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What started as a trickle late last week turned into a wave as companies spoke out against the racist acts that triggered protests across the U.S. and even overseas. Some companies backed up their pledges with financial support. Nevertheless, the protests are showing no signs of dissipating. Meanwhile, many leaders of all stripes are skittish to speak out, including the U.S. president, who has reportedly spent time in a White House bunker while dimming the executive mansion’s lights. The images are enough to demonstrate that while communities burn, the leaders aren't home. Might it be time for the U.S. business community to stoke a conversation that for many white citizens is very uncomfortable — as in, discussing reparations?

So far, few business leaders have broached the subject of reparations. But that didn’t stop the CEO of Snap, Evan Spiegel, who in an email to company employees said that “people of color cannot visit a grocery store or go for a jog without fear of being murdered without consequence, and put simply, the American experiment is failing.”

In a public statement, Spiegel suggested it is now time to launch a non-partisan commission on reparations and reconciliation. Going beyond the moral argument, he added an economic case:

“I believe that one reason entrepreneurship in America has declined so substantially since the 1980s is the lack of a sufficient societal safety net. Entrepreneurship depends on people being able to take risks to start a business, which is nearly impossible to do without some sort of safety net like the one I had. Today’s would-be entrepreneurs are saddled with student debt and are subject to stagnant wage growth and rising expenses that make it hard to save the seed capital necessary to start a business.”

For anyone of any background who was interested in starting their own venture but were dissuaded by the confluence of student debt, the cost of healthcare, or the thought of being denied access to credit by banks, this economic argument could certainly hold sway.

The founder of BET, Robert Johnson, has gone beyond asking for a plan or commission:

“Is $14 trillion too much to ask for the atonement of 200 plus years of brutal slavery, de facto and de jure government-sponsored social and economic discrimination, and the permanent emotional trauma inflicted upon black Americans by being forced to believe in a hypocritical and unfulfilled pledge that all men are created equal?”

In a press statement, Johnson insisted that the only way for society to move forward and to atone for generations of systemic racism is to disperse cash payments to Black descendants of U.S. slaves over a period of 10 to 20 years. “The purpose of reparations, as presented here, is to acknowledge to 40 million Black Americans, the decedents of slaves, that you are owed damages for the evil that was visited on your ancestors,” Johnson wrote.

The CEO of Merck, Kenneth Frazier, also echoed the sentiments of other U.S. businesses leaders, and noted that the four days of inaction by Minneapolis officials was the trigger that transformed years of pent-up anger into taking to the streets. “What the African-American community sees in that videotape is that this African-American man, who could be me or any other African-American man, is being treated less than human,” Frazier said.

Frazier, however, stopped short of calling for any plans for reparations. “I don’t believe that we’ll be able to get anything like that through our political system,” he said during an interview with CNBC.

There is no shortage of corporate executives who believe that when it comes to ending systematic racism, we as a society need to “do more.” Defining what “do more” means, however, is an answer the business leaders are still struggling to find.

Image credit: Julian Wan/Unsplash

Even as most of the country shelters in their homes amid coronavirus lockdowns, the senseless violence against black Americans has continued.

In February, 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery was chased down and shot to death by two white men while out for a jog in South Georgia. A month later, police stormed into 26-year-old Breonna Taylor's home in Louisville, Kentucky, as she slept, fatally shooting her eight times in what her family referred to as a botched drug raid. No drugs were found. Last week, 46-year-old George Floyd died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for over eight minutes while he repeatedly said, "I can't breathe." 

As protests spread from Minneapolis to major cities across the country following Floyd's death, U.S. President Donald Trump sent a tweet at almost 1 a.m. on Friday, calling the demonstrators "THUGS" and seeming to suggest that law enforcement use deadly force against them. "When the looting starts, the shooting starts," Trump wrote. 

In an unprecedented move, Twitter hid the tweet behind a notice that it had "violated" the platform's rules about "glorifying violence." It also prevented users from liking the tweet or sharing it without comment, and it did the same after the message was reposted on the White House Twitter account. 

But when Trump shared the same post on Facebook, the company opted to leave it alone.  "I know many people are upset that we've left the President's posts up," founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page on Saturday, "but our position is that we should enable as much expression as possible unless it will cause imminent risk of specific harms or dangers spelled out in clear policies."

In another message, Zuckerberg pledged $10 million to "groups working on racial justice." But it did little to encourage disgruntled employees, a group of whom refused to work on Monday in protest of Zuckerberg's decision and in support of demonstrators across the country. The protest group labeled their move a "virtual walkout," as most Facebook employees are already working from home due to the coronavirus.

Facebook employees speak up, walk out   

Over the weekend, Facebook employees circulated petitions and discussed their grievances in group chats, staff intranets and message boards. “The hateful rhetoric advocating violence against black demonstrators by the U.S. President does not warrant defense under the guise of freedom of expression,” one Facebook employee wrote in an internal message board, which was viewed by the New York Times.

Other senior staffers took to social media to express their concerns. "Censoring information that might help people see the complete picture *is* wrong. But giving a platform to incite violence and spread disinformation is unacceptable, regardless who you are or if it’s newsworthy," Andrew Crow, head of design for Facebook’s portal product, tweeted on Sunday. "I disagree with Mark’s position and will work to make change happen."

 "I am not proud of how we’re showing up," added Jason Toff, Facebook director of product management. "The majority of coworkers I’ve spoken to feel the same way. We are making our voice heard."

Is change coming to Facebook's senior ranks?  

Along with removing — or adding a warning to — Trump's posts, Facebook staffers are calling for increased diversity in leadership. Like many tech companies, most Facebook employees are white, particularly at the very top.

Facebook talks a big game in its latest diversity report: "Over the last six years, we have worked hard to make our commitment to diversity and inclusion more than just sound bites. Our company has grown a lot. So has our approach." But the numbers fail to back these statements up. As of last year, 3.8 percent of Facebook employees were black, compared to 2 percent in 2014. 

"Although incremental changes are being made, the fact remains that the population of Facebook employees doesn’t reflect its most engaged user base," former Facebook employee Mark Luckie wrote in an online memo after quitting the company in 2018. "There is often more diversity in keynote presentations than the teams who present them. In some buildings, there are more 'Black Lives Matter' posters than there are actual black people."

And while Trump regularly accuses social media companies of censoring conservative voices, policymaking at Facebook is largely dominated by conservatives, particularly the three leaders of the company's powerful Washington, D.C. office, Joel Kaplan, Katie Harbath and Kevin Martin.

In private online chats, employees called for Kaplan, a former deputy chief of staff in the George W. Bush administration, to resign. His official position is vice president of global policy, but a former Facebook employee told journalist Judd Legum that, in reality, Kaplan "serves as an advocate for right-wing sites on Facebook."

"Any time there was an issue with Breitbart or Daily Caller, Joel made the decision, and he always acted to protect them," the employee said. Kaplan angered many employees by sitting in the front row during the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a close friend. 

A way forward, but is it the right one? 

A Facebook spokesperson told Rolling Stone that the company is open to feedback from critics, including those within its own ranks. “We recognize the pain many of our people are feeling right now, especially our Black community. We encourage employees to speak openly when they disagree with leadership.”

Additionally, Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, planned to host a call on Monday night with civil rights leaders who have publicly criticized the company's move to protect Trump's posts, the New York Times reported. 

While some may consider it encouraging to see the company engage its critics directly, the two executives may be in for a rude awakening. In interviews with the Times, Rashad Robinson of Color of Change called Zuckerberg's $10 million donation “one of the most insulting things I’ve ever seen,” while Vanita Gupta of the National Leadership Conference said he is "prioritizing free expression while our democracy is literally burning."

If employee feedback thus far is any indication, it will take more than donations and conference calls to change minds at Facebook. Employees are looking for a firm policy regarding speech on the platform — and executives with the guts to enforce it. Per the Times report, several have already threatened to leave their jobs permanently if Zuckerberg does not reverse his decision on Trump's tweets. 

“Mark is wrong, and I will endeavour in the loudest possible way to change his mind,” Ryan Freitas, the director of product design for Facebook’s News Feed, wrote on Twitter. He isn't the only one: On Monday, online therapy platform Talkspace dissolved a six-figure partnership with Facebook, with CEO Oren Frank saying, “We will not support a platform that incites violence, racism and lies."

Image credit: Shop Catalog via Flickr

They succeeded in some cities and stumbled in others, but overall, bike share programs in the U.S. have been a success, according to research coming out of the University of Washington.

Commitment to bike share programs matter

Dafeng Xu, an assistant professor at UW who specializes in data science and whose research includes urban and regional policy, crunched data from cities with bike share programs, such as Washington, D.C. and Portland, Oregon. While the overall percentage of bicycle commuters across the U.S. is very low — 0.6 percent, according to Xu’s analysis — commuting by bicycle increased 20 percent between 2008 and 2016, whether or not cities had established bike share programs. But in cities that had committed to bicycle sharing programs as part of the local public transportation infrastructure, the rate of bicycle commuting enjoyed higher rates of growth.

As a rule of thumb, the larger the bike share program, the greater the increase in bicycle commuting. Xu pointed out one notable failure, Seattle’s Pronto system, which among its many struggles before it shuttered in 2017 included the failure of the city to expand the program outside the city’s core.

Despite this crisis, interest in bicycling hasn’t gone away

While the ongoing COVID-19 crisis — and now, the nationwide protests — has largely curbed the use of these bike share programs, Xu suggested they could grow even more if three big changes would occur from city to city: more bicycle lanes, expansion to outlying communities and lengthening the maximum rental time. Bike share programs such as Capital Bikeshare in Washington, D.C., for example, often cap trip lengths at 30 minutes before additional fees kick in.

Across the U.S., various bike share programs were poised for expansion, from the Boston region’s BlueBikes (shown above in Cambridge, Massachusetts) to Divvy in Chicago.

Image: Capital Bikeshare in D.C. is one of the more successful bike share programs in the U.S.

While local stay-at-home orders and crunched municipal budgets may put many of those plans on hold, there’s plenty of reason to be optimistic that bicycle commuting, and life on two wheels in general, will soon enjoy a renaissance.

Commuters’ skittishness to return en masse to public transportation systems is part of this story. But with social distancing becoming the norm, even long after it passes as government-mandated local decree, municipal leaders and citizens alike now see the empty sidewalks and streets. And therein during these bleak times is a silver lining of opportunity.

Opportunities in empty streets

“COVID-19 presents a wholly different challenge,” wrote Allison Arieff last month in the New York Times, adding that it’s time for local officials to decide “how to think about bringing people together while also needing to keep them apart.”

City officials are rising to that challenge, as mayors from Oakland, California, to New York City are closing mile after mile of city streets to cars and relinquishing them to pedestrians, skateboarders and cyclists. So if and when this crisis passes, these same local officials will confront a problem that actually will be a nice one to have: how to keep these same streets and neighborhoods closed to traffic as the odds will be high that residents won’t want to go back to how they lived before.

In some cities, the future is already here. Some bike share programs are already expanding, such as New York’s Citi Bike program, which last month expanded to more areas including the Bronx.

Image credits: Leon Kaye

As chaos engulfed many of America’s largest cities over the past week, with the pain intensifying over the weekend, it’s clear the shambles we see in neighborhoods across the country are the result of leadership at the very top being in shambles. Commentators including Don Lemon and Trevor Noah have eloquently made the case for us as a society to look inward while calling for those with power and status to speak up or speak out. So yes, right now the bar for leadership is quite low, but a simple tweet and retweet from Nike and Adidas nevertheless stand out as a signal for the business community to stand up for what is right.

In case you’ve missed them, the messages are as profound as they are succinct.

Granted, one can argue these are just words. But Nike has already stepped into the fray with its past campaigns featuring Colin Kaepernick, the NFL quarterback who was blackballed after repeatedly taking a knee to protest racial inequality and police brutality – an image that is now more poignant than ever before. The fact Adidas backed up and supported one of its fiercest competitors helps amplify the message to the business community that the ways in which we’ve been doing things just don’t work any longer – and haven’t been in the first place.

Evidence suggests corporate leaders know it’s time to speak out. Late last week, the executive coalition CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion released a statement that would have been unthinkable a year ago, or in reality, even a week before:

“The horrific events of the past month involving George Floyd, Christian Cooper and Ahmaud Arbery underscores that racism – both conscious and unconscious – are still serious problems in our country. As leaders in the business community, we must acknowledge what Black people are facing and actively work to reduce bias in our workplaces and build inclusive communities. This is our responsibility and our future.”

Again, 63 words are hardly enough to move the needle, but as we closed out a gut-wrenching weekend made worse by a vacuum in leadership, we need to start somewhere. "The CEO Action Statement on Recent Racist Acts” is certainly step in the best direction.

The time is now for companies to not just follow the words and tweets of Nike and Adidas, but to ramp up meaningful action. Amped up promises of “diversity and inclusion” won’t cut it. Writing a check to help communities rebuild cleans up the problem temporarily but won’t solve a scourge that, depending on one’s point of view, has been around anywhere from 50 years to 400 years. Pledging funds to help protesters who have to put up bail after getting arrested? Well, that’s getting warmer. As one of our colleagues noted, the Band-Aid has been ripped off, and this time, it won’t heal itself.

The bottom line is that the U.S. business community needs to stop fearing those in power — and instead, toe its own line and put resources, people and brand loyalty into first, having an honest conversation about what is happening in this country; and next, making it clear that the weaponization of race in this country has got to stop – now.

Image credit: Tony Webster/Wiki Commons

Just a few years ago, regenerative agriculture was largely a niche effort. Now, leading industry stakeholders are pushing it into the mainstream. In the latest development, last week Anheuser-Busch has reported promising results from a new partnership with the sustainable agriculture firm Indigo Agriculture. The partners are already looking forward to additional improvements as the project continues into a new growing season.

Reducing commodity inputs and price volatility through regenerative agriculture

Regenerative agriculture is a holistic approach that shares features with organic farming, but has its own set of priorities and systems. The primary aim is to build up soil and improve soil health, while sequestering carbon, preserving local water resources and improving air quality.

In meeting those goals, regenerative agriculture also aims to reduce the use of purchased fertilizer, fuel, and other inputs involved in the conventional practice of modern agriculture.

Farmers can benefit from regenerative practices through increased yields and long-term improvements in soil quality, while also reducing costs and attracting eco-conscious customers.

An improvement in community relations is another potential benefit, due to more sustainable use of local water resources and reduced impacts on air quality.

The ripple effect on commodities buyers like Anheuser-Busch is to reduce price volatility related to spikes in the cost of fuel and other inputs. In the age of climate action, regenerative agriculture also supports brand reputation.

Price stability and brand reputation have been the factors motivating major businesses to transition to clean power, and that same bottom line element appears to be attracting businesses to regenerative agriculture, too.

Beer maker plunges into regenerative agriculture

Regenerative agriculture is a relatively new trend, and so far, it has been practiced primarily on a small scale. With Anheuser-Busch’s support, it could take hold in large scale operations as well and have a significant cumulative impact on global environmental health.

The new partnership between the beer maker and Indigo Ag may surprise some beer drinkers, because it involves rice rather than the more familiar beer making ingredients like barley and wheat.

Nevertheless, rice it is. According to the brand, Anheuser-Busch happens to be the single largest user of rice in the U.S., having adopted the grain in 1876 to set its signature Budweiser brand apart from others.

For an initial test of their partnership, Indigo Ag and Anheuser-Busch set a goal of 10 percent improvement in water, nitrogen, and greenhouse gas impacts for growing 2.2 million bushels of rice. The 10 percent goal seems relatively modest. However, the overall result would be significant, considering the rate at which the beer maker consumes rice. According to the company, its mill in Jonesboro, Arkansas currently processes rice at the clip of 2.6 million pounds daily.

As it turned out, the effort exceeded expectation. Last week, the two partners announced their first-season results. Water usage decreased 23.7 percent compared to the regional average, methane emissions decreased by an average of 26.6 percent and nitrogen application decreased by 13.3 percent.

Grower profitability also increased, by up to $27 per acre.

“The cost reductions associated with decreased water and fertilizer use from these beneficial growing practices, coupled with a price premium to reflect the specialty attributes associated with how the grain was produced, significantly improved growers’ profitability, reinforcing the effectiveness of a systems approach to de-commoditizing agriculture,” Anheuser-Busch explained.

Regenerative farming and renewable energy

Based on that success, last week the partners also announced that the project is continuing into the current growing season. It has also expanded to cover a crop of 2.7 million bushels.

This season’s project includes additional support for growers, leading to the potential for improving upon last season’s results. In addition, farmers in the program can benefit from Indigo Ag’s Indigo Carbon abatement and sequestration initiative for on-farm emissions.

Anhueser-Busch isn’t the only leading company testing the waters of regenerative farming.

The movement has also caught the eye of the solar industry, which is beginning to leverage the benefits of pairing solar panels with grazing, pollinator habitats and other complementary uses under the new field of agrivoltaics.

In terms of land use, that is a significant improvement over the conventional placement of solar panels on farmland, in which the solar arrays are mounted close to the ground, effectively precluding any other operations.

Now researchers are finding that solar arrays can also accommodate grazing, pollinator habitats and other uses. The adjustment includes raising the solar panels a few more feet off the ground. It can also involve staggering the panels to allow more sunlight. The partial shade creates a beneficial microclimate that can enhance plant growth and conserve water, while reducing the need for fertilizer.

Tennessee-based Silicon Ranch, for example, is already pitching the concept under its proprietary “Regenerative Energy” trademark.

That is a particularly significant development in the scaling-up of agrivoltaics, because Silicon Ranch specializes in large, utility scale solar arrays.

The company’s latest project will span 2,400 acres at White Oak Pastures, a 152-year-old family farm in Georgia that conceives regenerative agriculture as part of a “radically traditional” approach to farming.

Another major company that could play a role in scaling up agrivoltaics and regenerative agriculture is the global oil giant Royal Dutch Shell, which bought a major stake in Solar Ranch two years ago.

Signs of redoubled force in the global energy transition have been building despite the COVID-19 crisis, and now it seems that agriculture is also poised for a similar leap into a more sustainable future.

Image credit: Pexels

While most of the world remains at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, the impacts of climate change have continued unabated. With the official start of hurricane season starting today, June 1, there is rising concern about disaster relief in these uncertain times. Unfortunately, our nation’s water infrastructure is bending under the pressure, and in many places, it’s breaking.

Michigan shows how water infrastructure is going awry

Case in point is Michigan, where privately-owned two dams recently failed after several days of heavy rains. Both dams were built in 1925, and within the next five years, 80 percent of Michigan’s dams will have reached their intended design life. The two dams had repeatedly failed to meet federal dam safety requirements and had lost their licenses in 2018.

The failures of those dams in Michigan reflect how the oversight of dam safety and water infrastructure is a smorgasbord of rules and regulations. State agencies regulate the bulk of the nation’s dams, of which about 65 percent are privately owned. Maintenance and upgrades are the responsibility of the owners, and the owners and local emergency management officials must handle any emergency, like the catastrophic failures in Michigan. Only about 10 percent of U.S. dams are federally regulated. Every state bar one has a dam safety program, through which they regulate dams in their jurisdiction. Many of the dam safety programs are understaffed and underfunded—Michigan’s program only has two staffers to inspect the safety of more than 1,000 dams in the state.

Couple that with the fact that Fourth National Climate Assessment noted that annual precipitation has increased 15 percent since 1960, and winter and spring precipitation are projected to increase up to 30 percent by the end of this century. “Imagine,” Shana Udvardy, climate resilience analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists told me, “these dams were designed with maximum flood capacity and spillway based on conditions from 95 years ago and were not updated even to today’s climate conditions even though they had multiple warnings, and you get a picture of how unsafe these dams really were.”

Coastal areas and hurricanes impose their challenges

Inland dams near rivers and other waterways that are predicted to increase in the number of flooding events under climate change are only part of the challenge. As we head into hurricane season—which is predicted to be above average in 2020—states often in the path of hurricanes will have high winds to add to the stress of flooding threats.

Of the eight states plus Puerto Rico that are most often in the bullseye of Atlantic storms, two—Texas and North Carolina—have the most number of high hazard dams, meaning high risk of loss of human life if they fail. Those two states follow Missouri, which takes the top spot. Both Texas and North Carolina have been battered by category 4 hurricanes in the within the past three years and infrastructure took a hit in both places, underscoring the need for more upgraded and more resilient water infrastructure. Neither state is guaranteed to miss out on this year’s hurricane season.

The ongoing pandemic will only exacerbate compound climate risks like those associated with hurricanes. Public health responses to hurricanes and flooding are compromised and stretched thin and could have additional impact on the economic pressures confronting communities that are already stressed. Like hurricanes and other natural disasters, the pandemic hits the most vulnerable communities, which in turn will be less able to quickly rebound from the effects.

Resilient infrastructure is a must

The solution will require involvement of all the interested parties: state and federal government and the private sector. “The private sector has a critical role to design, build, repair, and maintain infrastructure,” Udvardy said. “But as the Michigan tragedy shows, this will not likely happen without more stringent state and federal authority and regulations.”

Some advocates have suggested including water infrastructure investments in any future pandemic recovery money, creating jobs while shoring up infrastructure, much the way the Recovery Act did during the last recession. Some regulatory changes could help open the way for more public and private investment into smarter, more sustainable infrastructure, targeting especially vulnerable communities.

For example, Congress could increase funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Pre-Disaster Hazard Mitigation Program grants. Creating a transparent, reliable pipeline for these grants is a cost-effective strategy to enable communities, governments, and developers to reduce the impact of flooding when it happens. According to the National Institute of Building Sciences the benefits of acquiring and demolishing building exposed to riverine flooding outweighs the costs 7 to 1, for a total of $82 billion saved. The bottom line is: Investing in safe, resilient upgrades and infrastructure now will prevent the incalculable loss of money and lives if we fail to do so.

Image credit: John Gibbons/Unsplash

(Image: Nike's newest sustainable shoe collection is made from post-consumer and factory waste.) 

As the coronavirus continues to spread around the world, at times it feels challenging to focus on anything else. Almost half of U.S. adults say they discuss the pandemic with others "most" or "almost all" of the time. Yet around 7 in 10 say they need to take regular breaks from coronavirus-related news, as heartbreaking stories of pain and suffering weigh on our minds and tax our mental wellbeing. 

If you could use a reprieve, it may cheer you to learn that sustainability headlines from major companies and environmental groups haven't stopped, even though you may not have heard about them. Read on for a few you might have missed this month. 

Nike launches shoe line made from waste

This week Nike teased the launch of what it calls an "exploratory footwear collection" made from 85 to 90 percent factory and post-consumer waste.

The brand playfully labels the mix of recycled materials "space junk" due to its unusual appearance, but no, it's not made from the ever-growing collection of space debris orbiting the Earth. It's actually a blend of recycled polyester and recycled rubber, as well as standard foam. The Space Hippie line, which goes on sale June 11, is Nike's lowest-carbon collection to date.  

Danish companies team up to produce sustainable fuels at scale

A group of large Danish companies — including Ørsted, Moller-Maersk, Copenhagen Airports and Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) — have teamed up to produce sustainable fuels at an industrial scale.

The companies plan to construct a large facility to produce hydrogen and bio-based fuels for maritime, air and road transport in the Copenhagen area. They say the plant could start operations in 2023 and be able to produce 250,000 metrics tons of fuel annually by 2030. 

Mercedes' parent company pledges carbon-neutral production by 2022

German luxury automaker Daimler, the parent company of car, bus and truck brands including Mercedes-Benz, pledged to eliminate carbon emissions from its personal car manufacturing process — including battery production — by 2022. A previous goal from the company applied only to European manufacturing operations, but its most recent announcement on Monday takes the pledge worldwide. 

(Image: Each piece in H&M's newest dress collection is made from at least 50 percent sustainable materials such as organic cotton and recycled polyester.) 

H&M rolls out sustainable fashion lines for summer

If you're itching to shop while sheltering at home, H&M has you covered. Customers can choose from not one but three sustainability-focused lines as part of the fast-fashion retailer's new collections for summer.

H&M's newest line of dresses is made primarily from sustainable materials like organic cotton and recycled polyester. Its new activewear line goes even further, using only sustainable materials like organic cottons and recycled polyesters, nylons, and polyamides. A swimsuit collection developed in collaboration with the all-women surf society Women + Waves also features at least half recycled and organic materials in each piece. The company says lines like these bring it one step closer to its goal of becoming 100 percent circular. 

Walmart enters the clothing resale market 

The fashion resale segment is booming and grew 21 times faster than the overall retail market between 2017 and 2019. A host of major brands — including Taylor Stitch, The North Face and REI — are already involved. Now, we can add the most mainstream of mainstream retailers to the list. 

Walmart.com started selling previously owned clothing and accessories on Wednesday thanks to a partnership with the resale platform ThredUp. Its curated collection includes nearly 75,000 pieces from brands you won't find in Walmart stores, including Nike, Levi Strauss and Michael Kors. 

Google AI breaks up with fossil fuels 

Google will no longer develop custom artificial intelligence (AI) tools for fossil fuel extraction, per an announcement last week. The move comes shortly after a Greenpeace report detailed how tech giants like Google use AI tools and server space to help fossil fuel companies locate and extract oil and gas. 

Greenpeace, which argued that Google's history of providing this type of technical support flies in the face of its stated goals to tackle climate change, praised the decision — and called on the other companies it referenced in the report, Microsoft and Amazon, to follow suit. 

(Image: On regenerative ranches like Thousand Hills Lifetime Grazed, cattle are allowed to roam and graze as they would in the wild, providing benefits for the land as well as for animal welfare.)  

Timberland looks to establish a regenerative leather supply chain

Outdoor gear brand Timberland will work with the Savory Institute, a nonprofit focused on the regeneration of grasslands, to build up a regenerative leather supply chain for the footwear and apparel industry. This builds on the brand's existing partnership with Other Half Processing, which sources hides from Thousand Hills Lifetime Grazed regenerative beef ranches (pictured above). 

For those who aren't familiar: Regenerative agriculture practices mimic how plants, wildlife and soils interact in nature, boosting carbon sequestration and water retention in the soil, among other ecological benefits. Through these partnerships, Timberland says it's working to "identify, aggregate and connect" regenerative ranches with its large-scale tannery partners, while co-funding the Savory Institute's Ecological Outcome Verification, which measures the tangible benefits on ranch land.

Timberland will release a collection of boots using regenerative leather sourced from Thousand Hills Lifetime ranches later this fall, with the intention of "scaling the program significantly over time."

CDP reports a jump in companies asking their suppliers for environmental transparency

The environmental nonprofit CDP reported a 24 percent jump in corporate partnerships last week. Major companies work with CDP to calculate, mitigate and disclose their exposure to environmental risks, particularly climate change, water scarcity and deforestation, both within their own operations and in their supply chains. 

Nike, Airbus, Sainsbury’s and Ørsted are among the 30 large companies that started working with CDP to manage their supply chains for the first time this year. The nonprofit's supply chain membership now numbers more than 150 companies with a combined procurement spend of over $4 trillion. These firms have already sent out requests to more than 15,000 global suppliers, asking them to disclose key risk information around climate, water and forestry. 

Utility company Southern Co. targets net-zero carbon by 2050

Southern Co. is one of the largest U.S. utilities with 9 million customers across Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia, Tennessee and Illinois. For decades, it was one of the nation's largest carbon emitters and frequently opposed environmental protections, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) observed. The good news is: That may soon change. 

On Wednesday, CEO Tom Fanning made a shareholder commitment that Southern would reduce the net carbon emissions from its electric and natural gas operations to zero by 2050. NRDC praised the move, calling it "historic" and predicting it could spell major change in the way energy is sourced and delivered in the U.S. Southeast — and perhaps catalyze a shift in the utility sector overall.

"Fanning’s announcement to shareholders confirms that the case for eliminating climate-warming carbon pollution cannot be denied," wrote Sheryl Carter and Luis Martinez of the NRDC's climate and clean energy program. "We hope that consensus marks a beginning of the end to ideological and partisan discord over these issues."

Images courtesy of Nike, H&M and Thousand Hills Lifetime Grazed via Timberland

Imagine this headline: “American business community commits to competing our way out of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

That doesn’t make any sense. How about this one: “American business community collaborates to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and commits to an economy that works for all.” That hints at a real solution: building solidarity and mobilizing our talents and capital in a way that not only helps us mitigate the current catastrophe but also starts building a far more resilient next economy.

This is not about volunteerism or individual corporate responses to communities in crisis. Those things are wonderful and we need them—but the limits of the unilateral approach are well demonstrated. The times call for a much deeper, systemic approach. When this pandemic abates, we will still face the crises we began this year with: climate change, gaping inequality, homelessness, lack of affordable education and healthcare, and limited access to capital come immediately to mind.

While the planet can temporarily breathe a little more freely now that billions of people are restricted in their movement, the pandemic is devastating from both a health and an economic perspective—especially for lower-income people and communities of color. In a society where healthcare is treated as a privilege rather than a universal right, a crisis like the one we’re experiencing exacerbates the underlying inequities of an economy that doesn’t work for everyone.

To address this crisis and build the resilience we need to meet the next one, we must do more than tinker around the edges: we need new economic models that move us away from extracting value for the few toward a regenerative approach to human and ecological resources that is inherently adaptive and favors collaboration in the interest of the whole. 

Major players in the finance sector and elsewhere should be taking this on—and I hope they will—but we don’t have to wait for them to lead. Smaller, nimbler enterprises are developing and demonstrating better ways right now. RSF Social Finance can contribute three capital-flow models we have refined over the past decade that we believe can be modified to scale.

Community pricing: thinking bigger than self-interest

We abandoned LIBOR in 2009 and began setting our own rate for the RSF Social Investment Fund through a collaborative process of face-to-face quarterly meetings involving investors, borrowers and RSF staff. These Community Pricing Gatherings play a significant role in determining the interest rates investors receive and borrowers pay, as well as RSF’s share of the revenue.

The heart of these meetings is asking borrowers to detail the business consequences of a rate change and investors to share what a higher (or lower) interest rate would mean for them. Conventional economic theory tells us that investors will always want a higher return and borrowers will always want to pay a lower rate. Community Pricing Gatherings show that is not the case—money and the price of money can be in service to goals larger than self-interest. We’ve heard investors say, “I don’t need more if it has that consequence for you.” And we’ve heard borrowers say, “We could afford to pay more” if that increases the pool of money available to everyone.

This model allowed us to do something pretty extraordinary things to help our social enterprise borrowers weather COVID-19. Investors at our March 19 gathering unanimously decided to cut their interest payments in half so that borrowers could pay less and RSF could create an emergency fund to help those enterprises most at risk of collapse. Their action demonstrates how we can mobilize solidarity on a community level in a crisis.

The fundamental principle at work here could be applied to many situations involving two sides perceived as having opposing interests and habituated to maximizing their own narrowly defined advantage. The magic lies in having an honest and full discussion that reveals costs and benefits to everyone. Seeing how a decision affects a whole system creates a real shift in perspective about what our true needs are.

Integrated capital: flipping to a demand-driven approach

Our integrated capital approach bundles financial, social and intellectual capital for social entrepreneurs who are solving complex social and environmental problems. The financing tools—including loans, loan guarantees, investments and grants—are familiar to impact investors as “blended” or “full stack” capital. But the human elements, such as network connections and advisory support, are just as important.

Integrated capital addresses the funding challenges social enterprises face in a number of ways: It allows for longer development times by including some types of investment that don’t need to make a return, such as grants. It gets enterprises through the “valley of death,” where they have a promising business model, technology, product or service, but need more capital to realize its potential and don’t qualify for traditional financing. It provides the technical expertise they need to build a platform for growth. And when community foundations and local investors participate, integrated capital creates a community commitment to the enterprise’s success.

The key concept here is to provide capital based on what the needs are, rather than forcing entrepreneurs to fit their vision to the capital being offered—which often distorts the vision and reduces chances for success. It’s a demand-driven rather than a supply-driven approach. (See examples here and here.)

Shared gifting: shifting the power dynamic

Foundations are sitting on an estimated $1.5 trillion pot of money, and they’re under increasing pressure to invest more of it for impact as well as to grant more of it out—especially in response to the current crisis. How it is mobilized may be as important as how much. We don’t even know what the economic impact of COVID-19 is going to be or what it’s going to do to communities. Listening to what communities say is needed is likely to deliver a better result than applying the same old tools.

The Shared Gifting model is one way this can happen. The typical spectrum of grantmaking practices runs from unilateral (we’ll just tell you about our grant decisions) to consultative (soliciting community advice and concerns) to involving (two-way communication that leads to joint decision-making). Shared Gifting practice is beyond all that. It shifts the power dynamic.

In our adaptation of the approach, six to 10 local nonprofits (selected through a community nomination process) spend a day together and decide how to divvy up a pot of money among themselves. Each participant gets an equal share of the funds; they keep 20% of their share and distribute the balance according to their own criteria. They review each other’s proposals and ask questions about each other’s work. We encourage participants to be open and honest with the group about how they made their funding decisions. The group also decides how participants will report back on their use of the gift.

The goal of shared gifting is to transform philanthropy by giving nonprofit leaders the power to make decisions about what their community needs—they are the experts on that topic. By shifting grant-making authority from the holders of capital to a circle of peers, we can free up the creative power of communities to find and carry out transformative solutions.

It’s time to mobilize to overcome this pandemic

Tapping community knowledge, solidarity, and resources is central to each of these strategies, and most of us in business and finance are in position to do that—we just need to reach out. The still-unfolding COVID-19 pandemic is challenging all of us in innumerable ways. I hope we can respond by breaking through the mental barriers we put around ourselves and our businesses. A common refrain these days is “We’re all in this together.” Let’s act like it. In collaboration with our communities, we can mobilize our talents and capital to not only weather this crisis, but also start to heal what is broken.

Image credit: Julian Wan/Unsplash

TriplePundit and 3BL Media will feature Medtronic CEO Geoff Martha on June 16, 2:00 p.m. ET (11:00 a.m. PT), as part of the “Learn From Home” live event series.

Be sure you join 3p’s senior editor Mary Mazzoni for “Stories & Strategies for Putting People First,” a live interview with the new leader of one of the world’s largest medical technology companies, with 90,000 employees in 150 countries. Register here.

“Geoff Martha took the reins of Medtronic in April during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and demonstrated bold ESG leadership immediately,” said Dave Armon, CEO of 3BL Media. “We are honored to welcome Geoff as he shares the story with Mary Mazzoni and a live audience.”

In March, Medtronic took the unprecedented step to publicly share the design specifications for its PB560 ventilator, an affordable and portable ventilator that can be used in clinical settings and at home, as part of the company’s efforts to enable rapid manufacturing by other companies.

Since that announcement, reactions by both the public and private sectors were swift. Foxconn soon disclosed that it would pivot manufacturing operations at its Wisconsin plant to assemble ventilators in a partnership with Medtronic. In addition, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had reportedly approved the company’s effort to market the PB560. To give a frame of reference, the cost for most ventilators on the market can run anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000. The PB560 is priced under $10,000.

Other ventilator manufacturers also shifted focus in order to meet surging global demand. Philips, for example, said it had made a deal with the White House to make up to 43,000 ventilators. GM and Ventec finalized a deal to manufacture 30,000 ventilators at a cost of almost a half billion dollars. The German healthcare device manufacturer Draeger announced this spring that it would try to move workers around and add shifts so it could help meet demand. And GE workers have been vocal about their desire to shift gears so that the company’s healthcare division can ramp up production of these devices.

But as of today, Medtronic stands apart for its decision to make one of its models available for licensing without a fee.

Martha and Mazzoni will discuss how Medtronic has shared technology, worked even closer with partners, and ensured the safety of its global workforce during the pandemic. Live Q&A will follow the interview. Professionals working in corporate responsibility, ESG, sustainability, communications, investor relations, marketing and other senior leadership roles are invited to attend.

Image credit: Medtronic/3BL Media