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The 2018 midterm elections saw a tsunami of support for Democratic candidates, and an organization called Business for America (BFA) is determined to repeat the performance in 2020 — only not necessarily for Democrats, as the case may be. The coalition’s get-out-the-vote effort is a strictly nonpartisan approach to the democratic process. BFA has made a solid, bottom line case for corporate leaders to step up and ensure that their employees can exercise their voting rights and participate in the General Election on November 3, including voting by mail, regardless of their political affiliation.

More U.S. businesses sign up for get-out-the-vote effort

Business for America CEO and founder Sarah Bonk comes to the nonpartisan get-out-the-vote effort with a background in corporate strategy and communications for Apple and other Fortune 500 companies, in addition to pro bono work in the field of nonpartisan political reform.

BFA reflects Bonk’s focus on democracy as a nonpartisan affair. The BFA coalition is “dedicated exclusively to mobilizing the business community to help advance popular, bipartisan political reforms and technology solutions that strengthen representative democracy.”

BFA also coordinates with the Time to Vote campaign, which launched ahead of the 2018 election cycle.

Time to Vote mustered approximately 400 companies representing 2 million workers in a get-out-the-vote effort for the 2018 elections. The campaign focused on urging employers to provide paid time off for voting.

For 2020, BFA and Time to Vote already have 600 corporate supporters toward a goal of 1,000 participants.

Best Buy, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Farmers Insurance, Gap Inc., Glossier Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Kaiser Permanente, Levi Strauss & Co., Lyft, PayPal, Patagonia, REI Co-op, Target, VF Corporation, Walmart and Warby Parker are among many other leading employers that have already signed on to Time to Vote.

The business case for defending voting rights

In a joint op-ed for CNN earlier this week, Bonk made the business case for Time to Vote with Warby Parker co-founders Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa.

They argue that nonpartisan get-out-the-vote activities are part and parcel of the corporate social responsibility movement, which has proven to provide businesses with a strong platform for growth in the 21st century.

“It's our duty as members of the business community to take action to safeguard the democratic process,” they write. “This basic level of civic engagement is also expected by our employees and consumers."

From that premise, they argue that employers have a specific duty to ensure civic participation by their employees, just as they have a duty to ensure health, safety, and other foundational needs.

Bonk, Gilboa and Blumenthal also call out business leaders individually by reminding them that their success is a direct consequence of the American civic infrastructure.

“We have a responsibility to preserve the system of democratic governance that allowed us to dream big and start our own enterprises in this country,” they argue. “A stable democracy benefits employees, customers, business and society.”

So, what can businesses leaders do?

As for the upcoming General Election, Bonk, Gilboa and Blumenthal take note of the COVID-19 crisis. They argue that business leaders have a civic duty to step in where national policy has failed to provide states with the resources need to ensure voting rights

Noting a recent Pew Research poll, two-thirds of Americans were expecting that the pandemic would disrupt the presidential election, adding, “Too many states are under-resourced to hold safe elections under current circumstances.”

Bonk, Gilboa and Blumenthal outline three general actions that employers can take to help ensure that their employees can participate, starting with providing time off — and paid time off at that — to vote, and to participate as poll workers.

The guidance also includes providing employees with information on local polling locations and additional localized voter information.

Encouraging employees to register to vote is the third action step. Warby Parker has adopted a particularly strong approach by incorporating voter registration into its onboarding process.

Bonk, Gilboa and Blumenthal also specifically exhort business leaders to respond to the COVID-19 crisis by providing direct support in the form of protective equipment, poll workers, and additional resources. To cite one leading example, the Los Angeles Dodgers and one of the team’s star players, David Price, have teamed up with LeBron James’s More than a Vote campaign to make Dodger Stadium a polling site that provides for more social distance than typical polling places.

Finally, the op-ed encourages business leaders to join the get-out-the-vote advocacy effort, by signing on to a BFA business letter to congress, and by joining Time to Vote.

Does it make a difference?

The big question is whether or not business leaders can make a difference in voter participation, and the proof may be in the pudding.

Credit for the massive Democratic wave of 2018 lies in many hands, but shortly after the results rolled in CNBC reported a consensus opinion that “demographic change, Democratic mobilization and disaffection with President Donald Trump” were the three main factors.

The 2018 sea change took place during a time of economic prosperity (by some measurements). Today, with the COVID-19 crisis spiraling out of control and a fresh scandal erupting over interference with the U.S. Mail, the disaffection and motivation factors are all but certain to outperform its role.

Bonk, Gilboa, and Blumenthal also take note of the demographic factors.

To be clear, they note that the problem of voter participation transcends race and ethnicity, with “many unnecessary barriers that prevent eligible citizens from fully participating in our democratic process.”

They also warn that the 2020 primary elections saw “fewer open locations and poll worker shortages resulted in overcrowded, unsafe conditions and long lines to vote."

However, they also highlight the racial and ethnic disparities that get in the way of voting rights.

“Black and Hispanic Americans were more likely than White Americans to face challenges getting the time off from work to vote. And other barriers to voting — such as voter identification requirements and voter registration restrictions — continue to disproportionately impact communities of color,” they write.

All else being equal, increased voter turnout in communities of color would benefit all candidates regardless of their political affiliation.

Nevertheless, voter preferences have clearly broken down along race and ethnic lines, with no sign of repair in sight.

If BFA and Time to Vote helped to make a difference in the 2018 election cycle, it will be interesting to see how the campaign’s growing corporate support for voting rights pans out on November 3, 2020.

After all, as Bonk, Gilboa and Blumenthal point out, “informed, engaged citizens and employees are good for business and our country.”

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In the nearly three months since the murder of George Floyd, there’s been no shortage of companies proclaiming allyship with the Black Lives Matter movement. But many Black employees are justifiably leery about their company’s public statements insisting they “stand” with people of color.

This tech company was quick to align with Black Lives Matter

One company that says it is stepping up to meet the moment is Okta, a cloud computing firm based in San Francisco. The 11-year-old company, which boasts a market cap of approximately $25 billion, announced earlier this summer that it would commit $1 million in funds to take on racial equity; its co-founders, Todd McKinnon and Frederic Kerrest have pledged another $2 million toward this effort. McKinnon and Kerrest also said they would match employees’ donations to a fund focused on racial justice, essentially tripling any employee’s contribution.

For Okta, this support of the Black Lives Matter movement is business as usual. “Our strategy is always to listen first to our employees and partners, then empower employees to guide our response,” said Erin Baudo Felter, the company’s vice president of social impact. “The end result is that we’re not just ‘responding.’ We’re building the muscle inside our organization to be able to take on issues like racial justice and inequality longer-term.”

Match your deeds to your words . . . and checks

Such an approach is far more beneficial than merely putting out a press release, modifying a logo and then simply writing a check to respond to the Black Lives Matter movement, which to date has been the standard M.O. for U.S. companies. On this an other social justice challenges, Okta says it’s ensured employees would have a voice, too. Says Felter: “At Okta, we’re doing more than giving money away to organizations in need. Our executive team has had exposure to the issues in our communities that we support. They play a critical role in our commitment to social impact and embed these efforts into their teams.”

In addition to the financial commitment, Okta is also partnering with the Tides Foundation. The 44-year-old nonprofit is providing the company’s employees with training and workshops so they can gain more knowledge about the Black Lives Matter movement and attain the skills critical so they can decide on grant-making recommendations.

“There is a clear understanding at Okta that social impact is not only core to building a successful company and one where people want to work, but also that this is the kind of role companies increasingly must play in society: that we are interconnected to the communities around us,” Felter added.

In addition to Okta’s promise to support and fund the Black Lives Matter movement, the company also runs the Okta for Good initiative, which offers free or discounted licenses for its suite of products to nonprofits.

How the 1% Pledge can help boost the Black Lives Matter movement

Okta is a Pledge 1% company, a global movement that encourages global companies of any size to donate 1 percent of their equity, time, product or profit — or any combination of the four — to charitable causes. The company’s early pledge to donate equity has certainly paid off for its partner nonprofits and future grantees since Okta went public in 2017.

“You can read our S-1 and see 300,000 shares were set aside to support Okta for Good,” Felter told TriplePundit as she highlighted the company’s early commitment to donate a portion of its equity. “At IPO, the value of that equity was about $5 million in total. Because our stock has performed so well over the past three years, that same equity is valued at about $60 million today. This is the power of pre-IPO equity commitments.” 

Okta’s approach toward aligning with the Black Lives Movement exemplifies how the company addresses social impact initiatives across the organization. But it helps that any company’s founders embrace support for social justice early on. Felter made it clear that, as the saying goes, this commitment is in the company’s DNA and was not a knee-jerk reaction to rally behind the latest cause. “One thing that’s different at Okta, and that has allowed our social impact programs to thrive, is that there was a very early commitment at the highest level with our co-founders and the board of directors,” she said.

Bottom line: Okta's existing engagement with employees around its 1 percent pledge placed the company in a strong position to turn to employees for input on Black Lives Matter donations. 

Social impact matters more than ever to employees

For companies seeking to inspire and motivate their employees in the era of COVID-19, nothing has really changed, even if a company’s employees are still working remotely. At a time when many employees are stuck at home and cannot help but be glued to the television or laptop monitor, the stubborn fact persists that people are aware of what’s going on and most likely have strong opinions about how their companies should react. No one wants to work for a company issuing statements supporting Black Lives Matter, or any social cause for that matter, just because the C-suite feels there’s a reputation to defend or, even worse, that there’s a profit to be made.

Okta has made it clear that the company is listening – and was doing so before social justice protests flared up across the U.S. “The conversations with business leaders today are not the same as they were several years ago. Now, there’s an assumption that social impact is a core part of every company,” Felter says.

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As companies stepped over each other this summer to show allyship with the Black Lives Matter movement, one company in the personal care sector stood out. Only a few years ago, Glossier disrupted the cosmetic and personal care industry with its customer-focused approach and the harnessing of crowdsourcing tactics to develop new products. In an industry that often takes a top-down approach directing how and when women should use makeup, Glossier turned the model on its head, and fans say it “democratized” cosmetics. Its flagship store in New York, followed by one in Los Angeles and then several pop-up stores, became consumer favorites.

Glossier took fast action as protests over the murder of George Floyd flared up and then grew stronger across the U.S. A $1 million donation to the Black Lives Matter movement and Black-owned beauty brands hit the newswires while many Americans were still learning about the circumstances surrounding Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police.

But then Black employees started to speak out on their experience working at Glossier, and any sheen the company had about its support for progressive causes began to wear off.

An exclusive in Fortune detailed an incident earlier this year at its New York store, during which some teens used the company's products to paint on blackface. The story rapidly accelerated from an awkward moment to an episode that store management allegedly wanted swept under the rug, with Black employees saying their concerns were ignored. Shortly after Glossier announced company-wide layoffs of its retail workforce, at least 50 former employees ripped off the Band-Aid, describing offensive experiences they endured at work, pointing out management's alleged inaction, and calling on the company to take accountability.

For people of color, reading about what happened at Glossier wasn’t all that different from what has been the norm in offices across the U.S.: constant microagressions, comments about one’s skin color or appearance, making Black employees clearly feel as “others,” and allowing white customers to treat Black and Brown employees shabbily.

As complaints intensified last month, the company’s founder and CEO, Emily Weiss, quickly responded with what critics said were vague promises, such as “we need to create better feedback loops between our retail and corporate teams.” But a group of former Glossier employees, who named themselves “Outta The Gloss,” wasn’t having it.

The group of former employees criticized Weiss and Glossier for a lack of transparency, its alleged burying of recent layoff announcements and vague promises about internal changes within the company. Glossier has since publicly apologized and pledged bolder action, to which the group of employees essentially replied, "Show us the receipts."

The problems Glossier is now facing are fairly textbook. They include weak or ignored human resources policies, a work culture marred by a fear of speaking out, and white employees and managers dismissing any concerns shared by colleagues who happen to be people of color.

Highlighting the struggles Glossier is now facing is not about looking in the rearview mirror. For other companies, it’s not too late. There’s still time to update the human resources handbook, to enact policies that can prevent a toxic workplace, and retrain, inform and remind employees about how to treat all colleagues with dignity.

But before any company makes public promises, changes its logo, or writes a check to Black Lives Matter or any cause for that matter, real change has to happen within. Companies should check in with their Black colleagues, acknowledge their challenges, and fix what’s broken.

Glossier isn’t the first company to get it backwards and won’t be the last. But the $1.2 billion cosmetics upstart does offer a timely lesson about how to work toward racial equity — and why it’s important to address problems in the workplace internally before they are aired publicly.

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Photo: The pandemic has exacerbated the global hunger crisis, but women can be key to fighting back if they are included in the response. In Ghana, so-called “market queens” play a prominent role in managing large markets, which is why they approached the government to come up with actionable solutions to keep markets open safely during the pandemic.

The pivotal role women have in agriculture and the food system is often invisible, which comes at a huge cost to society. A new report from the humanitarian agency Care International reveals how the global community is failing to solve the mounting hunger crisis by ignoring the role of women and girls — and why this important market force and consumer group is the key to solving hunger and securing a sustainable food system.

Care's study analyzed 73 global reports proposing solutions for the international hunger crisis from the most powerful actors in the food system, such as U.N. agencies, governments and research institutions. Nearly half of the reports don’t refer to women and girls at all. None of the reports consistently analyze or reflect the gendered effects of the pandemic and hunger crises. Only 5 reports — less than 7 percent — propose concrete actions to resolve the gender inequalities crippling food systems. The rest overlook or ignore women and girls.

“Fundamentally, it comes back to the challenge of gender inequality and the fact that women are not seen and recognized as key and critical players in food systems; they aren't seen as the leaders that they are," the report’s author, Tonya Rawe, director of global food and nutrition security advocacy at Care, told TriplePundit. "Because they’re not thought about, they're forgotten and left behind. And that is ultimately the issue that we're seeing in our analysis.”

COVID-19 makes the global hunger crisis even worse

The COVID-19 pandemic is exposing the existing flaws in food systems, many of which stem from gender inequalities and the unfair treatment of women and girls, Rawe said. Women and girls are the majority of food producers and food providers for their households, but their contributions are frequently unseen. Too often, women eat last and least. Further, women lack the access, information, and inputs they need to fight food insecurity and malnutrition.

This is happening against a backdrop of the ever-worsening global hunger crisis. As Care notes, at the start of 2020, 690 million people were undernourished or chronically hungry, and U.N. agencies estimate that figure could increase by over 130 million because of COVID-19. Severe food insecurity or a food crisis could nearly double to affect 270 million people by the end of this year.

Rising hunger and food shortages are also putting additional burdens on women, from mental health risks to gender-based violence. Whether intentionally or by omission, global responses to COVID-19 and related hunger crises are either ignoring women and girls or treating them as victims who have no role in addressing the problems they face.

The invisible role of women has dire impacts on the ground

Rawe cites a number of examples featured in the report. Prior to the warehouse explosion in Beirut that recently destroyed half the city, 85 percent of women Care surveyed in Lebanon were already eating smaller portions, compared to only 75 percent of men. Rawe expects that the latest tragedy has only amplified this illustration of women eating last and least.

In Mali, curfews related to the COVID-19 pandemic restrict the times women work in the fields, but not the hours men work, so women disproportionately struggle with food production. In northeastern Nigeria, women have lost access to the cash-for-work programs that allowed them to buy seeds and grow crops. In Vietnam, women are struggling to buy protein and vegetables to make a balanced diet. In Morocco, women cannot even register for COVID-19 safety net programs unless they are widowed.

For governments, NGOs and the private sector — anyone with a vested interest in a productive and resilient food and agricultural system — this growing global hunger crisis should be a wake-up call, Rawe said. “Women are half the population and play a major role in food systems," she told us. "Unfortunately, our analysis confirmed what we had initially started seeing in our work — that women are really not part of the discussion to solve the hunger crisis.”

Women farmers face barriers that limit their productivity

Women represent 46 percent of agricultural labor in the developing world, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Yet much of this work is done without training, key farming inputs, secure land rights, and often little or no pay. This lack of equal access to resources and information means that women produce 20 to 30 percent less than men do on the same amount of land, according to Care.

In the context of the pandemic, these barriers can play out with severe impacts on hunger. Women in Mali who can’t get to their fields because of a curfew struggle to feed their families. Access to government safety net programs in Morocco, or even in wealthier countries like the U.S., can “ensure a family doesn’t fall further when it hits a spot of trouble,” Rawe points out.

Becoming part of the solution: Ghana’s market queens

Care found evidence, however, that women leaders at all levels are finding solutions: from planting crops during curfew, to keeping markets open, to supporting the poorest people in their communities.

In Ghana, so-called “market queens,” who in large part manage very prominent markets in towns, have taken the initiative to approach the government to ensure they and other vendors can still continue to work safely during the pandemic, both to secure income and feed their families. They worked out a system of rotating vendors to have fewer in the market at any one time, for example, and expanded the physical space for the market so that vendors could be more spread out. The market queens, due to their stature, could enforce these rules.

“This is a great example of women playing a critical role,” Rawe explained. “If they’re engaged, they’re able to bring fantastic ideas to the table and help find solutions that work for both sides.”

A gender-lens approach to food insecurity is a necessity for both the public and private sectors

In its report, Care recommended that governments immediately adopt a gender-responsive approach to the food supply system and solving hunger and increase their investments focused on women and girls in agriculture.

A gender lens is something the private sector should be invested in, too, Rawe added: “Ending hunger and malnutrition is in everyone's interest, and it is going to require all hands on deck. Every sector needs to be stepping up for this challenge. Whether they're producing food or providing it for their households or consuming it, women are a powerful market force.”

As 3p has reported, companies like PepsiCo and Cargill are working together with Care, investing millions of dollars to tackle the issue of gender inequality in agriculture, providing resources and training to women farmers and their families. These firms, and others in the food and agriculture industry, have a vested interest in women being able to improve their productivity to feed a growing world, Rawe noted.

“We had gender inequalities in food systems before COVID, “ she added. “If we aren’t taking the opportunity to address it now, then afterward we’re still going to be in the same place we’ve been for too long.”

Image credits: Care International

As the coronavirus pandemic reveals deep vulnerabilities in the global food system, agriculture is increasingly seen as an area ripe for disruption and for transformative investment. Sustainable agriculture could both feed a world of 10 billion by 2050 and provide the next big investment opportunity.

Why sustainable agriculture pays off financially and environmentally

That’s the view of Levi Stewart Zurbrugg, senior investment analyst with Saturna Capital, who analyzed those developments in his report, Feeding 10 Billion People in a Climate-Changing World. Saturna Capital is a Bellingham, Washington-based investment management firm with about $4 billion in assets and 30-year history, managing a number of sustainability-focused funds that screen for environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors.

The report highlights the challenges in securing food supply for the world's growing population while mitigating climate change posed by existing agricultural practices. As Zurbrugg told TriplePundit, “We cannot formulate climate change solutions or expect to reach greenhouse gas emissions targets without a comprehensive overhaul of our current agricultural system.”

Agriculture represents a quarter of global greenhouse gases, while using 50 percent of the world’s vegetated land and 70 percent of its fresh water, so it clearly has to be part of the climate solution, as Zurbrugg sees it. At the same time, agriculture is one of the sectors most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, from extreme weather to effects on crop yields and exposing livestock to heat stress, water shortages and pests.

“I think investors and companies are waking up to these issues. There are clear risks that are becoming ever more apparent within the agricultural supply chain," Zurbrugg told 3p. "Farmers have always known that they are at the mercy of the weather, but with increasingly extreme weather events happening, there is more pressure to adapt to these changes and mitigate further increases."

Farmers can have a leading role in building resilience

Recognizing what is at stake, the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research and U.S. Farmers and Ranchers in Action (USFRA) announced in February an agriculture-climate partnership to unlock the climate-solving potential in farmlands through sustainable agriculture practices, with the goal for agriculture to be net negative for greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

“We need to invest in [resilience],” says Erin Fitzgerald, CEO of USFRA. “We need new forms of capital entering the food supply chain focused on the long term, and by that I mean, long-term contracts, risk mitigation tools [and] different types of insurance. And the agriculture sector also needs to take advantage of ESG investing, institutional investing and bonds, an investment in the future that could help our farmers have more resilient and adaptive farms. We need transformative investment for a net-zero economy and rural revitalization.” 

Four key areas for action

According to the report from Saturna, the solution lies in four main areas in Zurbrugg’s estimation: decreasing food loss and waste, changing animal protein consumption patterns, reducing methane from livestock, and increasing crop yields.

Globally, food loss and waste amounts to approximately $1 trillion in economic losses. In the U.S., some 40 percent of food is lost or wasted — and 30 percent globally. “I think this is an area where we could see more of those start-up companies that really disrupt in the same way that Uber and Lyft have disrupted taxi services,” Zurbrugg says. “But it is also one of those areas where there needs to be greater public-private partnerships to create the infrastructure to both tackle the waste and inform consumers.”

Approximately 15 percent of all human activity-related GHG emissions are associated with animal agriculture. Added Zurbrugg, “Such growth is not sustainable; we must develop alternatives.”

That’s a message that’s been heard loud and clear by alternative meat startups like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, along with the investors who back them, as 3p has reported. The global alternative meat industry could be worth $140 billion in 10 years, or roughly 10 percent of the global meat industry, according to analysts at Barclays.

As Zurbrugg notes in his report: “The coronavirus pandemic has exposed meat supply chains as among the most vulnerable to food system shocks. Going forward, supply is likely to be an added driver to the growth of alternative proteins.”

Recognizing supply-related shocks as risks to the food system, the Chinese government has established an initiative to reduce meat consumption by half across the country. Considering the country accounts for close to 30 percent of global meat consumption, Zurbrugg points to this as a significant opportunity for animal protein alternatives.

Another way to tackle the challenge is to reduce methane from livestock. As the Saturna report notes, feed additives can reduce emissions associated with enteric fermentation. One study found that adding a particular type of seaweed can reduce methane emissions by up to 80 percent.

When it comes to increasing crop yields, Zurbrugg notes: “If we held current production efficiencies constant through 2050, most of the world’s remaining forests would need to be converted into agricultural land. Converting forests into cropland alone would likely lead to climate disaster.”

Instead, he points to advancements in sustainable agriculture like improved soil and water management, adaptive crop genetics, and intensified production on existing cropland.

New technologies can boost sustainable agriculture

Fortunately, he adds, there’s been enormous progress in new technologies and techniques to make sustainable agriculture more efficient. This includes advanced chemical and biological agriculture technologies such as pesticides with reduced toxicity, seed treatments that allow for reductions in pesticide and fertilizer use, and enzymes that allow livestock to more efficiently absorb nutrients.

Adaptive genetics present another avenue in meeting global food demands amidst a rapidly changing climate. The agricultural biotech market (largely comprised of genetically modified crops) in 2017 represented $20 billion in sales. By 2026, it could grow to $52 billion, an 11 percent compound annual growth rate.

Finally, precision agriculture technologies are ripe for investment. There’s a $20 billion revenue opportunity in agricultural data and analytics, the most active mergers and acquisitions area in the agricultural industry. The technology includes both agricultural management software and efficiency-enhancing hardware, such as drip irrigation, variable rate nutrient applicators and soil sensors.

These technologies help to optimize fertilizer application, improve irrigation efficiency, and identify and treat weather stressed crops, the Saturna report notes. “Such applications not only help farmers maintain and improve crop yields in a climate changed world, but also help reduce agriculture’s contribution to climate change,” Zurbrugg says.

With so much innovation available to tackle the problem and a rapidly warming climate, Zurbrugg thinks there is no excuse to delay action in boosting sustainable agriculture worldwide. “The coronavirus has shown us how these shocks can really impact our food supply chain. Over the coming decades, climate change is going to be yet another, bigger shock to our food supply systems. So, it’s really important to assess how we can build a better and more resilient food supply chain in the face of these challenges.”

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With the global economy in a free fall and much of the world in crisis mode, the tendency can be to focus on putting out the little fires rather than look up and see the real threat on the horizon: a planet in big trouble. For Accenture’s Peter Lacy, co-author of The Circular Economy Handbook, the circular economy is the blueprint to recovery, and there’s no time to waste.

The circular economy offers business a way to step up

“You can't be a successful business in a failing economy or failing planet. That's really where it starts. The global economy has been in free fall at points in the last three or four months in ways that we haven't seen in 200 years of economic history. It’s not the way we would have wanted to go about it, but it has opened up a window of opportunity,” Lacy told TriplePundit. “We've entered a very important and critical juncture in the global economy and maybe even in human civilization, and business needs to step up and be counted on, both in its own interest and also in the interests of societies around the world, if not humanity.”

Lacy is Accenture Strategy's senior managing director for Europe as well as the United Kingdom and Ireland. He also sits on Accenture’s Global Leadership Council and leads the firm’s work with the World Economic Forum. For him, and co-authors Jessica Long and Wesley Spindler, the circular economy is the most palpable way a business can step up. The Circular Economy Handbook is built on insights from 1,500 case studies (300 of which are in the book) to give companies a practical view on how they can take transformative steps toward circularity and create new competitive business opportunities.

A $4.5 trillion opportunity at stake

There is $4.5 trillion at stake by 2030 by radically departing from the traditional “take-make-waste” production and consumption systems, according to Accenture’s 2015 book Waste to Wealth. Lacy says he sees three mandates for business in this current economy — and that the circular economy is the way to rise to those challenges:

“The first is that the model of globalization and the model of capitalism that we've pursued globally has created enormous inequalities and has probably created a situation where it's now going through one of its most fragile phases,” Lacy says. “We need to rebuild a system that is fair, produces social justice, reduces inequalities, and tackles many of the things that many people care about in a way that isn't just beneficial for the few, but for the many.”

He adds: “The second is the Fourth Industrial Revolution is really only rhetoric at the moment in many respects. There is the potential for an incredible cluster of scientific and technological triple breakthroughs to deliver an industrial revolution that truly creates benefits for many different constituencies. But as of yet, those technologies have not been put to use in a way that has truly created the Fourth Industrial Revolution and truly achieve their potential to benefit humanity.”

Finally, Lacy emphasizes how the final mandate adds to the sense of urgency:

“And the third piece is that we have not yet created either a macro- or micro-level model that really hardwires and softwires into the global economy and how companies operate, the absolute necessity to deliver on the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals in the next decade.”

The circular economy is a chance to reinvent a failing system

Now, the novel coronavirus pandemic has broken wide open both the weaknesses and potential strengths in the way the modern world functions. But now there is the chance to inspire economic systems to change on an unprecedented level, as we’ve seen with the Build Back Better movement among some government and business circles.

“There are suddenly tipping points in the next decade that have truly prepared us for a pathway to sustainable development in the future,” Lacy says. “The circular economy is not a panacea, but it is one very important way of reframing and rethinking the relationship between the economy and the use of scarce or harmful natural resources in ways that allow companies to innovate and think creatively about their business models, their products and services, and the partnerships that it takes to deliver those while being commercially successful.”

Circular innovations can yield business benefits

For companies that have successfully applied the concepts of the circular economy, there are numerous benefits, Lacy adds: “Revenue growth comes through cost reduction, through risk management, through intangible assets, brand and reputation, as well as quantifiable material, circular economy and sustainability impacts.”

One example is Winnow, which both won The Circulars “Ecolab Award for Circular Economy Tech Disruptor” and the overall “Winner of Winners Award” at the World Economic Forum in 2019. Winnow’s aim is to have a global impact on food waste reduction in large-scale kitchens. Its technology provides chefs with the digital tools to quickly and easily measure waste and the analytics to pinpoint waste reduction opportunities. Winnow’s existing manual system is already used by thousands of chefs in more than 40 countries, and the company told VentureBeat it has helped save the equivalent of $30 million in food from ending up in landfills.

Another company Lacy raises as an exemplary case is global beer giant AB InBev, the innovations of which 3p has covered previously. AB InBev’s breweries already achieve an average 98 percent recycling rate for packaging material. By 2025, 100 percent of its product will be in packaging that is returnable or made from majority recycled content, the company has pledged.

Then there’s Loop, which 3p and many have described as the “milkman model reimagined.” The company offers a circular shopping platform that focuses on packaging of everyday essentials like shampoos and toothpaste, transforming them from single-use disposals to durable, refillable and feature-packed designs. The pandemic has spiked a rise in single-use plastics, in part out of fears that reusables are less hygienic. But as Heather Crawford, Loop's global VP of marketing and e-commerce recently told 3p, that simply isn’t the case: “Single-use is not sterile, either.”

Pivoting investments toward the circular economy

While Lacy and his colleagues have collected hundreds of examples like these across every industry in The Circular Economy Handbook, there is no one path that will fit every business. And given a recent report suggesting that the world is only 9 percent “circular,” there is still a long way to go. The point, however, is to do something. “If ever there was a moment for large-scale systems change, it is now,” Lacy says.

What makes Lacy optimistic is what he describes as all the good work being done already, and that some governments, notably the European Union, are using the wake-up call of the pandemic to put stimulus funds into a transition toward a low-carbon and circular economy.

As Lacy sums up: “There's a good chance that those chunks of investment can be a pivot and an accelerant of some of the bigger investments that are required. We certainly can't afford to miss that window of opportunity, but I am cautiously optimistic that governments are looking to use the necessary COVID spending to stimulate the economy and to empower companies to use it to pivot their infrastructure.”

Editor’s Note: Amy Brown served as copyeditor for The Circular Economy Handbook.

Image credit: Tine Ivanič/Unsplash; Nicola Ricca/Unsplash

From a few scattered complaints about slow mail in July to a fully blown national crisis in August, the apparent sabotage of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) should spark outrage from business leaders across the country. Nevertheless, even as some members of Congress and states have moved to bring criminal charges against Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, corporate executives are missing a golden opportunity to defend a centuries-old civic institution that enjoys broad public support.

Charges of criminal interference in the 2020 general election…

The smooth functioning of the USPS is always important, and this year even more so. Many states already allow or require voters to use mail-in ballots, and the COVID-19 pandemic has compelled millions more voters to use mail-in ballots for the first time.

As early as May, Democratic members of Congress began raising alarms that DeJoy was implementing sudden changes in the operations of the USPS that had the appearance of intentionally disrupting the mail in advance of the 2020 election cycle.

Laying the question of election tampering to rest, last week President Donald Trump admitted publicly and confirmed that DeJoy’s changes were all but certainly intended to disrupt the November elections.

Further hammering home the point, last month a U.S. Postal Service representative wrote to elections officials in 46 states, warning of “a risk that ballots requested near the deadline under state law will not be returned by mail in time to be counted.”

Adding even more fuel to the fire, news has surfaced that DeJoy ordered the removal of sorting machines from post offices. Hundreds of blue USPS drop-off boxes are also being removed from neighborhood streets in targeted areas around the country.

…but the business community suffers as well

Despite the focus on election interference, the impact is far more widespread than the delivery of ballots. Those effects land squarely on the shoulders of the business community.

In early July, The Washington Post reported that DeJoy’s changes posed risks to business and employment transactions as well as delaying personal letters and packages.

That should have raised alarm bells across the business community, but it didn’t. 

On July 23, one leading news organization in the northeast recounted widespread complaints throughout the state about how the changes at the USPS were affecting businesses and workers. “Many New Jersey residents are fuming as they say they’ve gone days without mail and packages being delivered, complaining of missing deadlines for checks and job applications,” reporter Torreo Torrejon of NJ.com observed.

Controversy at the USPS is about more than ballots

More recently, reporters — and lawmakers — have focused on potentially life-threatening delays in the delivery of medicines and other healthcare equipment.

In particular, military veterans have been affected by disruptions with the U.S. mail service. Last week, for example, Stars and Stripes reported that a group of 31 Democrats raised the alarm over “many troubling reports from veterans waiting weeks for their prescriptions to arrive.”

Stars and Stripes further noted that “the Department of Veterans Affairs fills 80 percent of its prescriptions by mail — about 120 million prescriptions per year going to 330,000 veterans.”

Finally, on August 16 The Raw Story summarized the impacts to date, reporting that entire towns and cities have received none — as in zero — mail for days at a time.

Lawmakers take action against criminal disruption of the U.S. Mail

Although business leaders appear to have declared radio silence on the issue, lawmakers are beginning to take action.

Last Friday, Democratic U.S. Representative Bill Pascrell of New Jersey’s 9th District announced that his office has made a criminal referral to New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal. He is seeking a state grand jury investigation of “electoral subversion by Donald Trump, U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, and other possible Trump administration officials in their accelerating arson of the United States Postal Service (USPS).”

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has also formally requested an investigation by the state’s attorney general, stating that it is “against the law to ‘delay the delivery of a ballot.’” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong also appears ready to take action on grounds of deliberate election interference.

All eyes on the U.S. House

Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives has introduced legislation aimed at restoring the USPS to normal operations. In late July, the Democratic-controlled House Oversight Committee attempted to hold a hearing but was unable to bring DeJoy to make an appearance. On August 3, the Committee instead formally invited him to a hearing scheduled for September 17.

Considering the economic and health impact of the chaos at USPS since early August, the lawmakers may have to rethink their timeline. The House and Senate are on recess this month, and pressure has been increasing to recall Congress for an investigation.

The Republican-controlled Senate is unlikely to take action, despite the results the disruption has had on Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s home state of Kentucky. However, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi appears willing to recall the House.

As of this writing, Pelosi has not made a final decision, and the delay has been frustrating for voting rights advocates.

Where are the business leaders?

However, the longer that House members stay in their districts, the greater their opportunity to hear firsthand from their constituents, including business leaders.

DeJoy is a Republican megadonor, so the whole situation is clearly in the lap of GOP partisanship. Allegations that he has had stakes, even if relatively small, in two USPS competitors, FedEx and UPS, further provide critics with ammunition for charges of corruption and conflict of interest on the part of Trump appointees. Additional investments DeJoy has reportedly made have given his critics more reasons to criticize the changes at the USPS over the past several weeks.

Nevertheless, the systemwide disruption of business mail should enable corporate leaders to skirt both the political and corruption angles and insist on a return to normal operations from a straightforward, bottom-line perspective.

It shouldn’t be much of a stretch. After all, numerous business leaders have stood up to the Trump administration on issues such as preserving the DACA program and other immigration issues from the very beginning.

Others are taking action on gun safety and COVID-19 response, among other areas where the Trump administration has failed to act. Still corporate leaders are responding, in varying degrees, to employee activists who oppose Trump policies on climate change, among other issues.

The U.S. Postal service enjoys wide public support regardless of political affiliation. Business leaders who want to keep their corporate social responsibility profile in good standing have an opportunity — and a duty — to step up and defend it.

Editor’s note: The Speaker of the House has since announced a special congressional session this week to vote on legislation that would roll back recent changes made across the USPS. The USPS has since backed down from its proposed changes.

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Bike grips are the most recent item to be touched by the ocean sustainability movement and advocates for a circular economy. Bontrager, a bicycle component and accessory maker that's part of the Trek family of brands, has released a handlebar grip that includes a core composed of plastics that could have otherwise found their way to the open ocean.

This is not Bontrager’s first attempt at repurposing ocean-bound plastics. Last year, the company announced that its popular Bat Cage water bottle holder would now be made from recycled end-of-life fish nets. The company claims that one year of manufacturing this little cage saves 44,000 square feet of fishing net from entering the ocean.

The cage and grip are examples of the baby steps necessary for moving closer to a circular economy. Those at Bontrager see the grip as an “exciting move into a new product category and an expansion that sets the stage for using sustainable manufacturing methods for more plastic bike parts,” the company said in a press statement.

Collaboration opens the door to the circular economy

Bontrager’s journey to ocean-bound plastics began with collaboration. At the end of 2017, tech giant Dell and conservation nonprofit Lonely Whale created NextWave, a consortium of companies convening to create supply chains for ocean-bound plastics. Trek was a founding member, and it was through NextWave that Bontrager found a partnership with Bureo, based in Ventura, California. Bureo collects discarded fish nets, eventually shreds and melts the plastic into pellets, and creates products like the Bat Cage.

Cooperation is a building-block of NextWave. Kevin Brown, chief supply chain officer for Dell Technologies, said in NextWave’s 2019 Annual Report: “As we’ve become more engaged in the challenges facing our oceans, it’s become increasingly clear that the solution to marine plastic pollution requires bold innovation and open collaboration. No company can solve this issue alone.”

A new partnership with Plastix was the basis for Bontrager’s grip. The Danish cleantech company recycles fishnets, trawls and ropes into so-called “Green Plastic." These materials are sourced from ports, net makers and plastics collectors from around the world.

Innovating toward a circular economy boosts the bottom line

In only a couple of years of partnership, NextWave members have proven the viability of ocean-bound plastics as a resource. HP has created ink cartridges and display monitors using plastic bottles from Haiti. Ikea designed a collection that includes a tablecloth, two cushion covers and a polyester bag. Interface has developed carpet tiles.

Companies that strive toward a circular economy will benefit from this work. A 2017 study from The World Business Council for Sustainable Development found eight reasons for businesses to employ circular economy practices. A few of these included engaging customers and employees, spurring innovation, and differentiating themselves from the competition.

The last point was mitigating “linear risk exposure,” which takes a long view but applies to every industry. For one, establishing a circular economy is key to tackling climate change, an issue that touches every single company and every single life.

“A 1.5 degree world can only be a circular world,” Harald Friedl, CEO of Circle Economy, said at the 2019 World Economic Forum annual meeting, referring to the multilateral push to cap global temperature rise at 1.5 degrees Celsius. “Recycling, greater resource efficiency and circular business models offer huge scope to reduce emissions. A systemic approach to applying these strategies would tip the balance in the battle against global warming.”

Small steps like reconfiguring a bike grip can make ripples toward circularity in the global business community not only through the waste captured and reused, but also by putting these issues at the forefront.

NextWave’s managing director, Dune Ives, wrote in the 2019 annual report: “Today, NextWave member companies are preventing plastic from reaching the ocean by demonstrating that ocean-bound plastics carry a commercial value, and in doing so, are raising awareness across the global manufacturing community.”

Bontrager’s ocean plastics products are examples of the tangible benefits of companies working closely together to collaborate on a solution. Simply convening around a shared goal and purpose can spur partnerships and innovation. Those results are not to be taken lightly.

Image credit: Trek

Multiple crises have rocked the global apparel industry. The health crisis has spawned an economic crisis. Decreasing demand from consumers has led to growing bankruptcies among apparel brands and retailers. In turn, many companies have withheld payments for already produced garments, and cut contracts for future orders. To add insult to injury, reports have surfaced of companies requesting discounts for new orders. Workers at the bottom of global supply chains face withheld pay, risks to their health, and further downward pressure on their livelihoods.

The pandemic exposed all that’s wrong with the apparel sector

There is an immediate need for the industry to work together to coordinate to keep factories open and to guarantee that workers are safe, healthy, and paid. This first means paying all past contracts in full, and disclosing this publicly. An international #PayUp campaign has worked over the last several months to document and pressure brands that have not paid for contracts.

Even this basic exercise in holding companies accountable has been extremely difficult.

These crises have exposed a lack of transparency and problematic incentives in the global apparel industry, and brought into clear relief the limitations of recent industry efforts to improve environmental and social conditions.

Our research over the last four years has shown that even the most advanced industry initiatives for sustainability such as the Sustainable Apparel Coalition’s Higg Index – which measures an apparel facility’s environmental management capabilities, procedures and plans – have been limited in their impact in the face of downward economic pressure on the industry. Our analysis, released today, confirms that critical changes are needed in the industry and its governance.

Transparency and governance in the apparel industry are only the start

We analyzed Higg Index data from nearly twelve thousand factories across 80 countries, surveyed 500 of these facilities, and conducted in-depth case studies of high-performing factories in Bangladesh and China. Through interviews with apparel industry managers, document review, and facility tours we sought to understand what the very best factories were doing, and what role governance schemes such as the Higg Index played in their efforts to improve performance.

While creating an important foundation for unified standards and measurement, the effectiveness of the Higg Index in driving real action has been limited by slow progress on public transparency and a lack of incentives between buyers and factories.

Our research confirms that industry standards and monitoring organizations – such as the Higg Index – have acted like a scale without a diet.

The good news is we now know that it is possible to measure labor and environmental conditions in detail. But there is more work to improve these systems and integrate them with decision making procedures.

As the global apparel industry has evolved from supply chains, to webs, to platforms for production, apparel firms have steadily adapted new technologies and operating procedures such as lean manufacturing, just-in-time delivery, demand forecasting, and rapid product development. A similar effort is long overdue for environmental and social improvements. We know that this is necessary, but not sufficient to drive real improvements.

Doing the minimum for garment workers is far from enough

As the apparel industry struggles to survive, they will need clear incentives to invest in improvements. As demand returns, orders should be tied to improvements in the treatment of workers and sustainability. The best factories should receive increased orders, better payment terms, ­longer contracts and higher-margin orders. Contract terms should incentivize, not hamstring a factory’s ability to make improvements. There is a need to combine standardized data collection (for contract payment, wage payment, hours worked, environmental performance, etc.) with incentive structures that support continuous improvements.

Firms also need stronger incentives. The apparel industry can and should move towards public transparency of supply chain performance. Not just visibility within and between firms – as the Higg Index now facilitates – but information all the way out to end consumers. If we can provide information that is material and meaningful to consumers, investors, and NGOs, it will unlock incentives for the best brands and factories.

You’re tracking data – now it’s time to share it

Accountability from transparency requires comparable, trustworthy, and meaningful data. While the Higg Index has focused on standardization and data collection, it’s time to share meaningful information publicly. This is a challenging step. While the Higg Index tracks hundreds of attributes (from energy use, to water use to pollution) consumers often only want 1 or 2 pieces of information, embedded in the flow of their normal shopping process, helping them align their shopping with their values. Regulators, investors, and NGOs will want other information in different formats. Experimentation and iteration are both needed.

As groups work to save factories and “build back better,” it is critical to advance both greater transparency of supply chains and clearer incentives for motivating real improvements in factories and in the lives of workers.

Our goal should be a recovery that leads to safer, more sustainable, more equitable workplaces. And to conditions that are verifiable through trustworthy, meaningful, public transparency.

It is time to move from measurement and the good intentions of individual buyers, to a system with clear mechanisms and incentives to drive improvements at scale.

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In a troubled economy, a continuing bright spot continues to be growing interest in sustainable investing with a lens on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. Global financial services firm Morningstar’s latest Global Sustainable Fund Flows Report shows that sustainable funds rebounded strongly after the initial pandemic-induced market sell-off.

It’s a bleak economy, but sustainable investing is on the rise

Global inflows into sustainable funds were up 72 percent in the second quarter of 2020 to $71.1 billion, according to Morningstar. The U.S. accounted for almost 15 percent of the global inflows, and Europe continued to dominate the space with approximately 85 percent. This follows trends from 2019, indicating it may be time to stop debating over whether sustainable investing is mainstream.

As TriplePundit reported recently, ESG investing appears pandemic-proof. That is an encouraging sign for companies that have not wavered in their commitment to sustainability despite the economic toll of the pandemic. The record inflows reported by Morningstar in sustainable investing are clear evidence of a global trend that won’t let up. The strong performance of the market’s first racial equity fund, launched two years ago, backs up that contention.

The Global Sustainable Fund Flows Report examined the global fund flows of 3,432 sustainable open-end funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the second quarter of 2020. Sustainable fund flows in the U.S. continued at a record pace in the second quarter of 2020, with estimated net flows of $10.4 billion. That nearly matched first-quarter flows and brought the total for the first half of the year to $20.9 billion—just shy of the annual record of $21.4 billion in sustainable fund net flows set in 2019.

The year-to-year performance of ESG funds encourages investors

“It won't take much in the way of additional ESG fund flows to set a calendar-year record for the fifth consecutive year,” writes Jon Hale, Morningstar’s director of ESG Research for the Americas. “Sustainable funds continue to perform well relative to conventional funds in a year of great uncertainty caused by the pandemic and other issues like the movement for racial justice and the upcoming election. These issues have underscored the need for investors to consider ESG-related risks in their portfolios and have affirmed the value of sustainability within the mainstream of investing.”

In the largest monthly flow ever recorded for sustainable funds in the U.S., investors poured $5.8 billion into sustainable funds and almost all of it to equity funds, according to Morningstar. The financial firm expects a record number of new sustainable fund launches in the U.S. this year. In the first half of 2020, 21 new funds launched, and three ETFs repurposed into ESG-focused strategies. These new offerings bring the total number of sustainable open-end funds and ETFs domiciled in the U.S. to 315, up from 309 at the end of the first quarter.

Assets in sustainable funds hit a record high of close to $1.1 trillion as of the end of June, up 23 percent from the previous quarter. Asset managers also continued to repurpose and rebrand conventional products into sustainable funds, according to Morningstar, with 40 such funds in Europe and three in the U.S.

The boost in ESG investing correlates with corporate disclosures

In response to investor pressure and hunger for solid data to evaluate companies on ESG parameters, there has been a dramatic shift in corporate sustainability disclosures. The recent responses made in kind by asset management firms including BlackRock have added to this change in the investing world.

Stakeholders like NGOs, activists and civil society groups are adding to the pressure cooker, increasingly targeting investors as a strategy for broad-based change and activist investors can get results, as 3p has regularly covered. According to the Boston Consulting Group, these groups are now better equipped to track companies’ social and environmental impact, and through the actions they take in response, influence corporate behavior. With momentum building to end corporate funding of police foundations, among other items on activists’ wish list, you can be sure sustainable investors are paying attention.

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