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Horizon Organic, the largest supplier of organic milk in North America, is pushing the envelope for the dairy industry with its goal to become carbon positive in just five years.

Achieving carbon neutrality, and then carbon positivity, by 2025 will require a transformation of the company’s entire value chain. “For dairy, this is no small feat,” said Deanna Bratter, senior director of public benefit and sustainable development for Danone North America, Horizon’s parent company.

The company’s first carbon-neutral product will launch by the end of 2021: a half-gallon carton of Growing Years, a whole milk the company formulated with key nutrients for young children. Past 2021, Horizon will continue certifying products in partnership with its family farms and The Carbon Trust.

Bratter emphasizes that working toward carbon neutrality and beyond is transformational for dairy, even for a brand that has prioritized sustainability, health and animal welfare since its inception in 1991. Achieving holistic carbon positivity involves every step of Horizon’s life cycle — from farm to table. This overhaul is significant, considering the 11 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions produced by the agriculture sector.

A holistic transformation of a dairy company

A large component of going carbon positive begins with the farm and healthy soil. In support of Horizon’s over 600 farmers around the country, the company is allocating $15 million toward grants and low- to no-cost loans to support farmers in their journey toward greater sustainability.

“I’ve been a Horizon Organic farmer for more than 20 years, seeing firsthand how organic farming can make a difference in healthy soil, happy cows and great milk,” Ed Zimba, a Horizon Organic farmer partner at Zimba Dairy, said in a press statement.

Outside of these financial investments, the company is instituting on-farm standards and practices, including energy solutions, soil regeneration, and improvements toward cow diet and health. The effects of these initiatives will not simply be approximated. The environmental consulting firm EcoPractices is helping farms conduct analyses and track progress. Currently, EcoPractices is in year two of five of its soil health studies across Horizon’s farms. Thus far, it has assessed 11,000 acres across seven dairies in five states.

Carbon reduction efforts won’t stop at production. Horizon plans to achieve 100 percent renewable energy at its manufacturing plants, optimize shipping, and use entirely recyclable, compostable or reusable packaging. Part of this goal will already be complete by 2020 when all beverage cartons will be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

In addition to these business-wide improvements, Horizon plans to co-create sustainable agriculture programs that offset additional carbon. These programs could initially look like prairie and forest restoration, but offsets could change depending on what actions make the most meaningful impacts.

How does going carbon positive benefit the dairy business?

Achieving carbon positivity requires incredible resources. In 2018, Danone committed >$6 million over five years to improving soil health. The company has said it is continuing its long-term investments.

Danone and Horizon see these figures as investments toward company longevity, not only as climate change is concerned, but also with how the brands relate to customers. “We believe that we have an obligation to act and to act fast, and we know that’s going to take investment, but we also know consumers want to buy products that they trust and believe in,” Bratter said.

A 2018 survey by consulting firm McKinsey & Company assessing U.S. dairy consumption preferences found that health and transparency were among the most important factors people considered when choosing what brands to support.

As part of the company’s transparency to consumers, Horizon will make its life-cycle assessment accessible to the public. Bratter said the assessment will be completed in around six weeks, and the results will give a full picture of the company’s carbon footprint and guide further action.

The quest for carbon neutrality, and then going carbon positive, is not the whole picture for Horizon Organic; the company insists it is looking at this transformation holistically. After all, the organic milk supplier is part of the world’s largest B Corp, Danone North America. Part of that certification means that the business aims to push for innovation across its industry so that it can become more socially responsible and sustainable.

“The vision and mission of the B Corp movement is to redefine success in business, and I think this program is a really great example of how Horizon is bringing that to life," Bratter said. "We can keep farming and creating great, delicious, nutritious products for consumers the same way we always have, or we can really step into that leadership phase and redefine success in business.” 

Image credit: Horizon Organic/Facebook

Despite a surplus of communication services, the world can feel like a disconnected place. Innovations like social media make it possible to reach people all over the world, but these platforms often become echo chambers more than anything. A startup company called Shared_Studios is trying to change that.

Shared_Studios creates what it calls "portals," gold-painted shipping containers that house lifesize video screens, which stream live to other portals elsewhere in the world. People in a portal in New York can talk to people in a portal in the Middle East as if they were in the same room, essentially taking video conferences to the next level.

Through these lifesize video portals, people can connect to new cultures and environments, the company says: It's one thing to learn about something and another to experience it firsthand. From their start as a social experiment, these portals are now beginning to see more use in business, particularly among companies looking to increase employee engagement.

How lifesize video evolved from art to industry

Shared_Studios’ portals popped up in late 2014: one in an art space in New York City and another in the Iranian capital of Tehran. After one of the first guests spent two hours talking to a stranger in Iran, the potential of the technology became evident. It wasn't long before crowds including middle-school students and celebrities was lining up to have a turn in the portal.

Using virtual reality (VR) to increase awareness is becoming more of a mainstream practice. Companies have used VR to immerse people in a world after climate change, helping them understand the gravity of the issue. These portals work similarly, offering an immersive experience of a situation somewhere else in the world.

Not long after their initial run in New York, the portals found use in corporate spaces. During its social impact week, Starbucks set up a portal for employees and customers to talk to coffee farmers in Rwanda. Networking and cybersecurity company Juniper Networks also uses one to help drive employee innovation.

Full immersion can lead to more natural conversation

Portals allow people to communicate with others they might never get the chance to talk to otherwise. Businesses have used video conference tools to streamline communication for years, and portals take these technologies one step further. They offer a level of immersion that a webcam on a laptop can't provide.

In a portal, participants see a life-sized image of the other location. They don't talk to a person's head and shoulders. They can see the whole person and his or her surroundings, as if they were face to face. One result is that long-distance conversations now feel more natural.

Photo: Converted cargo containers can now be a means to engage with citizens thousands of mile away with Shared_Studios lifesize video service.

"Portals [provide a] full-body, life-sized view, showing non-verbal cues . . . which are critical to effective communication," said Samantha Hacker, partnerships and business development manager at Shared_Studios. A lot of communication is unspoken. Traditional methods of long-distance video conferencing don't account for these signs like hand gestures and posture, but portals do.

Participants also see each other at eye level and in full size. This feature allows participants "to show attention, interest and respect by maintaining eye contact," Hacker explained. It feels like they're talking to a present person, not a video of one. 

The potential of portals to transform business

The usefulness of lifesize video doesn't begin and end with more engaging conversation. News and social media allow people to hear about a global issue, but the use of this technology enables them to experience it. Global challenges like poverty and sustainability are real issues but may go unnoticed because many people don't directly feel or see their effects.

At last year's Venice Biennale, artists used similar technology to show people the global effects of climate change. By seeing rising water levels firsthand, visitors were able to gain a better understanding of the issue. Portals can bring people into new spaces like these VR exhibits, and even allow them to talk to people living in those areas.

Because they take the form of a shipping container, portals block out the rest of the environment. There are no distractions to remind people that they're not really in Tehran or Kabul. It's as close to a firsthand experience as they can get without being physically present.

This level of immersion means that employees can get a more well-rounded idea of the work they're taking on and how these results can leave a positive impact on the world. "Portals allow companies to amplify employee-led, community-based initiatives through workshops, mentorships and other service opportunities," Hacker told us. They increase engagement not only in employees' work, but also in their communities.

Lifesize video technology can show the need to look for out-of-the-box solutions or help grow empathy for people they don't see every day. By stepping into a portal, citizens can reap the social benefits and advantages when they step into another world.

Image credits: Shared_Studios

Shopping in thrift shops and secondhand clothing stores used to be for the bohemian and, well, the thriftier among us. But the expansion and diversification of the used clothing market is attracting a new clientele, many of them younger shoppers who don't even remember when vintage was cool the last time. 

Generation Z, the demographic born between 1997 and 2018 (ages 7 to 22), has embraced the growing clothing resale movement, which champions buying less and selecting gently used items over new. Almost 1 in 5 Gen Z shoppers hope to buy less fast fashion in 2020, according to a recent survey from the resale app Mercari — and, in general, these consumers are far more focused on the quality, not quantity, of their clothes.

Younger shoppers are fueling the secondhand clothing market

Millennials and Gen Zers are turning to secondhand buying at a rate 250 percent faster than other age groups, Mercari noted in its research. Half of all millennial and Gen Z respondents to Mercari's survey said they would rather own fewer, high-end designer brand items than more inexpensive, mass-produced clothing. 

“Watching your wallet as a teen and 20-something is nothing new, but Generation Z is lucky enough to have been born into a secondhand fashion tech revolution,” said Anna De Souza, Mercari’s chief stylist and organizing expert.  “Pre-loved garments are having their day in the spotlight, thanks to not only services allowing for the renting and trading of dresses, shoes, handbags and more, but the cultural shift is moving away from associating used garments with dusty, run-down thrift stores.”

Over the past three years, the resale segment has grown 21 times faster than the traditional retail apparel market, and the secondhand market is expected to reach $51 billion in five years, driven by resale sector growth, according to a 2019 report from online consignment seller ThredUp. 

An emphasis on quality, not quantity

“It’s become so much easier to shop for secondhand wears,” De Souza said. “Gen Z is going online, of course." And they're aren't just looking for discounted luxury items or designer shoes and bags. "We’re seeing interest in everyday-wears, like yoga pants, trousers, cashmere sweaters, zip-ups and more," she said. 

The way she sees it, the booming clothing resale movement is just the latest extension of the sharing economy that brought us apps like Turo and Airbnb. "The ‘shareability’ culture initially relegated to cars and vacation homes is certainly extending into fashion," she said. "Gen Z is enjoying a carefree, transient relationship with clothing, knowing they can resell garments easily online without as big a cost to their wallet or the environment.”

Other results from the Mercari survey showed that 60 percent of Gen Z women and 55 percent of millennial men agreed with the statement, “I'd rather own fewer high-end, designer brand clothes or accessories than more, inexpensive trendy items.” In addition, 18 percent of adults aged 18 to 21 said buying less “fast fashion” is a resolution for 2020. Finally, 28 percent of millennials and 31 percent of Gen Z indicated that “having a smaller footprint on the environment” is a resolution for this coming year.

More retailers are moving into the ‘pre-owned’ clothing market

Even name-brand retailers have jumped into the pre-owned apparel market. In January, Nordstrom announced its See You Tomorrow line of previously-owned clothing, available through the store’s New York City outlet and online. Nordstrom says it is working with a third party to verify all designer pieces. The See You Tomorrow brand offers women’s, men’s and children’s’ clothes and accessories, as well as some watch and jewelry selections. Other retailers already established in the pre-owned market include REI, Patagonia, Taylor Stitch and The North Face.

In addition, clothing rental services continue to gain traction. Companies such as Rent the Runway and Haverdash allow customers to pay a monthly subscription and rent a certain number of clothing and accessories at a time. “[They] offer high-quality, fashionable interfaces that make shopping not only affordable and eco-conscious, but a fun and luxurious experience as well,” De Souza said.  

The secondhand clothing market could not be growing at a better time. Producing and discarding clothing continues to have a huge impact on the environment, even more so in recent decades because of the shorter “life” of most apparel. In the past 15 years, the average number of times a piece of clothing is worn before being tossed has dropped by 36 percent, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation found in a 2017 report. At the same time, textile waste has grown by 811 percent since 1960.

“A whopping 84 percent of our clothing ends up in landfills and incinerators,” De Souza added. “There’s such a big misconception that donated fast-fashion goods have a happy ending: getting purchased cheaply at your local Goodwill store. Garments typically get turned into rags, carpet padding, insulation or, worse yet, are shipped across the globe, further impacting the environment.”

For those looking to dress more sustainably, no matter your age, De Souza recommends a "capsule” wardrobe. “It’s 37 pieces, including shoes and jewelry, that you rotate every season to keep your wardrobe fresh and your closet organized,” she said. “Focus on clothing that washes and wears well, and invest in fabrics and brands that are sustainable. While it can be pricey, begin weaving them into your closet slowly.”

If your budget doesn’t allow for a big wardrobe overhaul, the best thing to do is show garments some love, she added. “Hand-wash when possible, air dry to avoid pilling, and attempt to keep clothing as pristine as possible so that even fast-fashion pieces can look great for the longest time possible.”

Image credit: Clem Onojeghuo/Unsplash

Plastic pollution is an undeniably huge problem, and no industry can dodge the issue. But using plastic waste to make new products offers one solution, and Puma is learning all about it.

Last month, the brand launched a sportswear collection made from recycled plastic, with a social impact twist. Puma developed the collection with the First Mile Coalition, a network of self-employed refuse collectors in Taiwan, Honduras and Haiti, who remove plastic waste from ecosystems and sell it to make a living.  

(Image: A First Mile supply chain worker at a plastic collection center in Taiwan.) 

The journey for Puma as it turned waste to athletic wear

The Puma x First Mile collab diverted more than 40 tons of plastic waste from landfills and oceans. Or, to give an exact number, that's 1,980,286 plastic bottles.

Each piece of clothing in the collection — ranging from jackets and training pants to T-shirts and leggings — contains 95 percent recycled plastic. The line also includes 10 footwear designs, made from 50 percent recycled plastic on average. 

But the social story makes this collection about much more than recycling. First Mile harnesses the work of locals, who collect plastic bottles in their communities and bring them to collection centers. Further down the supply chain, recycling facilities grind these bottles into plastic flakes, which then become pellets and, eventually, fibers for textiles.

“We hope that whoever buys this collection feels good about this purchase, not just in terms of choosing something that uses sustainable material, but knowing that those entrepreneurs in the first mile are being connected to this product, because it’s their material going into it,” Kelsey Halling, head of partnerships for First Mile, said in a statement.

The organization and its partners have diverted more than 1.3 million pounds of plastic waste, or over 30 million bottles, to date.

Its partnership with First Mile also helps Puma meet the objectives within its Forever Better strategy. This overarching sustainability trajectory includes climate goals — namely, to reduce direct and indirect emissions by 35 percent from 2017 levels by 2030. Under Forever Better, Puma also aims to get 90 percent of its cotton, polyester, leather, and paper and cardboard packaging from more sustainable sources by the end of this year. 

More brands now churn plastic waste into new products

Puma isn't the first brand to partner with First Mile to combine recycling with upward social mobility. HP, among its various sustainability programs, has long recycled its used ink and toner cartridges. The Silicon Valley giant started its Planet Partners program nearly 30 years ago so customers could return their used cartridges. HP says it has used 107,000 metric tons of recycled plastic to manufacture more than 4.2 billion ink and toner cartridges through 2018. The company began partnering with First Mile to source recycled plastic bottles from Haiti for use in ink cartridges, desktop monitors and more. 

And more broadly, making new products from old plastic is becoming en vogue in the apparel space. Converse, for example, recently released a circular take on its iconic Chuck Taylors. Branded Converse Renew, the “Second-Life Chucks” are made from cotton canvas waste collected in the company’s factories. The cotton is mixed with polyester and turned into yarn, which becomes the base for the regenerated cotton canvas. The final product contains anywhere from 30 to 40 percent waste cotton, and the outsoles are made from ground recycled rubber.

Timberland launched its Timberland x Thread men’s footwear collection made with Thread’s recycled fabric, Ground to Good, in 2018. The fabric comprises up to 50 percent recycled plastic bottles collected in Haiti and Honduras. In addition, the outsole of the shoes is made with 15 percent recycled rubber.

Every year, consumers and manufacturers create about 300 million tons of plastic waste, which is equivalent to the weight of the entire human population, according to U.N. Environment. Over 8 million tons of plastic waste fill the oceans every year. If plastic waste continues to be produced at this rate the oceans will have more plastic than fish by 2050. More efforts that duplicate the work of brands including Puma, Converse, HP and Timberland can help prevent such a scenario from becoming a reality.

Images courtesy of Puma

Last week, leading global metals and minerals producer Rio Tinto announced a 2050 zero-emissions goal for its operations. Critics quickly found fault with the plan, which is understandable considering the company’s past. But for its part, Rio Tinto says it's looking to the future — and its 2050 goals may put renewed pressure on government leaders who remain reluctant to articulate a forceful national climate policy.

A quick shift out of coal for Rio Tinto

Rio Tinto is an Anglo-Australian multinational. Soon after its founding in 1873, the newly formed company purchased an ancient copper mine in southern Spain and transformed it into the top copper producer globally. The mining giant diversified over the years to cover coal and uranium, as well as other metals and minerals.

Anecdotal evidence suggests Rio Tinto may have seen the climate change writing on the wall before many of its peers. In 2009, it sold one of its major coal holdings — Jacobs Ranch in Wyoming — to U.S. producer Arch Coal. At the time, Jabobs Ranch was the fourth largest coal mine in the U.S.

Whether the motivation was climate risk mitigation or looming competition from low-cost natural gas, Rio Tinto continued selling off its coal assets in the years since.

Arch Coal went bankrupt in 2016. At least 11 other U.S. coal producers filed for bankruptcy in the years after, as demand for coal swung downward. Although Arch Coal emerged from chapter 11 in 2018, its future is far from certain as the pace of climate action accelerates.

Meanwhile, Rio Tinto’s coal-shedding activity provided it with a platform to support the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change. In 2018, the company sold the last of its coal assets and pivoted to a new sustainability plan.

The advantages of diversification

In contrast to fossil fuel producers, Rio Tinto’s history of diversification provides it with ample opportunity to position itself as a key player in the renewable energy transition. And the company is not letting that opportunity slide by.

On its website, Rio Tinto is quick to emphasize that it produces copper and iron ore for steelmaking, two materials essential for making wind turbines, solar arrays and electric vehicle batteries, among other clean technologies.

The company’s aluminum operations also provide it with avenues into fuel efficiency and other clean tech areas, as the lightweight metal makes its way into auto manufacturing and other major commodities.

A plan for climate action

Rio Tinto described four climate action areas under its newly announced 2050 zero-emissions plan. Continuing to produce raw materials for the low-carbon economy of the future tops the list, specifically aluminum, copper and high-grade iron ore.

That’s not particularly challenging since Rio Tinto already has a head start. However, it certainly helps from a marketing angle, and the emphasis on the low-carbon economy may provide Rio Tinto with a pathway for winding down parts of its business that support fossil fuel production and use.

The company also has a head start in its second action area of focus, which involves reducing the carbon footprint of its mining and smelting operations. Thanks largely to hydropower, it already uses 76 percent renewables to power the operations it manages, particularly in regards to the energy the company requires for aluminum smelting.

Rio Tinto is also a member of the ELYSIS partnership, which launched in 2018 to develop new technology for zero-emission aluminum smelting. And last month, the company also announced its first major solar investment, a massive $98 million solar-plus-storage project for the new Koodaideri iron ore mine in Western Australia.

Though critics of Rio Tinto's sustainability plan have pointed out that it falls short in the area of value chain decarbonization, a third part of the action plan — cleaning up the carbon footprint of the steel industry — does take a step in that direction. Work in that area began last year in partnership with China Baowu Steel Group and Tsinghua University.

Putting pressure on governments to act

The company's fourth and final focus area involves planning for resiliency and climate impacts. That’s interesting from a climate advocacy perspective, because it provides the company with leverage to lobby for change as its facilities — and its jobs — are threatened by rising seas, extreme weather and other impacts.

The new plan also appears to put Rio Tinto’s industry partners on notice that the company will disengage itself from relationships that are inconsistent with its position on the Paris agreement:

“On the complex issue of climate change, we believe that significant progress towards a solution will only occur where there is broad engagement," the company's new climate plan reads. "We advocate for policy consistent with our public climate change position and the principles contained within it.”

To motivate executives to meet a near-term 2030 emissions goal, the plan also deploys a strategy that links executive pay to progress, similar to that announced by Royal Dutch Shell in 2018.

If the intent is to encourage executives to consider their own pocketbooks and lobby more aggressively against coal stakeholders and for climate action, the strategy may already be taking hold.

In October, Ben Butler of The Guardian reported that Rio Tinto has been threatening to shut down its three aluminum smelting operations Australia, which depend on electricity from coal instead of renewables. The company has repeatedly insisted that operations are not sustainable at current electricity costs, considering competition from Asian sources, Butler reported. At the time, Australian policymakers did not take the threat seriously.

Butler cited the country’s former resources minister, Matt Canavan, who said: “If we turn our back on coal, you turn out the lights on aluminum, it’s as simple as that.”

Well, that assumption is not so simple. Rio Tinto grabbed the media spotlight when it announced the new $98 million solar-plus-storage project last month, and it almost certainly caught the attention of coal stakeholders in Australia.

When completed in 2021, the 34-megawatt solar array will fill all of the Koodaideri mine’s electricity demand during peak daylight hours. With 12 megawatt-hours in energy storage capability, Rio Tinto expects solar energy to provide for an average 65 percent of the mine’s electricity demand.

That could be just a sample of things to come as the cost of solar power and energy storage continue to head downward.

And regardless of the critics, Rio Tinto’s climate plan may have real teeth in it after all.

Image credit: Mikolaj Felinski/Unsplash

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story mistakenly stated that Rio Tinto uses 67 percent renewables to power the operations it manages. It uses 76 percent renewables. We regret the error. 

In just six years, the Global Salmon Initiative (GSI) says it has helped 40 percent of the world’s farmed salmon market attain Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certification. For comparison, Forest Stewardship Council certification has only achieved 16 percent market penetration within industries relying on forestry in 25 years, while Marine Stewardship Council certification has reached just 12 percent of wild caught fish during its 20 years of existence.

How has the Initiative achieved this unprecedented, rapid growth of ASC certification? Katherine Devine, director of business case development at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), recently issued a case study, The Business Case for Pre-Competitive Collaboration, which details the primary mechanism behind that growth: pre-competitive collaboration.

What is pre-competitive collaboration?

Many companies’ failures to make good on commitments to stakeholders can be attributed to going at it alone, even with the best of intentions. Not only does this present an overwhelming set of tasks, such a scenario is just plain unrealistic. No single company can hope to tackle the simultaneous issues that include plastic pollution, climate change, fish stock depletion and deforestation.

The solution goes beyond having third parties hold these companies accountable. Companies and their partners need to ensure that they can facilitate information sharing that in the end, will foster greater trust among the general public, while also showing the way to positive financial returns.

How the salmon industry succeeded by planning ahead

In 2013, the 17 salmon aquaculture companies who made up almost 70 percent of the world’s production launched GSI – and several years later, their efforts turned out to become a case study of how a pre-competitive collaborative effort can succeed. These companies made a bevy of financial and time commitments, which have resulted in 40 percent of the industry’s ASC certification.

GSI members have pledged that 100 percent of their farms will achieve ASC certification by 2020. Although at press time the industry that the total may only hit 75 percent by the end of this year, the industry’s progress, attributed to the collaborative efforts of the GSI, has been rapid compared with other industries.

How salmon industry stakeholders benefitted from a more proactive strategy

ASC certification has a significant impact on production, such as greater feed efficiency, safer and more efficient disease management, and in the end, a safer supply of seafood.

One challenge the salmon industry had to confront was the amount of energy attributed to the production of fish for human consumption. To that end, farmed fish operations has long been notorious for having a feed conversion rate ranging from 1.5 to one (as in the weight in kilograms of feed necessary to produce one pound of fish), and in some extreme cases, as high as four to one.

With feed companies, GSI members on average found that they were able to reduce the amount of fish meal use by 17 percent. The result was that feed conversion rate has declined to an industry average of 1.2 to one – and in some cases, an efficiency of one to one.

Meanwhile, the medicinal treatment of pests such as sea lice, long a risk for salmon farmers, has fallen by 50 percent among GSI members. That drop is in part due to members sharing information about non-medicinal treatments such as laser treatments, hydrogen peroxide baths – instead, tactics such as releasing wrasse a small fish that eats lice, helped eliminate the need for more toxic treatments. By pooling their knowledge, more salmon farming operations were able to incorporate safer treatments and ultimately, unlock greater efficacy.

The salmon industry’s success with pre-competitive collaboration could extend far beyond the fishing industry. The WWF is correct in assuming that other industries can harness this case study as an example of how various stakeholders can develop strong relationships, work closer together and achieve sustainability goals that will reap benefits including improved brand reputations and profit margins.

Image credit: WWF

In a recent report, Greenpeace found recycling rates to be astonishingly low at all 367 operating material recovery facilities (MRFs) across the United States. Countless items that many consumers assume to be recyclable are either landfilled or shipped far away from the municipalities in which they were first collected.

Just a few of the findings from Greenpeace’s study, which looked at data between October 2019 and January 2020, include the discovery that only 14 percent of facilities accept plastic clamshells (popular takeout containers) and a scant 1 percent are able to process plastic knives, forks, spoons, straws and stirrers. Plastic cups are accepted at 11 percent of facilities, and single-use plastic bags are recycled at a mere 4 percent.

That leads many to wonder: Are our products recyclable in reality, or only in theory? And can recent announcements of new recycling technologies and partnerships make any difference?

Just how much is recycled?

As with any contentious issue, the numbers vary per source.

Joe Pickard, an economist at the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI),  offered the standard argument in a recent report from the industry group: “Recycling is a strong and robust industry that preserves our planet and sustains our natural resources.” ISRI’s latest Recycling Industry Yearbook concluded that the processing of recyclable materials across the U.S. increased to 138 million metric tons in 2018, up from 135 million the year before. 

Further, U.S. scrap exports grew by 7 percent, to 40.4 million metric tons in 2018, contributing to global manufacturers’ consumption of more than 900 million metric tons of scrap metal. That amount, according to ISRI, is approximately 40 percent of the raw material that industries worldwide consume.

Still, the Recycling Partnership's 2020 State of Curbside Recycling Report found that only 32 percent of available materials from single-family homes in the U.S. is recycled. That means Americans send over 20 million tons of recyclable materials to landfill each year.

The Recycling Partnership’s CEO, Keefe Harrison, advocated for not only increasing our curbside pickups, but also incorporating circular design into product development. In a public statement, Harrison said, “This is an important point in time to pivot our society's current make-to-waste approach to a more circular economy – one that focuses on everything from smart chemistry and design, production, all the way through to reuse and recycling.”

Where are these “recyclables” going?

Beyond our own landfills, Greenpeace found a diverse range of destinations for our materials that are marked with the chasing arrows recycling symbol but in reality have few second-life markets.

California leads the U.S. in their export of plastic waste to countries that have notoriously poor waste management practices, sending more than 175 million pounds of waste abroad in 2019. Texas (80 million pounds) and Illinois (77 million pounds) follow closely behind.

U.S. states and territories that exported a significant amount of plastic (10 million kilograms or 22 million pounds) in 2019 included Georgia, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, Ohio, Puerto Rico, Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee. A city representative from Seattle, for example, told Greenpeace that 60 percent of the city’s plastic waste is exported overseas.

Popular destinations for California’s waste that is not landfilled or recycled within the Golden State include Vietnam, Indonesia, Pakistan and India. MRFs in Tucson, Arizona, are still able to sell mass quantities of trash to China, and they also export to Taiwan, Indonesia, and India. Sonoco’s export services for North and South Carolina send materials to “countries all over the world.”

Who’s at fault?

It’s easy to blame consumers, but environmental groups and policymakers have recently shifted focus to manufacturers.

“Retailers and consumer goods companies across the country are frequently putting labels on their products that mislead the public and harm America’s recycling systems,” John Hocevar, oceans campaign director for Greenpeace USA, said in a statement.

As an example, the report shows a photo of a full body shrink sleeve in clear violation of two counts of the Federal Trade Commission's Green Guides, which state that recyclability claims are deceptive if any aspect of the item limits its ability to be recycled, as well as strictly forbidding companies from requesting that consumers remove components to enable recycling.

Greenpeace’s findings align with the intent behind the recent Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act of 2020, which aims to put the onus of plastic recyclability on manufacturers instead of municipalities and consumers.

Image credit: Hans Braxmeier/Pixabay

The race to replace hydrogen vehicle fuel derived from natural gas with renewable hydrogen just became a little more interesting, thanks to Hyundai. The automaker recently announced a fuel cell vehicle project in South Korea powered by fossil hydrogen, but it is also collaborating with various organizations on projects that deploy renewable hydrogen in the U.S. and Switzerland.

The race to renewable hydrogen

For companies looking to decarbonize their fleets, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles offer an alternative to battery EVs. They have zero tailpipe emissions, except water.

Fuel cell vehicles also have the advantage of fueling up in minutes like a conventional vehicle. And overall, they have a longer range than battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs).

The problem is that most hydrogen today is sourced from natural gas. Companies that seek next-level, supply chain decarbonization need to focus on opportunities in the emerging field of renewable hydrogen.

Hyundai hedges hydrogen bets

Hyundai is one auto manufacturer pushing the shift to renewable hydrogen, though it is still involved in the fossil fuel-based hydrogen field.

Last week, Hyundai announced that it will deliver a total of 12 fuel cell trucks to South Korea’s Gwangyang Port in South Jeolla Province. Unfortunately for green hydrogen advocates, apparently the idea is to fuel the trucks with hydrogen from petrochemical facilities at the port.

On the renewable side, Hyundai is already engaged in a long-running collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy for fuel cell vehicles, and earlier this year it loaned five of its splashy new Nexo fuel cell sedans to the DOE for use in the greater Washington, D.C. region. The cars will be used for a technology validation study that includes fueling up with renewable hydrogen.

The DOE plans to send its Nexos to different parts of the U.S. for study. That is a significant development, because currently hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are mainly confined to California, where a hydrogen fuel station network is gradually taking shape.

The chicken-and-egg challenge for renewable hydrogen

Outside of California, companies seeking either fossil or renewable hydrogen are faced with the same problem that bedeviled battery EVs in the early years: Why invest in zero-emission vehicles when there is no convenient fuel station?

The DOE does not plan to leave its new Nexo fleet stranded without fuel. At least some of the cars will have access to compact renewable hydrogen fuel stations, regardless of where they are sent.

The Nexo collaboration involves the so-called “SimpleFuel" fuel stations developed by the U.S. company IVYS Energy Solutions, with support from the DOE. SimpleFuel units are far less expensive than building new fueling station infrastructure: They are modular, shippable, and can fit into a space the size of a parking spot. 

They are also designed to produce renewable hydrogen on site: The SimpleFuel system “splits” hydrogen from water. Ideally, renewable sources of power will provide the electricity needed to run the system.

Switzerland scales up fuel cell trucks

The South Korea project may be a step backward for decarbonization, but it is dwarfed by another Hyundai project in Switzerland that involves the launch of 1,600 fuel cell trucks.

The trucks will fuel up under an arrangement with the renewable hydrogen consortium Hydrospider. As with SimpleFuel, Hydrospider is zeroing in on water-splitting to produce renewable hydrogen.

Hydrospider’s plans also involve deploying renewable energy to run its water-splitting operation. Among the consortium members is Alpiq, a leading Swiss energy producer focusing on hydropower. The fuel cell company H2 Energy and the industrial gas and engineering firm Linde AG round out the membership.

Keeping an eye on the renewable hydrogen market

The jury is still out on whether or not vehicles running on fuel cells can compete with either (or both) conventional vehicles and battery-powered EVs.

Analysts are all over the map. Some see a cost-competitive future looming just over the horizon, in about five years or so. Others see renewable hydrogen edging into the market for stationary energy storage in the near future, while struggling to get a foothold in mobile applications.

Time will tell. In the meantime, three states in the far reaches of the U.S. northeast — Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont — are already putting out feelers for stationary energy storage systems that can work with renewable hydrogen.

The aim is to use hydrogen as a storage medium for wind and solar energy, allowing more renewables into the grid. Alleviating transmission bottlenecks is another goal of the projects.

The energy storage angle provides renewable energy producers with new opportunities to monetize their facilities during periods of low demand.

If that trend takes hold, economies of scale could help bring the cost of renewable hydrogen down, making the prospects for a competitive fuel cell vehicle market look a little brighter.

Image credit: Hyundai USA

The future of sustainability within the fashion industry is not looking good at the rate it is going, and one of the culprits is an ever-widening gap between disposable fast fashion and durable, sustainable clothing. Can apparel companies bridge the gap? One designer believes so, and hopes a new fabric dubbed "vegan wool" can help.

Developed by South Indian fabric purveyor Faborg, the wool-like fabric is made partly from desert plants that can grow with virtually no water. The material is making its debut in children's brand Infantium Victoria’s fall 2021 lineup. 

A plant-based, vegan alternative to wool

Vegan plus wool equals Weganool, and that’s the name of this “wooly” fabric designed in part to help reduce the apparel industry’s huge carbon footprint.  Although Weganool has the properties of traditional wool, the fabric is made entirely from plant sources — 30 percent calotropis and 70 percent organic cotton, to be exact.

Infantium Victoria, a children’s clothing designer based in Germany, says Weganool has many environmental benefits. Among the company’s claims: The material is sustainable from production to disposal; one kilogram of Weganool saves 9,000 liters of drinking water (compared to production of 100 percent cotton yarn), and the fabric is built to last — it is unshrinkable with every wash and is generally more durable than non-vegan fabrics.

Although wool imitations are not original in the industry, this fabric stands out because it is zero-waste and vegan. Leftover materials in Weganool production are transformed into a compound that is both a bio–nutrient and insect repellent, which eliminates waste. These far-reaching efforts to cultivate an eco-friendly material indicate why Weganool has been labeled “more sustainable than dirt.”

The new ingredient? A desert shrub

Calotropis, the desert plant from which the vegan wool is partly sourced, is a tall, flowering shrub that thrives in harsh growing conditions without human intervention, water, fertilizers or pesticides. It grows wildly in deserts and other arid climates in Africa and several Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern countries. The plant, also called giant milkweed, has thick stalks and large, pale flowers.

The durable plant fibers have been compared to silk. But the versatile flowering plant has other interesting uses, ranging from medicinal products to carpets.

Women are the main producers within Weganwool's supply chain, and this work offers them jobs in dry pockets of the world where most plants and crops can’t survive. The business also boosts the rural economies through the development of a new agricultural channel. Areas of dry land unsuitable for many crops is ideal for growing calotropis, transforming fallow ground into crop land that can be a source of income.

However, if Weganool becomes an industry trend, care should be taken to ensure that the plant source is not exhausted, as a large supply of calotropis currently does not exist.

Why Infantium Victoria is betting on vegan wool

Although China has shown interest in using calotropis plant fibers for clothing production, Infantium Victoria’s release of Weganool is a first for the apparel industry.

The company specializes in organic and vegan clothing options, according to the website. The company describes its apparel as “slow fashion” and claims its products are 100 percent organic and have been vegan-approved by PETA since 2015. Infantium Victoria’s many sustainability commitments include cruelty-free fashion, ethical and organic materials, and sustainable processes and delivery, according to its website.

But will the sustainability waves this children’s designer company says it is making generate a ripple effect that influences other apparel companies to step up their game?

Time to take on the apparel industry’s waste problem

In 2015, the fashion industry was responsible for creating 1.2 billion tons of greenhouse gases. Currently, estimates suggest the sector has contributed about one-fifth of the global water pollution and one-third of the microplastics in oceans.

Sustainable progress within the global apparel industry has leveled off in recent years, Fast Company reports. However, Weganool is a classic example of using less of the world’s precious resources to meet consumer demand, and Infantium Victoria is not the only apparel company working to take back some ground. Many apparel companies are committed to inventing new processes and designs to fight the ramifications that the current waste will invariably bring to the environment. Some of these strides include less-wasteful production processes, more plant-based clothes and eco-friendly shoes made from recycled items such as ocean plastic, wool or even trash.

But are these trends enough to curtail the environmental challenges we see on the horizon? By 2030, the fashion industry is expected to produce 102 million tons of clothes and shoes worldwide. That’s equal to the weight of 500,000 blue whales. Nevertheless, there is still hope for a more sustainable textile and clothing industry. But in the end, it will be the changing expectations of consumers’ demands that will drive this change.

Image credit: Infantium Victoria

To paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of the print book’s death have been greatly exaggerated. About ten years ago, it seemed like books kept showing up on the endangered species list, but print books continue to outsell e-books in every category. Independent bookstores are also making a comeback in the age of Amazon, drawing more people than ever. And even though print books continue to outsell e-books, the publishing industry, in both print and digital formats, has an environmental impact. The manufacturing of e-book readers, for example, requires resources and contributes electronic waste.

The publishing industry supply chain has a complex global footprint

Nearly 700 million books were sold in 2019, and the carbon footprint of these printed books is complicated. After they are printed, these books need to be packaged and delivered. The logging of trees at the start of the process leaves a complicated web of impacts, from pollution to the destruction of natural habitat to carbon emissions. And the logging of all this data presents challenges, too, as the production of paper, transportation, manufacturing facilities, warehouses, retail stores and libraries all require water and energy.

While we have all been reading these books over the last few years, the publishing industry has made strides to improve its overall sustainability. In 2016, Penguin Random House (PRH), the largest of the Big Five publishing houses, announced its 2020 Social Responsibility Commitments, which set two targets: to source 100 percent of its paper from mills certified by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative or the Forest Stewardship Council and to cut its carbon emissions by 10 percent. By the end of December 2019, the company had purchased 98 percent of its certified paper by mills that had earned sustainability certification. PRH had also surpassed its 10 percent goal emissions goal, adding that it could likely reduce its emissions by 20 percent by 2025.

Penguin Random House is determined to go carbon neutral

With those achievements in hand, Bertelsmann, which acquired majority ownership of PRH in 2019, announced plans in February 2020 that they would be carbon neutral by 2030, with PRH’s targets as an integral part of the strategy to meet that goal. The plan includes switching to 100 percent renewable power, improving energy efficiency, working with partners to reduce emissions from the print and digital supply chain, and finding a way to offset the rest of those emissions.

Typically, when we think of books, print or e-books, the sustainability aspect centers on paper or e-waste. While those are probably the biggest direct environmental impacts, the carbon neutrality goal is important because it looks beyond the materials. The energy and water required to produce, transport, and distribute books across the globe is considerable - and the extent of the impact is unclear.

The most recent industry-wide evaluation of carbon emissions coming from the publishing industry dates back to 2008. And estimates can range widely because of the number of variables involved, including where and how paper is sourced, the type of ink used, and manufacturing facilities’ energy use. In order to set its science-based targets, Bertelsmann must be clear about its own carbon footprint. As more companies in this space step up to reduce their own emissions, better data will need to be collected, and they will need to share this information to enable other publishers to emulate such goals.

Publishers face risks from deforestation to water scarcity

Deforestation is estimated to represent 8 to 10 percent of global carbon emissions. But energy and transportation top the list of emitters. Then we need to add another factor, and that is the reality water will likely be the resources most affected by climate change. All of these challenges play a role in what could happen in the future with the books we enjoy.

Tackling climate change requires every stakeholder within the publishing industry to contribute to succeeding on the world’s most pressing challenge. Books have fed our minds for thousands of years; now, those who publish them can help solve our greatest challenge.

Image credit: Pexels; Unsplash; Pexels