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It takes a lot for anyone, or any organization, to ask for a gift back. Hence it's hard to ignore the symbolism of Hallmark, the iconic Kansas City-based greeting card and gift product company, asking Josh Hawley, Missouri senator and leader of the so-called "sedition caucus, to return past political contributions. The company, which like many pools together political contributions from employees and retirees and funnels them to candidates running for office at all levels of government, has also made the same ask from newly elected Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas.

Hallmark’s request comes in the wake of announcements over the weekend made by corporations including Blue Cross Blue Shield, Marriott and Commerce Bankshares, all of which told independent journalist Judd Legum they would cease donating money to any members of Congress who had a role in attempting to overturn the Nov. 3 presidential election. They were joined by the likes of AT&T, which said it would also halt contributions specifically to any member of Congress who voted to reject the certification of the Electoral College results.

Almost a week after the U.S. Capitol breach, it’s clear from videos and eyewitness accounts that the severity of the insurrection is worse than first thought. For now, leaders of the so-called sedition caucus, notably Hawley and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, have not only seen their long-term presidential aspirations put on hold — if not shattered — but they’ve also managed in the span of a few hours to rank among the most toxic brands in the U.S.

It’s too soon to tell if the actions these companies have taken against the sedition caucus will culminate in long-term decisions that could secure U.S. democracy. Or, to paraphrase the editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, they may simply serve as an attempt at “C.Y.A.” to inoculate companies from accusations that their political contributions were part of this problem, doing little to help fix democracy and public discourse in the U.S.

After all, many of these companies funded political operations that allowed state legislatures to take gerrymandering to a new level a decade ago; those funds also made it possible to bankroll the passage of voter identification measures as well as voter suppression efforts that in particular targeted Black Americans. Those checks came “not only from the individual villains who’ve soaked up the most progressive outrage and attention, but from a number of companies familiar to the American public,” Osita Nwanevu wrote in the New Republic only moments before the Capitol riots.

Many of these companies, no matter what their industry, have donated to both major political parties, which at first makes sense logically: The business community wants to hedge its bets depending on who wins an election. But as we’ve seen last summer with the rising calls of social justice, there is no “both sides” on some issues — whether that’s the value of Black Americans’ lives or ensuring American democracy.

The events of the past week have left behind many losers, but there could be one eventual winner: publicly-funded elections. “Part of the blame lies with a campaign finance system that unfairly stacks the deck in favor of the few donors able to give large contributions,” says the Brennan Center for Justice. “Citizens United and other court rulings ended decades of commonsense campaign finance laws. Now a handful of wealthy special interests dominate political funding, often through super PACs and shadowy nonprofits that shield donors’ identities.

If these companies really want to ensure everyone has a voice, they can do more than stop funding politicians and hope they avoid another scenario like that of the sedition caucus — they could demonstrate that they are a force for good and lobby for publicly-funded elections, helping to find a path toward scuttling the 10-year-old Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision, one that also helped pave the path to last week’s disaster.

Image credit: TapTheForwardAssist/Wiki Commons

Weather and climate disasters in the U.S. shattered records last year, according to a report the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released last week, which was largely lost in the news of the extremist insurrection and siege of the U.S. Capitol building. The country was rocked by 22 separate disasters costing over $1 billion each, surpassing the previous record of 16 billion-dollar disasters linked to climate change in both 2011 and 2017.

With numbers like those, it’s no surprise that investment managers continue to look at environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) funds as an area with huge potential. While the private sector has made some strides, opportunities abound, and investment groups like Invesco see benefits in using tools such as the Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI), an asset-owned project that provides data to guide informed investment decisions.

The case for better data on climate preparedness

The TPI tool assesses companies based on their preparedness for the transition to a low-carbon economy. Engagement with the initiative gives investment groups such as Invesco “a direct opportunity to structure a conversation" with the companies in their portfolios, said Glen Yelton, the firm's head of ESG client strategy in North America. "Additionally, as the highest emitting sectors are the focus of TPI, the resulting disclosure and transparency will have a disproportionate impact on evaluating climate transition efforts,” he continued. 

Investors can then integrate that data into their investment analysis. As the data sets grow, investors can then track and compare changes over time regarding a particular company’s performance on ESG indicators.

One of the trends that continues to emerge in the ESG space is shifting priorities to align several components for better targeted investing. For example, since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the intersectionality of issues such as inequality, environmental and climate justice, climate change, and systemic racism has been made abundantly clear.

To that end, companies need to think of a bigger picture in how they set up their ESG priorities. Yelton said: “The increased attention being paid to various topics has just amplified the message that these are matters that cannot be pushed off until next month or next year or next decade for consideration and action. Collective investor initiatives are a powerful tool to influence change and collaborate with corporations in their transitions [to a more sustainable future].”

Climate change and its related problems will continue to “drive assets away from strategies that are apathetic to climate change and [toward] those that are underwriting and investing in action to address the fundamental issues,” Yelton predicted. More and more, the costs and opportunities will be too great for any company to ignore.

Broad action across all fronts is needed to address climate change

While economics and the pressure to align with societal goals will drive investment decisions, this won't happen in a vacuum. Government support and policy can together help secure better regulatory certainty and fair-play rules to frame investment opportunities. Further, government can and should invest in solutions for climate change to spur innovation and generate additional investment opportunities.

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden has already signaled that he intends to prioritize climate action in his administration, front-loading his cabinet and advisors with climate hawks and economists who have an eye toward climate justice. In order to be successful, the incoming administration must also include private-sector stakeholders to ensure policies make sense for both the public good and the bottom line.

There are many ways to slice the climate cake, because every sector is or will be affected by climate change. For example, using a water lens could lead to more efficient investing in the utility, agriculture or data storage sectors. For its part, Invesco accounts for corporate performance across a diverse set of indicators — "from gender to water to environmental outcomes," said Maria Lombardo, Invesco's head of ESG client strategy in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. “Our engagement efforts encompass a variety of issues as and when relevant to the companies and entities with which we are in dialogue," she said. "It is our expectation that those engagements will continue to further in a positive manner performance on issues such as board diversity, emissions reduction, and other topics.”

Investors see the opportunities in climate solutions, and increasingly, those take a broader, more inclusive view. It is no longer enough to invest only in low-hanging fruit. Addressing climate change and its many layers of impact will require data to ensure effective, targeted investment by both the public and private sectors.

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Some of the world’s leading financial institutions have withdrawn their support from the global coal industry. Pressure to act on climate change is one key factor. The emergence of new energy technology is another one. Now a new group called Portfolio.earth is applying similar pressure on lenders to stop financing plastic pollution and do something more beneficial with their dollars. In effect, they seek to make plastic the new coal.

Momentum grows on tackling plastic pollution

Portfolio.earth is a collaborative effort launched by a group of environmental consultants last year, with the goal of raising public awareness on the role of financial stakeholders in biodiversity loss.

In an email to TriplePundit, the Portfolio.earth team explained that its focus on finance is a singular approach that complements the broader policymaking work undertaken by other environmental organizations.

“Because there are so many excellent groups engaging in more policy led agenda with Banks and finance, we are focusing our attention on telling the story about the financial sector’s role in destroying nature, and helping those progressive voices on the inside have impact,” they said.

Portfolio.earth does have a running start on its campaign, especially in regard to single-use plastic packaging.

Public awareness of the connection between single-use plastics and their impact on oceans and marine life has been skyrocketing, thanks in part to legacy media and conservation organizations including National Geographic and Sierra Club. Newer organizations like the Surfrider Foundation and Lonely Whale are also providing business leaders with new opportunities to connect with the issue.

Major consumer brands, including Unilever, Nestlé and Coca-Cola, have begun highlighting their efforts to reduce or eliminate virgin plastic, partly through new recycling initiatives and bio based packaging. Some are also diving more deeply into the issue by promoting the circular economy through the reusable container firm Terracycle.

Sports and entertainment venues have also been contributing to the sustainability theme in recent years, and they could play a larger role in raising awareness on plastic pollution in the future.

On a broader level, business leaders are beginning to organize around global efforts such as the new Plastic Pact, which recently launched a chapter in the U.S. They are also coalescing around support for global action through the United Nations.

Cutting off the problem at its source

The U.S. has been slow coming to the plastic pollution table in terms of national policy, but the incoming Biden administration is expected to pay more heed to environmental issues than the outgoing Trump administration. Meanwhile, there has been a recent burst of state and local activity in the area of banning single-use plastic bags.

The new bans have the potential to irritate some segments of the U.S. public, but the overall impact will be to raise awareness on plastic pollution even higher.

All of this activity is meaningful, but none of it addresses the problem at its source, namely, the role of manufacturers and consumer products companies have in fueling the world’s single-use plastic packaging.

Among the group of 40 key plastic packaging companies identified in the new report are many familiar names and leading brands including Anheuser-Busch, Coca-Cola, Dow Chemicals, CVS, Home Depot and Unilever.

Progress on plastic is threatened by new pressures

As noted by Portfolio.earth and other organizations, the COVID-19 outbreak has revived demand for disposable items. Even without the virus, the global transition to electric vehicles will put more pressure on oil and gas producers to move their wares into the plastics and petrochemical market.

All else being equal, the increased pressure could overwhelm the progress made through next-generation recycling, bio-based packaging, reusable containers and other plastic-reducing strategies.

The potential for growth in the single-use plastic industry makes it imperative to engineer a more efficient strategy on plastic pollution, and that is why Portfolio.earth is focusing on the global financial firms that support the plastic supply chain.

As described in the new “Bankrolling Plastics” report, Portfolio.earth places banks at the top of the plastics industry pyramid.

“Between January 2015 and September 2019, banks provided loans and underwriting of more than $1.7 trillion to key actors in the global plastics supply chain,” the organization writes, referring to 40 leading companies in the plastic supply chain.

Steering those dollars away from the plastic supply chain will be a monumental task, but the report makes the case for an effective campaign that applies pressure on the leading financial stakeholders.

They have their work cut out for them.

“While many banks have shown some awareness of the issue, none of the 20 banks which provide the lion’s share of funding have developed any due diligence systems, contingent loan criteria, or financing exclusions when it comes to the plastics packaging industry,” they explain.

According to the report, 10 leading global banks alone accounted for 62 percent of the finances linked to the top 40 supply chain stakeholders. The U.S. and Europe dominate the group, which includes Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Wells Fargo, BNP Paribas and Morgan Stanley.

A positive role for banks in the circular economy?

Much as the financial industry has pivoted from coal to renewables, Portfolio.earth advocates for financial institutions to steer their dollars into the circular economy.

Some of the heavy lifting has already begun. More nations have begun to take action, such as imposing bans on single-use plastic bags and exerting more control over the shipping of recyclable waste.

That still leaves ample room for banks to become more proactive supporters of the circular economy.

“To address plastic pollution, a fundamental shift away from business models that depend on single-use packaging towards those that prioritize reuse and more localized supply chains and services is needed,” Portfolio.earth states, adding that banks must also make their support for plastic supply chain actors contingent on international agreements that increase reusability and reduce the use of virgin plastic.

The emphasis on local supply chains and services suggests a focus on small businesses. In that regard, banks in the U.S. may see new opportunities to support the transition to new business models after President-elect Biden takes office on January 20.

Last Thursday - just one day after President Trump incited a lethal assault on the entire U.S. Congress - President-elect Biden announced that his nominee to lead the Small Business Administration is Isabel Guzman, who is known for her work in arranging small business loans under California’s COVID-19 relief program.

Biden has also nominated Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo as Commerce Secretary. Governor Raimondo also has a strong track record on small business loans, especially for women and people of color. Her strong advocacy for clean power also dovetails with a new emphasis on local jobs and local production.

If banks don’t act soon, plastic really will become the next coal.

Here in the U.S., for example, energy policies and market forces have combined to force large, centralized coal power plants out of the power generation sector. The national energy trend now includes a large measure of rooftop solar panels, home energy storage and other small and community-centered renewable energy sources.

A similar transformation could upend the single-use plastics industry. The movement toward banning single-use bags could be just the start of a broader shift in policies and practices that creates new opportunities for small businesses, entrepreneurs and innovators.

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Evidence is mounting that the storming of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6 was a purposeful insurrection with the intention of disrupting the Electoral College certification and kidnapping, if not killing, the vice president and members of Congress.

In that context, the efforts of U.S. businesses to counteract the damage wrought by the attempted insurrection carry all the more weight. A few have already taken steps, but a more coordinated, forceful effort is needed to prevent Donald Trump and his supporters from inflicting further damage before — and after — he leaves office on Jan. 20.

Businesses should stop supporting legislators who support insurrectionists

By the time Trump spoke at the "Save America" rally on Jan. 6, his supporters were already primed and ready to attack the U.S. Capitol Building. At that very hour, all of Congress had gathered to certify the Electoral College vote, providing the insurrectionists with a target-rich opportunity like none other.

Republican business leaders have long been reluctant to criticize Trump’s policies, but the horrific events of Jan. 6 may finally compel a sea change.

One Republican business leader has already set a relatively high bar for action. On Jan. 7, David Humphreys, president and CEO of the 75-year-old Joplin, Missouri-based firm Tamko Building Products, publicly excoriated Republican Sen. Josh Hawley “for provoking yesterday’s riots in our nation’s capital.”

Humphreys was referring to Hawley’s leading role in disrupting the certification process on Jan. 6. With Hawley’s encouragement, 147 other senators and House members pledged to raise objections during the Electoral College certification process.

Following the money leading to the Trump insurrection

Humphreys may not be a nationally known figure, but his criticism is especially significant. As reported by the Kansas City Star, he and his family are prominent Republic donors in Missouri. They raised a total of $16 million for Republican candidates in 2016, including $4.4 million for Hawley to campaign for the state’s office of attorney general that year.

The Humphreys' financial support continued into 2018, when the family contributed $2 million to Hawley’s successful run for the Senate.

In a statement provided to the Missouri Independent, Humphreys made it clear that no such help is forthcoming in the future. “Missouri’s U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley … has shown his true colors as an anti-democracy populist by supporting Trump’s false claim of a ‘stolen election,'" Humphreys said. “Hawley’s irresponsible, inflammatory, and dangerous tactics have incited violence and further discord across America. And he has now revealed himself as a political opportunist willing to subvert the Constitution and the ideals of the nation he swore to uphold.”

Humphreys is not the only prominent Republican to push back against Hawley in the wake of Wednesday’s insurrection. The senator also lost his political mentor, former Missouri Sen. Jack Danforth. In the aftermath of the riot, Danforth disowned Hawley, telling the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and other media that his promotion of Hawley was the biggest mistake he had ever made.

Adding to the hurt, on Thursday night, Hawley’s A-list publisher, Simon and Schuster, announced that it was cancelling the contract for the senator’s much-anticipated book, to be titled The Tyranny of Big Tech. “As a publisher it will always be our mission to amplify a variety of voices and viewpoints; at the same time we take seriously our larger public responsibility as citizens, and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat to our democracy and freedom.”

More than just one senator

In another development with financial consequences for the Republican party, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) forcefully waded into the issue even before the insurrection was quelled. Though closely associated with the Republican party, on Jan. 6 NAM publicly rebuked Trump and called upon Vice President Mike Pence to remove him through the 25th Amendment.

In particular, NAM emphasized that Trump’s allies in Congress and elsewhere were all complicit in the insurrection attempt and the violence that followed.

"The outgoing president incited violence in an attempt to retain power, and any elected leader defending him is violating their oath to the Constitution and rejecting democracy in favor of anarchy. Anyone indulging conspiracy theories to raise campaign dollars is complicit," NAM stated.

A broader movement by business stakeholders to inflict financial punishment on the Republican party has yet to materialize, but on Saturday the Washington Post suggested that the worst is yet to come.

In one ominous sign, The Lincoln Project has already swung into action. The organization was founded by disaffected Republicans to rally voters against re-electing the president during the 2020 campaign. Now they are eager to take on a new mission that extends to every Republican associated with the Trump insurrection.

“Project Lincoln will be running a brutal corporate pressure campaign targeting Companies, Trade Associations, CEO’s, Directors and senior leadership of organizations that serve as the financiers of the Authoritarian movement that attacked the U.S. Capitol,” warned co-founder Steve Schmidt in a Twitter message on Jan. 7.

As an example, Schmidt cited any donations made to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California’s 23rd district, along with any organization or committee under his control.

Big tech and employee activism

The financial stick is the most effective way for the majority of businesses and individual executives to take action, but some are in a unique position to wield much broader influence.

The root of the problem that exploded with the Trump insurrection is the normalization of a white supremacist perspective on human rights and civil rights, a threat that predates Trump by many generations. It has percolated throughout American history, from state-sanctioned slavery and segregation, to genocide against Native Americans, and on through to racist legislation promoted by the National Rifle Association and the ostensibly pro-business lobbying organization ALEC.

With the growth of the corporate social responsibility movement during the Barack Obama administration, U.S. businesses slowly began to disentangle themselves from this legacy.

Leading advertisers and other businesses also began to respond to pressure from the influential Sleeping Giants and Grab Your Wallet boycott campaigns, and in 2020 the reenergized Black Lives Matter movement galvanized more business leaders to act.

Despite the progress, the white supremacist movement continued to grow with direct encouragement from President Trump, helped in great measure by lax social media policies.

Fortunately, a sea change has occurred in just the past few days since the Trump insurrection, partly at the insistence of employee activists.

Following an open letter signed by hundreds of Twitter employees, last week CEO Jack Dorsey permanently banned Trump from the platform. The company has also taken action to prevent Trump from communicating on Twitter through other accounts.

Facebook had previously put Trump under temporary suspension, and on the evening of Jan. 6, an internal Facebook message board was on fire with employees calling for the company to issue an outright ban, immediately and permanently. The following day, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg affirmed that the suspension would not be lifted until after Trump left office, if ever.

Facebook's ban covers Trump’s access to Instagram. He has also lost access to Pinterest, Amazon-owned Twitch, and Snapchat. In addition, Reddit has banned a popular pro-Trump subreddit, though many others may remain.

So far, YouTube has only taken down individual Trump videos. It has yet to issue a blanket ban, but the newly organized Alphabet Workers Union has already begun to pressure the company, warning that YouTube “will continue to function as a vector for the growth of the fascist movements” if it continues to provide a stage for Trump and others.

White supremacists and other Trump followers have begun moving to alternative social media sites, like the Parler app financed by the conservative Mercer family. However, that opportunity may not last long. Google has already suspended Parler from the Google Play app store, and Apple soon followed suit.

The employee activist organization Amazon Workers for Climate Justice had also been pressing Amazon to stop hosting Parler through its Amazon Web Services arm, and the company pulled the plug on the extremist social network on Saturday night.

Even e-commerce has a role to play

In an interesting twist, the e-commerce field has also become suddenly aware of the reputational risk of being associated with a movement linked to a violent insurrection that left four people dead. 

That is a significant development because Trumpism has thrived on cultural identification through clothing and accessories. It began with the infamous “MAGA” hat during the run-up to the 2016 General Election and it has since grown to a torrent of T-shirts, flags, posters, pins, automotive accessories, and other wares bearing the Trump name, MAGA messages and other cultural unifiers.

Shopify, PayPal, and Venmo have now banned at least some Trump sites and accounts from their platforms. Other leading e-commerce sites, such as Walmart and Etsy, have yet to take action. However, Trump’s suspension from Amazon-owned Twitch may portend future steps on the part of Amazon owner Jeff Bezos.

All of these anti-Trump actions are important, not because they can put an end to the white supremacist undercurrent in America. After all, it is impossible to extinguish a thought from the collective mind. The point is to cut off its access to power and push it far below the normal current of discourse on civic affairs.

At this unprecedented juncture in American democracy, U.S. businesses have much to answer for, but they also have the power to de-normalize white supremacy and help lead the country back from the precipice.

Image credit: Tyler Merbler/Wiki Commons

Photo: Houston, Texas, is one U.S. city where land subsidence has imposed long-term risks.

In a new study, researchers determined that 19 percent of the world’s population, accounting for 21 percent of the global GDP, will be affected by land subsidence by 2040. Subsidence is the sudden sinking or gradual settling of land due to removing subsurface materials. The land subsidence noted in the study primarily focuses on subsidence due to pumping groundwater out of aquifers.

While subsidence is not a new phenomenon, it is increasing at an alarming rate. Drought, rising seas and global heating combined with the lack of pumping regulations and increasing populations will create problems worldwide: To that end, the study looked at 200 locations in 34 countries.

Further, in addition to residential and commercial real estate damage, subsidence can damage critical infrastructure, including water systems such as dams and systems for delivery, as well as bridges, roads and levees — all of which are already under strain from the effects of climate change and age. The result, as some studies have suggested, poses a long-term threat to communities, as well as the worldwide real estate sector.

The global reach of land subsidence

Land subsidence maps show areas of concern across the country, with California, Texas and Florida leading the pack and risk hotspots in metropolitan areas like Denver and Albuquerque.

California, Texas and Florida are among the U.S. states that have already suffered damage costing hundreds of millions of dollars. The Central Valley region in California provides a stark example: By the 1970s, areas subsided by nearly 30 feet, and continued monitoring since then has shown only moderate improvement. About 75 percent of water drawn from the area’s aquifers go to agriculture, as about 250 crops are grown in the region; yet many of those wells are not properly monitored, despite improved state regulations.

The Houston-Galveston area is one of the most populous areas susceptible to land subsidence in the U.S. Groundwater withdrawals in this region have led to the subsidence of approximately 3,200 square miles, some places subsiding a foot or more. Additional cities like Fort Lauderdale, Miami and New Orleans are likewise at risk. These cities already get battered by hurricanes, and climate change is only exacerbating the impacts. Flooding is a constant threat, made worse by sea-level rise and subsidence combined and subsequently compounding the stress on infrastructure. One scientific study after Hurricane Harvey in 2017 showed that the flooding pushed Houston down by 2 centimeters — on top of the subsidence levels of 4 centimeters a year in the previous several years.

Beyond the U.S., countries across the globe suffer from subsidence and its effects. Despite hundreds of years of engineering to manage land below sea level, the Netherlands continues to sink. Mexico, China and India are also in the subsidence crosshairs. Perhaps the most extreme example, however, is Indonesia, which is making plans to move its capital from Jakarta to Borneo, as Jakarta has sunk more than 2.5 meters in the past 10 years. Many sections of Jakarta are no longer safe to live in — and predictions are that some of the city's neighborhoods will be completely submerged by 2050. For reference, Jakarta is home to 10 million people, all of whom will eventually need to be relocated.

Are there any long-term solutions?

The good news is that, as opposed to climate change, land subsidence is a much easier problem to solve, and often the solutions are at the local and regional level. Satellites and radar can quickly identify areas at risk of subsidence. Policies and tools by local governments to monitor and regulate groundwater withdrawals are available and battle tested.

For example, Tokyo experienced subsidence levels around 24 centimeters a year by the late 1960s, but it introduced groundwater regulations that for all intents and purposes solved their subsidence problem. Further, water-efficient agriculture has been proven effective in many different climatic regions and could be instituted with regulations, investment and technologies.

The solutions are the same everywhere, and lessons learned abound. Cities that are most vulnerable to both subsidence and coastal flooding already have rebuilding underway. Effective groundwater regulations can be instituted immediately and should be part of region’s resilience strategies. Resilient cities are better able not only to protect their citizens but also attract private investment for longer-term sustainability. Indonesia is looking moving its capital because it's necessary. Other cities should take heed and put the proper protections in place to ensure that their communities will not need to follow suit.

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In the latest demonstration that renewable energy has attained mainstream status, a subsidiary of Koch Industries has just teamed up with the Colorado-based biofuel company Gevo to expand sustainable aviation biofuel production in the U.S. It’s a baby step, considering Koch’s history of obstructing progress on climate action, but the new partnership could have widespread implications for the rapid decarbonization of the aviation industry and other sectors.

Why aviation biofuel?

Given the growing popularity of battery-powered electric vehicles, it may be tempting to write off biofuels as a means of reducing the carbon footprint of the global transportation sector. However, it will be many years before the global vehicle fleet transitions to electricity. In the meantime, biofuels are a short-term solution.

Opportunities for biofuels are even more pronounced in the aviation industry. The technology for flying a large piece of metal through the air is a challenging one for electricity. Commercial flights for small battery-electric airplanes and hydrogen fuel cell airplanes could take place in the near future, but the current state of technology does not apply to larger planes and longer flights.

That’s where the jet biofuel option comes in. The aviation biofuel market began taking shape several years ago. Various formulations have already been certified for flight.

Enlisting fossil fuel experts in the renewable energy cause

Key players in the aviation industry are eager to make the switch. Cost is one obstacle, but some companies — Microsoft, for example — are willing to include aviation biofuel in their decarbonization plans. If corporate support continues to grow, that could lead to economies of scale and supply chain efficiencies that help push costs down.

The broader challenge is to scale up production. Biofuels still account for a minuscule proportion of the global aviation fuel sector, but that could change. Gevo is a case in point. The company is pursuing a new biofuel expansion plan with financing arranged by Citigroup Global Markets, and part of the plan involves is to leverage the expertise of a legacy oil and gas stakeholder.

Earlier this week, Gevo announced that it has enlisted Koch Project Solutions, a subsidiary of Koch Industries, to perform engineering, design, and project management services for its new aviation biofuel facility. That represents quite a turnaround for Koch Industries, which has established a high-profile position in climate change denial in addition to its longstanding investments in fossil energy.

Nevertheless, Koch Project Solutions possesses a skill set that applies to renewable energy projects, and that dovetails with recent Koch Industries ventures into the biofuel arena.

As described by Bloomberg, Koch Industries was one company among petroleum stakeholders to capitalize on a downturn in the ethanol business around the 2008 financial crisis to acquire biofuel assets on the cheap. By 2016 it was the fifth-largest ethanol producer in the U.S.

Its acquisitions activity seems to have quieted down since then, but in 2017 the company did announce plans to upgrade a biofuel plant to make high-protein fish and chicken feed from the biosolids left over from ethanol production.

Gevo lays plans for expansion

The new biofuel activities don’t let Koch Industries off the hook for the climate impacts of its past and current fossil energy operations. However, the company’s focus on biofuels does present an interesting contrast with another legacy energy company with a history of financing climate denial, namely, ExxonMobil.

Where Koch has focused on corn ethanol and other biofuel pathways in an advanced stage of technological development, ExxonMobil has been burnishing its green profile in pursuit of the less developed field of algae biofuel.

The payoff for success in the algae biofuel field could be significant, because algae could potentially be farmed more sustainably than traditional crops. Algae farming could also provide a new, heretofore untapped pathway for carbon sequestration.

However, by focusing its efforts on a faraway goal, ExxonMobil has failed to participate in here-and-now solutions to climate impacts. Shareholder pressure may eventually force the company to pay more attention to the urgent need for rapid change, but for the present ExxonMobil appears determined to drag its heels on climate action.

In contrast, if the Gevo biofuel expansion plan comes to fruition, Koch Industries will be able to share in the credit for a massive shift in the scale of biofuel production in the U.S.

Gevo recently optioned the right to buy a 240-acre parcel of land near Lake Preston, South Dakota, with the aim of producing approximately 45 million gallons of jet biofuel and gasoline annually. The South Dakota site could also accommodate expansion in the future.

Speaking of sustainable biofuels…

Gevo’s expansion plan raises the question of how the company anticipates increasing its bioenergy crop supply chain without bumping into substantial sustainability issues related to agriculture.

A key part of the answer is regenerative agriculture, which refers to practices that build up and improve soil health and reduce dependence on chemicals, while also enhancing crop yields. Because of its focus on building soil, regenerative agriculture can also function as an effective carbon capture and sequestration tool.

Gevo actively encourages regenerative farming among its suppliers, and its efforts in that area could ripple out and accelerate the adoption of regenerative practices throughout the agriculture industry.

In yet another sustainability twist, last year Gevo installed wind turbines at its biofuel plant in Luverne, Minnesota, as part of a broader decarbonization effort.

In this light, it may seem all the more ironic that Koch Industries is providing material support for Gevo to expand. Nevertheless, the rule of following the money applies: As stronger public policies come to bear on decarbonizing the global economy, legacy companies like Koch Industries will have stronger bottom-line incentives to participate in the energy transition rather than fight it.

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Editor's note: On Friday afternoon, January 8, Twitter announced it had put a permanent ban on the account of Donald Trump.

For several years, critics of social media companies urged them to kick the current U.S. president off their platforms, or at least find a way to rein him in. Those companies, including Twitter, countered that no matter what one may have thought of Donald Trump’s ongoing behavior, as a leading political figure there was value in giving the public an opportunity to interact with him. Twitter eventually began to affix advisory labels on many of the tweets in which Trump made dubious claims about issues including, of course, the U.S. 2020 election.

In any event, we witnessed how that all panned out on Wednesday afternoon as domestic terrorists briefly took over the U.S. Capitol.

The reaction was swift, as Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter either temporarily suspended, locked or banned Trump’s access. Twitter was the first platform to bend, as it reversed its suspension just in time for Trump to post a video saying he would be part of the peaceful transition of power. Nevertheless, calls to impeach or invoke the 25th Amendment keep growing louder. Meanwhile, more officials, the most recent being Education Secretary Betsy Devos, have headed to the exits.

But if you really want to enact change or fight back against horrid behavior, one tactic is to hit them in the pocketbook, as opponents of the current administration’s policies have tried to accomplish over the past four years.

To that end, Ottawa-based Shopify, a popular e-commerce platform, yesterday announced that not only would it remove the Trump campaign's merchandising site from its portfolio, but also another Trump-owned site that pitched all types of swag with the Trump name. Shopify cited its terms of use policy, which includes a provision prohibiting any individuals or organizations that threaten or support any form of violence.

Shopify’s decision puts pressure on additional e-commerce companies, including Amazon, Etsy and eBay. The latter still listed resellers pitching T-shirts emblazoned with the term “MAGA Civil War January 6, 2021” until Thursday evening, when news outlets including Vox reported that eBay pulled those listings and issued a statement saying it has a policy to “remove any merchandise glorifying the violence on Capitol Hill.”

In recent years, Spotify caught flak for doing business with sites accused of engaging in hate speech, such as Breitbart. CEO Tobias Lütke said Shopify is a “platform without restriction” and that it would make “decisions based on judgement when there is not a black and white, or even existing, legal solution.”

But the clear role Trump had in fomenting Wednesday’s violence was a bridge too far for Shopify — we’ll find out in the next few days whether “free speech” or taking a stand against violence and sedition is worth alignment with what is clearly becoming the increasingly toxic Trump brand.

Image credit: Voice of America/Wiki Commons

What does it mean when one of the world’s supermajor oil companies discloses its indirect impacts on the climate for the first time? For ExxonMobil, the implications are complicated. Earlier this month, the oil giant divulged its Scope 3, indirect emissions near the end of its 2021 Energy & Carbon Summary - claiming it issued that disclosure due to the influence of stakeholder pressure.

“Noting that stakeholders have expressed growing interest in Scope 3 data, the Company is providing Scope 3 information in the table to the right and plans to do so on an annual basis,” ExxonMobil writes in its 2021 Energy and Carbon Summary, also noting that Scope 3 emissions “do not provide meaningful insight into the Company’s emission-reduction performance and could be misleading in some respects.”

A long history behind the tepid ExxonMobil disclosure

On the one hand, a reluctant disclosure is still a step forward for a major carbon producer. According to several sources, ExxonMobil has been, after all, the fourth most-polluting company in the world, falling below only three fellow oil producers, Saudi Aramco, Chevron and Gazprom.

On the other hand, the statement continues a pattern of disingenuous environmentalism. For example, a Union of Concerned Scientists report last fall concluded, “By ExxonMobil’s own accounting, it gave $690,000 to eight climate science denier groups in 2019, a 10 percent drop from 2018. In addition, it continued to fund federal lawmakers who oppose a carbon tax, despite its supposed longtime support for the idea.”

In light of the progress its competitors are taking toward renewability, ExxonMobil’s steps forward only highlight how far the company has fallen behind the curve, especially taking into account its recent timeline of events.

During the years and months leading to the January 5 publication, ExxonMobil repeatedly found itself on the climate change denying side of arguments and actions. In a 2015 article, TriplePundit writer Tina Casey called attention to the company’s argument that harvesting fossil fuel resources can help strengthen emerging economies; as then-CEO Rex Tillerson said, “What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?”

More recently, ExxonMobil found itself in the news after Bloomberg leaked documents outlining plans to increase oil drilling and carbon emissions as a whole. Then right before the holidays, the company published an emissions reduction plan that sets targets for per-barrel emissions instead of absolutely emissions and leaves out Scope 3 emissions — thus making room for ever-increasing production.

Falling behind the industry and losing money

ExxonMobil’s tiptoeing around real change contrasts deeply with European counterparts such as BP and Royal Dutch Shell, which are taking action to decarbonize and thus remain resilient in a renewables-focused world. BP, for example, acquired solar energy developer Lightsource Renewable Energy, now Lightsource BP, and says it is determined to generate 8 to 10 percent returns for its investors from its low-carbon portfolio. Royal Dutch Shell has also been leading the pack in clean-energy deals over the last decade.

Despite ExxonMobil’s lukewarm commitments, the company saw a 2 percent jump in its stock the day after the January 5th report. As a whole, though, 2020 wasn’t a year of great growth for the company. Shares dropped over 40 percent over the course of the year, and ExxonMobil said it would lay off 15 percent of its workforce.

Thinking from a purely financial perspective, it’s clear to see why investors would be concerned about the company’s long-term trajectory. While companies like BP have been building cleaner during the pandemic, Exxon is largely staying its course with petroleum.

Though the world is still heavily dependent on petroleum, more evidence suggests renewables are gaining more traction with investors. Further, NextEra Energy, which operates the most wind and solar installations in the world, recently surpassed ExxonMobil as the most valuable energy producer in the United States.

Exxon’s January report shows clearly it has felt pressure from stakeholders to make meaningful changes to its operations and take accountability for its global impacts. Thus far, though, report after report has exhibited stubborn adherence to an out-dated world view instead of humble willingness to comply.

Image credit: Pixabay