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A new line of baby food, which Danone’s Happy Family Organics sources from farms practicing regenerative agriculture, could help boost such efforts across other food companies' supply chains.

How the line stand outs on store shelves could make a difference in whether consumers become more enthusiastic about products that food companies like Happy Family and its parent company, Danone, source from land where farmers adopt regenerative agriculture techniques.

Regenerative agriculture: One method for reducing a farm’s carbon footprint

Each industry has its own challenges with sustainability, and agriculture is no exception. According to the World Economic Forum, the top five global risks facing society all involve the environment, and agriculture is one industry that needs to become far more sustainable.

That’s where regenerative agriculture enters the picture. 

Regenerative agriculture is farmland management that nurtures and improves soil through methods including no-till planting, crop rotation, and integrating plants with roots that can help prevent erosion. Such farming methods go further than feeding today’s consumers and seek to provide for the next generation by protecting the natural resources used in crop production. In sum, regenerative agriculture goes far beyond doing no harm to land — it can actually improve the quality of the land in the long run.

Regenerative agriculture a win for the environment, farmers and consumers 

Although regenerative agriculture can result in the decrease of yields from farm to farm, the value of “quality over quantity” rings true as the practice offers some long-term rewards. In a study involving 20 farms, those using regenerative practices experienced an almost 80 percent increase in profits compared to those that used more traditional farming methods. The enhanced soil health can also result in higher-quality produce, which in turn grocers can sell at a higher price.

A shift to regenerative agriculture can also result in removing carbon from the atmosphere and channeling it back into the soil, producing healthier crops while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Additional methods, such as the planting of cover crops, reduces unhealthy runoff from reaching water sources. The rebuilt soil is also more efficient at holding water and requires less irrigation than traditional cropland.

These benefits go far beyond impacts on farming practices or the environment. To that end, the moves Happy Family is taking to include regenerative agriculture within its supply chain offers an opportunity to bolster its reputation with farmers, as well as with consumers determined to buy products with a positive environmental and social impact.

Happy Family’s new line of baby food includes three flavors of purees, with the potential for more coming soon, the company says. Last year, Happy Family said it sourced 300,000 pounds of produce from farms that incorporated regenerative agriculture; this year, it plans to source over 2 million pounds of such fruits and vegetables.

The challenge: Educating consumers about regenerative agriculture

The presentation of Happy Family’s new line could help influence the decisions consumers make when they purchase baby food and other food products. The packaging prominently displays the slogan Farmed for Our Future, and the colorful labels include a “regenerative and organic” logo and more information about the farming practices. Other companies, such as organic food company Annie’s, have used a similar packaging technique to inform consumers about the long-term benefits of regenerative agriculture.

To date, Happy Family claims it has sourced more than 150 million pounds of organic fruits and vegetables that do not contain any pesticides, antibiotics, synthetic fertilizers or growth hormones. The brand says it has also increased its recycling efforts, as its packaging is not recyclable in all municipal waste collection systems. On that point, the company has pledged to make 100 percent of its packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025.

Image credit: Happy Family Organics/PR Newswire

Bossy. Aggressive. Pushy. Cold. These are just some of the terms used to describe women in the workplace, according to Catalyst, a global nonprofit that works with CEOs to build gender equality. To mark International Women's Day (March 8) and Women's History Month, the 48-year-old organization is reprising its successful #BiasCorrect campaign — which aims to reclaim the power of words to fight unconscious gender bias. 

#BiasCorrect launched around this time last year, featuring images of influential women emblazoned with biased terms used to describe them in the workplace. (Both Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were once labeled "bossy" by their coworkers, in case you were curious.) 

Catalyst and its campaign collaborator, women-led brand strategy firm Burns Group, invited women on social media to share their own experiences with gender-biased language using a photo generator that placed their experiences alongside famous women.

The response was overwhelming. The #BiasCorrect hashtag generated more than 32 million impressions on Twitter, and the 2019 campaign reached more than 188 million people across six continents, according to Catalyst estimates.

Some women recalled being labeled as "calculated" and "shrill," while others were dismissed as "quiet" or "emotional."

The lose-lose dichotomy between too forceful and too timid echoes the reality that is often described by researchers examining women's experiences at work. Catalyst's own surveys document the prevalence of micro-aggressions and gender-biased language in corporate workplaces, particularly for women of color, who say they feel constantly "on guard" and hyper-aware of how they are perceived by coworkers.   

Along with visuals that turned these misconceptions on their head, the 2019 iteration of #BiasCorrect included a plugin for the instant-messaging platform Slack, which spots bias in word choices and suggests alternative terms. In the 12 months since, nearly 300 organizations have downloaded the plugin.

In 2020, this fight against gender bias enlists men

Following the runaway success of the 2019 campaign, this year's iteration of #BiasCorrect has the potential to be even bigger, thanks to a call-to-action specifically geared toward men. 

"The response to last year's #BiasCorrect campaign confirmed that many people are unaware of the impact of unconscious gender bias in the workplace," Lorraine Hariton, president and CEO of Catalyst, said in a statement. "We knew it was important to continue to educate everyone about how language affects inclusion."  

As women continue to use the #BiasCorrect photo generator to share how their roles, skills and potential are described at work, this year men are invited to do the same. The aim is to illustrate how women and men with similar skillsets are often described very differently, creating barriers that prevent women from advancing in their careers or feeling accepted and appreciated at work. 

The Slack plugin is also available in three additional languages for 2020, French, German and Spanish, and it's available as an open-source code that can be adapted for other messaging platforms.

"We know the problem isn't fixed, and we're engaging men as gender partners in our 2020 #BiasCorrect campaign to interrupt bias and help women advance," Hariton said. People are already responding, and Catalyst started to circulate side-by-side comparisons on social media over the weekend. 

On the surface, it may seem as if women are the only ones negatively impacted by gender bias in the workplace, but research indicates that's simply not the case. "It's an unfortunate truth that gender bias is universal," said Joanne McKinney, CEO of Burns Group. 

Studies show men are often penalized for straying away from masculine gender norms at work. When male leaders ask questions, for example, they're more likely to be perceived as incompetent compared to their female counterparts. When they advocate for their teams, they're more likely to be perceived as weak. One study even shows that men who are nice to their coworkers earn almost 20 percent less on average. What in the patriarchal hell.   

But, if the initial response to the #BiasCorrect campaign is any indication, men are all too willing to join the conversation — and to start asking more questions about why we tend to be so rigid about who and how our coworkers should be. And that's good news for all of us.

Visit the #BiasCorrect website to learn more and to browse bias-busting resources for both men and women. 

Image credits: Christina @ wocintechchat.com via Unsplash and Catalyst

Coconut Bliss, a family-owned company that makes vegan coconut ice cream from organic, sustainable and fairly-traded ingredients, is empowering women from their farms in the Philippines to start their own coconut-based enterprises.

The Philippines ranks highest in Asia when it comes to gender equality and, until recently, ranked in the top 10 worldwide, according to the most recent World Economic Forum (WEF) Gender Gap Report. The country has closed 78 percent of its overall gender gap and 80 percent of what WEF describes as the economic participation and opportunity gender gap; it is only one of four countries to achieve this feat. The report ranked 153 countries based on four categories: economic participation and opportunity; educational attainment; health and survival; and political empowerment.

In line with this year’s International Women’s Day theme “an equal world is an enabled world”, Coconut Bliss’ work with farmers demonstrates that, in an environment like the Philippines which is conducive to women’s development, a little capital and support can go a long way.

“Since its inception in 2005, Coconut Bliss has supported various causes. However, we wanted to create a program that focused on the regions where our resources come from and addressed both sustainability and climate change,” explains Darcey Howard, global marketing director for Oregon-based Coconut Bliss.

To that end, the women-led company has developed a program with Water, Agroforestry, Nutrition and Development Foundation (WAND) to improve the lives of women farmers and their families by helping them to find alternate means of revenue and capital to start their own business.

“At coconut harvest every three months, the income from coconuts is just enough to support the day-to-day survival of a small farming family. And, due to the fluctuating price of coconuts, along with stiff competition from cheaper high-demand products like palm oil, there is an urgent need to provide such families dependent on coconuts with an alternative means of earning income,” writes Cora Sayre, Coconut Bliss’ representative in the region who helps ensure the success of the program. 

Coconut trees are considered a “miracle tree” with many revenue opportunities like coconut husk fertilizer, charcoal from coconut shell, coco peat, and vinegar from coconut water. The program helps women develop and sell such products.

“Production is one process we support, however we realized that scaling up the marketing of the products produced by the women requires a lot of work, so we support them to ensure the pricing and packaging is on par with competition and that the vendors are engaged to market their products,” Sayre continues. “The women’s associations we are working with are now able to sell their products in 56 outlets across three municipalities, and they hope to expand soon.”

What’s more, the shade from coconut trees allows growth of shade-loving spices, banana, pineapple, cacao, jackfruit and other food crops. “We have supported the gardening activities of 315 women by providing vegetable seedlings, organic fertilizer and training," Sayre explains. "The repayment from the sale of their surplus is used to engage other women to undertake gardening in their own homes."

“We identified a percentage of the purchased volume of coconut products from the regions we are supporting that we could apply to developing a program that is baked in way that we’re giving back to the communities that are helping us make our ice creams,” Howard adds. “The project overall has provided improvement of the social and economic standing of 650 women and their families who are dependent on coconuts for their survival. These efforts also showcase the income possibilities that can be generated from coconut-based farming that may have been previously overlooked or taken for granted.”

Empowering women was a natural fit for Coconut Bliss, Howard continues: "Not only is our company women-led, but we drew inspiration from Project Drawdown. They emphasize that empowerment for women is not only a positive movement for our society, but benefits our planet as well." Similar to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Project Drawdown takes insight from the findings of 300 scientists to conclude that women and girls are pivotal to addressing climate change successfully.

“Sustainability has always been a value for us that is carried throughout Coconut Bliss’ product lifecycle — from sourcing, to manufacturing, to consumption. A substantial sustainable priority of ours is to source high-quality ingredients from partners that are doing good works in their respective regions, such as Lockhead Vanilla that builds fresh water wells in the region of Madagascar where their farms are located. We also work with Mazie Jane’s Almonds who operate bee-friendly organic orchards in California,” Howard says.

“We’d like to expand this program (with WAND) as we grow to include additional regions where we are sourcing ingredients, such as Thailand, Madagascar and even the United States."

Image credit: Coconut Bliss/Facebook

Not unlike other industries, the information technology (IT) field is stil male-dominated, and one doesn’t have look far to see the disparities when looking at the demographic makeup of IT geeks worldwide. Going by the industry statistics, things are beginning to change, but it’s happening slowly.

Women executives within the IT sphere still make up a very small percentage. At global Fortune 500 companies, their representation in recent years has hovered around the 13 percent mark (65 companies) for roles like chief information officer and chief security officer.

Women in IT leadership: much work ahead

“There’s absolutely further to go with regard to women in leadership positions,” particularly in tech, says Danielle Zimmerman, VP of the builder community at Quick Base Inc., a former Intuit division. But she feels the winds beginning to change.

“Traditionally, women have been less likely to be technologists than their male counterparts, but the future of work is challenging the status quo by breaking down hierarchical silos and decentralizing organizational structures,” she continued.

As the head of Quick Base’s builder community — which caters to no-code and low-code platform developers, who tend have less experience — Zimmerman has a unique vantage point from which to assess how things are changing. Today, 46 percent of builders within the Quick Base community are women - “indicating that women encompass nearly the same percentage of no code/low code application developers as those in the workforce,” Zimmerman said.

Further, as the future science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) pipeline diversifies — read: more young women entering these fields and yes, becoming proud IT geeks — the very nature of work itself is also changing, which can serve to open doors further, Zimmerman observed.

“In the future working environment, employees across business units — at every professional level and at companies across every imaginable vertical or sector — can identify as a technologist, which will open up more opportunities for women,” she said. “But we still have work to do regarding promoting more women to leadership positions and breaking the glass ceiling on boards.”

A snapshot of IT geeks: representation lags in the blockchain and crypto scene

“Recent statistics …. showed that women account for 14.5 percent of staff in blockchain companies,” Evelina Lavrova, founder of the marketing agency DeCrypto PR, said at a blockchain event in Zug, Switzerland, last year.

This alone sounds pretty dismal, but it actually gets worse when it comes to representation in technology roles. “Actually about 80 to 90 percent of team members in tech companies are men, because the majority of employees are developers. Other functions in these companies — marketing, PR, human resources, finance specialists and lawyers — one typically finds women in these posts,” Lavrova observed.

Research from Longhash, a women-founded platform for accelerating the development and understanding of blockchain technology, bears this out. And the situation was even more unbalanced when it came to leadership roles in the blockchain industry: Just 7 percent of blockchain executives and 8 percent of advisors are women, according to their research. And 78 of 100 startups the firm examined in the space had not one single female executive.

“If we look at past surveys and research on the global sphere for blockchain, which was undertaken by eToro in early 2018, this indicates that blockchain is experiencing a major gender divide, with 8.5 percent of cryptocurrency users being female,” said Elena Gutsu, a female director of the Digital and Distributed Technology Moldova Association.

According to Google Analytics, 91 percent of people involved with the Bitcoin space are men. Another survey conducted by Quartz found that of 378 crypto startups founded between 2012 and 2018, only 8.5 percent had a woman as a founder or co-founder. 

“This lack of gender diversity is also evident at blockchain-related events I’ve attended,” Gutsu noted. Indeed, The New York Times reported in 2018 that the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami had 84 male speakers but just three women. The latter was upped by two more women to placate an outraged public, from only one originally. 

Surely, the slow progress is disappointing. But multi-stakeholder groups — many headed by women — are beginning to push for change, Lavrova said: “Many organizations, such as the Women in Blockchain Foundation, are now providing support.”

And with the blockchain and crypto space often referred to as the “Wild West,” which Gutsu describes as “a place for strong and brave men,” she has a call to action for young women everywhere: “Girls, be brave, hurry up and step into this very challenging world! Otherwise, the men are going to get all the wealth!”

Image credit: Pixabay

European online food order and delivery service Just Eat is testing a seaweed-lined takeout box in partnership with sustainable packaging startup Notpla. The box is recyclable and, according to Notpla, degrades within four weeks in a home compost pile. 

This sustainable packaging uses seaweed to keep food fresh

The Notpla box is the first of the company’s products include a food liner made of seaweed and plant extracts, which makes the box greaseproof and water-resistant. Most paper takeout boxes contain synthetic chemicals, but Notpla says it sources paperboard that is free any such additives. The paperboard also contains grass in its pulp, which results in fewer lifecycle emissions and reduced water consumption when compared to conventional paperboard.

According to the company, production of the Notpla box prevents 550 pounds (250 kilograms) of carbon emissions and over 790 gallons (3,000 liters) of water per metric ton of carton board when compared to conventionally manufactured carton board.

Just Eat, which started in a Danish basement in 2001 and is now doing business in 12 countries, launched an initial trial of the boxes with three of its restaurant partners in London. The company says the trial alone will prevent about 3,600 plastic boxes from entering the waste stream. And when it's over, Just Eat will assess whether it is feasible to roll out the box to the company’s restaurant partners across the U.K. and other Just Eat markets.

“We’re delighted to bring this new takeaway box to trial and look forward to assessing the results with the aim to roll these boxes out across the U.K. and our other markets so that customers across the globe can enjoy their favorite takeaways more sustainably,” Andrew Kenny, Just Eat U.K. managing director, said in a statement.

“The takeaway food industry creates a mountain of waste and plastic pollution every year, so we welcome Just Eat's efforts in trying to improve the situation,” added Friends of the Earth’s Tony Bosworth.

Condiment sachets made from seaweed could be an alternative to plastic

The takeout box is the second collaboration between Just Eat and Notpla. Last summer, when the startup was going by the name Skipping Rocks Lab, it tested seaweed-based sauce sachets at The Fat Pizza, one of Just Eat's restaurant partners.

Companies can use the sachets to package sauces, salad dressings and condiments for takeaway. They're fully compostable and, according to Notpla, decompose within six weeks.

The six-week trial at The Fat Pizza in Essex assessed how feasible it would be to roll out the sachets more broadly across Just Eat’s restaurant network. A few months later, it launched another trial of the compostable sachets, with Unilever’s Hellmann’s mayonnaise brand among its partners. Just Eat said the trial prevented over 46,000 plastic sachets from entering customer homes and, thereby, municipal waste streams.

Plant-based sustainable packaging can prevent waste ending up in landfills

What makes Just Eat’s partnerships so groundbreaking is that most takeout containers labeled as “compostable” are made from bioplastic. These containers are not recyclable, and they can only break down in industrial-scale anaerobic digesters, not home compost piles. As a result, consumers have almost no options for disposal except the trash bin.

Since consumers have no option to dispose of most takeout containers, is there any reason why they should frequent restaurants and food delivery companies in the first place? Consumers have already made it clear they're looking for more sustainable and responsible food choices. Many are asking for plastic-free packaging to go along with it, and some say they'd like to see unnecessary packaging eliminated entirely. The evidence suggests more companies are responding in kind, but there is plenty of work that still needs to be done.

In the meantime, although bioplastic is more challenging to dispose of, it still carries benefits. Good Start Packaging, which creates compostable containers, offers several, including what it calls upstream benefits. First, compostable containers come from more renewable sources such as corn, sugarcane or paper instead of fossil fuels. As these containers come from plant-based resources, they generally do not contain potentially toxic chemicals used in many traditional plastics, such as styrene and benzene.

The manufacturing of these compostable and plant-based containers also consumes less energy than conventional plastic options. For example, polylactic acid (PLA), the bioplastic that is a base for clear containers and liners for coffee cups, uses 68 percent less energy than conventional plastic.

The downside to conventional compostable food containers and cutlery is that most of it ends up in a landfill and still requires much time to break down. The clear sustainable alternative to those types of containers are reusable options, say advocates like Clean Water Action, which claims “reuse is far superior to recycling.”

Image credit: Notpla/Facebook

Plant-based foods are here to stay, if GrubHub's latest Year in Food report is any indication. Seven of the top 10 orders placed on GrubHub in 2019 were vegetarian-friendly, compared to just three the year before. The Impossible Burger joined the late-night delivery top five list, while pizza with a cauliflower-based crust was ranked the top order of the year. So, what does GrubHub’s report tell us about the plant-based food movement at large? 

The popularity of plant-based foods can be traced to the rise of flexitarians, people who eat mostly vegetarian but occasionally eat meat and other animal products. While the vast majority of Americans don’t identify as vegans or vegetarians — the percentage of vegetarians was the same in 2018 as it was in 2012, according to Gallup polling — most are willing to try plant-based foods and eat less meat.

As of May 2019, 1 in 5 Americans identified as flexitarian. Around 13 percent of Generation Z and 10 percent of Generation X eat flexitarian diets, compared to just 6 percent of baby boomers, according another 2019 report. 

One of the most well-known plant-based protein companies, Impossible Foods, has noted that most of its consumers are flexitarians. More than 90 percent of Impossible Foods consumers eat meat at least once per month, the company estimates in its latest impact report.

Curiosity and taste are behind the shift to plant-based foods

The top motivators for the majority of consumers to eat plant-based foods are curiosity and a perceived improved flavor, according to a recent survey. Approximately 30 percent of respondents said they had heard a lot about plant-based foods and were curious about them, while 41 percent said they liked to try new foods in general.

Burger King’s Impossible Whopper taste-test advertisement demonstrates how flavor is a must for encouraging non-vegetarians to choose a plant-based burger or entree. In the final words of the advertisement, a customer states, “I’m reevaluating my life,” after discovering his favorite Whopper is made from plants. Messaging like this hits home how taste is critical in growing the number of people open to trying a flexitarian diet.

“While the novelty of a plant-based item may drive trial, if it’s not 'craveable,' it will not drive a repeat purchase," observed Food Navigator USA correspondent Mary Ellen Shoup.

Health and environmental concerns turn more consumers away from meat

Concerns over health and environmental challenges also motivate consumers to pursue plant-based options. About 9 in 10 Americans say their health is why they purchase plant-based foods, while 64 percent do so to help reduce global warming, according to one Yale University report. 

Plant-based ethics now extend to plant-based environmentalism. This macro force is leading companies to differentiate based on sustainability promises. Panera Bread, for example, announced its menu will be 50 percent plant-based by December 2020, citing its customers’ growing awareness around their diets and its link to climate change.

And this transformation isn’t just about swapping beef burgers for plant-based ones. For example, Bumble Bee Foods will offer a plant-based fish option in partnership with Good Catch, a company that makes plant-based alternatives to seafood, in order to appeal to people shifting to fish alternatives as they strive to reduce their environmental impact.

“The new decade ushers in consumers eager to benefit their own health and the health of the planet, looking for a diverse range of planet-friendly choices,” wrote Rachel Hommel of New Hope Network. “And luckily, plant-based products finally taste great.”

Image credit: Good Catch Foods/Facebook

Take note, owners and operators of the nation’s 120 million residential, commercial and industrial buildings: It’s time to wake up to the impending climate crisis and to anticipate and manage climate change risk to your buildings, and their inhabitants.

Or else, you’re likely to face destructive consequences – especially if your buildings are in flood plains, exposed coastal settings are seismic zones.

Sure, it’s a common response to practically any perceived risk to delay taking precautions and actions until visible signs emerge. But those climate-related danger signals are becoming more real almost daily.

Consider recent warnings about climate change risk

A new report by U.S. national security, military and intelligence professionals warns that future climate change risk “presents high-to-catastrophic security threat.”

The World Economic Forum global risk perception report this year determined that the climate crisis dominates the top five risks for all stakeholders.

Global investment banker BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink, in his influential annual letter to CEOs, warns that companies that don’t assess and address climate risk will not be part of the investing giant’s portfolio.

McKinsey’s recent climate risk and response report on physical hazards and socioeconomic impacts report is groundbreaking and is a must-read. The consulting firm, known for its greenhouse gas mitigation curve, now assumes that higher global temperatures are being triggered by business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions and, for the first time, urges businesses to focus on climate adaptation.

Stakeholders in the real estate sector must look beyond their buildings

Fortunately, for business owners and operators struggling to wrap their heads around climate change risk, help is at hand: The Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Industrial and Commercial Buildings. The scorecard was developed by real estate investors, developers, architects, engineers, government professionals and community leaders increasingly concerned about the physical impact of climate change on their built assets. It seeks to motivate building owners and operators to take action to increase building resilience.

The scorecard also is intended as an analysis of overall building resilience by looking beyond issues that are in the immediate control of the building. These include transportation, water and energy infrastructure as well as local policy. And, if provides a “resilience agenda” of sorts for when building owners and operations hold discussions with city planners and investors.

The scorecard — developed by ARISE, the Private Sector Alliance for Disaster Resilient Societies that is a global network led by the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction — includes 10 “essentials.” These essentials include measures to plan for resilience, measuring future risk scenarios and effective disaster response plans.

The scorecard can be used as a tool in exploratory workshops with stakeholders including building tenants, community representatives, city planners, emergency managers and representatives of the owner or manager. As Peter Williams, the scorecard’s lead author and formerly of IBM, sees it: “With existing buildings, improving resilience may require retrofitting existing structures and processes but ‘build to last’ should be the objective.”

In sum, here’s the memo for the global real estate sector: this scorecard is an excellent vehicle for the action each of us needs to lead as we do our part to take on climate change risks.

Image credit: Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

Tech giants have been wrestling with the tension between privacy rights and the U.S. Department of Defense’s use of artificial intelligence, particularly in regard to the department's notorious Project Maven imaging initiative. The issue has spilled over into areas of employee relations and brand reputation, too.

The department finally issued a set of ethical principles for AI last month, but it remains to be seen if the new guidelines provide reassurance for tech companies, their employees and their customers.

The Department of Defense and artificial intelligence

DoD released its new ethical guidelines last month, without much notice from the media outside of defense specialty publications.

The quiet reception was a bit surprising, considering the attention revolving around tech giants, AI, DoD and privacy rights over the past two years.

One reason for the media silence could be that ethical principles for AI are, in some ways, the least of DoD’s worries right now. Last year, Rand Corp. issued an absolutely scathing analysis of the current state of artificial intelligence use in the Defense Department and found a series of critical shortcomings.

The authors of the report did not mince words. In a summary, they wrote that DoD’s use of data and AI training was “fragile, artisanal and …optimized for commercial rather than DoD uses.” They also found that validation and testing procedures were “nowhere close to ensuring the performance and safety of AI applications" and that “DoD's posture in AI is significantly challenged across all dimensions.”

Among the items in a long list of deep, systematic faults, the authors noted that the agency’s newly established Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) “lacks visibility and authorities to carry out its present role.”

“It also lacks a five-year strategic road map, and a precise objective allowing it to formulate one,” the authors concluded.

An ethical solution to systematic problems

In this context, the Defense Department’s newly articulated ethical principles simply paper over a much deeper problem.

Nevertheless, they do establish at least a minimal layer of order and predictability that is fairly consistent with corporate social responsibility principles. The new principles also rely on longstanding guideposts including the Constitution, the Law of War and various international treaties.

DoD divides the series of 12 new guidelines among five areas. Three involve the personal responsibility of DoD employees over artificial intelligence systems, in terms of exercising appropriate judgement, minimizing unintended bias, and focusing on accountability and transparency regarding data collection, methods and sources.

A fourth focus area commits DoD to deploy only AI systems with specifically defined functions that are tested and assured throughout their lifecycle. The department also committed to fail-safe systems aimed at preventing machines from running amok.

“The Department will design and engineer AI capabilities to fulfill their intended functions,” the summary states, “While possessing the ability to detect and avoid unintended consequences, and the ability to disengage or deactivate deployed systems that demonstrate unintended behavior.”

Who is steering the AI ship?

That’s a good start, but bare-bones guidelines may not be enough to reassure tech hardware companies like Apple, which need to reassure consumers that their personal devices protect their privacy.

A deeper dive into the issue reveals additional cause for caution. The guidelines were developed through the Defense Innovation Board (DIB) following a series of public meetings and listening sessions last year. 

The 16-member DIB launched during the Barack Obama administration as a means of connecting the Defense Department with academia and entrepreneurs. It is chaired by Eric Schmidt, the former chair of Google and Alphabet whose company (he is currently a technical advisor to Alphabet) has found itself clashing with the Donald Trump administration over human rights issues. Google's vice president for wireless services also represents the company on the board. 

That tension appears to indicate the DIB is politically neutral. However, there is a potential conflict regarding at least one other corporate member, Microsoft.

Last year, Microsoft beat Amazon out for the Defense Department’s massive JEDI cloud computing contract. Amazon does not have a DIB seat, which is not surprising in consideration of the ongoing feud between President Trump and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

Another factor to consider is the newly formed American AI Initiative, which launched last year under an executive order. The new initiative is a “concerted effort to promote and protect national AI technology and innovation,” with action items like "remove barriers to AI innovation" and "train an AI-ready workforce." 

Compared to this enthusiastic, aggressive pursuit of AI, the ethical principles recommended by the Defense Innovation Board seem like pretty weak tea.

In that regard, it is interesting to note that one person instrumental in promoting the American AI Initiative is Michael Kratsios, the Trump administration’s chief technology officer.

Kratsios is among several administration figures with ties to the leading government contractor Palantir, a company that has become notorious for the use of its machine learning and AI technology in enforcing U.S. immigration policy.

The takeaway: Tech companies may be wise not to take ethical assurances from DIB as a green light, and instead carefully consider employee and consumer concerns before moving forward on artificial intelligence contracts with the Department of Defense.

Image credits: Department of Defense

Companies looking for a high-impact path forward on climate action are beginning to coalesce around tree-planting to offset their carbon emissions. That's a good place to start, but a massive number of trees are needed to make a dent in the climate crisis.

Unfortunately, the enormity of the required scale leaves the door open for the law of unintended consequences to kick in. Without careful planning, tree-planting initiatives could expose corporate sponsors to new reputational risks and won't necessarily help them meet their climate goals.

Questions over landmark tree-planting study surface

Tree-planting is a relatively common carbon offset activity, but to date it has been practiced on a modest scale. The idea of scaling up gained traction in July after a research group at Switzerland’s ETH Zürich University published an analysis of the climate mitigation potential for planting billions of trees on an area equivalent in size to the U.S.

On its surface, tree-planting on a massive scale seems like a simple and effective strategy for absorbing excess carbon and making good on climate action goals — and it is, at least on paper.

The study received a widespread and enthusiastic response in the media. However, last fall questions emerged over the amount of land actually available for planting new trees.

One key criticism was the study’s lack of consideration for populated areas, calculating that 2.5 billion people already live in areas considered for reforestation. Those areas include pasture lands, settlements and whole villages, as well as larger population centers.

Red flags over tree-planting in India

Signs of trouble ahead are already in evidence. Last month, for example, Reuters reported that an ambitious tree-planting and wildlife conservation initiative in India has raised social and economic justice issues, due to its impact on indigenous people and villagers living in poverty.

Among the stories tracked by the New Delhi organization Land Conflict Watch is the use of India’s Compensatory Afforestation Fund to locate new tree plantations without considering the needs and livelihood of the current occupants of the land.

The truth: Tree-planting takes effort

Companies looking for a “safe” carbon offset can avoid reputational risk by carefully screening tree projects for their potential to displace people and their livelihoods.

Even if that element is not in play, however, tree-planting is not a simple matter of dropping saplings into the ground.

While the Zürich University study provides food for thought, critics argue it deploys standards that are unsuitable for picking locations where planting new trees is environmentally feasible. 

For example, the study used average temperatures as a benchmark, while failing to take temperature extremes into account. It also failed to consider soil conditions, including erosion and other degradation, that would make it difficult, if not impossible, for a healthy forest to take hold.

Preserving the current stock of forests

Companies that embark on tree-planting initiatives also need to consider their own role in deforestation, or they risk being targeted with the greenwashing label. That includes influencing their supply chains to preserve currently forested areas.

The issue of deforestation was underscored last month when the United Kingdom-based organization Global Canopy released its sixth annual Forest 500 report on companies that wield the greatest influence over the world’s forests. 

The report notes that voluntary action by corporations can be more effective than legislation, especially in countries where government policy is lax. More companies appear to be getting the message. Although 140 of the companies listed in the report have no commitment against deforestation, 86 others are setting a high bar.

The number of commitments is growing. According to the report, 25 companies introduced new commitments for specific commodities last year, including Glencore, Schwarz Group (the owner of the massive German discount grocer Lidl), and Restaurant Brands International (the owner of Burger King and Tim Hortons).

The report especially draws attention to Tyson Foods. The company had no deforestation policy until 2019, when it announced a partnership with Proforest and Global Canopy to undertake a deforestation risk assessment as a precursor to setting policies for its supply chain.

Carbon offsets, climate action and tree-planting

One final note of caution is in order for companies seeking a boost in their reputation from tree-planting: Foremost is the need for follow-up and third-party verification to ensure that the project is fulfilling expectations.

Last year, for example, the organization ProPublica found that a Brazilian carbon offset project failed when loggers cut down trees after the offsets were sold, one of several problems with forest-related offset projects.

Another factor to consider is whether or not the number of trees planted — whether thousands, millions or billions — is more impressive than the actual impact on the Earth’s carbon load.

Earlier this year, the publication Grist reported that nature-based offsets accounted for a global reduction of 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2018. That sounds fairly impressive, but it pales beside the 37 billion metric tons of industrial carbon dioxide emitted that year.

Notwithstanding the initial hype over tree-planting, managing and preserving the Earth’s forests is a key element in the climate action toolkit. Rather than rushing in willy-nilly and going for the big numbers, though, companies can accomplish more by adopting a holistic approach that takes existing populations, environmental factors and supply chain issues into consideration.

Image credit: Johannes Plenio/Pixabay 

About 10 percent of all attacks on human rights activists that have occurred globally over the past five years took place in Colombia.

True, the ongoing Colombian conflict, well over a half century old, has recently seen violence decrease compared to even a decade ago, one key reason why the country has experienced a surge in tourism in recent years.

Recent events, however, can explain why many human rights activists — sometimes referred to as human rights defenders, or HRDs — in Colombia are vulnerable to violence and even death. The parties implicated in the intimidation, torture, rape and murder of activists will, at a minimum, raise a few eyebrows — and should motivate professionals such as supply chain managers to ensure their companies are not at risk of having ties to human rights violations.

Bottom line: Businesses are turning a blind eye to violence in Colombia

In a new report, the Business and Human Rights Resource Center (BHRRC) highlighted the role businesses play in aggravating attacks on activists across the nation of 50 million people.

“Weak state institutions, armed gangs and illegal economies contribute to making Colombia a dangerous place for human rights defenders,” said Michel Forst, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights defenders. “But what is often missed by this analysis is the role of legitimate business in aggravating attacks on defenders and businesses’ potential to contribute meaningfully to the protection of defenders, including enabling an environment for human rights protection.”

Around 90 percent of attacks that victimized human rights activists in Colombia were tied to only four industries: hydroelectric power, fossil fuels, mining and agriculture. Nearly half of the attacks on these citizens were against those who spoke up specifically against companies such as Ecopetrol, EPM, BG Salinas, Cerrejón Coal and AngloGold Ashanti. The report further highlighted the fact that the majority of HRDs who fell victim to violence were leaders and members of marginalized communities, union leaders, Afro-Colombian citizens and indigenous citizens.

BHRRC’s report serves as a dire warning to businesses in sectors such as coffee, freshly-cut flowers, mining and energy: Doing business in Colombia, or any nation rich in natural resources for that matter, makes it incumbent on corporate executives to do whatever they can to ensure their companies’ supply chains are ethical and have no ties to violence, particularly as investors turn a sharper eye to societal risk factors such as human rights violations.

Companies are failing human rights activists

While the BHRRC made sure to clarify it is not accusing specific companies of sponsoring attacks on human rights activists, it did point out the inadequate measures taken by companies to prevent violence.

As an example, the report highlights violations against the group Ríos Vivos Antioquia Movement, which opposes an embankment dam on the Cauca River under construction by the public utility EPM (Public Companies of Medellín). This project will have an impact on more than 300,000 people in 27 municipalities in the region. Because of its activism, the group was the target of a smear campaign that EPM allegedly funded, culminating in the shooting deaths of two members in September 2018.

Photo: Ríos Vivos activists protest a proposed hydropower project.

In a response, EPM expressed condolences and acknowledged the utility’s responsibilities to respect human rights. The company said it would appoint an investigator to research its role in the deaths of the two Ríos Vivos activists.

However, the BHRRC report insists that both the business community’s and government’s responses to such violence has been insufficient. As the organization’s report points out, corporate action to date has not prevented intimidation and even deaths. As such, the risks for human rights activists across Colombia, especially in rural areas, are still far too high.

The pressure will continue

As investment in natural resource-rich Colombia continues, the BHRRC believes human rights activists will still be highly vulnerable to violence, especially in rural areas.

Unless Colombia’s private and public sectors finally take decisive action, more violence will continue in industries such as oil and gas and mining, the BHRRC predicts. But sustainable power projects are also threatening the safety of citizens as well. At least 140 hydroelectric plants — which often receive foreign investment and have, in turn, witnessed risks of human rights violations — are currently in operation, under construction, or planned across Colombia.

Further, as food and personal care companies seek new sources of palm oil, that industry will continue to see growth as well. Colombia is already the largest palm oil producer in Latin America, and some of the lingering effects have been abuses of workers' rights, advocates say.

All of these developments could continue under Colombia’s president Ivan Duque, who was elected on a platform of encouraging private foreign and international investment. But Duque’s approval rating has dropped to a record low due to many factors including ongoing student protests and many citizens’ beliefs that corruption and economic inequality are stubborn barriers to a better quality of life. The results lead to a country on edge: Although Colombia has seen a decrease in armed conflict in recent years, incidents of violence continue today, and paramilitary groups on both the right- and left-wing continue to threaten the country’s stability. Forst of the U.N., who earlier this week said he has been refused permission to enter Colombia, has implicated politicians for having pivotal roles in the country’s recent spate of violence.

Companies and government both shoulder the blame

Clearly, the private sector can do more to ensure their operations and supply chains in Colombia become more ethical and responsible. “Companies have an internationally-recognized duty of care to identify and monitor risks and attacks on those who highlight risks and harms in their operations,” said Phil Bloomer, executive director of the BHRRC.

At the same time, companies aren’t alone in failing on human rights in Colombia. Bloomer made sure to spread the blame equally, pointing out that the government’s policies — which emphasize investment rather than meaningful action to ensure human rights and environmental protection — are, in effect, condoning attacks on activists.

Forst summed up the urgency of taking on the cause for human rights in Colombia: “Given the new evidence in this report, it would be remiss not to remind the [Colombian] government to give special attention to the role of business in its efforts to stop killings and attacks against human rights defenders.”

Image credits: Ríos Vivos Colombia/Facebook