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Earlier this summer, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) proposed to change a rule that would make it very difficult for managers of retirement plans - including 401k savings and pensions - to consider non-financial factors, such as environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) when choosing an investment. Moreover, the DOL’s suggested changes would preclude 401k plans from using an ESG or sustainable investment as a default choice in any public or private retirement plan. 

This new rule will potentially affect more than $10 trillion in U.S. retirement plans and poses a massive threat to the responsible investment industry - an industry that has touched over 490 million lives with a cumulative investment of $11 billion over the last 10 years. This proposal threatens to be a substantial disservice to our country and investors alike by preventing Americans from building wealth through a means that will truly make a difference, especially during a time when we need it most.

Debunking the myth that ESG investments do not offer competitive returns

Apparently, the DOL is concerned that ESG investments increase risk and subordinate financial performance, which would go against the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).  ERISA asserts that retirement plan managers can’t sacrifice financial security for any reason.  

Now, it’s important to note up front that the proposed DOL rules are based on a faulty assumption, one that says sustainable investments can’t compete with traditional investments from a financial perspective. 

Recent research debunks that assumption. Investments that consider ESG factors have performed as well—and in many cases better—than investments based solely on traditional pecuniary considerations. 

A white paper by the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing found that in examining approximately 11,000 mutual funds from 2004 to 2018 there was no financial trade-off in the returns of sustainable funds relative to traditional funds. Sustainable funds also demonstrated lower downside risk.

The business case for ESG investing

Similarly, a highly regarded 2016 study, led by George Serafeim of Harvard Business School, found that stocks of companies with the strongest performance on ESG issues outpaced those with relatively poor performance.

Sustainability is a major risk factor for corporations today. As such, they are understandably placing greater emphasis on ESG risk analysis and performance. Most CEOs and company directors now realize that sustainability issues are strongly associated with financial performance. They understand that more and more consumers—especially younger consumers—are demanding that the companies they do business with perform well on ESG criteria.

A study published in 2015 by the University of Oxford and Arabesque analyzed approximately 200 scientific studies on the economic impact of sustainability and found that strong ESG performance was positively correlated with better stock price performance (80 percent of studies), better operational performance (88 percent of studies), and lower cost of capital (90 percent of studies).

It turns out that “doing good” is also good business.

Barring ESG investments can hurt future generations

Given findings such as these, it can certainly be argued that retirement plan managers that don’t consider ESG factors when evaluating the potential financial performance of investments are not fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities. In fact, if two investment options have the same or similar performance, ESG vs. non-ESG, the investment manager should indeed weigh ESG more heavily since there is a positive societal impact not reflected in non-ESG performance. In effect, in choosing more responsible investments, everybody wins.

This is especially important to younger investors participating in 401k plans and other retirement accounts who are spearheading the shift to “conscious investing.” In fact, a 2019 study by Morgan Stanley found 95 percent of Millennials are interested in focusing on sustainable investing. Curtailing sustainable investing can negatively impact this core component of the larger movement toward a more conscious and inclusive capitalism by limiting opportunities for these individuals to build wealth through a means they can feel good about—particularly in the long-term.

ESG investments should always be an option

The emphasis on traditional financial analysis when evaluating potential investments is flawed in its singular focus. If retirement plan managers and investors rely on historic financial trends, sans environmental, social and corporate governance impact, it’s likely that excellent financial investments will be missed due to an ESG blind spot.

Implementing the proposed DOL rules would unnecessarily hamstring retirement plan managers from performing comprehensive analyses of investment opportunities. As such, implementing these rules would be a major disservice to both retirement plan managers and investors.

The bottom line is, companies that utilize ESG criteria in their management practices are typically well-managed companies and as a result consistently have better financial performance. And retirement planners who include sustainability factors in their investment analysis are the new gold standard.

Image credit: Alexander Schimmeck/Unsplash

Roughly one in five U.S. workers are collecting unemployment benefits, and as coronavirus case numbers surge across the country, job prospects seem slim for many. Even before the pandemic, nearly 28 million Americans were unemployed or underemployed due to a lack of relevant job training, a lack of education, or simply a lack of access to pipelines for better paying and more stable positions.  

Would-be workers aren’t the only ones who lose out when talent is left on the table. Entire communities are affected when residents struggle to find gainful employment, and businesses face unavoidable long-term risk if workers are not equipped with the right skills to fill vacant positions once employment levels return to normal. 

Investing in job training offers long-term benefits for communities and employers

Investment in job training within historically underserved communities is a key lever companies can use to bolster their own pipelines while bettering the communities they serve. As the coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt the U.S. workforce and renewed conversations around racial equity highlight the disparities within it, business now has an even greater opportunity to rethink how it perceives — and invests in — future talent, Aleta Stampley, director of community impact and investing for Capital One, told TriplePundit. 

"We are in the midst of a real movement. We have a chance to be better if we take it. Both COVID-19 and the murder of Mr. Floyd have once again revealed societal injustices and inequalities," Stampley said. "Disproportionately the folks who have been boxed out of the workforce and small business spaces have been persons of color, which is why we need light, illumination and innovation to bring greater access.” 

Stampley and her team at Capital One support job training in underserved communities across the U.S. with $50 million in annual funding across over 200 community-based organizations, including those that support workforce development. In June, the company pledged an additional $10 million to organizations advancing social justice in Black communities and established a dollar-for-dollar gift-matching program for employees looking to support the cause. Given what we know about racial equity in the workforce, particularly in the midst of severe economic disruptions, the company’s focus on diversity, inclusion and belonging efforts with workforce partners is needed now more than ever. 

What we know about racial equity in the workforce — and what is needed for change 

The fallout from the coronavirus pandemic is devastating for everyone, but history tells us that communities of color bear the heaviest burden of significant economic downturns. Overall unemployment peaked at 10 percent during the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009, but jobless rates trended higher — and lasted longer — in communities of color: 16.8 percent of Black workers, 15.1 percent of Native American and Alaska Native workers, and 13 percent of Hispanic workers were unemployed at the peak of the recession. Unemployment rates for these groups did not return to pre-recession levels until 2017. During this time, Black and Hispanic households lost 48 percent and 36 percent of their respective wealth.

Early research shows a similar pattern as a result of the coronavirus: The unemployment rate for Black workers neared 17 percent in June, compared to around 14 percent for white workers. 

These disturbing trends beg a number of questions: Why are Black, indigenous and people of color more likely to earn less money, retain less wealth, and work in less stable positions? And why are they more likely to lose their jobs when crises strike? 

Workers need more access to opportunity  

Lack of job training is just one reason people struggle to find work or advance in their careers. Access to opportunity is another crucial piece of the puzzle, and committing to remove systemic barriers is the best way to ensure the success of any workforce program or job training efforts.  

Capital One is focused on four key areas when it comes to improving racial equity in the workforce. 

• Narrative change. Changing the narrative "is about ensuring ‘truth in storytelling’ and removing stereotypes and inaccurate language from the narratives shared about racial groups,” Stampley said.  
• Systems change. “Systemic inequalities disproportionately affect persons of color, particularly Black people,” she explained. 
• Power. Essentially, this is about “having and influencing seats at a table — and not just any seats, but the ones that make talent and workforce decisions,” Stampley told us.  
• Asset attainment. “This is more than having a great job — it's about having a great career and network to create the opportunity to build wealth,” she said. 

Targeted job training investments provide a means for change 

“When you think about those four barriers, there's not a one that hasn't played a role at a grassroots level in impacting our ability to succeed,” Stampley said. “Capital One is not only working on the symptoms of systemic racism, but we’re committing to addressing it at its root cause and try to change the baseline, the systems themselves, so that we don't keep working on the same problem.” 

Capital One’s work with community-based job training and workforce development organizations offer insight into how this plays out. For example in the Bronx, the company partners with The Knowledge House, a tech and career training organization staffed entirely by people of color. The nonprofit offers a 12-month fellowship designed to promote technology-based career opportunities for New York residents in fields such as web design and data science. 

Fellowships focus on people with little to no formal post-secondary education or tech experience, with a preference toward residents of the Bronx and upper Manhattan. With fewer major employers located in these neighborhoods, job-seekers have limited opportunity to obtain gainful employment in their own communities. Partnering directly with major employers like Capital One helps The Knowledge House develop a pipeline for emerging fellows, and opportunities may only open further as more companies shift toward remote work due to the coronavirus, many saying they’ll do so permanently. 

“As so many companies move their work — especially their technology work — remotely, now folks don't have to leave their neighborhoods,” Stampley said. “They'll earn a livable wage, if not a higher living wage than they are right now, and get a chance to work for big corporations that may or may not be located in that community. What an amazing model that will stand the test of COVID and actually become a best practice that happens in the post-COVID world.” 

For The Knowledge House, partnerships with companies like Capital One help to fund capacity building and new technology to scale the program to more people, with the nonprofit having reached more than 1,700 students thus far. 

“Capital One is a bank that cares about the communities where they have branches, and the Bronx is one of those communities,” said Jerelyn Rodriguez, co-founder and CEO of The Knowledge House. “To see Capital One invest in nonprofits in these neighborhoods really demonstrates their passion for the communities they serve. They want to make sure their clients have thriving neighborhoods, and they’re investing in our model so we can create jobs.” 

The Knowledge House will soon extend its model beyond the Bronx: Following a successful pilot in Los Angeles last year, it’s looking to scale to Newark, New Jersey, in 2020, followed by Atlanta, thanks to financial support from its brand partners. 

The bottom line 

Along with technical training, Capital One also supports workforce development organizations focused on apprenticeships and internships across fields related to technology and finance, including Year Up, Per Scholas and its internal Catapult program. For Stampley, this type of investment is not only the right thing to do to better serve communities, but also a smart business decision that other major companies would be wise to employ as they look to bolster their future talent pipelines. 

“In any other case inside of a company, you would pay very close attention to the pipeline of your products or services. Human capital is no different,” she said. “Philanthropy is a catalyst that knocks down the wall, but the business case says that we would be the best in the world if we could have the best talent out there. That means we have to have a broad pool to pull from.” 

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

Image credit: Christina @ wocintechchat.com via Unsplash

It’s official: The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, often just called ANWR, is available for oil leasing. U.S. Secretary of Interior David L. Bernhardt signed a record of decision (ROD) last Monday that approves the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program, opening 1.6 million acres of the Alaska wilderness’s coastal plain to drilling. The administration could set up an auction for new Arctic drilling by the end of 2020.

More Arctic drilling is now on the table

When Congress passed the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it required the administration to pursue this Arctic drilling lease program, citing reasons such as protecting national energy security and supporting the Alaskan economy and job production.

In the days following the ROD, there has been backlash and threats of lawsuits. Environmental organizations including the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Earth Justice have published statements denouncing the action to move forward with new Arctic drilling as irresponsible and reckless toward fragile ecosystems and Indigenous Peoples.

“This is an egregious intrusion into the sacred lands of the Gwich’in and other Indigenous People,” reads a statement from NRDC President Gina McCarthy. “It threatens the heart of the largest pristine wildland left in America — the birthing grounds and nursery for the Porcupine Caribou Herd, and home to polar bears, musk oxen, migratory birds and other precious wildlife.

“The administration’s reckless, relentless boosting of the oil industry will irrevocably damage this cherished place and compound the global climate crisis," she continued. "We will not let it stand.”

An odd time to invest in oil

Oil drilling activities would threaten the wellbeing of the largest wildlife refuge in the U.S., including habitats for shorebirds, polar bears and caribou — on whom the native Gwich’in rely. But drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge wouldn’t necessarily be a bust for the environment and a boom for industry. Evidence points toward oil faring poorly across this wildlife refuge.

For one, a 2017 auction for drilling on the Alaskan North Slope only sold 80,000 acres out of 10 million available. Tina Casey noted in a 2017 article on TriplePundit that if companies lack interest in established oil fields, it’s unlikely they’ll grab land where information and infrastructure are scarce and negative publicity runs high.

Oil is not on the up and up these days. With global COVID-19 quarantines keeping people at home and on the ground, oil companies are facing the lowest lows in demand. In April, oil prices fell below zero for the first time in history. There just wasn’t enough storage for the amount of oil coming out of the ground. In July, the online oil and gas rig count fell to an all-time low.

The climate action movement's opposition to big oil shows little sign of yielding

Even after the conditions of the pandemic wear off, the long-term humming of popular opinion will continue to wear away at the feasibility of the fossil fuel industry. According to last week’s statement from the Sierra Club, over the past year, five of six major U.S. banks joined more than two dozen worldwide financial institutions in excluding funds for new Arctic drilling from their lending policies.

Any company that bids for land in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is rowing against a powerful tide. In 2018, over 100 investors representing more than $2.5 trillion in managed assets published a letter urging banks and oil and gas companies to refuse involvement in developing the ANWR, noting the financial risk of developing fossil fuels during a global warming crisis, a reputational risk while 70 percent of American voters oppose new Arctic drilling and associated human rights and ecological impacts.

Jason Bordoff, founding director of Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy, summarized the situation this way in an email to CNN Business: “Even if Trump can overcome legal challenges to offer lease sales in ANWR, that doesn't mean anyone will show up given the rising social and environmental pressures, low oil prices and uncertainty about oil demand.”

At a time when even oil companies are going so far as to seek net-zero emissions, steamrolling into a pristine and fragile refuge to extract crude oil would simply be unsound business. The Trump administration may have made ANWR drilling available to any company interested, but all signs are pointing to an unsuccessful auction.

Image credit: Jared Evans/Unsplash

Installing solar power systems is already a tedious process for homeowners, and with many of us working and learning remotely, we’re too distracted to get started. Those renting or living in states where policies have made solar power a no-go can forget about it — lower bills due to solar are a pipe dream. But as many companies scramble to keep their employees motivated and rethink perks while their employees work from home, a Washington, D.C.-based startup says it has a solution.

Arcadia describes itself as the first nationwide “digital utility” in the U.S. Since its founding in 2014, the company's platform is now available in all 50 states and with more than 100 power utilities. Users can acquire a solar power subscription from Arcadia, buy as little as one solar panel or more, and see the results as a credit on their monthly utility bills.

Therein lies an opportunity for a company’s virtual human resources desk to offer a new benefit to employees.

It’s true that we’ve seen a decrease in emissions worldwide due to the novel coronavirus pandemic; how much of a reduction varies by the sources consulted. But here’s the problem for companies: For those that are tabulating their emissions as part of their sustainability or environmental responsibility strategies, many of those emissions have simply shifted from the properties they own or lease to their employees’ individual homes. Solar power can help solve that problem.

After all, many individuals’ utility bills have bumped upward, as we’re leaving our devices charged and air conditioning units running with greater frequency — not to mention the fact we’re using our household appliances more (yes, opening that fridge door constantly as a procrastination tactic adds more to your utility bill in the long term). But with working from home becoming the reality for many through 2021, companies now have the chance to offer employees financial relief while swatting away some of their own emissions.

In a recent interview with Fast Company, Arcadia CEO Kiran Bhatraju said the company’s corporate clients so far include McDonald’s, SkySpecs and CustomerFirst Renewables. But with more companies saying that working from home for the most part ended up becoming a net positive after the initial shell shock, watch for Arcadia to win more clients as remote work is redefining the very notion of “perks.”

Image credit: Pixabay

In the past few days, the latest spate of California wildfires have consumed over 350,000 acres. Unfortunately, this news is become all too common. Six of the most destructive wildfires in California history have taken place in the three years, and destroyed over 850,000 acres, killing 123 people.

Heatwaves and droughts have also increased in intensity—including a temperature reading at Death Valley of a record-breaking 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Alongside all of this has been the threat of power blackouts. And these tragedies are unfolding alongside the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which the state has seen nearly 12,000 deaths.

Climate change and the California wildfires

California has always been a boom and bust state in terms of weather—droughts and wildfires are not uncommon. But the last few decades have seen an increase in intensity and a shortening of time between events. Climate change did not create droughts, heatwaves and wildfires, but much like an athlete on steroids, it has most certainly enhanced nature’s performance.

Further impacts of climate change on the state include sea level rise and coastal erosion; the loss of snowpack and thus water stress; and poor air quality associated with increased heat. Poor air quality leads to public health impacts like increased rates of asthma and heart disease. In addition, air quality tends to be worse in and around communities of color and low-income communities, creating additional problems with not just climate change, but also with pandemics like COVID-19. Latinos in California are getting sick with the virus at a rate three times higher than Anglos.

Importantly, California is doing more than any other state to try to mitigate the impacts of climate change. But the effects are already being felt so it must also take measures to adapt to the impacts and make itself more resilient—more able to bounce back—when those effects spike. The argument currently raging over whose fault the possible blackouts are right now miss the point.

A matter of resources

As California saw the first rolling blackout in 19 years this week and faces potentially more as the heatwave sticks around, some have been pointing fingers at the state’s uptick in renewable energy and powering off of gas and nuclear power over the past few years. But it’s not the fault of renewable energy technologies; in fact, solar is generating power at the hottest time of the day when people are cranking up their air conditioners. Rather, the state has not adequately integrated renewables into the power system.

Several things should be done to lower the risk of future California wildfires, including improving forest and land management and discouraging people from move in increasing numbers to fire-prone areas and fixing PG&E, the state’s largest investor-owned utility. Power lines provide an easy target for lightning strikes and increased demand for electricity in a heatwave impose additional stress on utilities. But the most effective, long-term solution must be for policy makers and the private sector to address resource adequacy: in particular, distributed generation, batteries and microgrids.

The California Public Utilities Commission issued an order earlier this year to boost the deployment of microgrids and batteries, which, when coupled with a previous requirement for utilities to create wildfire mitigation plans, should help. However, the order just laid the groundwork, the utilities still need to follow through with investments.

The time to plan for long-term resilience was yesterday

Distributed generation - on-site power generation as opposed to electricity that must be sent through transmission lines – can reduce the risk of future California wildfires. Microgrids also enable customers to build for resilience within their communities, offering opportunities to protect them from blackouts.

In other parts of the country, microgrids are often a lifeline. For example, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Texas grocery store chain HEB microgrid-powered supermarkets to help keep them open when the surrounding areas remained without power. Backing up solar power with battery storage is also a critical component to resilience in a changing climate.

The Golden State has continued to lead in addressing climate change. Once the latest round of California wildfires is out, and before the next ones begin, the state’s utilities have an obligation to seek comprehensive, long-term solutions for resilience. Giving customers better access to innovative energy solutions that improve their ability to bounce back and thrive must be part of it.

Image credit: Pixabay

Without an influx of $1.2 billion in emergency appropriations from Congress, as many as 13,400 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) employees could be furloughed August 31, bringing the U.S. immigration system to a halt and leaving thousands of families without income. 

The number of employees represents 70 percent of the federal workers who process legal immigrants into the U.S. The furloughs originally were scheduled for August 3, but the agency received some additional funding over the summer. Officials learned in July that USCIS had a surplus of approximately $121 million. The extra funds are needed for the 2021 fiscal year, which starts October 1.

“Not only would the furlough devastate USCIS and possibly irreparably harm foreign nationals and the businesses that rely on its services, but it would also harm local economies and create even more unemployment during the COVID-19 national crisis,” according to the National Law Review.

Adding to the anxiety and uncertainty is the fact that Congress is not in session. 

“This isn’t only about the 13,400 American families about to be laid off during a pandemic –this is yet another thinly veiled attack on the legal immigration system by Trump administration officials like Stephen Miller,” Danielle Spooner, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 119, which includes USCIS workers, said in a prepared statement.

“Over the long-term, that's going to seriously damage our legal immigration system through a loss of institutional knowledge that isn't replaceable,” Spooner added, explaining that agency workers had been classified as essential when the novel coronavirus pandemic began.  

The furlough notice to employees indicated furloughs would last for at least 30 days, but were not expected to exceed 90 days, according to Spooner.  After 30 days, the USCIS may eliminate some positions entirely. 

Stalled immigration processing could cost the nation millions in lost fees, as well as depriving universities and businesses of talented students and valuable employees. 

“I think it’s helpful to remember that the people who rely on USCIS and who pay its ever-increasing fees are overwhelmingly U.S. citizens, aspiring U.S. citizens and U.S. companies,” Doug Rand, who worked on immigration policy during the Obama administration, told Forbes. Rand summed up the shift in legal immigration policy as “more chaos.”

While USCIS usually is self-supporting, relying on fees paid by legal applicants needing naturalization and other services, costs have increased because new employees at the agency have been concentrating on rooting out any potential fraud in immigration applications, a union statement noted.

USCIS employees, meanwhile, continue to face uncertainty and potential financial hardship. “Like so many workers during the shutdown last year, our members will be forced to find other work to pay the bills and feed their families,” said Spooner. “While employees will be able to apply for unemployment, they are seldom eligible for the federal stimulus packages... Bills won’t get paid and families will go hungry. The spending power these middle-class Americans had will be gone. Communities will suffer, as well as families.”

The union has filed grievances against the agency opposing the furloughs, Spooner added. Union members also have been reaching out to members of Congress and the media. 

U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) has introduced a bill that would pay back the $1.2 billion in federal funds allocated over two years by increasing by 10 percent fees paid by legal applicants until the agency’s private funding sources stabilize, according to the union.

AFGE Council 119 also has launched a campaign urging Congressional funding for USCIS, called Americans Agree. A petition from the national AFGE has more than 15,000 signatures, a prepared statement notes.

“As a union, we will continue to fight for our members by drawing attention to these cuts and the funding we need to keep our members working and the legal immigration system functioning,” said Spooner.

Image credit: Erik Lindgren/Unsplash

The novel coronavirus crisis has been reminding us of one essential truth – we are vulnerable. For all its ingenuity, its resilience, its courage even, humanity has been humbled by a microorganism that has disrupted, even destroyed, many lives around the world. While we are still weathering the storm, we are also equipped with fresh insights on how to focus on resilience and position ourselves for a better and safer future for all.

The global pandemic has reduced human demands on nature – as in our ecological footprint - by about ten percent, largely due to travel reductions and construction slow-downs.

This massive shift pushed the date of Earth Overshoot Day, when consumption surpasses the ecological resources the planet can renew in the whole year, to August 22 or three weeks later than last year.

The shift is significant: carbon emissions dropped 14.5 percent and forest products harvest went down by eight percent. Forced through crisis, it is a far cry from the kind of carefully designed transformation we need to build a sustainable future. We continue to demand more from the planet than nature can provide, using as much as 1.6 times the available resources, or the equivalent of 1.6 Earths.

We can benefit from some powerful lessons. First, ignoring the ecological context in which we live poses a massive risk to everybody’s success; second, we are one biology, and our fates are interwoven; third, humanity can reverse the course on its ever-growing resource consumption.

While all our attention and efforts are geared towards recovery, this is our chance to make our economies one-planet compatible by shaping our decisions around resource regeneration, biodiversity, circularity and climate.

The recovery will succeed in building a better future only if it embraces the limits of our planet. We face a unique opportunity to re-shape our economy and society to be more resilient, inclusive, and collaborative, and to thrive sustainably. We need to ensure that we are building a far more resource-efficient infrastructure and economy that will allow us to thrive within the ecological means of our planet. Nothing less can deliver the kind of future to which all of us, especially the youngest among us, aspire to.

For example, greenhouse gas emission levels have been tightly correlated to human and industry activities – through travel, transportation, manufacturing, consumption practices, and energy generation. We need to break this link. Digitization is an essential way to create a better, more resilient world. With the right digital tools, data can be used in ways that lead to better decisions, more efficient resource use, and more significant achievements.

Digital buildings, for example, including retrofitted ones, can reduce energy consumption, increase building resilience, and increase the comfort of their occupants. Key to this is remote monitoring and operations, predictive and preventive maintenance, and advanced design. Our research shows that if all existing buildings and infrastructure in the world were equipped with energy efficiency technologies and renewables, we could push back Earth Overshoot Day three weeks. To put this into perspective, if we moved the date by five days every year, we will be back to one-planet compatibility before 2050, in line with the Paris Climate Agreement.

For business models to succeed, they need to enable humanity’s long-term success, or they risk becoming obsolete. Good examples are circular business models through which profitability is delivered while keeping products, components and materials at their highest utility and value at all times.

Humanity’s success is simply defined as the ability of all to thrive within the ecological means of our planet: in other words, one-planet prosperity. It can be measured: whether all can thrive can be assessed through the United Nations’ Human Development Index; the extent to which we operate within planetary constraints can be tracked with the Ecological Footprint. Combining both defines the safe and just operating space where people thrive within the resource budget of our planet. Businesses who can help their customers move closer to this space are the ones that will be needed ever more in the future.

One-planet prosperity is not just about doing well while doing good. It’s a necessity if we want to maintain business success, and resilience, in a world constrained by climate change and increasing resource and biodiversity constraints. It is about improving and sustaining humanity’s wellbeing within the ecological resource budget afforded by our finite planet.

Together we can move on from the COVID-19 crisis towards a future that ensures resilience and is workable for all, by design. A key ingredient is shifting the sustainability conversation from noble to fundamentally necessary. This can help unleash the groundswell for one-planet prosperity, the most viable strategy we know of. It surely beats one-planet misery.

Image credit: Jason Miller/Unsplash

It's often easy to lose sight of any silver linings associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. However, one trend that's worth noting relates to how this global public health crisis could speed the transition to clean, renewable energy. 

A new report from Lux Research predicts trillions of dollars from economic relief packages to go into deploying low- and zero-carbon infrastructure. The money could also enable more investigations into and development of the technologies that make such improvements possible. 

Mobility reductions help kickstart changes

As the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated around the world, government officials instituted lockdowns and clarified that people should only leave home for essential reasons. With businesses such as cinemas, restaurants, music venues and stores other than supermarkets closed for weeks, residents had few temptations to do anything other than what officials ordered.

Many began working from home, and are still doing that now, even with businesses reopening. Companies announced that people could work from home indefinitely or said they would not have to return to offices until at least 2021. Reduced traffic on the roads led to meaningful and highly apparent emissions improvements that gave a glimpse into what clean energy choices could accomplish. 

Lux Research senior analyst Christopher Robison believes the drastic reduction in mobility was the most noticeable effect of the coronavirus pandemic on modern life. Additionally, this shift could spur future progress. 

Robison clarified: "The magnitude of the longer-term impact of COVID-19 on mobility remains unclear as more people work from home and replace work travel with virtual meetings, but the push to reduce and eliminate emissions from the transportation sector has only increased, with many post-COVID stimulus plans focused on low- and zero-emission vehicles."

Countries in Europe are robustly moving forward to encourage people to purchase electric cars as part of the COVID-19 recovery. It's too early to tell how those might pan out in the long run. Nevertheless, anything that urges consumers to purchase electric vehicles rather than those that make substantial contributions to pollution could help some of the improvements seen during lockdowns continue. 

Clean energy can bring greater resilience and agility

The coronavirus pandemic also highlighted how some companies and sectors found chances to thrive, while others faced supply chain slowdowns and substantial disruptions to operations. For example, developing trends in healthcare technology gave medical facilities options for seeing patients from their homes through computer monitors and apps. These possibilities helped slow the spread of the coronavirus while positively impacting emissions as people did not need to travel.

Innovations like telehealth platforms meant that people in rural or underserved areas could save themselves from prolonged commutes by logging into secure portals from their living rooms. Medical technology companies showed their resilience and agility during this public health crisis. Other sectors and nations can do that, too, especially by investigating the potential of clean energy.

"The aftermath of COVID-19 will shake the economic fabric of the energy sector," says Yuan-Sheng Yu, a senior analyst at Lux Research. "We witnessed many historical firsts, such as oil futures trading in the negatives, U.S. renewable energy in the electricity mix surpassing coal and the largest year-over-year drop in global CO2 emissions." 

The analyst brought up how the conventional energy sector's volatility brings macroeconomic impacts to countries around the world. Nations engaging in post-COVID-19 recoveries can capitalize on the opportunities clean energy provides, thereby enjoying more insulation from undesirable economic effects. 

Lux Research analyst Tim Grejtak examined what that could mean from the business side of things. "The pandemic highlighted the risks of disruptions to our current energy infrastructure and supply chain," he said. "In response, we will see aggressive diversification of business portfolios to avoid the risk of underutilized and, eventually, stranded assets in order to capitalize on opportunities provided by increasing renewable energies."

Declining clean energy costs can lead to future investments

The current strains exacted by COVID-19 challenged leaders and legislators to figure out how and where to invest time, attention, and funds to help nations bounce back. The good news about renewable energy is that installation costs have dropped tremendously. One report mentioned an 83 percent drop in electricity costs from new solar energy plants in 2019 compared to a decade earlier. 

Other research indicates that wind power projects cost 40 percent less to install in 2018 than in 2009 and 2010. It also showed that wind turbines have gotten bigger, and that trend will likely continue. Larger turbines can boost performance and overall output, making them especially favorable for those who invest in and build them. 

Governments and business decision-makers want to feel confident that their recovery efforts will pay off. Embracing renewables brings benefits spanning far beyond helping the economy stabilize after COVID-19. That's one of the many reasons it makes sense to include clean energy in current or forthcoming economic stimulus packages. 

​​​​​​​Looking toward a brighter future

The COVID-19 lockdowns showed that environmental progress can happen within a relatively short time. One issue that is emerging now is that some people may lose sight of that reality and take their focus off initiatives to help the planet.

Concerned individuals must continue to remember what's possible and put pressure on those in power to ensure the clean energy momentum continues rather than fizzles out. The input provided here shows that's well worth the effort.

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COVID-19 has disrupted life on all fronts, not just in public health. One of the most impactful, lasting consequences of the pandemic is the ongoing recession harming business owners worldwide. Research shows the recession isn't impacting all businesses equally, either. Black-owned businesses are feeling the effects of the COVID-19 recession more dramatically than their white-owned counterparts.

A recent study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that Black-owned businesses declined by 41 percent between February and April. By contrast, white-owned enterprises fell by only 17 percent, according to the same report.

Black businesses tend to be more geographically concentrated than others, often appearing in larger urban centers. These areas also happen to be some of those that have endured the most severe COVID-19 outbreaks. Roughly 63 percent of counties with high concentrations of Black enterprises are in the 50 areas with the highest concentration of COVID-19 cases.

A disparity of resources

These geographic disadvantages aren't the only factor behind the difference in how severely the recession is affecting Black-owned businesses. On average, white-owned businesses had access to more resources to help them through the pandemic. Since many Black-owned enterprises didn't have the same resources, they had a harder time surviving.

Many Black communities are still feeling the effects of past racial injustices. For generations, Black Americans couldn't access the same education, property, or jobs as white Americans because of discriminatory laws and society. Though these prejudices began to fade, Black citizens are still largely at a disadvantage because their families weren't able to build the same levels of resources over time.

Times of crisis tend to highlight the effects of this history of injustice. Many Black-owned businesses were still recovering from the Great Recession of 2008 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Since they were still struggling from past hardships, they didn't have the resources to survive the present crisis.

Government aid falls short

The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) helped many small businesses survive the recession, but it helped fewer Black enterprises. One report found that only 23 percent of Black-owned businesses obtained a bank loan, compared to 46 percent of white-owned small companies. A lack of strong banking relationships led to fewer Black-owned companies receiving PPP loans.

In states with high concentrations of Black businesses, only 20 percent of eligible firms received a PPP loan. That figure was typically lower for counties with higher rates of Black-owned business activity. Without this monetary support, Black-owned enterprises lacked the tools necessary to stay afloat.

A lack of change in other government processes may put further pressure on Black businesses. In New York, for example, the Division of Tax Appeals has not extended its deadline for filing a petition. Recession-hit firms in need of tax assistance may not have had the time to request the help they needed.

How individuals, and companies, can help Black-owned businesses

Amid these hardships, there is still hope for Black-owned enterprises in the pandemic. In the wake of nationwide protests over racial inequality, several large corporations are donating to funds that are supporting Black-owned businesses as well as racial justice organizations. There are also steps that anyone can take to help these struggling companies.

Supporting these businesses by buying from them is one straightforward and effective step. Instead of purchasing goods or services from multinational corporations, people may consider getting these things from smaller, Black-owned businesses. Supporting movements and legislation that addresses their needs is another important way to help.

Recognizing the barriers that these businesses and their owners face is another step in the right direction. Society will have to address the underlying causes of this inequality to prevent future crises. Learning about these issues, bringing attention to them and supporting improved legislation are crucial for moving forward.

The pandemic affects far more than individuals’ health

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have reached far past matters of health alone. Just as the recession has been hard on individuals, it continues to threaten businesses, especially Black-owned companies that don't have the same resources. A broader cultural shift can help these companies and future ones survive, but action is necessary.

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