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In the world of sustainable cotton procurement, the outlook for more responsible sourcing of this fiber is improving. The third global Cotton Ranking Report, led by the World Wildlife Fund, Pesticide Action Network U.K. and Solidaridad, assessed 77 companies for their cotton sourcing practices. They identified 11 companies as leaders in sustainable sourcing, which is more than doubled from just five in 2017. Adidas, Ikea and H&M topped the list. 

This latest ranking confirms the conclusions of other organizations, which have shown an increase in the procurement of more responsible cotton over the past decade.

Higher scores, yet improvement still needed

The ranking shows that most companies with some commitment to more sustainable cotton are progressing on a range of environmental, social and governance (ESG) challenges. There is improvement across the board on policy, traceability and uptake. More companies are increasing their consumption of sustainable cotton, and responsible cotton sourcing has become a more important part of the apparel industry’s supply chain overall, the organizations found. A total of 43 companies obtained higher scores than in 2017, including 24 moving up from one performance category to the next, among them Walmart and Target.

Despite all of the progress, there is more work to do, the report concludes. Existing progress is driven mainly by companies that were already engaged to some extent in 2017. The brands that received low scores in 2017 have remained inactive on sustainable cotton sourcing for the most part. A third of all the assessed companies — including Amazon and Foot Locker — have no policy on cotton sustainability at all, while more than half of all assessed companies have not disclosed any public target for sourcing more sustainable cotton.

Why sustainable cotton rankings are critical to the apparel sector

Cotton is the most widespread non-food crop in the world. Its production provides income for over 250 million people and employs nearly 7 percent of all labor in developing countries. About half of all textiles are made from cotton.

But conventional cotton poses numerous environmental challenges. While cotton fields make up just 3 percent of the world’s cultivated land, they account for 24 percent of global insecticide use. These insecticides often end up in groundwater and rivers, with the result that these chemicals eliminate not only pests, but also the natural enemies of pests, which interferes with ecosystems.

Cotton is also a water-intensive crop: Estimates vary, but the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) estimates that it takes 10,000 liters of water to produce 1 kilogram of cotton fabric.

Furthermore, producing the synthetic fertilizers used in cotton farming accounts for about 1.5 percent of the world’s annual energy consumption. Continuing to apply nitrates on farmland produces nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas with a warming potential 300 times that of carbon dioxide. Additionally, soils sequester carbon, and when the soil is degraded, one result is that more carbon ends up in the earth’s atmosphere.

The social impact resulting from producing more sustainable cotton

Conventional cotton also produces socio-economic challenges. Poor working conditions are all too common, along with child labor and forced labor. Using pesticides and synthetic fertilizers has led some critics to say that the results lead to farmers racking up high amounts of debt.

The organizations backing the Cotton Ranking Report hope to accelerate the demand and uptake of sustainable cotton among clothing and home-textile retailing companies. The good news is that sustainable cotton increased to 21 percent of global production during the 2017-2018 season, up from 12 percent in the 2015-2016 season.

Change has been incremental, but considering how much cotton is produced worldwide, this outcome matters: The amount of sustainable cotton sourced by brands and retailers increased from 21 percent of the available supply in 2016 to 25 percent in 2018. That uptick may seem small, but the resulting volume makes a huge difference for cotton producing communities worldwide, who can earn a higher price for sustainable fibers. Yet that still leaves a full 75 percent of more sustainable cotton being sold as conventional cotton in the marketplace due to lack of demand.  

Still, increasing the production of sustainable cotton can dramatically decrease the impact of the apparel sector by addressing the environmental and socio-economic challenges of conventional cotton farming. Reducing the water used in irrigation helps water-scarce regions avoid shortages for basic human needs. Eliminating or lessening the use of pesticides reduces the chemicals in drinking water sources and makes cotton farms safer places to work. Soil health improves when alternatives to synthetic fertilizers are used. Higher incomes for cotton farmers and their workers can help reduce poverty.

Or as CottonUp, a guide to sourcing sustainable cotton, states, “By sourcing sustainable cotton, businesses can help dramatically reduce some of the negative environmental impacts of the apparel sector and create positive benefits for millions of farmers and communities.”

Image credit: Fred Moreno/Unsplash

As climate change impacts surge around the world, no country is immune. But Brazil, home to more than half of the Amazon rainforest, is on the frontline. The largest country in South America is confronting a wide range of challenges as the government’s stance on forests exacerbate climate change risks. Deforestation is on the rise in Brazil as 2019 saw the number of fires in the Amazon increase by more than 30 percent from the previous year.

The Amazon plays an important role in Earth’s climate system. These forests recycle water to maintain rainfall and drive atmospheric cycles in the region. They also absorb around 5 percent of human-made carbon dioxide emissions, making it a critical carbon sink in the global fight against climate change.

Droughts are threatening Brazil’s energy portfolio

In 2017, Brazil supplied 78 percent of its electricity with renewable sources (compared to the U.S., where only about 17 percent of electricity comes from renewable sources), but 61 percent of that electricity came from hydropower. Over the past decade, the country has suffered some of its worst droughts in history, threatening the viability of hydropower as well as exacerbating already high levels of economic disparity and social unrest.

As a result of these droughts, the country’s recent 10-year energy plan seeks diversification in energy sources. Although the plan calls for maintaining current hydropower levels, it also seeks to increase Brazil’s capacity of solar, in particular with a goal for the mix to reach 28 percent non-hydro renewables by 2027.

But this energy plan is coming about in the middle of a presidential administration in Brazil that resists taking action on climate change. President Jair Bolsonaro has accused environmental advocates of starting the Amazonian fires and argued that conservation efforts hinder development. If he means loggers are not able to do their job due to conservation efforts, that is sometimes true, but if the rainforest is decimated, there will not be any work for them to do at all. Further, this stance puts the country’s resources, and electricity supplies, at risk: Of Brazil’s freshwater sources, 70 percent come from the Amazon region.

Solar in Brazil can strengthen communities

Solar photovoltaic (PV) technology uses little to no water to generate electricity, making it a good option when trying to balance all of Brazil's complicated issues related to climate change. But one factor that has to remain uppermost in any policy is addressing the country's stark economic inequality, made worse by its recent recession.

Too many Brazilians do not have access to proper sanitation, clean water or reliable energy — in fact, about 4 million Brazilians lack access to safe drinking water. This vulnerable population already disproportionately suffers the effects of poor air quality. In turn, these communities risk greater susceptibility to diseases as they are mired in unsanitary and unhealthy conditions. Exacerbating this linkage, poor health leads to greater stress on the economy overall, making this challenge one that involves the nexus of the environment, health and economics.

Solar: A solution generating power and social impact

More emphasis has been placed recently on the economic equality opportunities that could result from deploying more solar in Brazil. One company, Faro Energy, has created a sustainable bond in Brazil to fund both solar power and community projects in rural areas. The project aims to develop educational programs at a public school next to a 6,385 megawatt-hour solar farm — which, according to Faro, is equivalent to the amount needed to power about 3,600 Brazilian homes.

Having a direct positive social impact is important when investing in clean energy technologies, especially in areas where people face disadvantaged economic situations. Beyond these direct kinds of investments, solar deployments — if designed well — could lead to other benefits such as job creation, grassroots development and entrepreneurship, and women's empowerment, advocates have observed. 

Climate change presents many complexities, no more so than in places like Brazil, but the deployment of clean technologies such as solar power can help address social and environmental problems while generating safe and secure energy. Comprehensive, purpose-driven investment portfolios and innovative energy and environmental policies are necessary to tackle climate change. Brazil has a lot on the line, but it also has unlimited opportunities.

Image credit: Faro Energy

Food waste is the single largest contributor to American landfills, with estimates suggesting it accounts for 20 percent of the country's total waste stream. And while burning waste for energy and composting have increased over the past few decades, so has the amount of food that consumers and businesses throw away.

This is food that could have fed the 14.3 million American households who are at risk of food insecurity. Food ending up in landfills also wastes the resources that went into producing and transporting those items — in 2010, equivalent to $161 billion.

That’s not to mention the harm food can do by simply sitting in a landfill. While it can take an orange peel as little as six months to decompose in a landfill’s anaerobic environment, that decomposition also emits methane, a greenhouse gas even more potent than carbon dioxide. The World Resources Institute estimates that food waste contributes around 8 percent of global GHG emissions. That’s especially significant considering the third largest producer of greenhouse gases, the European Union, emits 9 percent of the global share.

What if we could recycle food that’s otherwise wasted?

If you ask Amanda Weeks, co-founder and CEO of consumer goods company Ambrosia, she'll tell you food doesn’t have to be wasted or deleterious. All of those leftovers are an opportunity to create useful products.

Over six years ago, Weeks decided to create Ambrosia to help solve the growing food waste problem. Her idea was to derive elements for consumer products from recycled food.

Back then, investors weren’t willing to take the leap with her. But even during the mid-2010s, Weeks saw a market open up. States and localities were establishing mandates for food waste. New York City, for example, enacted a law in 2013 requiring food generators to compost excess food.

Despite the lack of investor faith in Weeks’ proposal, the company’s first product is now available — Veles, an all-purpose cleaner composed mostly of extracts from food collected in New York City. The remaining 3 percent of product ingredients are essential oils for fragrance and a biodegradable plant-based fragrance stabilizer called decyl glucoside.

The world’s first commercial closed-loop cleaner

Ambrosia’s first offering is a model for other circular products to come. Veles is named after a Slavic god of nature, appropriate for a product that is closed-loop and packaged in an aluminum bottle that can be infinitely recycled.

Veles’ ingredients are minimal, and they mostly come from the compounds Weeks’ team extracts from food waste —water, acetic acid, lactic acid and alcohol. Water may be the most important element saved from this process. Ambrosia estimates that 30 million gallons of water a year can be saved if Americans buy Veles instead of a traditional household cleaner.

But this cleaning product is more than circular in nature. Veles is what the company calls “resource negative,” meaning Ambrosia does more than use recycled and recyclable materials like aluminum; it's using items that have already been discarded and finding a new use in them.

It pays to start early when creating a circular economy

Today, sustainably-minded, plastic-free, zero-waste solutions are popping up left and right. Weeks says Ambrosia’s head start has given the company an advantage, though. “There are other startups trying to do similar things that have not made it out of the lab,” she says.

And Ambrosia’s innovation doesn’t stop with stabilizing, isolating, deriving and processing useful components from food waste. The company is also developing a uniquely sustainable approach to production. Locality is the key, Weeks says: In New York, companies that haul waste bring their yield directly to Ambrosia's biorefinery, which is closer than the landfill, she told Forbes.

Weeks plans to keep her company local, even as production scales up. She envisions a biorefinery in every city with municipal food waste collection. Ambrosia has already opened a demonstration facility in New Jersey.

The long-term goal is to do more than develop products. Weeks says she wants Ambrosia’s ingredients and goods to enter large consumer products and chemicals companies to make them more sustainable. In other words: She pictures Ambrosia becoming the DuPont of the circular economy. “It’s not as fast as the traditional startup model, but it has a much bigger market and monetization opportunity,” she told us.

Ambrosia is launching its first product at a time when 66 percent of global consumers say they are willing to pay more for products that promise sustainability. Weeks sees that trend in the enthusiasm of those joining her team. Some have worked in chemicals companies their whole careers. They tell her, “This is where the industry is going.”

Ambrosia is still early to the game, though, Weeks says. “We’ve just got to hang on, continue to move the needle and continue to drive awareness.”

Image credit: Zack DeZon/Veles

Earlier this month, the Climate Leadership Council, a Washington, D.C.-based policy institute, released a roadmap for reducing carbon dioxide emissions and shifting to a low-carbon economy while avoiding an undue burden on the general populace.

The self-described "broadest climate coalition in U.S. history” enjoys bipartisan support. Among its founding members are energy partners like BP, Shell and ExxonMobil; large corporations such as IBM, AT&T, P&G, JPMorgan Chase and Santander; and NGOs like the World Wildlife Fund and World Resources Institute.

The group's low-carbon roadmap hinges on the Baker Shultz Carbon Dividends Plan, named for its co-authors. The first is James A. Baker III, a former two-time White House chief of staff, who also served as secretary of state and secretary of the treasury in the 1980s and early 1990s. The second is George P. Shultz, whose former posts include secretary of labor, director of the Office of Management and Budget, secretary of the treasury, and secretary of state.

The Council claims that if the plan is deployed next year, it would halve U.S. carbon emissions by 2035, using a 2005 baseline. At the same time, the Council believes its policy suggestion would improve life in America for businesses and people alike, benefiting as many as 70 percent of American families, including those who are the most vulnerable.

World Resources Institute CEO and President Andrew Steer agreed, stating, “A carbon fee and the revenue it creates are a win-win for America’s economy and climate. Strong climate action will create millions of clean energy jobs, give American households a much-needed boost, and position the US as a serious player on the international stage.”

According to the Council, there are four important pillars which will support the Baker Shultz Plan.

First, steadily increase the carbon tax

First, the federal government must impose a carbon fee that steadily increases, while remaining revenue-neutral. The Climate Leadership Council’s roadmap cites consensus among economists that this approach will be the most cost-effective policy solution to push consumers and companies to a low-carbon future.

To achieve this, the Council proposes a fee on all CO2 emissions, to begin at $40 a ton and increasing by 5 percent above inflation every year thereafter. The policy contains a clause that if reduction benchmarks are not met, an “Emissions Assurance Mechanism” would accelerate the fee hikes temporarily.

Redistribute those revenues to the U.S. public

While the tax may initially come off as a burden to the American people, the policy is designed to return 100 percent of net revenue to the public, divided into equal quarterly payments. The Council estimated the average American family of four will receive annual carbon dividends of $2,000, and that’s just in the first year as the U.S. transitions to a low-carbon economy.

In what the Council considers a “positive feedback loop” encouraging further climate protection, dividends will increase as the climate is increasingly protected. The U.S. Department of the Treasury is on record predicting that “the vast majority of American families will receive more in carbon dividends than they pay in increased energy costs.” The Council is banking on this revenue redistribution plan to maintain long-term bipartisan support for the plan.

Streamlining obsolete carbon regulations

Once a carbon fee becomes law, its cost-effectiveness will supercede many existing regulations, according to the Council’s leaders. Thus, as long as the carbon fee remains in place, regulation will be simplified.

The Council posits that this will encourage economic growth, by enabling corporations to innovate and invest in a low-carbon future.

Rebates for exports

Finally, the Council’s plan intends to offer rebates for carbon fees paid on exports to countries who lack similar carbon pricing mechanisms. Such carbon fee adjustments are intended to protect and even strengthen American corporations’ competitiveness and penalize nations who are not doing their part to lower emissions.

The overall goal of this pillar is for America to lead global climate policy by example, especially serving as a model to trade partners such as China and India.

The long road to a low-carbon economy

The Council’s initial polling of 1,991 voters finds the American public in support of this low-carbon economy plan, with 64 percent of voters supporting a carbon fee; 68 percent of voters in support of paying the public quarterly dividends; 62 percent of voters in favor of obsolete regulations; and about two-thirds of voters support the idea of a carbon fee on foreign imports. Further, the Council predicts its measures will result in deeper carbon cuts than the U.S. commitment to the Paris Agreement.

If the American public can be sold on the benefits of receiving a carbon dividend starting in 2021 and continuing far into the future, the Council may have finally unlocked a path to a low-carbon future for the United States.

Image credit: Peter Dargatz/Pixabay; Peter Leahy/Pexels

The biggest barrier women face on the path to senior leadership is at the first step up to manager, according to a five-year study by McKinsey and LeanIn.Org. For every 100 men promoted and hired as a manager, only 72 women are promoted and hired. This “broken rung” prevents women from climbing to the top, the organizations found.

While the study indicates the number of women in senior leadership has grown in the last five years, there are still about five men to every one woman in the C-suite. When you picture what that table looks like, there is a lot of work that needs to be done to achieve gender parity.

To address the “broken rung” problem for early-career women, reacHIRE (a company that focuses on women returning to work after a career hiatus) launched the Aurora platform. The platform has been specifically designed for companies seeking to engage and retain millennial and Gen Z women. Aurora claims to be the first platform to respond to specific challenges early-career women experience.

The largest problem affecting the gender talent pipeline today

In an interview with TriplePundit, Addie Swartz, reacHIRE CEO, said the biggest problem impacting the gender talent pipeline today is women not acquiring enough support early in their careers, especially in male-dominated work environments.

Aurora addresses the gender talent pipeline issue when men and women begin entering the workforce in about equal numbers. The platform provides early-career women with critical leadership building blocks that may not otherwise be offered to them. This includes:

Support – Aurora sets up teams of 10 led by an experienced guide. The Aurora dashboard creates a virtual team setting that promotes positivity, collaboration and interactive learning. “It’s all about the ‘we’ and not the ‘me,'” Swartz told TriplePundit. 

Knowledge – A curriculum based on micro-learning modules begins teaching career-advancing techniques like how to create smart goals, how to negotiate and self-advocate, what a growth mindset is and can provide, and more.

One important part of the knowledge building block is one-on-one coaching with a certified guide. Guides are women from outside of the company with ample professional experience, who coach team members through experiences each individual is having difficulty navigating. All sessions are confidential. The company dashboard (what human resources would see) highlights trending engagement attributes within the company’s workforce; it does not share an individual’s goals or stories.

Networking – Aurora gives early-career women a network of peers and a guide to empower them from the start of their career journey. By leveraging the power of peers and guides, women in the early phase of their careers are provided necessary tools to advance and thrive at work.

Aurora works best for companies with more than 30 employees because the platform tries to include team members from different departments. A typical program cycle ranges from six months to one year but can continue into a second year with an advanced curriculum. The time commitment is minimal, but the benefits to early-career women and the company itself are optimal: Retention and employee engagement rates are higher, Swartz told us. 

Will women have to wait another generation before gender parity is achieved?

If programs like Aurora scale, as many as one million qualified women in the United States could have more opportunities to advance into leadership roles in the next five years, according to reacHIRE.

Globally, gender parity is a priority for many nations. Of the 17 objectives that comprise the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), gender parity is in the top five.

Will governance and business align on this top priority? From a human resources standpoint, it is almost ludacris to disqualify 1 million qualified candidates for no other reason than gender. Retaining employees also saves money: It can cost a company upwards of 33 percent of an employee's salary to hire a replacement.

With millions of Gen Z young adults entering the workforce, Inc. magazine recently presented a few other key statistics to note about this generation of workers: 

• 77 percent of Gen Z employees say having a millennial manager is their preference over Generation X or baby boomers.
• More than 90 percent of Gen Z employees prefer to have a human element to their teams, either working solely with innovative co-workers or with co-workers and new technologies.
• 66 percent want multiple check-ins from their manager during the week; of those, 40 percent want the interaction with their boss to be daily or several times each day.

When evaluating the number of Gen Z employees entering the workforce and how they prefer to be managed (by millennials), platforms like Aurora can lead to a more supportive business culture, a boost in employee satisfaction and increased productivity. Aurora provides tools from which as many as half of America’s next generation of employees can benefit. Further, progressive platforms like this can help companies fix that broken rung and advance qualified millennial women into management positions.

Women in the U.S. enter the workforce at nearly the same rate as men. But only advancing half of the talent pool will not allow any company to thrive in the long run.

Image credit: Pixabay

While plenty of attention shines on the likes of Larry Fink and Jeff Bezos for their climate action tactics, there is no shortage of activists who are making a huge difference day to day when it comes to our relationship with the environment. But many of these leaders don't benefit from vast media coverage. Being that we’re in the third week of Black History Month, we at TriplePundit thought we’d highlight these black heroes whose environmental and community work has left a huge impact not only on the black community, but also society at large.

By all means, this is far from an exhaustive list, yet we thought these five visionaries deserved to be recognized.

Rose Brewer: A professor of Afro-American and African studies at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Brewer writes about environmental racism, notably how toxic waste dumped into poorer communities has left behind health and social problems for decades. Her work has included leadership roles in the Environmental Justice Advocates of Minnesota (EJAM), an advocacy group that takes on the disparities that result from environmental injustice.

Many writers have referred to Dr. Robert Bullard as the “father” of the environmental justice movement. The title dates back to his research in the 1970s, which revealed the correlation between black neighborhoods and the location of garbage dumps. His 1990 book, Dumping in Dixie, was instrumental in bringing the civil rights and environmental movements closer together.

George Washington Carver (shown above in a portrait by U.S. artists Betsy Graves Reyneau): Yes, we already know a lot about this revered scientist thanks to his research on alternatives to growing cotton (as in peanuts), as well as his work to prevent soil depletion. But did you know Carver also wrote extensively on the risks associated with relying on monoculture crops, looked at nature through the lens of biomimicry before the word became part of our lexicon, and was averse to any process that resulted in waste?

A nurse by profession, the late Barbara Hillary is largely credited as being the first black woman (and oldest person) to travel to the North and South Poles. She also founded the Arverne Action Association, which strived to improve the quality of life in her Far Rockaway neighborhood of Queens, New York. Her time in both polar regions, along with a trip to Outer Mongolia during the last year of her life, drove her to become a climate change activist.

Savonala “Savi” Horne: As Executive Director of the Land Loss Preservation Project, Horne and the organization she leads provide legal support and assistance to financially distressed farmers and landowners across North Carolina, including the most vulnerable African-American rural communities. This group also works to help farmers transition away from growing tobacco, promotes sustainable agriculture, and boosts responsible forestry efforts.

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Image credit: U.S. National Archives 

Republican lawmakers recently introduced and sponsored a bill to plant a trillion trees around the world by 2050. U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Arkansas) introduced the Trillion Trees Act on Feb. 12, touting trees as the “ultimate carbon sequestration device.”

Even U.S. President Donald Trump, a notorious climate change skeptic, came out in support of the initiative, saying it demonstrates his “strong leadership in restoring, growing and better managing our trees and our forests.” Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has echoed such sentiments, stating during the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, “Trees are a bipartisan issue — everyone's pro-trees.”

What are the motives behind the One Trillion Trees Act?

Yet the reasons for focusing on forests go beyond doing good. As Westerman’s co-sponsors noted, the legislation will support increased logging. Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minnesota) announced that part of his support was because he was, “proud to stand with our loggers in introducing this legislation, as the forest and paper industry is a cornerstone of northern Minnesota’s economy.”

Regardless of lawmakers’ motives, is the initiative even feasible?

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) believes it is possible. Invoking the American can-do spirit, Bacon cited a historic event, when “An estimated one million trees were planted in Nebraska on April 10, 1872.”

If American settlers using nineteenth century technology in remote Nebraska could accomplish such a feat, what would it take for a globalized twenty-first century society to multiply that effort by 1 million?

Is planting one trillion trees even possible?

At first glance, it isn’t a pretty picture. The U.S. part of the plan is 24 billion trees in 30 years, or 800 million trees per year. Meanwhile, world population growth demands an increasing amount of land to be used for agriculture, all while we’re rapidly losing topsoil.

But, let’s not lose the forest for the trees.

A recent World Resources Institute (WRI) article found that the United States has room for an additional 60 billion trees.

Reforesting the U.S.

For starters, suburban and rural areas have a lot of open space that could house up to 21 billion trees. An additional 24 billion trees could be restored to the 50 percent of U.S. forests that the Forest Service deems “understocked.” U.S. cities, meanwhile, could have enough space for up to 400,000 trees.

Silvopasture, which integrates pastureland, forage crops and trees, could play another viable means for increasing America’s tree stock, with pastures hosting a further 13 billion trees. Even some row crops could tolerate interplanting with canopies, or at least yield the edges of fields to windbreaks and soil retention, adding another 2 billion trees.

How would the U.S. fund these managed forests?

WRI concluded that American landholders would need a collective $4 billion to $4.5 billion annual subsidy to offset tree planting costs. While that is less than the U.S. spends on the fossil fuel industry, it’s certainly not small change.

Chief among their suggestions was to make third parties eligible to receive the subsidies. This would remove the burden of management from farmers who are often already too overworked to consider small subsidy programs that, while they would enhance their bottom line, are not a top priority.

By passing subsidies through third parties, efficiencies could be unlocked, such as pooling landowners together and having one consultant provide technical knowledge to a range of practitioners.

As a means to pass public funds on to third parties, WRI recommended tapping into the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s current program to compensate landowners for conservation measures in both forested and agricultural lands. Local and state smart growth plans could also incorporate “tree restoration targets,” serving as an additional facilitator for federal grants to reach local landowners.

There is space in the American landscape for more trees. As the Trillion Trees Act makes its way through Congress, will the political landscape demonstrate adequate public support for a massive, sustained tree planting campaign?

Image credit: Charlie Wollborg/Unsplash

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos recently pledged $10 billion of his personal fortune to address the climate crisis through a new grantmaking fund. But if he were really serious about cutting carbon emissions, he would take a cue from Ørsted. The Danish energy company announced an ambitious net-zero carbon emission goal in January, and earlier this month it spelled out the steps to achieving that goal.

Spoiler alert: The Ørsted plan involves a deep transformation within the company, and outside of it as well.

The Ørsted goal, wind energy and the bottom line

Soon after Bezos announced his new $10 billion Earth Fund, critics pointed out the obvious conflict with Amazon’s pursuit of oil and gas business.

Ørsted has charted a different course. Previously known as an oil, gas and coal-dependent energy company, Ørsted began transitioning to renewable energy in 2010.

In just 10 years, the transformation of its own portfolio is largely complete, as Ørsted ratchets down its fossil business to focus on wind energy and other renewables.

On January 30, Ørsted CEO Henrik Poulsen announced the company’s goal of achieving carbon neutral status by 2025. He emphasized that the company’s progress so far puts it in position to realize that goal — while achieving bottom line benefits.

"We've transformed from producing energy based on fossil fuels to producing carbon neutral energy. We've seen a real strengthening of our business and shown that a rapid green turnaround is possible,” Poulsen explained in a press statement.

Poulsen also noted that just 10 years ago, Ørsted was known as one of the most coal-dependent energy companies in Europe.

The Ørsted difference: Carbon offsets don’t cut it

In the January announcement, Ørsted referred to its earlier pledge of almost $30 billion to invest in renewables between 2019 and 2025. The aim was to push its carbon footprint down by 98 percent or more — and it wasn’t going to stop there.

Ørsted cited transitioning its fleet to electric vehicles by 2025 and winding down its natural gas trading activities as chief among the next steps. According to the company, carbon offsets will come into play only where necessary.

That de-emphasis on carbon offsets is an important one. Other energy companies, notably BP and Repsol among others, have announced climate plans that appear to lean heavily on offsets while continuing to produce oil and gas.

In that context, the new Bezos Earth Fund appears to be an elaborate offset that enables Amazon Web Services (AWS) to continue promoting its oil and gas business.

As of this writing, AWS still offers oil and gas services aimed at accelerating, not reducing, fossil fuel production.

On its oil and gas page, AWS promised that “explorers can extract deep insights faster to improve field planning, geoscientists can run more demanding HPC workflows and identify potential reservoirs faster and cheaper…”

Getting to net-zero carbon emissions: pushing the supply chain envelope

The AWS oil and gas business model is a stark contrast with Ørsted’s 2040 goal.

Ørsted described its 2040 net zero carbon plan in detail earlier this month. In doing so, it laid out a roadmap for companies like Amazon to follow.

With Ørsted already on track to achieve carbon neutral operations by 2025, the 2040 plan focuses on decarbonizing secondary activities. That means shedding its gas trading business as well as leaning on its supply chain to decarbonize.

If that seems rather ambitious, it is. The plan calls for achieving net zero 10 years before the widely accepted decarbonization goal of 2050.

The company is confident that it can meet that goal, partly through its buying power. By setting a course of rapid action for itself, Ørsted anticipates that it will drive new clean technology into the marketplace more rapidly.

“Many of the green technologies to be used to decarbonize our supply chain exist but they're not yet cost competitive. With the 2040 target, we want to help drive the necessary innovation forward to mature the green technologies in the industries that supply to us,” Poulsen explained.

The secret ingredient: hydrogen

Of interest to hydrogen fans, those innovations could refer specifically to renewable hydrogen.

Industrial manufacturers are just beginning to explore renewable hydrogen as an alternative fuel and power source, but the cost of producing renewable hydrogen in bulk has yet to come down.

If and when it does, Ørsted will be able to procure wind turbines, foundations, substations and cables with a smaller carbon footprint.

To that end, Ørsted has joined the U.K.’s “Gigastack” project aimed at demonstrating an industrial scale system for producing cost-competitive renewable hydrogen.

The hydrogen project also benefits Ørsted directly because it would provide a significant new market for electricity sourced from renewable energy, namely, from the company’s wind farms. The Gigastack project involves electrolysis, in which an electrical current is deployed to “split’ hydrogen from water.

If you want it done right…

Over and above the additional market benefit, Ørsted’s hands-on involvement in supply chain decarbonization indicates another important milestone in corporate climate action.

Instead of waiting for its supply chain to come around, Ørsted is investing in the supply chain decarbonization toolkit.

A similar approach is under way at UPS, which recently invested in the electric vehicle company Arrival.

UPS is already working with outside firms to decarbonize its fleet, and the hands-on approach is aimed at accelerating the transition. The investment provides UPS with the opportunity to bulk-order electric vehicles that are tailor made for its operations.

As a ripple effect, the large orders could promote economies of scale that help bring down costs for other Arrival customers.

To its credit, Amazon has also taken steps to begin decarbonizing its delivery fleet, and last month the company raised its ambitions up a notch by joining the newly formed Corporate Electric Vehicle Alliance.

The aim of CEVA is to bring down EV costs for all car buyers, by deploying the buying power of large-scale fleet managers to push economies of scale.

That effort presents a clear conflict with AWS’s oil and gas business, but as other leading corporations become more adept at accelerating decarbonization, such a collision course is all but inevitable.

If initiatives like Gigastack, CEVA and UPS’ investment in Arrival prove effective, AWS will find itself fighting for a rapidly shrinking slice of the oil and gas pie.

Image credit: Ørsted

Brace yourself, Tesla. There's a new electric vehicle manufacturer in town. Owned by Volvo Car Group and Chinese auto giant Zhejiang Geely Holding, Polestar launched in 2017 with a plug-in hybrid called the Polestar 1, which boasts the longest electric range of any hybrid on the market. The all-electric Polestar 2 debuted last year, and the upstart automaker says it plans to launch a fully electric SUV in the near future.

Still, Sweden-based Polestar insists vehicle sustainability is about more than electric and hybrid powertrains. And it's touting a roster of other eco efforts — from vehicle light-weighting to phasing out plastic — as it jockeys for position among its biggest competitors. 

Polestar embraces new materials in pursuit of waste reduction goals 

In press materials circulated last week, Polestar outlined goals to reduce weight, eliminate plastic content and reduce waste material. And it says it's is looking toward innovative materials like Bcomp’s natural fibers made from flax to turn its goals to reality. Flax is an ideal material for fibers as it can be used in crop rotation programs and does not compete with food crops. Using Bcomp’s natural fibers equates to up to a 50 percent reduction in weight and an 80 percent reduction in plastic in Polestar vehicles.

The company also intends to use 3D-knit fabric for seats made from 100 percent recycled PET bottles, infuse interior plastics with waste cork, and use carpets made from recycled fishing nets. Both the fashion and active footwear industries already use fabrics knitted with a 3D printer. Using 3D printers to make seats results in waste being removed in the production process as the material is made to fit. 

“It’s clear that to be truly sustainable, we have to evaluate every element that goes into our cars,” says Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath, in a statement. “For Polestar, sustainability is not just about the electric powertrain. With the development of these innovative new solutions that we will introduce in our future cars we make a strong statement of our intentions.”

But it's not the only EV carmaker in the game... 

Polestar is not the only electric vehicle manufacturer to incorporate sustainable materials. Fisker is billing its Fisker Ocean electric crossover as “the world's most sustainable vehicle.” The car, which will debut later this year, features vegan interior and materials made from recycled fishing nets and ocean plastics.

The all-electric Nissan Leaf includes a bevy of recycled materials: The seats are made from old PET soda bottles, the sound insulator pads beneath the hood are made from recycled fabrics, the center console is made from discarded electrical appliances, and the dash and parts of the door are made from recycled plastic resins. The automaker has also teased plans to recycle old vehicle batteries for street lighting in Japan.

The door trim panels and dashboard of BMW’s electric sedan, the BMW i3, are made from renewable and natural fibers. The textile upholsteries are made of recycled polyester. Panels on the door are made from renewable natural fibers, including open-poor eucalyptus certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. A total of 25 percent of the materials used to make the interior of the car are made from raw materials and recycled plastics. BMW goes a step further by using 25 percent recycled plastics to make the exterior.

Both Kia and Toyota use bio-plastics in their electric vehicles. Kia’s electric vehicle, the Kia Soul, uses bio-plastics made from cellulose and sugarcane. Organic materials are used in the car’s door panels, headliner, roof pillars, carpets and seat trim. The seat cushions of Toyota’s Prius also contains bio-plastics.

As for Polestar, based on the interest at various car shows, there is a strong possibility its all-electric vehicles could give major automakers a run for their money. And if it creates a race to the top around sustainable materials in the process, all the better. 

Image courtesy of Polestar