in the U.S. Before selling to Little Lion World Beverages in 2019, New Belgium was 100 percent employee-owned, which significantly shaped how the company was managed. It has been among the ranks of certified B Corps since 2013.

Its flagship products include Fat Tire Amber Ale and Voodoo Ranger IPA, and they were the first brewery to join 1% for the Planet. To date, the brewer has donated more than $29 million through grants and giving programs.

The New Belgium Coworker Assistance Fund is a non-profit organization that assists its workers in times of need after a catastrophic disaster or personal hardship. The fund was created after the High Park Fire in 2012, when 14 employees were evacuated for extended periods and two of them lost their homes. Funding is confidential and is a gift; thus, it doesn’t need to be repaid. Such initiatives help create employee resiliency in times of need and can promote employee morale and retention.

The New Belgium Bar and Restaurant Relief Fund was created to help the food and beverage communities of Ashville, NC and Fort Collins, CO, recuperate from the fallout resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The brewing company provided seed money, matched donations, and ultimately helped 880 bar and restaurant workers. Working as a force for good in the community, it helped bring people together during a very trying time.

One of the leading B Corps within the beverage sector, New Belgium was recognized as a Best for Workers and a Best for Environment honoree in 2021 and has been a Best for the World honoree since 2013.

Image credit: Hoja Verde

Renewables like solar and wind are quickly becoming more affordable and accessible. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reports that the cost of electricity coming from utility-scale solar power fell 82 percent between 2010 and 2019, and clean power technologies such as solar and wind are undercutting even the cheapest coal-fired power plants. Further, a 2020 analysis from BloombergNEF found that wind and solar have overtaken fossil fuels as the most cost-effective form of new sources of electricity in most of the world.

This trend has made “energy leapfrogging” – i.e., the ability to reap a nation’s power needs from renewables such as solar, wind and geothermal at a rapid pace, bypassing heavy investments in fossil fuels and the infrastructure needed for them – ever more possible in emerging markets.

Economies, including several examples in Africa and Latin America, have been transitioning straight from what for many of their communities had been traditional sources of energy like wood, charcoal, agricultural waste and animal dung; these countries are also able to shift rapidly toward renewables as they have not invested in massive infrastructure that supports a national power grid, as was the case with what more industrialized nations in Europe and North America had done during the 20th century.

The result is that more communities within these emerging markets are forgoing conventional energy sources like fossil fuels; the same goes for other forms of energy like nuclear, biofuels and even natural gas.

A recent report from the think tank Carbon Tracker and India’s Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) highlights progress emerging nations are making in embracing renewables. The report also comes with a warning: If more nations do not leapfrog to these cleaner sources of energy, a worldwide low-carbon economy will not occur.

As the demand for energy grows, leapfrogging to renewables becomes necessary

The International Energy Agency estimates a surge in power generation in emerging nations will boom over the next decade, accounting for the majority of electricity demand by 2030. Thus, a world aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has an incentive to ensure countries like India and China continue their developing infrastructure that is more conducive for renewables.

The authors of this Carbon Tracker and CEEW study find that emerging markets are already stepping away from fossil fuels. “Given the continued rapid growth rate of solar and wind, it is highly likely that emerging markets ex-China have already plateaued or reached peak demand for fossil fuels for electricity. China is likely to peak before 2025,” they write. China may still be a major coal consumer, but its solar sector is growing fast. Countries like Morocco, Nicaragua and Kenya have already made great leaps toward increased reliance on renewables.

Some nations are already leapfrogging to renewables

The Climate Reality Project details how Morocco, Nicaragua and Kenya have been able to turn their power generation sectors into ones that are more sustainable and resilient. Morocco, for one, has set a target of 42 percent renewable energy production by 2021 and 52 percent by 2030. It has stayed on track by building up its solar and wind power infrastructure. The North Africa country, in fact, now hosts one of the largest solar farms in the world.

After experiencing rolling blackouts due to energy insecurity a decade ago, Nicaragua is now on its way to sourcing 80 percent of its electricity from sources of renewables. By late 2020, Nicaragua’s burgeoning geothermal industry had brought the nation to 72 percent reliance on renewable energy sources.

Energy accessibility has been expanding in Kenya as decentralized solar has spread across the nation. The country is also making use of its geothermal power, which may reach 50 percent of its energy mix by 2040.

Clean energy can support a more resilient and healthy economy

These cases show that a dramatic shift to renewable energy can increase energy accessibility and stability. The economic case is significant. IRENA reported in 2016 that a doubling of renewables by 2030 could mean global GDP increases by over one percent, boosts social welfare investments by almost four percent and can add more than 24 million jobs.

While some nations have proved leapfrogging possible and beneficial, the authors of the Carbon Tracker and CEEW study note that there are serious barriers to building renewable energy reliance. Such hurdles include the intermittency of renewable sources, system costs, policies and deeply vested interests — but international actors can make a difference. The report recommends that international policymakers should focus their attention on countries currently dependent on fossil fuel imports that also have governments more amenable to policy solutions.

Finally, the authors contend that such nations are more receptive to a transition than countries that are more politically fragile. They are also in a stronger position than countries with economies largely driven by coal and gas exports. The result is that these countries that have found success with energy leapfrogging can become examples for their neighbors and help to bring more emerging nations closer toward a clean energy future.

Image credit: Antonio Garcia/Unsplash   

The first fully electric harbor tugboat will soon serve the Port of San Diego. Crowley Maritime Corporation will build and operate the tug, which will be operational by mid-2023. Instead of fuel, the eWolf will reportedly source its power from a 6 megawatt-hour battery bank which will be charged at a special shoreside charging station. The eWolf will replace a tugboat that consumes 30,000 gallons of diesel annually.

According to Crowley, over a 10-year period, the electric tugboat will accomplish the elimination of 178 tons of nitrogen oxide (NOx); prevent the release of 2.5 tons of diesel particulate matter; and could displace around 3,100 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) that otherwise would be emitted into the atmosphere.

The 82-foot vessel will have 70 tons of bollard pull, which is an impressive amount of pulling and towing power. Harbor tugboats are critical for towing, pushing and guiding mega-ships into port. As ships grow in size, they have a difficult time having the agility required at low speeds and in tight spaces.

The size of the average container ship has doubled in the last 20 years, putting more demands on harbor tugs. As global trade continues to surge, so does the volume of goods that are passing through ports.

Maritime shipping is a vital aspect of trade and supply chains and is the lifeblood of the global economy. In fact, an estimated 90 percent of traded goods travel by ship. Although so many of the goods in our homes and offices have traveled to us by sea, including imported food, clothing, electronics, and appliances, consumers by and large don’t notice the incredible amount of logistics required to move goods from their source to our homes and offices. The incident where the Ever Given got stuck in the Suez Canal in March 2021, was a reminder of how the scale of shipping is ever increasing and the ripple effects of one bottleneck.

Ports are also a source of air pollution and greenhouse gases as ships sit idle, tugboats maneuver ships into port, and heavy-duty trucks zoom to and from the docks. As a result, neighborhoods near the Port of San Diego, such as Barrio Logan, have some of the highest diesel pollution rates in California.

These emissions are causing lung cancer, asthma, and chronic heart disease. In Barrio Logan, the asthma hospitalization rate is roughly 2.5 times the national average. The neighborhood is surrounded by numerous major sources of pollution, due in a large part to hazardous zoning regulations that allow for this mixed-use neighborhood to have residences and industry side-by-side.

Historically, communities of color have been located next to some of the most contaminated neighborhoods, resulting in grave health issues. The South Bay area near the Port of San Diego is largely comprised of low-income communities of color, raising environmental justice concerns.

These port-side neighborhoods are disproportionately saddled with the air pollution associated with global trade and North American distribution. The Port of Los Angeles has been able to significantly reduce airborne pollutants in recent years, sparking optimism.

A recent report by the California Air Resource Board for the San Diego Air Pollution Control District (SDAPCD) of preliminary health risks estimates that in the Barrio Logan and National City neighborhoods, diesel particulate matter causes 84 percent of the neighborhoods’ cancer risks. To that end, the SDAPCD seeks to adopt a visionary Community Emission Reduction Plan (CERP), which would exceed state zero-emission vehicle goals and create strategies to reduce nearby communities’ cancer risk. Although the plan is being heralded by many for promoting environmental justice and positive change, others are concerned it will take too long and that immediate action is urgently needed.

“Similar to the San Pedro Bay Port Complex and the Port of Oakland, the [port] district has relied on plans and partnerships to develop a variety of emission reduction projects and programs on port tidelands,” stated Port of San Diego district staff. “As laws, regulations, and technologies continue to change, it’s important for the district to have a broad, comprehensive and flexible strategy that helps it prioritize clean air initiatives in a manner that supports maritime business objectives.”

Although dramatically reducing pollution in nearby communities is a complex issue that largely relies on reducing truck emissions, the eWolf is clearly a step in a cleaner direction. Considering the scale of the issues at hand and the high impact on portside communities and beyond, zero-emission innovation is critical. This all-electric tugboat is a step towards a cleaner transportation industry.

Image credits: Crowley

Taking advantage of what is still plenty of untapped solar energy in Greece, Carlsberg Group is installing what the company says is the most efficient solar thermal system currently on the market. The system will produce heat, reducing the use of fossil fuels in the process, and it could be a big step toward Carlsberg’s goal of zero carbon emissions in its breweries by 2030.

The benefits of solar thermal technology

The solar thermal collectors will be designed and manufactured by Absolicon, a Swedish company specializing in industrial heating processes. In an interview last year, Absolicon CEO Joakim Byström said breweries, dairy processors and the textile industry are ideal applications for this technology.

Although many companies are switching to renewable electricity, heating often consumes the lion’s share of the total energy consumption in these industries, largely due to the need to wash bottles or textiles, heat ingredients, or pasteurize products. Other industries that could benefit from solar thermal collectors include mining, desalination, pulp and paper, and pharmaceuticals.

Carlsberg, a multinational Danish conglomerate that owns dozens of beer brands, aims to generate 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources at its breweries and to use zero coal by 2022. The company says it is examining many critical areas of sustainability, looking far beyond clean electricity.

Carlsberg builds on its sustainability track record

In addition to its focus on clean energy, the company is also implementing water conservation measures, especially in high-risk areas. The company has also taken on other sustainability projects. For example, Carlsberg is partnering with WWF to address the loss of sea grass, an understated carbon sink. The company has also rolled out snap packs that are held together by glue, not plastic wrap or rings.

As far as its investments in renewables go, Carlsberg’s use of solar thermal technology is appealing because it can be used to retrofit existing systems, reducing upfront costs.

Absolicon designed its solar thermal systems to integrate with existing equipment, creating a hybrid approach. These arrays specialize in emissions-free heat and steam for industrial applications, with temperatures up to 320 degrees Fahrenheit (160 degrees Celsius). When sufficient solar resources are not available, a plant’s management team then can turn to already existing equipment to generate heat.

Unlike solar photovoltaic technology, which produces electricity, solar thermal collectors generate heat by concentrating the sun’s energy. The most efficient solar photovoltaic panel currently on the market is 23 percent efficient in converting solar energy into electricity. By contrast, Alsolicon’s T160 solar collectors are 76 percent efficient in converting solar energy to heat, according to the manufacturer. Whereas solar electricity is stored in batteries, solar thermal heat is stored in tanks. Then, heat is transferred using a heat exchanger through pipes.

A boost for renewables investment in Greece

In 2020, Greece added 913 megawatts of solar electricity capacity and is a rapidly growing solar energy market. In December, the Greek government approved four new renewable power projects as part of its drive to recover from economic shocks that resulted from the global pandemic.

As the country seeks close to an additional $12 billion (10 billion euros) in clean technology investments, Greece is also attracting leading clean energy players such as Masdar, which in May agreed to a 65-megawatt solar photovoltaic plant in partnership with a Finland-based firm.

The Carlsberg project could help advance the country’s solar thermal industry.

Why the potential of solar goes far beyond electricity

The exact financial and carbon emissions savings of these solar thermal systems depend on the energy source they displace. In some countries, oil is used to fuel these heating processes, the use of which comes with a massive carbon footprint. These solar thermal systems can have a payback period as short as three years, depending on the circumstance.

When thinking of renewable energy, a huge emphasis has been on solar electricity, said Byström of Absolicon. Although this is undoubtedly an essential aspect of the clean energy movement, electricity accounts for 30 percent of global energy consumption. By contrast, heating and cooling comprise 49 percent of the world’s total energy usage, thus presenting a critical area to address in order to slow climate change. If Alsolicon’s technology is successfully deployed in industrial processes, it could be instrumental in companies meeting zero-emissions goals.

Image credit: Carlsberg Group and Absolicon; Dragos Gontariu/Unsplash

Image: Tanesha Grant (left), founder of the digital equity nonprofit Parents Supporting Parents NYC, and PSPNY Senior Advisor Elzora Cleveland at a recent technology giveaway event at the PC Richard & Son Harlem Superstore in New York.  

“I’m not supposed to be here,” says Tanesha Grant, founder of Parents Supporting Parents NYC, a nonprofit aiming to help New York City kids bridge the digital divide. “I was supposed to be that left-behind child, a foster child, but I’m here, lifting my voice and lending my experience with school as a Black woman in this country.”

Although digital equity was an issue long before COVID-19, the pandemic and the forced shift to online schooling made the impacts of the digital divide on children more apparent. When Grant saw how children in her community of Harlem, New York, were being affected, she decided to take action.

A mom’s fight to bring the right tools to every child

Growing up in the foster system and the child of a closed adoption, Grant felt left behind on many levels. In school, she says she was taught that Black people didn’t do anything of importance in history, but when she started to educate herself on Black leadership, a world of opportunity opened. 

Seeing Black and Brown children in her community, including her 13-year-old son, suffer from digital inequity in their education brought those memories to the surface. “I see the digital divide as the new textbook,” she told TriplePundit. “We are denying our children the right learning tools.” According to recent Pew Research findings, 41 percent of low-income U.S. households do not have a computer in the home, compared with 8 to 16 percent of homes with incomes over $30,000. Schoolchildren in New York City alone are estimated to need more than 77,000 devices, not to mention internet access.

In September 2020, Grant launched a fundraiser with teachers, educators and educational justice advocates in her neighborhood, and she started giving away her first laptops a month later. To date, she has gifted $87,000 in laptops to children without a computer at home, about 300 devices in all. 

Similar to the divide between those who have a computer at home and those who don’t, Pew found that 43 percent of low-income households do not have access to broadband internet. While typically thought of as a rural issue, major cities also suffer from lack of or intermittent internet access. And what is available is sometimes out of reach for low-income households. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, for example, “set up $15 a month internet, saying that was affordable,” Grant told 3p. “But for a lot of families, that $15 is the choice between internet and groceries. That’s privilege to think that’s affordable.”

Expanding access to inclusive curriculum

Hardware and connectivity are only the beginning, Grant said: “The digital divide also means access to accurate curriculum.” Learning about leadership and success in Black communities across the country, and from powerful Black voices like Toni Morrison, empowered Grant to find the confidence to speak up where she sees inequity. “Lived experience in our own voices makes a difference in the curriculum,” she said. 

“A lot of times, non-white people are written out of the curriculum, or only taught from a place of despair,” putting Black children at a disadvantage and leading them to think both the past and the future are inaccessible for them. “Black children need to know the success stories,” Grant explained. To that end, Grant scores curriculum using the Culturally Responsive Curriculum Scorecards developed by New York University’s Metro Center. The scorecards help parents, teachers, students and community members evaluate the extent to which non-white narratives are taught to schoolchildren in districts around the country. In the future, she hopes to act as a facilitator to help school systems better integrate appropriate curricula. 

Curriculum that fails to truly resonate with kids is hardly unique to the United States. Globally, an estimated 250 million children leave school without being able to read, often because they lack reading materials they can relate to, or even understand. “Globally, children don’t actually have sufficient access to reading materials either at home or at school,” Tanyella Evans, executive director and co-creator of NABU, said during an event co-hosted by 3BL Media and HP last month. “Reading materials that do exist are often not in children's mother tongue, so they’re not in a language that they speak or understand.”

NABU is one of the only publishers of culturally appropriate early-grade books in mother tongue languages. It works with creators around the world to provide reading materials in local languages, which it then shares via a free, low-bandwidth reading app. “Cultural relevancy is a critical part of the conversation around digital equity,” Evans said. “It’s very powerful for children to be able to see themselves in a story.”  

How companies can support local leaders in the push for digital equity

Even with national coverage of her work, Grant struggles to draw the attention of local and statewide leaders and major funders. To commemorate Juneteenth this year, she took 10 laptops to Portland, Oregon, where she gave them to five Black girls and five Black boys, but she wasn’t able to break even after paying for the travel costs herself. Her frustration is palpable. “We run on donations. If I don’t get donations, I don’t have the funds,” she told us.

That’s where large companies with equity goals can help bridge the divide. HP is working to accelerate digital equity for 150 million people by 2030 through its newly announced Partnership and Technology for Humanity (PATH) initiative, an accelerator for programs that address the digital divide in the U.S. and around the world. The tech giant is supporting Grant’s Parents Supporting Parents NYC as part of this work, donating more than 300 laptops and printers, along with paper, HP Instant Ink subscriptions, and access to quality learning and skill-building content. 

HP is also donating $1 for every attendee (live or on-demand, up to $20,000 total) of an upcoming LinkedIn Live event with Alex Cho, president of HP Personal Systems, Alex Amouyel, executive director of MIT Solve, and Sarah Brown, executive chair of the Global Business Coalition for Education and chair of Theirworld. 

HP also supports NABU and dozens of other organizations including Girl Rising, which works to improve girls’ access to education in 12 countries and reached 5 million people in 2020 alone with support from HP.

“Education is a human right, and we must ensure that every student has access to the resources they need to excel. Far too many people are unable to access the technology, connectivity, skills and quality content needed to thrive,” Cho said. “That’s why HP is working to activate innovative solutions and services with a bold ambition to accelerate digital equity for millions.

“Yet we know closing the digital divide will take trillions of dollars and no one company can solve it alone,” he continued. “It requires action across the entire ecosystem: government, private sector, non-governmental organizations — along with passionate, committed individuals, like Tanesha Grant. Together, we can break down the barriers and achieve digital equity for all.”

“I know what it’s like to be left behind…”

In addition to government investment, the digital divide will continue to require private funds and advocacy. People like Tanesha Grant, with a passionate drive to see that every child has the opportunity to succeed, will be key to success. 

When asked why she does this work, Grant replied: “I do what I do because I know how it feels to be left behind. I’m here to support Black children, empower them, and give them the self-confidence that they can do anything they want to do with one piece of technology. The kids don’t think they deserve for someone to care about them, but they deserve every opportunity. If you give them opportunities, they will take care of everything else.” 

To support Grant’s organization, visit her GoFundMe page.

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

Image courtesy of Tanesha Grant and Parents Supporting Parents NYC