Toys, whether they are in the real or digital world, sure can help us get our minds off the day-to-day reality with which we’re now coping. And as is the case with many sectors, the toy industry will have to consider a reset once we emerge from this crisis. To that end, Mattel announced this week it would start manufacturing some of its timeless children's toys out of plastic derived from sugarcane.

It’s okay to put it in your mouth — these toys are made from sugarcane

These toys, which include the brands we remember from our youth (or that of our kids), include Fisher-Price’s Rock-a-Stack and Baby’s First Blocks. The revamped versions, which Mattel put on pre-sale just in time for Earth Day, follow on the heels of the company’s announcement several months ago that it would transition both its toys and packaging to 100 percent recycled, recyclable or bio-based plastic by 2030.

The toy giant also says it surpassed a 2018 goal of transitioning to 90 percent recycled material for its paper and wood packaging. At last check, Mattel’s packaging currently consists of 93 percent recycled paper or wood fiber.

Sustainable plastic is a challenge for the likes of Mattel and Lego

Mattel’s foray into bio-based plastics is welcome news. We will certainly need to find a way to manage the proliferation of single-use plastics as retailers ditch their reusable bag policies and consumers load up on bottled water during this crisis. And as the growth of medical waste surges, we also must confront the possibility that our waste streams could be disrupted over the next several months.

Just because we face a surge in plastic waste, however, doesn’t mean that we can expect supply chains to turn on a dime. Lego is one company that has faced its share of challenges while it soldiers on toward a 2030 goal to use 100 percent recycled materials in its iconic building bricks. The company said it took about two years to find a way to make those green bushes and trees in some of its building sets out of a more sustainable polyethylene.

But Lego, and its customers, expect those bricks to maintain their long-term durability and vivid colors — and they’ve got to remain stuck together, too. No one wants to buy a $100 Burj Khalifa set and have it risk crumbling or see the colors fade. “The company makes more than 3,700 individual elements,” explained Wired’s Brian Barnett in 2018. "It uses 20 different kinds of plastic to make those bricks, tires and adorable [mini figurine] helmets. And as many as 80 percent of Lego pieces consist of acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, or ABS, a petroleum-based substance that polyethylene can't hope to replace."

And while some environmentalists have been quick to point their fingers at toy companies for their contributions to plastic waste, let’s not forget the social benefit of a set Fisher-Price building blocks or a box of Legos — there are certainly far worse toys out on the market from a manufacturing or child development perspective.

Thinking out of the box — literally

Educational Insights, which dates back to 1962, is also rethinking how its toys are packaged. Its Design & Drill toy line includes an age-appropriate truck for which the packaging becomes part of the assembly process — in turn, helping to reduce waste. The toy’s design also offers another way in which the company can further its educational mission.

“Toys typically have been the opposite of sustainable — inexpensive, breakable, tossed aside when fads change, and most of the time made entirely of petroleum-based plastic,” Forbes’ Joan Verdon observed earlier this year. She’s right, but as is the case with the fashion sector, another industry critics view as wasteful, toy companies big and small see the writing on the wall (or toys on the floor): They are hearing from their customers, and they are shifting how they do business.

Image credit: Mattel

Fast fashion has received significant press coverage during the coronavirus pandemic, but not for the reasons that manufacturers and retailers within the fashion industry would prefer.

“Fast Fashion Is Being Left In The Slow Lane: Why The Days of Cheap Clothing Might Be Over Forever,” declared a recent Forbes headline.

“‘It’s Collapsing Violently’: Coronavirus Is Creating a Fast Fashion Nightmare,” warned another headline, this one in GQ.

Situations like the current crisis in Bangladesh, the world’s second largest ready-made fashion exporter, increasingly demonstrate the human, environmental and economic downsides of the current fast fashion market.

Garment factories across Bangladesh have reported more than $3 billion in cancelled and postponed orders due to decreased demand stemming from COVID-19. Ready made goods make up more than 80 percent of Bangladesh’s total exports, so these unpaid orders could have catastrophic implications for the Bangladeshi economy and population.

What will happen to the more than 2 million workers (and, subsequently, families) affected by the factory closures and unpaid paychecks as Bangladesh’s garment factories close in response to these cancellations? What will be done with the 980 million items of clothing produced but now left without a destination?

Fortunately, new initiatives are signaling progress in sustainable fashion.

As Andrew Busby wrote in the aforementioned Forbes article:

“Prior to the coronavirus pandemic … the direction of travel was beginning to shift away from mass fashion consumerism and brands were having to re-think their business models for 2030 and beyond. That kind of timeline now seems laughable. Most felt that this process would take years, but what the coronavirus has done is to shrink what might have happened in years to just weeks."

Here are three ways the fashion industry can take advantage of this new accelerated timeline to improve sustainability and prevent future supply chain catastrophes like those in Bangladesh.

Know and respect each link within the supply chain  

Companies with strong relationships to suppliers are more likely to keep commitments to them when crises should arise. One way this can be done is through local manufacturing partnerships. Another way is through clear, open lines of communication. Jane Mosbacher Morris, founder and CEO of apparel brand To The Market, told Vogue Business that she has been talking with her suppliers to get a stronger understanding of their needs. She’s hosting an upcoming webinar to provide suppliers within the fashion industry with resources to stay viable in the current business climate.

“There are creative ways to support everyone in the value chain, and it takes effort to figure out what that looks like given your constraints,” Mosbocher Morris said in the article. “My ability as a CEO to support myself and my team is probably stronger than the garment workers’ ability to support herself and her family.”

Embrace circular fashion

The circular economy is having quite the fashionable moment. Retailers ranging from Patagonia to Puma have introduced circular initiatives this year, and the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) has named circular fashion its “2020 Earth Day Focus”. So what does circular economy in fashion mean? It means that organizations must create apparel and production systems “that maximize the value of healthy materials through multiple cycles of use before reprocessing them into new raw materials of equal or greater quality at their very end of life.”

Some analysts say now is an excellent time to work toward circularity in the fashion industry. The production of garments worldwide has paused while many employees are working from home; how consumers view their apparel needs in the long run could change dramatically.

Brands can begin by brainstorming ways to reinvent the overstock clothing currently waiting in warehouses and stockrooms throughout the COVID-19 lockdowns. For example, McKinsey & Company’s State of Fashion 2020 Coronavirus Update suggested organizations breathe new life into current stock through efforts like apparel personalization, improved customer experience, and reorganization of the fashion calendar to accommodate current stock into later seasons. 

Collaboration is key for the future of the fashion industry

The McKinsey & Company report also encouraged fashion companies big and small to work together: “This will also be a time for collaboration within the industry—even among competing organizations. No company will get through the pandemic alone, and fashion players need to share data, strategies, and insights on how to navigate the storm.”  

One way companies can collaborate is through shared manufacturing sites and resources. The tech startup Unmade’s software allows brands like New Balance to “rent” blocks of manufacturing time on a specific machine at a factory according to product demand, rather than reserving a factory run for the entire order at once, often resulting in product surplus. On-demand manufacturing also allows flexibility. Orders scheduled to run in Indonesia, for example, were moved to U.S. facilities when the novel coronavirus first closed factories in Asia.

Virtual industry events are another way for key players in fashion to collaborate while maintaining social distancing. This week’s Fashinnovation 2020 featured more than 80 speakers focusing on how the industry can better respond to the current COVID-19 pandemic while also implementing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Through these efforts and more, the fashion industry can emerge more sustainable than ever following the COVID-19 crisis. As Guardian writer Tamsin Blanchard wrote in a March article: “The cycle of fashion for fashion’s sake has been broken. We must use this time to rethink how this industry can be redesigned with respect for the planet and the health of the people who work in it.”

Image credit: Unsplash

The COVID-19 pandemic will long be a defining event for younger generations - much as the Great Depression, the Kennedy assassination, the moon landings and the housing market crash of 2008 affected society for years. People lament missed graduation ceremonies (mostly those who remember their own fondly) but there are other lessons that may be even more compelling. Rather than seeking to turn back the clock a few months, let us do so thoughtfully, carefully and fully implementing the lessons we can take from this unintended and unexpected experience we find ourselves facing.

Environmental stewardship won’t go away after COVID-19

Over the decades, the gradual increase in air pollution has lowered visibility in many of our cities. Even with reductions due to lower-polluting vehicles and the shift away from coal-fired power plants, it is still stunning to see vistas that most of us never remembered before. The swiftness with which the cleaner air has revealed the natural beauty of clearer skies has been remarkable. Will we lament the loss when, inevitably, locales reopen as the threat from the novel coronavirus fades? Or will we seek to ‘hang on’ to what we had forgotten we had lost and seek to maintain the benefit even as the economy comes back online? The bottom line: will we seek to hang on to what we have forgotten we had lost?

Social justice disparities have been magnified

COVID-19 has demonstrated the foresight of those who built the Internet; they demonstrated the importance of building a redundant and resilient system that handled the increased traffic and dependency. It also demonstrated the need to make sure that access to this critical infrastructure reaches to every community and every home. Some counties in North Carolina, for example, made the decision not to reopen schools and offer distance-based learning because a high percentage of their students would have been left behind.

Rather than creating disparities, they chose to offer only review for the balance of the school year. That is not a sustainable solution, as those disparities exist all the time. Now that COVID-19 has made that lesson clear, will we learn? What will we do differently? Or will we simply accept going back to what has been exposed as being unfair?

Similarly, the great economic boom of the last decade has left all too many behind. After missing one or two paychecks, millions of people were desperate for economic relief and assistance, whether through unemployment benefits or checks. Some countries offered a substantial portion of salary, tax relief and payments. Clearly the soaring stock markets and political rhetoric did not match the experience of many people and their families. Now that such a stark reality has been exposed, do we accept going back to the way it was?

Another social aspect from sheltering in place: will some choose to continue to telework and will companies be more receptive, especially if they maintained productivity and costs were reduced? What does this portend to the dual-income-family and issues like child care? What will the long-term impact be on our roads and public transit, if fewer people use them? Will people be inspired to travel themselves, if fearing potential exposure and backlash on social media? The answers will emerge after a long time, only for more questions to arise.

Sound corporate governance still matters

COVID-19 has revealed to many companies that team spirit does not rely on proximity to be created; nor does proximity offer enough of it. Leaders who never, or rarely met with their subordinates may have felt, or been compelled, by these circumstances to communicate and check in more often via conference calls and videoconferencing). Will they go back to their old management style, or move forward?

Finally, the importance of being able to influence without authority has been demonstrated. That is something sustainability professionals have had to do for years – how do you build productive relationships with those whom you need to be on board, when you don’t have the authority to do anything by lacking the opportunities to ask, discuss and persuade?

We have learned that in order to thrive, we must have established relationships so that the first time you reach out to someone, you’re not asking a stranger for a favor. Building credibility by demonstrating a shared purpose as well as an understanding of their goals and situation are lessons that politicians will need to have learned sooner rather than later. After all, reopening “for business” is going to take collaboration, cooperation and coordination. And that starts with mutual respect and trust.

In the words of Thomas Paine; “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” To do otherwise would only compound this ongoing tragedy.

Image credit: Victor He/Unsplash

The 50th Earth Day has eerie similarities to the first one that millions of citizens observed a half century ago. In 1970, the U.S. was divided over the Vietnam War, but growing concern over environmental degradation pushed an estimated 20 million Americans to demonstrate peacefully for reform. A week later, President Richard Nixon escalated the war with the invasion of Cambodia, and protests erupted across college campuses nationwide. Days later, a demonstration at Kent State University in Ohio ended in violence, with the shooting deaths of four unarmed students.

The momentum surrounding Earth Day at first appeared to fall back into the rearview mirror, but all was hardly lost. In the following years, the U.S. Congress passed a dozen major environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.

Now, we face similarly dark days, and again we're confronting a tipping point. There’s no shortage of evidence suggesting the novel coronavirus pandemic, and future disease outbreaks, have and will continue to have links to climate change. Society in turn faces a host of challenges: the proliferation of single-use plastics, rethinking our approach to food waste, surging deforestation, and the lack of environmental justice within our most vulnerable communities.

Sure, we may feel some optimism from being able to see the mountains for once from our neighborhoods. We’ve also fawned over the photos of marine life returning to the canals of Venice. But the Earth’s climate risk trajectory hasn’t changed, and in any event, the current clean air and sights of wildlife roaming in our neighborhoods have come at the expense of economic collapse and human despair.

At some point, we’ll have to rebuild our economy, but we must find a way to do so while we strike a balance with nature. I’ll give you one reason: Of the top 150 prescription drugs in the U.S., about three-quarters of them are derived from plants. The bottom line is that if we want to stay healthy, the planet must be resilient, too.

"As we inch from a ‘war-time’ response to ‘building back better,’ we need to take on board the environmental signals and what they mean for our future and wellbeing,” wrote Inger Andersen, head of the U.N. Environment Program, “because COVID-19 is by no means a ‘silver lining’ for the environment.”

Here’s the reality: At some point, the curve will finally flatten, and we can take baby steps back toward the way of life we once knew. But we’ll need to work even harder to ensure our planet can sustain life far into the future.

From the Brands Taking Stands newsletter. Be sure to subscribe!

Image credit: Sergio Souza/Unsplash

The 50th anniversary of Earth Day is saturated with ironic twists as the COVID-19 pandemic wreaks its history-making path of havoc across the world. One example is the impact the novel coronavirus has had on efforts to reduce the use of single-use plastic bags. Here in the U.S., concerns over infection may have motivated some jurisdictions to suspend, reverse, or relax hard-won bans on plastic bags. The question is, is this a temporary setback or a new chance at life for the petrochemical industry?

COVID-19 and bans on plastic bags

There are some good indications that the setback is strictly temporary, and simply delays the inevitable.

New York State is a good case in point. The state is an epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S., so it is reasonable to assume that state officials are particularly sensitive to the potential for enabling the virus to continue spreading.

Coincidentally, a newly passed statewide ban on single-use bags went into effect on March 1, just as the virus began to take hold. As reported by Sophia Chang of Gothamist, the ban was supposed to be enforced starting on May 15. However, last week the New York State Supreme Court delayed that starting date until June 15.

If that sounds like good news for single-use plastic bag stakeholders, it’s not. The Supreme Court directive was not motivated by concerns that the single-use plastic bag ban would enable COVID-19 to spread. It was simply because the courts in New York are closed in order to adhere to the state's social distancing guidelines.

As the Albany Times Union reported, the Supreme Court directive grew out of a lawsuit brought against New York by a plastic bag manufacturer.

“Because the courts have all but closed down due to the coronavirus pandemic, both sides in the suit agreed to hold off enforcing the ban until June,” the Times Union explained.

Similarly, the COVID-19 outbreak has had an impact on some recycling programs, as government offices and facilities have closed for all but essential functions. In other words, the mere fact that some jurisdictions have rolled back regulations against plastic bags is not evidence of concern that reusable or paper bags involve a greater threat to public health.

Plastic bags: do they protect against the spread of COVID-19?

In fact, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, which is responsible for enforcing the ban, has continued to carry guidance on keeping reusable bags clean and sanitary on its website, as does the New York Department of Health.

The ongoing concern, virus or not, is bacterial cross-contamination between meat and produce. That is not a matter specific to reusable bags, as it could occur if different items are commingled in a single-use plastic bag as well.

On April 10, well into the New York outbreak, the state’s Department of Agriculture also provided detailed guidance for grocery stores on preventing COVID-19 infection. Providing single-use plastic bags to customers did not make the list.

Chang also cites two academic health experts who back up New York’s position on the use of reusable bags during this time.

Similarly, on March 26, Canada’s CBC News interviewed a health expert who noted that reusable bags were not considered a risk factor, and that shoppers should wash hands in order to help contracting or spreading COVID-19 regardless of what bag they use.

The defense of single-use plastic bags

Nevertheless, the plastic industry’s stakeholders and supporters have been quick to portray single-use plastic bags as a preventive measure against COVID-19, compared to reusable bags.

For example, on March 12 the publication City Journal carried an article arguing that reusable bags spread “deadly viral and bacterial diseases” including COVID-19. City Journal, though, is produced by the think tank Manhattan Institute, which bills itself as a “leading free-market think tank” and has received substantial funding over the years from the Koch brothers.

The article was written by City Journal contributing editor John Tierney, whose work for the publication is characterized by criticism of government-sponsored science.

In a 2016 article supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump, for example, Tierney wrote that President Obama’s appointees to the CDC and FDA “used junk science—or no science—to justify misbegotten crusades against dietary salt, trans fats, and electronic cigarettes.”

Turns out, bags not made from plastic may be safer after all

Despite the lack of evidence for any impact on public health, some grocery stores may still prefer to provide single-use plastic bags for their customers, in order to avoid having their employees handle items that shoppers have brought from home.

That is a matter of employee relations, and it is understandable considering how much is yet to be known about how COVID-19 spreads.

Somewhat ironically, though, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on March 17 actually indicates that if anything, plastic bags may involve measurably greater risk than cloth.

The study demonstrated that the novel coronavirus was detectable on a plastic surface for up to 72 hours, a significantly longer period of time than on copper or cardboard surfaces — though in any case, barely any of the original virus remained on any of the surfaces tested.

Nevertheless, in a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar dated March 18 and obtained by Politico, the Plastic Industry Association pushed back, asking the agency to “speak out against bans on [plastic] products as a public safety risk and help stop the rush to ban these products by environmentalists and elected officials that puts consumers and workers at risk.”

Plastics after COVID-19

Despite the reference to risk, the science does not support the Plastic Industry Association’s case.

Just as importantly, the demographics do not support it, either.

The all-important Millennial generation — which spans younger adults who are more likely to survive the COVID-19 virus — is also the largest group currently contributing to the waste stream, and the least likely to recycle according to some studies. However, the Millennial generation is also increasingly focused on environmental stewardship and zero waste as a lifestyle.

If single-use plastic bags are a symbol of the consumer response to the COVID-19 crisis, then it is all the more likely that once the immediate crisis is past, reusable bags will become the symbol of recovery, and a symbol of the movement toward a more healthy and sustainable future.

Image credit: Peter Uetz/Wiki Commons

(Image: An estimated 50,000 people gathered at the University of Michigan on March 11, 1970, for "Give Earth a Chance," the first known event affiliated with Earth Day.) 

Fifty years ago today, activists across the U.S. and around the world staged mass demonstrations, rallies and teach-ins in observance of the first Earth Day, held on April 22, 1970. A year earlier, Denis Hayes was a 25-year-old graduate student at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, but he dropped out after one semester to lead a grassroots movement that would ultimately become the Earth Day Network, the primary organizers of the first Earth Day.  

Although the nation was being torn apart by the Vietnam War and still reeling from the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., evidence of environmental degradation — from the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill to Ohio’s infamous Cuyahoga River fire — had become too significant to ignore, Hayes recalled during a webcast hosted this week by the climate action network We Don't Have Time.

"In the backs of people's minds was the recognition that breathing the air in major American cities was very much like smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. Rivers were catching on fire and species, even our bald eagle and California condor, were going extinct for reasons relating to pesticides as written in 'Silent Spring,'" he told attendees from more than 130 countries on Monday. "We had literally dozens of issues suggesting that as we got richer and richer, our quality of life was getting poorer."

On Earth Day, an estimated one in 10 Americans gathered to "demand changes in the way the country does business," Hayes said — and they got it. Mere months later, the Clean Air Act passed unanimously in the U.S. Senate and with only one dissent in the House of Representatives. It was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on the final day of the year. 

"For the next 10 years, we were almost unstoppable," Hayes remembered. "The Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Superfund Act, the National Forest Protection Act, the Environmental Education Act — it just went on and on for 10 years. We began to restructure the country."

Of course, the United States is a very different place today than it was 50 years ago. We've come a long way in some respects — the air in major cities is cleaner, waterways and forests are legally protected, and biodiversity has returned to corners of the country where it was once feared to be lost forever. 

But in many ways, we've regressed. Advocates have continually tried and failed to put climate action on the national agenda, as the current administration holds firm in its decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement. The march toward corporate personhood, culminating in the 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision, has put unprecedented political power in the hands of corporations. Some have used it for good, but many have not. 

Hayes, now 75, and his colleagues at the Earth Day Network envisioned this year's festivities as a massive call-to-action to once again shift the direction of environmental and climate policy in the U.S. Then, of course, came the novel coronavirus. 

"COVID-19 basically took two years of organizing and turned into a massive belly flop," Hayes said, lamenting the disruption in activism that accompanies the humanitarian tragedy of the pandemic. "Where we wanted to have 750,000 people on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., it would now be illegal to have more than 10 people together."

In an op/ed published in his hometown newspaper, The Seattle Times, Hayes offered a bold suggestion in response: Let’s make Election Day Earth Day.

(Image: A 100,000-person “human traffic jam” on Fifth Avenue in New York City on April 20, 1970.)

Election Day: "The real Earth Day in the U.S."

"A big part of what we were trying to do with Earth Day this year was to catapult climate to be one of those issues that you vote on," Hayes said. "For most Americans, there are a dozen issues out there that you're considering, but there are one or two or three that if the candidates are wrong on that, you simply will not support them. Climate has never been that kind of an issue in a presidential race."

But it can be, Hayes insists — and if it is in 2020, great things are possible. He pointed to massive policy shifts around renewable energy in China as evidence of what political impetus can achieve. 

"When China decided to get into solar energy, it made no solar panels at all. It set on a program, and 10 years later it was making more solar panels than the rest of the world put together. It had driven the cost down from about $30 a watt down to today, at utility scale, about 25 cents a watt," he explained. "You can set these things up, come up with policies to get there and then, if you're genuinely committed, bring about heroic change."

The Earth Day Network will host virtual teach-ins, social media campaigns and voter education drives over the next five months leading up to Election Day on Nov. 3. In his op/ed published earlier this month, Hayes called on everyone to be a part of the solution. 

"If you have never walked precincts for a candidate, volunteer to do it as soon as travel restrictions are lifted. If you have never raised money for an inspirational candidate in a tight race, do it now. If you have never participated in a get-out-the-vote drive, November 3 is the day you should prepare for," he wrote. "On November 3, don’t vote for your pocketbook, or your political tribe, or your cultural biases. This November 3, vote for the Earth." 

Click here to take the Vote Earth pledge and get involved. 

Image credits: University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability/Flickr and Bettmann/CORBIS via Tommy Japan 79/Flickr

In 2009, developed countries agreed to reach $100 billion per year in climate finance by 2020 to help poorer nations reduce emissions and adapt to climate impacts. Tracking progress is notoriously difficult, primarily because world leaders never decided what type of funding counts toward the goal. But some advocacy groups insist existing climate finance committed for developing countries is far below what's needed to ensure their resilience to the threats ahead. 

For example, in a 2019 report, the charitable organization Oxfam estimated that people living in the world’s poorest countries each receive around $3 per year — less than a penny per day — to protect themselves from the impacts of climate change.

Against the backdrop of a human health and economic crisis they call a "warning" for what's to come, financial thinkers and leaders say now is the time to push for change.  

"What world leaders today have shown is that we have the money: World governments have already spent over US$6 trillion just to keep the business-as-usual economy open [during this crisis]," said Ingmar Rentzhog, who sat on the board of more than a half a dozen companies before founding the climate action network We Don't Have Time. "We are at a crossroad in humanity now: Either we spend this money to go back to business as usual, the unsustainable world that doesn't work, or we invest in all of the solutions we have out there. I think it's a really simple choice."

"We have a strategic responsibility to recover better" 

In March of last year, a devastating cyclone hit the coastal city of Beira in central Mozambique. Months' worth of rain fell in a matter of hours, killing 600 people and leaving more than 1.8 million displaced. Mere weeks later, the city was hit again — this time by the most intense tropical cyclone ever known to have made landfall in this region of the country. 

The damage was unprecedented. Catastrophic flooding left more than 2.6 million people in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi in need of aid. It caused US$3.2 billion worth of loss and damage in Mozambique alone, equivalent to 22 percent of the country’s GDP and half of its national budget, according to Oxfam. From a monetary perspective, this is roughly equivalent to 23 Hurricane Katrinas hitting the U.S. at once. 

The United Nations called the cyclones “a wake-up call” for vulnerable countries “to build resistance" against climate change, but they are not isolated incidents. Further north, on the Horn of Africa, prolonged drought left more than 15 million people in need of humanitarian aid in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya last year. In its report, Oxfam detailed these stories as “a terrifying portent of things to come without urgent action from world leaders.” 

Now, as the novel coronavirus creeps across the Southern Hemisphere — and the World Health Organization warns the number of cases in Africa could surpass 10 million in six months — some  of these same nations are again among the most vulnerable. Mozambique, Somalia and Ethiopia all have less than one hospital bed per 1,000 people, compared to around three in the U.S. and eight in Germany, putting the former group's healthcare systems at high risk of becoming overwhelmed, all while continuing to cope with threats from climate change. 

"In the words of U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, 'We have a strategic responsibility now to recover better,'" Nick Robins, professor in practice for sustainable finance at the London School of Economics, said on Monday at a webcast hosted by We Don't Have Time. 

Sounding the alarm for a commitment to climate finance

In his former role as head of the Climate Change Centre of Excellence at HSBC, Robins and his colleagues estimated that green stimulus programs amounted to just over 16 percent of the total public finance boost following the Great Recession of 2008. "Governments now must take a more comprehensive approach so that 100 percent of their COVID recovery plans are aligned with the Paris climate agreement, with a special focus on the needs of the most vulnerable, to deliver a just transition," he insisted. 

But that's a far cry from where we are now. World governments back the fossil fuel industry to the tune of around $5 trillion a year in the form of subsidies and a failure to put a price on carbon, according to the International Monetary Fund. 

"Let's be clear on the scale of the financial mismatch," Robins suggested. "On the one hand, we are making a perverse bet of well over 5 percent of global gross domestic product in supporting fossil fuels and carbon pollution. On the other hand, the investment required to save the climate has been estimated at about 1 percent of gross domestic product. This has never been about an issue of lack of money or finance, but about the rules that govern the allocation of that capital."

Here is where COVID-19 response and recovery plans provide opportunity. "COVID-19 is the world's largest cost-benefit analysis of precaution," said Paul Dickinson, executive chair of CDP. "Sadly, we were warned by health experts to prepare for pandemics, and in most cases governments did not heed the warning, and we see the results today."

"This is just a rehearsal for climate change," he continued. "We have learned that we are vulnerable. We have learned that we can — and sometimes we have to — change the whole economy to protect ourselves. We have to take action now on climate change, because this pandemic is just a warning of what happens when we ignore problems that we know can destroy us."

Governments consider green stimulus as part of COVID-19 recovery: Will climate finance be next? 

Large financial institutions including the World Bank have similarly advocated for climate finance and other forms of green stimulus as part of COVID-19 recovery.

Last week, a French member of the European Parliament followed suit, launching the European Alliance for Green Recovery and calling for climate change to be central in post-COVID-19 plans. The CEOs from 37 major European businesses, as well as heads of state from across the bloc, have since signed on. Both China and South Korea have also noted capital allocation for sustainable infrastructure as part of their recovery plans. 

As of now, these proposals primarily focus on building green infrastructure and lowering greenhouse gas emissions within each country's own borders. Whether capital will make its way to vulnerable countries is another matter entirely. 

For their part, groups ranging from the World Resources Institute, to the Institute for Sustainable Communities, to the United Nations itself have laid out roadmaps for delivering climate finance to developing countries as the world recovers from COVID-19. 

This work is far from over. But as Earth Day enters its 50th year, Robins reminds us that the sustainable finance space has already come a long way — including more than $80 trillion in investor assets and more than $47 trillion in banking assets now committed to integrate environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into decision-making. "We don't have a lack of commitment or a lack of awareness. What we need now is acceleration and deepening of action to deliver the transformation and financial apprentices we need to see," Robins said. 

"Special attention should be given to the needs of developing countries, where the coronavirus impacts are said to be the most severe and the capital for the transition is in shortest supply," he concluded. "In this way, we could meet and exceed the longstanding pledge for $100 billion in annual north-south flows in climate finance, and we could make COP26 in 2021 the place where sustainable recovery plans are shared, upgraded and coordinated."

Image credits: Lucas Marcomini/Unsplash 

New York City startup Crisp launched last fall with an AI-driven demand forecasting platform that helps retailers and their suppliers reduce overstocking and cut down on food waste. Around 30 beta customers in industries such as meat, dairy and produce have already seen promising results from the tool, including fewer short orders and an 80 percent reduction in scrapped inventory, according to the company. 

With its breadth of experience in forecasting, Crisp was well positioned to retool its services to help retailers cope with shifting consumer demands in the wake of COVID-19. 

In late March, the startup launched a modeling tool that allows retailers to look at point-of-sale data from a European grocer to more accurately forecast U.S. purchasing trends. "Europe is a few weeks ahead of us, from the U.S. perspective," which means purchasing data from European retailers is indicative of what's to come for stores in the U.S., said Trevor Hough, VP of product for Crisp. 

As you can see in the graph below, taken from Crisp's DemandWatch tool, purchasing surged in the days immediately following the announcement of Europe's stay-at-home orders. A week later, demand remained 30 to 250 percent higher than usual as people continued to stock up. "Then, for the most part, things went back to normal," Hough explained. "If you're a supplier, you can take a look at this and marry it with … your own data in order to be better prepared for either an influx or a drop in demand."

(Image: This chart shows demand for grocery essentials, such as cleaning supplies, canned goods, rice, pasta and ground meat, before, during and after the announcement of Europe's stay-at-home orders. Click to enlarge.)

Mitigating the 'bullwhip effect' in the wake of COVID-19

Crisp's food waste reduction tool largely centers on a supply chain theory known as the bullwhip effect. First identified by a trio of Stanford professors and published in MIT's Sloan Management Review in 1997, the theory likens inaccurate information passed through the supply chain to the flick of a bullwhip in a person's hand: A small movement at one end creates larger and larger ripples in the other direction. 

When it comes to supply chains like the food system, the theory dictates that a small inaccuracy in consumer demand forecasting — plus or minus 5 percent — can result in companies further back in the chain thinking demand has increased or decreased by up to 40 percent. "A slight ripple on the consumer side — which is in the retailer — can create huge, cascading impacts at other areas in the supply chain," Hough told us. 

Under normal circumstances, the result is food being left in the field to rot or companies carrying overstock that's ultimately scrapped, leading to roughly a third of the global food supply going to waste each year. But in extraordinary times such as these, the effects can be even more damaging. 

"The retailer sees a huge spike and doesn’t know how long it will last, and they start to order thousands of cases of coffee or toilet paper or whatever the case is," Hough explained. "That then hits everyone else, and now all of a sudden all of these people are saying, 'I need thousands and thousands and thousands.'”

As suppliers dramatically over-order or over-produce in response to inaccurate forecasts, many will be left with stock they can't sell as demand returns to normal — leading to a massive financial hit and, particularly in the case of perishable goods, a whole lot of waste. Wasted food becomes particularly heartbreaking amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, as millions find themselves out of work and photos of miles-long food pantry lines go viral on social media. 

Accurate data can push back against the problem and ultimately ensure food ends up where it's needed, Crisp's team says. "Global events like COVID-19 heighten the interconnectivity of our food supply chain," said Are Traasdahl, co-founder and CEO of Crisp. “Having this data available and knowing that U.S. behavior is following European behavior at a two- to four-week time span is critical for U.S. grocers and food manufacturers as they try to predict demand for categories of food and grocery products, restock shelves, and meet the needs of citizens.”

The consumer-to-supplier time lag can be up to four months, Hough explained further. "So, the demand spike we’re seeing won’t actually hit a supplier for 12 to 16 weeks, which is why this is so critical: The more advanced information you can give to a supplier, the more accurately they're able to respond to it."

Crisp's DemandWatch data model, which can be filtered by product category down to the store level, is updated in real time and is free to grocers, retailers, suppliers, brokers, distributors, CPG manufacturers and other organizations along the supply chain. 

Image credits: Adrien Delforge/Unsplash and Crisp

By now you’ve seen the photos on newswires, including the heartbreaking sight of the line of cars outside the San Antonio Food Bank. Across the U.S., similar photos of lines outside food banks from San Jose to Chicago to New York show how the novel coronavirus has taken a devastating toll — a much higher one than the aftermath of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis and, earlier in that decade, the 9/11 tragedy.

For those of us who endured spells of unemployment after those crises and remember the friends and relatives asking us why we didn’t just "go out and get any job,” these photos taken at food banks sear into our consciousness the devastating impact the COVID-19 crisis is having on millions of families. Businesses have shuttered, and while some retailers including Walmart are on a hiring spree, paychecks have stopped coming for millions of people while the stimulus money can’t arrive fast enough, if private lenders don’t get their hands on it first.

Adding to this perfect, or should we say, horrific storm: As this study from ReFED sums up, the food supply chain in the U.S. couldn’t recalibrate in time. The spread of COVID-19 left no room to adjust as consumers emptied store shelves, forced businesses to close, and left many farmers who rely on foodservice distribution companies in the lurch. Food products such as fresh produce, dairy and meat that were meant for a large restaurant chain just can’t be suddenly repackaged on a dime and diverted to grocery stores. Remember, it’s called the food supply chain, not a food sling shot, for a reason. One kink in the chain, and the whole movement of goods can go awry.

And therein lies why many are confronting the threat of hunger, a shift that probably could have occurred over a few months couldn’t move fast enough in a few weeks, and now food banks find themselves inundated by families who only a month ago were able to get by. Sure, the commitment to food banks that Jeff Bezos made earlier this month certainly helps, yet demands on food banks will surge as spring turns into summer.

In the midst of this crisis, we have seen many companies step up. Here are a few:

Danone North America: This was one of the first companies to cut a check to food banks as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the U.S. Last month, the dairy and plant-based foods company said it would donate $1.5 million, including $300,000 worth of food products, to food banks across 12 U.S. states.

Dole: The brand most associated with pineapple has been involved with several local hunger relief efforts. According to an emailed statement to TriplePundit, Dole has supported World Central Kitchen’s efforts in California, teamed up with Lyft to help deliver meals in Chicago and Seattle, and delivered treats such as smoothies and fruit cups to frontline healthcare workers at approximately 650 hospitals nationwide.

International Paper: You don’t have to be a food company or retailer to support the fight against hunger. This Memphis-based pulp and paper company recently donated thousands of boxes to food banks in southern California.

MetLife: Through its foundation, MetLife announced last month it would donate $1 million to food banks in cities where it has a “significant presence.”

Starbucks: The coffee giant is one example of a retailer that had to move fast and on the fly as it was forced to shift from becoming that “third place” other than home or office to hang out, and instead has become a drive-thru operation. The company said it has lent some of its trucking and logistics capacity to assist with local food banks. In addition, it has donated $1 million to Feeding America to support its COVID-19 response fund. And all that milk? Starbucks said at least 62,000 gallons of it, along with 700,000 meals, found their way to food banks across U.S. and Canadian communities.

Subaru of America: The automaker says it is working with two of its distributors, in partnership with the nonprofit Feeding America, to provide 50 million meals across the U.S. Subaru also said it would work with its 600-plus dealerships across the country to support local food banks with donations, food drives and volunteering campaigns.

Unilever: Another first-mover during this crisis, the CPG giant’s North America division announced a donation of over $8 million in products to food banks across the U.S. And as reported in USA Today, Unilever’s 14 U.S. factories will launch a “national day of service” on May 21, during which the company will manufacture and then deliver as much as $12 million worth of products.

To put all of these efforts in context, Maryland’s state government had to scramble fast to funnel $8 million into local food banks, as Gov. Larry Hogan explained during a recent interview with CNN.

The bottom line: Not only do food banks need more contributions like those we mentioned above, but food companies need to rethink their supply chains, and do so fast, to weed out inefficiencies, slash waste and help get available food to the people who need it most.

Image credit: Pixabay

Despite the ravages of COVID-19, the hydrogen economy continues to take shape. The latest development involves an interesting twist as it positions renewable hydrogen as a key pathway for weaning the global economy off of natural gas, in addition to coal. In other words, green hydrogen is pushing the global decarbonization envelope past the coal-to-gas transition, indicating that fossil-based natural gas is quickly losing its reputation as a “cleaner” alternative.

A plan for competitive renewable hydrogen

Hydrogen is a zero-emission fuel, but the primary source of hydrogen today is fossil-based natural gas. On the plus side, renewable hydrogen can be produced by electrolysis, which involves splitting water with an electrical current. To complete the green circle, the current can be sourced from renewable energy.

Until recent years, the hydrogen economy dream seemed far off in the future. Electrolysis is not a new technology, but scaling it up economically is a challenge. Furthermore, in past years wind and solar costs were prohibitively high.

Building new infrastructure for renewable hydrogen is another key challenge, and that is where the new twist comes in.

Conceived by Siemens’s Power and Gas division and the global energy company Uniper, the new plan aims to leverage both coal and natural gas infrastructure to help make renewable hydrogen competitive in the energy market, leading to a full-on commitment to the hydrogen economy.

“Power-to-X” and renewable hydrogen

“Our future lies in hydrogen,” is the way Jochen Eickholt, a member of Siemens‘ Energy executive board, summed it up in a press release announcing the new green hydrogen partnership between the two companies.

That statement is especially significant considering that both companies have been heavily invested in both the coal and natural gas areas.

Nevertheless, both have been making progress on decarbonization, and the new partnership will help accelerate their progress.

Called Power-to-X, the concept pivots on “sector coupling,” the idea that renewable hydrogen can enable a holistic approach to major economic sectors that were previously treated separately, including power generation, industry, and transportation.

“Sector coupling acts as a link between renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, biomass, waste, etc. and consumers such as industry, households, or use in other sectors,” Siemens explains.

As an energy carrier and storage medium, renewable hydrogen can act as the glue holding these various energy consumers together (as shown in the image above, courtesy Siemens).

Siemens makes it clear that the Power-to-X concept alone will not lead to 100 percent decarbonization. However, it does have the potential to play a significant role in a low-carbon economy.

According to Siemens, even if power demand grows 25 percent in the coming years, sector coupling with renewable hydrogen could halve the consumption of primary fossil energy (“primary” is a reference that avoids double-counting coke coal and other fossil fuel products).

The connection to brownfield sites

The real mystery is how to achieve cost-competitiveness in today’s energy market.

To that end, Siemens and Uniper plan to focus on repurposing existing fossil energy infrastructure, including the “brownfields” left behind when coal units are shuttered.

The plan will help Uniper follow through on its commitment to close its last coal power plants, while also reducing carbon emissions from its fossil gas operations.

Uniper already has a head start on zero emission energy through its hydropower and nuclear power plants in Germany and Sweden. Last year the company also proposed a new green hydrogen consortium in Germany, to build on its earlier initiatives on renewable hydrogen.

With the Siemens partnership, Uniper will investigate its existing fossil gas turbines and storage facilities for the potential to add renewable hydrogen, in addition to moving ahead with its plans for closing coal power plants.

Uniper anticipates that the cross-sector approach will make it possible to produce green hydrogen for the market in the “near future.”

That optimism represents a sea change in attitude compared to just a few years ago, when Toyota’s vision for a hydrogen economy was met with abundant skepticism.

With other leading supporters like Siemens and Uniper on board, it looks like the hydrogen economy doubters have some revising to do.

Image credit: Siemens