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Not moving fast or far enough has been a rallying cry during Climate Week, with young activists suing carbon-polluting countries over the climate crisis, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres demanding “a climate action summit, not a climate talk summit.”

This week food products giant Mars Inc. made clear it was listening, announcing its new #PledgeForPlanet initiative to further reduce GHG emissions from its direct operations in line with the most ambitious aim of the Paris Agreement – to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCCC) warned of catastrophic consequences should global warming exceed 1.5°C.

The march to aggressive climate targets

Mars joins 28 companies with a total market capitalization of $1.3 trillion that are also stepping up by committing to setting 1.5°C climate targets. First movers include Acciona, AstraZeneca, Banka BioLoo, BT, Dalmia Cement Ltd., Eco-Steel Africa Ltd., Enel, Iberdrola, KLP, Levi Strauss & Co., Mahindra Group, Natura &Co, Novozymes, Royal DSM, SAP, Signify, Singtel, Telefonica, Telia, Unilever, Vodafone Group PLC and Zurich Insurance, among others, collectively representing over one million employees from 15 sectors and more than 15 countries.

Of the 28 companies, BT, Levi Strauss & Co. and SAP already have 1.5°C-aligned reduction targets covering greenhouse gas emissions from their operations.

Notably, according to Carbon Tracker, none of the large oil companies are “Paris aligned.”

Suppliers asked to join Mars on the Pledge

In addition to ramping up GHG emissions reduction in its own operations, as part of "Pledge for Planet" campaign, Mars is calling on all its suppliers to participate in this program by:

• Setting science-based targets.
• Signing on to The Climate Group’s RE100 (a global corporate leadership initiative bringing together influential businesses committed to 100 percent renewable electricity).
• Embracing a future with renewable energy at the center of plans for direct operations.

Olam, which supplies Mars with ingredients such as cocoa and certified palm oil, has already signed on, according to the company.

Taking action on renewables and reducing emissions

A decade ago, Mars committed to achieve 100 percent renewable energy in its operations by 2040 and today is more than halfway towards that goal. In recent years, the company has been more aggressive in its drive to meet these goals.

In 2017, Mars announced a $1 billion Sustainable Generation Plan to fight climate change; part of that promise included more investments in wind and solar installations worldwide. The company also promised to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 27 percent by 2025 and 67 percent by 2050.

The Pledge for Planet initiative is designed to accelerate the pace of those commitments. And it’s important to keep in mind what’s driving Mars to take on these challenges; after all, this is a legacy company that is still privately-owned and as such, does not have to answer to shareholders (and quite frankly, most stakeholders) to the degree a publicly-owned company is expected.

Mars CEO Grant F. Reid said in a press release: “Climate change is a real and tangible threat to society. For example, in our business, we already see it in the risk to livelihoods for smallholder farmers who provide most of our raw ingredients.”

“Risks to the resiliency and sustainability of our supply chain and the future of the farmers we work with is top of mind,” Reid added. “But, as a family business that thinks in generations and aspires to make a positive difference in the world, our responsibilities and our ambitions go beyond risk mitigation. We are committed to doing our part for the good of the planet.”

On its website, Mars also invites individual action to protect the planet as part of its Pledge, with ten areas of actions such as driving less, buying local produce, bringing reusable bags to the store, reducing waste and unplugging electronics.

According to Reid, Mars is “inspired by the youth movement demanding climate action and the role of all of us as individuals in driving change.”

TriplePundit is covering the U.N. General Assembly and Climate Week NYC through the weekend. You can follow our coverage here. 

Image credit: David Greenwood-Haigh/Pixabay

TriplePundit is covering the U.N. General Assembly and Climate Week NYC through the weekend. You can follow our coverage here. 

The planet has everyone’s attention right now.  Climate Week follows hot on the heels of global climate strikes, which followed hot on the heels of the recent Business Roundtable declaration.

You’re a TriplePundit reader so it’s probably safe to assume that you were already engaged. But I bet you’re surrounded by people – in work or at home – for whom the Climate Emergency hasn’t yet fully landed. 

I reckon you have at least two people on speed dial who are bored of hearing about climate strikes, or embarrassed to admit that they acknowledge climate change. You may know people, as I do, who actually care deeply but suppress talking about it with the urgency it warrants because it would jeopardize how they are seen in their workplaces.

But these friends, like us, have not only heard the voices of school children, lobbyists and activists but now of serious business people and economic actors.

This is what persuaded me, some years ago, to come out of my shell and build a business supporting what I believed. I could see that environmentalism and pragmatism weren’t mutually exclusive. A masters in the circular economy taught me that innovation, growth and profit were in fact the keys to unlocking the solutions to climate change. I felt emboldened to make the link and start selling the business case for action.

In the last few months we have seen and heard investors (including the largest asset manager in the world), CEOs (including those of some of the largest businesses in the world), newspapers (including the Financial Times), lenders, insurers, policymakers, employees, consumers and others all say that we need to fundamentally readdress the source code of our current global economy.

All these players have all identified that a system based solely on shareholder primacy, that values profit at any cost, is the root cause of the social and environmental crises facing us today. That a take-make-dispose process based on margins and convenience carries too high a cost in real terms and needs to change.

More than that, we are seeing and hearing them step up to the plate; grasping the opportunity to be the solution, not the problem.

That’s really positive but it will take courage and tenacity and require support from all corners of the economy. It will require support from us all.

To reach a tipping point where enough people are acting with sufficient urgency, we need the crescendo to continue, and for everyone – from all walks, ages and ranks - to own part of the solution.  We need our friends to decouple their beliefs from how they might previously have been perceived – and to re-frame this debate within their professional and economic comfort zones.

Otherwise, how easy it would be for us all put our heads back in the sand once the noise has settled and say “it’s too big a problem to fix," “it’s not realistic” or “I know, but what can I do about it?"  

So my question to you, engaged 3p reader, is this: how can you persuade your climate wallflowers to re-invent their inner monologue so they feel comfortable taking action?

What dialogue could they begin in their workplaces? What decision making influence could they wield that will make a difference? How will they vote (with their decisions, money or feet) to turn the broken system on its head?

Encourage them to be bold.

This is the new agenda.

If not us, who? If not now, when?

Image credit: Markus Spiske/Unsplash

TriplePundit is covering the U.N. General Assembly and Climate Week NYC through the weekend. You can follow our coverage here. 

Just before Climate Week launched, Amazon said it was placing the largest ever order of electric delivery trucks when it announced the company would buy 100,000 vehicles from the U.S.-based EV startup Rivian. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says the first of these would begin delivering packages to customers in 2021, while the company’s press release detailed 10,000 would be on the road in 2022, with the full complement of 100,000 vehicles in service by 2030.

Amazon’s environmental and economic reasons for betting on Rivian

Amazon, universally known for its online store as opposed to its delivery fleets, is getting serious about controlling its own logistics operations. Earlier this year, the company announced it was ending its contract with FedEx for ground transportation. This latest development indicates it is taking bold steps towards handling its own deliveries using new and cleaner vehicle technologies.

The announcement was made in concert with a broader commitment from the company to be at net zero carbon by 2040 and operate on 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. This shift includes some environmental investments; for example, Amazon has announced a partnership with the Nature Conservancy to invest $100 million for efforts in the restoration of forests, peatlands and wetlands. 

In terms of the electric delivery fleet, Amazon’s order from Rivian meshes with its financial stake in the electric truck manufacturer. Amazon led a $700 million investment round for Rivian earlier this year, but to date, the EV start-up has yet to sell any vehicles into the market. Instead the company has developed both a high end electric pickup truck and SUV prototype, both aimed at the aspirational end of the consumer market with vehicles slated to start at around $70,000. 

Such a shot in the arm from Amazon to both invest in the company and place such a huge order will, no doubt, be fundamental for Rivian’s commercial viability, since establishing an automotive start-up is a hugely costly proposition; think of the trials and tribulations Tesla has gone through in its quest to become a mass-market manufacturer.

Changes in how logistics companies deliver packages

Amazon’s initiative to electrify its ground transportation fleet is, however, consistent with changes afoot in the logistics space more broadly, where electrification is becoming more of an area of focus. 

Last year, Ryder System Inc. announced it would buy 900 electric delivery vehicles from Chinese manufacturer Chenje Energy inc, and lease them to Federal Express, while Fed-Ex would concurrently purchase 100 of its own. All 1,000 trucks are to be operated by Fed-Ex for both residential and commercial customers in California. When this deal was announced in late 2018, it was touted as the largest ever purchase of electric vehicles in the whole of the United States which is, of course, now dwarfed by Amazon’s move. 

A more tentative step was was DHL’s February announcement that it would roll out 63 electric delivery trucks to operate in the San Francisco Bay Area, beginning service this year and deployed as part of the company’s effort in becoming an emissions-free delivery company by 2050. Already, in Germany, DHL, a part of Deutsche Post, says it is the largest user of “electro-mobility” in the country, with 12,000 electrified vehicles in operation including e-bikes and e-trikes. 

Over at UPS, the company currently operates 1,000 electric or hybrid delivery vehicles throughout its worldwide network, and has placed an order for 125 of Tesla’s Semi Class 8 trucks which the automaker is supposed to start producing this year. That said, UPS’s Carlton Rose, the company’s president of global fleet maintenance, stresses that OEM vehicle manufacturers as well as utilities are going to need to work with fleet operators in order to make electrification irresistible in the future, according to reporting in FleetOwner.com. Rose indicates the company doesn’t think that future is here yet, saying OEM equipment needs to both work as well as conventional options, and it needs to be at the right cost.

A step forward for the electrification of transportation?

By comparison, Amazon’s order of 100,000 Rivian trucks leapfrogs all of the pure-play logistics companies in terms of the sheer numbers of EVs the company is committing to deploy in future. Furthermore, purchasing from a startup that has yet to sell any vehicles at all is a bold move. But Amazon is known for being a game changer, and as a behemoth company it no doubt has the deep pockets necessary to bring the plan to fruition. 

As Climate Week wraps up, electrification trends are the subject of one session centered on looking at ways to promote the electrification of transportation in America’s cities. The discussion will focus on the question as to whether declarations by a core of American cities to create fossil fuel-free zones could be the transformative way to speed the adoption of EVs. With urban air quality being a big concern in congested urban environments commensurate with EV technology maturing, electrification trends in the logistics industry are highly likely to build momentum.

Image credit: Rivian

Several years ago, while flipping through a copy of USA Today during a business trip in China, an article about a Shanghai middle school caught my attention.  

Apparently, every three years, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) measures how well the world’s educational systems are preparing students for the job market. In its first year of participating in the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment, Shanghai’s school system overtook top performers from countries like Singapore and Finland to claim the top spot on the ranking. 

The feature went on to explain why. In Shanghai’s system, traditional rote memorization is replaced by immersive, hands-on learning. Rather than cramming their heads with facts and formulas destined to be forgotten after a big exam, students are challenged with complex problems that put what they’re learning in the context of the real world. 

The result? Shanghai high school students are nearly 10 times more likely to demonstrate advanced problem-solving skills compared to the OECD average, as reported in USA Today and other publications including The Diplomat. 

This memory has stuck with me. While some may see the Shanghai schools’ approach as a big change—maybe too big a change for the traditional methods of the U.S. educational system—the techniques they use are relatively simple, straightforward and easily replicable. And, interestingly, many of the Ph.Ds who theorized this model are Americans who came to Shanghai after trying and failing to get the techniques adopted in the States.

Even as the methods proved monumentally successful—and Shanghai’s school system continued to earn top marks on international assessments—U.S. school systems remained resistant, and our approaches have remained largely unchanged while the achievement gap widened.

Though the U.S. spends significantly more on education than other OECD countries, our students consistently underperform in math, reading and science compared to their peers in other developed nations. 

Vast disparities also persist between U.S. school systems, largely along racial and economic lines. We continue to underfund schools that serve mostly low-income families. The most impoverished districts in the country receive about $1,000 less per student in state and local funding compared to the most affluent districts, according to The Education Trust. According to the American Bar Association, “Public schools today are more racially segregated than 40 years ago,” and black students are still much less likely to graduate from high school compared to white students with the same family income. 

These are old problems, and we’ve known about them for a long time. So how come one of the richest nations on the planet doesn’t have better outcomes? In essence, we’re doing the same old thing and hoping for different results. And after coming on board as president of the SunTrust Foundation in March of last year, I was in a position to do something about it.

Investing in a life well spent 

At the SunTrust Foundation, we focus on promoting personal and financial well-being and helping people achieve a life well spent. While many drivers contribute to personal and financial independence, we continue to find—in literature, in research and in practice—that education is critically important.

At the Foundation, we are not experts in education, but we do listen to what the experts are saying, and they’ve pinpointed two key indicators of future success. For example, research tells us that if a student is not reading at a third-grade level when they’re in third grade, they’re four times less likely to graduate from high school. On the opposite end of the spectrum, all of the longitudinal data shows that no matter your race, culture or gender, access to postsecondary education is the single most important determinant of upward economic mobility. 

The U.S. continues to lag behind our peers in both of these metrics, yet we push on with the same old methods of drills, memorization and regurgitation of facts. In today’s information age, we’re deep into a knowledge-oriented nature of work that requires skills in problem-solving, reasoning and analytics. As the nature of work becomes more analytic, the nature of education has to fuel that. 

As part of our investment strategy around education, we seek out and fund transformative initiatives that are saying “no” to the status quo and testing out theories similar to those that are already commonplace in regions like Shanghai and elsewhere. In other words, we’re on the hunt for new solutions to old problems. 

The nature of education must follow the nature of work

When we look at the research, we see that students can retain a larger volume of more complex and sophisticated information when their method of learning is experience-based. But again, this strikes back at the issue of equitable access: To introduce experience-based learning, schools must be resourced. As funders, we feel it’s the least we can do to not only support organizations testing promising theories of change but also to ensure these solutions are affordable broadly. 

For example, one of our grantees, the Girls Leadership Academy of Wilmington (GLOW), is looking to close the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields with a focus on single-gender education that it says engages “the whole girl.” 

GLOW serves students—90 percent of whom are from low-income backgrounds—with inquiry-based learning techniques and hosts a maker’s lab to explore hands-on applications of lessons learned in class. 

For example, it is using hands-on carpentry with a miter box to cut compound angles so students can see how math is applied in the real world. What we’ve seen through the research is that this type of hands-on application provides an indelible imprint. Students will always remember what a miter cut molding joint looks like, and that turns what they’re learning into a tangible memory that will stick with them. The lab also connects classroom learnings with 21st-century careers through modules focused on robotics, 3-D printing and other emerging technologies.

Regardless of what you might think of a single-gender model, GLOW’s work is showing success. Studies show that low-income students in single-gender schools score higher on standardized tests in math, reading, science and civics, compared to those in co-ed schools, and GLOW is part of a network that is teaching with this method in 19 cities across the U.S.

We also recently funded edX, a leading nonprofit providing online-education founded by MIT and Harvard, which is developing a low-cost bachelor’s degree called the “MicroBachelors” to bring equitable access to postsecondary education and open up new options for students. And in Atlanta, our grantee, Everybody Wins!, offers regular mentorship for young children, building on research that tells us children read at a higher level when they read with an adult regularly. 

The bottom line

This is high-stakes work: Suppose we see breakthrough, innovative techniques being deployed with promising results yet we fail to help scale them quickly and, say, four years go by. Well, that’s someone’s entire high school experience. You’ve lost Johnny now. He’ll never get those four years back, and his life will be much more difficult because he wasn’t given what he needed to succeed. 

Frankly, it’s hard not to get frustrated sometimes by the lack of urgency to scale solutions that have been demonstrating results for decades. 

We don’t know if our approach is the right one, but in the end, that’s what innovation is about: testing theories of change and backing groups with the courage to think differently. As the nature of work continues to evolve—and the nature of a life well spent along with it—we challenge other funders, businesses and concerned stakeholders to have courage, seek out new ideas and challenge the traditional approaches in areas like education. Maybe then, we can finally put some of these old problems to rest. 

This article series is sponsored by the SunTrust Foundation and produced by the TriplePundit editorial team.

Image credit: Nicole Honeywill/Unsplash

Even though the world's largest coffee chain, Starbucks, offers a ten-cent discount to consumers who use reusable cups for their caffeine fix, most of the company’s customers by far prefer that iconic paper cup. The same goes for other coffee chains and independent shops worldwide: it is estimated that 600 billion disposable coffee cups are used each year globally.

In the United Kingdom alone, 2.5 billion takeaway cups are used annually, with 99 percent of them thrown away instead of ending up at a recycling facility.

Meanwhile, as coffee shops across New York City now a surge in business thanks to the United Nations General Assembly and Climate Week, one can only imagine the number of paper cups that are ending up in the trash.

How CupClub tackles the disposable coffee cup problem

One company, CupClub—a United Kingdom-based returnable packaging service for hot and cold drinks – is reducing the number of takeaway cups used in the U.K. through its packaging systems and receptacles.

“Our mission is to eliminate single-use packaging to enable brands and retailers to empower their customers to experience takeaway without the throwaway,” said Safia Quereshi, Founder & CEO of CupClub, in a public statement. “We are building one of the world’s first returnable packaging systems that is optimized using IoT [internet of things] technology, enabling us to distribute, collect and wash packaging designed for multi-use.”

Each cup can be used 132 times. Once a cup has reached its end of life, it can be easily broken down to create new products. The business model revolves around the idea of paying per drink instead of owning a cup, which means a customer of CupClub is supporting the maintenance and infrastructure, as the company explains on its website. 

Convenience for the consumer was built into the design of CupClub. The company supplies reusable plastic cups to coffee shops to forgo customers forgetting their reusable cups at home or the office. Then, customers are only responsible for taking the cups to collection points within a few days of use—most of which are at coffee shops—where the CupClub team then takes them to a commercial washing center. Once cleaned, the cups are reintroduced at one of the collection points, according to Marcus Fairs of DeZen Magazine.

“For the consumer, it is a convenient option that allows the customer to choose a high quality returnable cup in preference to a disposal one,” as stated in a Circular London case study. “For the retailer or operator, it is a reliable, cost-comparative system for the supply of cups to their outlets.”

CupClub’s technology could allow for rapid scaling up

The differentiator from other circular-approach cup offerings—such as TrioCup or Revolv—is CupClub’s technology. Each cup is trackable as each cup is fitted with a RFID tag so CupClub can track each cup’s current and past usage.

“We can tell brands where their cups are,” Safia told DeZen Magazine, “so we can ensure they don’t become roadkill or get abandoned in the environment. It’s smart packaging.”

CupClub went live in August 2018 with its first partner, a global real estate services firm. Since then, they have partnered with London-based coffee shops and have diverted over 100,000 coffee cups from landfills, according to Fast Company.

McDonald’s and Starbucks have also expressed interest in CupClub. CupClub was named one of the 12 winners of the NextGen Cup Challenge—a global innovation challenge to redesign the fiber to-go cup and was chosen to partake in the NextGen accelerator in August 2019, where the team worked through challenges such as customer needs and infrastructure challenges. 

Solid design should catalyze CupClub’s growth

Since CupClub’s design approaches the disposable coffee problem with a design-oriented, systems perspective, it is a solution that will continue to scale. Its design ensures reduced disposable cup costs and new marketing channels via the CupClub app for coffee shops—and for consumers—the absence of washing and flexibility in when they can drop off their CupClub cups.

“We have combined a product, service and business model that together enable multiple retailers and brands to transition to a returnable packaging system infrastructure at a city scale,” Safia told the New Plastics Economy team. “We have what it takes to be the city bike rental equivalent of the coffee scene.”

Image credit: CupClub

TriplePundit is covering the U.N. General Assembly and Climate Week NYC through the weekend. You can follow our coverage here. 

Climate Week NYC officially kicked off Monday, but arguably last Friday‘s Global Climate Strike set the stage for this week’s agenda. Like so many, I have been inspired by this youth-led movement and its uncompromising calls for action. And so, as I go into the week, I am keeping in mind three key ingredients needed to create sustainable impact – a bold action plan, strong partnerships and an enthusiasm for change.

Bold action is needed long after Climate Week

In 2015, the UN Sustainable Development Goals announced a bold vision meant to focus and align the global community around an agenda for sustainable development by the year 2030. However, two reports released in July of this year showed that despite progress in a number of areas, progress has been slow or even reversed on some goals.

Acknowledging the urgency to act, in March, the UN General Assembly declared 2021-2030 the decade of ecosystem restoration. This global vision and call to action aims to massively scale up the restoration of degraded and destroyed ecosystems to fight the climate crisis and enhance food security, water supply and biodiversity. This is a rallying cry for business, government and civil society to accelerate and focus our efforts where they can have the greatest impact.

I am inspired by the leadership being demonstrated by business in the lead up to climate week – taking their own bold actions to drastically reduce their carbon impacts. Amazon committed to carbon neutrality by 2040 as part of the new Climate Pledge, through a combination of decarbonization strategies and offsetting. Google announced a $2 billion investment in new renewable energy infrastructure across the US, South America and Europe – the largest investment in the company’s history.

This week, HP is taking the next steps in its own bold action plan to create a forest positive future for printing. Together with longstanding partner and conservation leader World Wildlife Fund (WWF), HP is committing $11M to the restoration, protection and conservation of 200,000 acres of forest – an area equal to the size of New York City – in the first project within HP’s Sustainable Forests Cooperative. As part of this initiative, HP will also support WWF’s efforts in developing science-based targets for forests, estimating the carbon, water and biodiversity benefits of conservation efforts. For a legacy printing company, this constitutes a really big vision. But, with resource-rich forests being destroyed at the pace of 27 soccer fields per minute, HP believes the time for better business models, swift action and greater collaboration is now.

Transformative partnerships

Which brings me to the second key ingredient – partnerships. If you want to go far, go together – and we have very far to go, and urgently need to get there faster. Any successful sustainable development agenda requires partnerships between governments, the private sector and civil society to truly move the needle.

The oceans are one of our greatest shared resources – when managed well, they create jobs, provide food, support abundant biodiversity, and help to regulate our global climate. However, our oceans face significant threats that are reducing their ability to provide crucial ecosystem services. The solutions to restoring ocean health will need to be as diverse as the causes, and will require deep and authentic collaboration. I am looking forward to the launch of some audacious and impactful partnerships for action over the next week.

In May of this year, the inaugural Ocean Plastics Leadership Summit convened leading organizations in the plastics supply chain in one of the five oceanic gyres. This event put unlikely partners side by side to debate, discuss and hash out differences with the goal of inspiring partnerships, joint ventures and R&D initiatives to support new and scalable solutions to the ocean plastic pollution problem.

HP’s own partners have been critical in the company’s work to develop a fully functioning ocean-plastics supply chain in Haiti. And last week, HP proudly unveiled the world’s first notebook computer with ocean-bound plastic. We could not have done this without the close collaboration of our supply chain partners and the First Mile Coalition. The learnings from this project open new opportunities for new innovations and capabilities to collaborate and scale our ocean-bound plastics supply chain. And by joining the NextWave Coalition, we are able to share our learnings with other manufacturers in our industry and across sectors as we aim to create a truly global and circular plastics supply chain.

The best partnerships challenge us, contribute innovative ideas, push us to sometimes uncomfortable places, and demand authentic action.

Change is hard

Which brings me to my last critical ingredient—discomfort. Change is happening all around us, and it is up to us to harness this energy to positively transform how we think, behave and act. Change is hard, it is sometimes messy, and it can certainly be uncomfortable. But, it is in discomfort that we grow, we learn, and we get better.

So during this week, as you are running around New York City, make sure you are having the uncomfortable, challenging conversations. Share your vision, and be ready to back it up with action. And work hard to build partnerships that turn vision into action. Because the stakes are too high to move backwards, and change is coming, whether we like it or not.  It is our responsibility and opportunity to shape it and create a measurably better future for the planet, its people and our communities.

Image credit: HP

TriplePundit is covering the U.N. General Assembly and Climate Week NYC through the weekend. You can follow our coverage here. 

 As climate scientists continue to warn of dire outcomes during this week’s UN Climate Action Summit if global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are not rapidly slashed, a new initiative using satellite data may be part of the solution.

The Satellites for Climate Action initiative, announced at yesterday’s Bloomberg Global Business Forum in New York, will use satellite data to monitor greenhouse gas emissions and map and quantify problem areas that were previously unknown or inaccurately measured. The hope is that the initiative will allow governments and organizations to enact more targeted and effective climate mitigation strategies and turn satellite data into actionable information to accelerate climate protection.

The initiative was announced by Michael Bloomberg, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Climate Action and founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and San Francisco-based earth-imaging company Planet. Bloomberg will support the project with an undisclosed level of funding.

Planet operates the largest constellation of Earth-observing satellites in orbit, acquiring near-daily imagery covering Earth’s entire landmass. Satellites for Climate Action will use this technology to help fill climate data gaps in ongoing environmental research and climate monitoring by analyzing coal-fired plant operations globally and measuring essential climate variables. This will help governments and organizations, which are often stymied from taking stronger climate action due to lack of data.

In addition to monitoring coal-fired plant operations, Satellites for Climate Action will explore a new generation of satellite technologies with enhanced capabilities to detect greenhouse gases such as methane and CO2. It also is expected to develop new geospatial analytics that can directly enable conservation efforts for forests, coral reefs and other natural resources.

“Data is one of the most powerful tools we have in the fight against climate change,” said Bloomberg in yesterday’s announcement. “The better we can measure factors like greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation, the faster and more effectively we can address them, and the easier it is for the public to hold leaders accountable. This partnership will empower governments and businesses to take action.”

Governor Newsom said yesterday that the state would work with partners to use the satellite data to ensure that expected emissions reductions are happening, enforce existing regulations, and identify cheaper and faster ways to achieve further reductions.

Under the state’s greenhouse gas reduction program, California is striving to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045. Last month, Governor Newsom announced that GHG emissions in the state continued to fall ahead of schedule as the state’s economy grew ahead of the national average. The data from the California Air Resources Board’s latest state inventory of climate-changing emissions also showed that for the first time since California started to track GHG emissions, the state power grid used more energy from zero-GHG sources like solar and wind power than from electrical generation powered by fossil fuels.

“This technology [Satellites for Climate Action] gives us an important set of new tools to detect, monitor and cut greenhouse gas emissions,” said CARB’s chair Mary Nichols. “This initiative is exactly the type of collaboration we need to tackle climate change.”

Image credit: SpaceX/Unsplash

With Climate Week in full swing, companies are stepping over themselves to prove they have the climate action chops needed to help the world avoid catastrophe. But while many corporations mostly talk about goals and aspirations, a company based in Annapolis, Maryland stands tall with its actions and performance. And a key reason why Hannon Armstrong has emerged as a climate action leader in the U.S. business community is because of its laser focus what it describes as “environmental literacy.”

Hannon Armstrong is the first U.S.-based public company with a business model centered around investing in projects that either reduce carbon emissions or bolster resilience to climate change. The company has grown largely by offering capital to companies in the renewables, energy efficiency and sustainable infrastructure industries.

An environmentally and economically strong business model

An investment firm that makes money from such projects as energy storage or solar thermal power generation may sound far-fetched, but this is business as usual for Hannon Armstrong. Investors have certainly been buying into the company’s mission since it went public earlier this decade – and according to the company, about one-quarter of its stock is owned by investors focused on sustainability. If you bought stock during the company’s IPO in April 2013, that investment would be worth 250 percent more today. The company’s market cap currently hovers around $2 billion.

According to the company’s CEO, Jeff Eckel, its success lies in the fact that it has not diverted from its core strategy – and relies on everyone in the company to believe in the fight to take on climate change. “We will earn better risk adjusted returns by investing on the right side of the climate change line,” he said during a recent interview with TriplePundit. “It’s simple in concept, but very tricky in practice. But that bottom line is that we’ve simplified our mission, which is to use finance so that companies can accelerate the adoption of clean energy technologies and other sustainable solutions.”

One factor that ensures strong cross functionality across Hannon Armstrong is that management and employees regularly develop “Key Strategic Initiatives” or “KSIs.” At the beginning of each year, the company’s leadership team identifies three to five large cross-cutting initiatives that could help the company grow its business. Teams are then put together to work on each project, with regular updates to management. “These KSIs are not easy, so you find that they really drive creative solutions and collaboration. It’s an invigorating experience because you find yourself working closely with people that you wouldn’t normally partner with in your day-to-day role,” said Hannon Armstrong spokesperson Gil Jenkins.

Why environmental literacy matters

But in listening to Eckel, it is clear that Hannon Armstrong would not be succeeding in its wider mission – which of course, includes, keeping shareholders happy – if it were not for the employees’ “environmental literacy” that he insists is crucial to keep the company thriving.

Being aware of the various challenges and issues arising from climate change is partly what it takes to ensure someone is a fit at Hannon Armstrong. But remember, this is an investment firm and numbers matter. Sure, Eckel and the employees of Hannon Armstrong feel their work is important to save the world, but in the end, the company’s executives and employees are all running a business: There’s no point investing in projects that don’t make any financial sense.

Jeff Eckel, CEO of Hannon Armstrong

To that end, Hannon Armstrong employees must be able to evaluate a project and calculate all those pesky statistics associated with that potential investment, including, of course, carbon emissions. Projects not only need to have a viable rate of return, but at a minimum, they also have to be carbon neutral. “It definitely takes some sophistication to do all these calculations with rigor and accuracy, but it’s important,” Eckel explained. “A project has to pass our carbon count investment screen where we look at the carbon emissions avoided per $1,000 dollars invested. If an infrastructure project pencils out as just being carbon neutral, then that project must also have another measurable environmental benefit, such a reducing water consumption.”

Employees never stop learning 

To be clear – environmental literacy at Hannon Armstrong is not just about numbers crunching allowing employees to hold their own with the types that work for those famous acronyms IPCC, CDP or CARB. The company regularly brings employees together so that everyone is updated on the business and political landscape, both of which can have an impact, at any time, on the broader clean technology sector across the U.S.

“Every quarter, we get the entire company together, and we go through relevant global and U.S. climate data,” said Eckel. “We discuss where the hotspots are, and what’s going on with the politics of climate in the U.S. Then, we talk what we’re hearing from our shareholders, updating on which shareholders really care about ESG, and which don’t. That’s mixed in with practical discussions on how the company is doing and where we are looking to invest."

These climate science, policy and innovation updates are not a top-down discussion – at one time, Eckel usually conducted them, but this culture of environmental literacy at Hannon Armstrong means everyone is well-versed in this space. “I delegate parts of this meeting to a different member of the staff each quarter; now, I don’t have to do it anymore!” Eckel said. “And there’s a definite benefit because people get to stand up in front of the company to present their research and analysis – which naturally drives more buy-in across the organization.”

Hence there’s a dynamic at Hannon Armstrong that is impressive considering it invests in what is still a nascent, 21st-century sector – but the company has been moving ahead by instilling this culture of environmental literacy largely by using proven, 20th-century tactics.

From book clubs to installing solar panels

For example, employees are encouraged to participate in the company’s book club. “There’s a monthly book reviewed by someone on staff and discussed by our book club, and the topics could be on either side of the climate change line,” Eckel said. “I made the first books we chose this year very chart-heavy, though, so employees couldn’t listen to them in the car.”

Speakers are also invited to share their insights with Hannon Armstrong employees on a regular basis. Guests have included NGOs such as The Nature Conservancy and organic crop consultants willing to share their views on agriculture. Eckel has made it clear to employees and guests that all points of view are welcome, including those who voice climate skepticism or express the positive aspects of fossil fuels.

Learning also continues outside the office through local volunteer projects. The company’s community engagement efforts include installing solar panels on low-income homes (as in a home in Southeast Washington, D.C., shown above); working with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center's efforts to understand how climate change impacts wetlands; and underwriting programming for a year-long series of climate lectures in the Annapolis area.

One result of this ongoing emphasis on environmental literacy is that there is now a library at Hannon Armstrong’s Annapolis headquarters, one that Eckel described as having the “greatest hits of the past 40 years.” Providing resources, such as this book collection, is important to the company, as Eckel made it clear he doesn’t want learning to stop anytime soon. Ever.

“I believe that rigorous ongoing engagement and connection with the world we all share is one the key factors that has driven our success in the sustainable investment industry over the decades,” Eckel said as he wrapped up his interview with 3p. “If we are going to continue to be a leader in sustainable infrastructure in the years ahead, we’ve got to keep studying and learning on all that relates to the economics, the politics, physics, and the reality of climate change.

Jeff Eckel is one of the finalists for 2019 Responsible CEO of Year Awards, which will be announced the evening of October 29 during 3BL Forum: Brands Taking Stands – What's Next at MGM National Harbor, just outside Washington, D.C.

We're pleased to offer 3p readers a 25 percent discount on attending the Forum. Please register by going to the 3BL Forum website and use this discount code when prompted: NEWS2019BRANDS.

Image credits: Hannon Armstrong

The new wave of employee activism is alerting more executives to the opportunities that can arise when companies collaborate with their workers on issues of public concern. There are also many challenges, but latecomers have the benefit of learning from ethical leaders. One such leader is the United Kingdom-based artisanal soap company Lush.

Ethical campaigning: communicate, collaborate, educate

For Lush, ethical issues are not a sidebar pursuit. The company has built its brand identity around a series of ethical campaigns.

Lush employs an in-house campaign professional, also known as the company’s “in-house activist.” That position is currently held by Carleen Pickard, who brings a career in social and environmental activism to the company.

The position enables Pickard to bring together insights from workers and management. She also ensures that everyone is educated and on board once the campaign has been identified.

That approach involves a significant amount of input from employees, who bring their personal experiences together from hundreds of Lush locations in different countries.

“We routinely pull staff in and ask them what should be the issue to work on,” Pickard explains. “Our leadership likes to say that we should focus on issues that are not talked about in other places and spaces, and are not expected from a soap company.”

Lush also forms alliances with organizations that are active in areas that could lead to a campaign.

As a result, Lush has ventured deep into territory that has little or no direct relationship to its supply chain or its bottom line.

Pickard cites the example of a long-running campaign against the practice of harvesting shark fins. Last February the company campaigned for transgender rights, and in 2017 it campaigned for abolition of the death penalty in the U.S.

The Global Climate Strike difference

Lush’s history of ethical campaigning placed the brand in a strong position to support the Global Climate Strike, a series of street protests and other actions taking place around the world from September 20 to 27.

The company had previously focused on more specific climate issues central to Canada, including the tar sand fields and oil pipeline construction. During those campaigns, Pickard felt like the climate movement was “beating on people’s doors and knocking down walls” to get attention. The feeling of urgency was confined to those actively involved in the movement.

One of the most compelling differences in the Global Climate Strike movement is the mass involvement of students, many in their early to mid-teens.

“What is different this time absolutely is the youth voice coupled with the urgency. We are not just feeling that urgency, we are also hearing it from the other generation,” says Pickard.

Pickard cites one banner in particular at the Global Climate Strike, which read: “You will die of old age. We will die of climate change.”

“That is some of the clearest campaigning I have ever seen,” she says. “It is very inspiring and also very humbling.”

Pickard emphasizes that Lush is not encouraging its workers to “strike” in the conventional sense, as an action against the worker’s own employer.

“We are participating in this all together and we value the power of workers to strike,” she clarifies. “That’s an important part of the conversation, and it provides an opportunity to talk about that power.”

Next steps for ethical campaigns at Lush

Lush foresees political alliances as the next logical step, for ethical campaigning, especially regarding the transition to sustainable energy.

“That question of what we do next — recycling and tote bags are embedded in people’s minds as the thing you do, not just the right thing. At this point we need political action,” Pickard explains.

Lush is not alone in that regard. In the field of gun safety, for example, leading U.S. retailers have adopted new in-store policies for their customers while also allying themselves with grassroots political organizations to lobby for common sense gun regulations at the state and federal level.

As with gun safety in the U.S., Pickard cautions that the road to sustainable energy is a minefield of challenges.

The concept of a “just transition” for energy workers and their communities is especially fraught in countries rich in fossil resources, like Canada.

“We are a country that has an economy based on natural resources. A just transition is an incredibly urgent issue but a particularly difficult one, and it can be a particularly ferocious one,” she explains.

Staking out the high ground

It is practically impossible for most companies to be absolutely perfect in terms of their own energy transition, and that can provide fossil energy advocates with an opening for criticism. Nevertheless, Pickard advises that brands can prevail against their critics by staking out the high ground.

“It’s not about us. At this point it’s about the future generations, and I think people are responding to that,” she says. “Talking about climate is not a progressive or conservative issue. All of our messaging is about the future.”

Employee activism and ethical campaigning

Lush may be unique in its emphasis on ethical campaigning as a brand identity, but some elements of that approach are already at work among other leading companies.

Two examples of that strategy are the anti-poverty projects of the Whole Planet Foundation of Whole Foods, (now owned by Amazon), and Coca-Cola’s water replenishment and conservation initiatives.

Another type of example is illustrated by Accenture, which has adopted a broad collaboration with its employees to support LGBTQ+ rights around the globe.

Many companies are also active in the gender equality movement. The waste hauling company Republic Services is a good example of a company that is aggressively reaching out to recruit women to traditional male-held jobs.

In addition, the Global Climate Strike has inspired participation by thousands of businesses and websites to spread the climate action message to their customers and clients. Meanwhile, employee groups at several leading companies — most notably Amazon — have used the Global Climate Strike to lobby for change by their own employer.

With the rise of both youth and employee activism evident in the Global Climate Strike, it appears that the grassroots have spoken. Businesses that expect to thrive in the coming years would do well to follow the lead of Lush and companies like it, and respond to the concerns of their employees, now and in the future.

Image credit: Lush U.K./Facebook

In what has become a clear trend, millennial consumers are putting their money where their ideals are. They are choosing products and services from brands that reflect their concerns about the environment and social issues. This generation is also providing a bottom line incentive for companies to adopt more sustainable practices, and that could be just the tip of the iceberg in terms of consumer influence. A recent survey of individual investors from Morgan Stanley suggests that there is still ample room for consumers to add the weight of their financial choices to the sustainability movement as well.

Investors are on the alert for sustainable options

The new survey, titled Sustainable Signals, was released on September 12 by the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing.

As the third survey in a series, the new report provides an opportunity to take stock of trends concerning global warming and other environmental issues, especially among younger adults.

The survey finds that “interest and adoption of sustainable investing has grown steadily since 2015,” with 85 percent of individual investors in the U.S. now expressing interest in sustainable investing strategies.

In the group of millennials interest in sustainable investment is even higher, at 95 percent.

Most significant, perhaps, is the increasing proportion of investors who are “very” interested in sustainable investing.

“The trends continue to go up in terms of interest and general knowledge. That’s exciting,” notes Jamie Martin, an Executive Director in Morgan Stanley's Global Sustainable Finance group.

“We are most excited about the interest numbers,” he explains. “The intensity of interest — ‘very interested’ — is up. Our thesis around all of this is that sustainability trends are driving consumer decision making and the brands that consumers are supporting, and that is trickling over into their investment behavior.”

The value of science-based targets

The new survey results demonstrates the ongoing trickle-over effect. As with consumers who select groceries and household goods based on a brand’s reputation for sustainability, investors are becoming more sophisticated, and they are looking for financial products that follow their interests.

Investor sophistication also translates into a greater awareness of goal-setting and evidence-based achievements.

That trend supports the efforts of companies that have signed on to the Science Based Targets (SBTi) initiative. The SBTi program measures and certifies corporate sustainability actions in the context of the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

“Science based targets are one way for investors to understand the impacts,” Martin says. “Some companies are embedding those into their corporate strategies, and those goals will be what they communicate to investors. We think there is enormous value in helping our clients better understand what they own in their portfolios.”

From interest to action

Unfortunately, the survey also reflects the disconnect between consumers having an interest, and those who actually act on that interest.

Although the survey found 85 percent of investors interested in sustainability, it also found that only 52 percent of the general public has undertaken a sustainability investment (for example, investing in funds aimed at specific environmental or social goals). Millennials fared somewhat better, at 67 percent.

That gap may indicate some lingering doubt over the financial advantages of sustainable investing. The survey did find evidence that many investors still perceive a trade-off, with 64 percent responding that “investors must choose between financial gains and sustainability.”

On the bright side, the survey also indicates that investors are primed to increase their activity in the sustainable investment field, with 86 percent of respondents believing that “corporate ESG practices can potentially lead to higher profitability and may be better long-term investments.”

In addition, the survey found that 88 percent “believe that it is possible to balance financial gains with a focus on social and environmental impact.”

“The reality of sustainable investment is they perform quite similarly to traditional investment,” Martin says. “It’s about companies activating their strategies proactively to address issues like climate change, gender diversity, and plastics.”

Aggregating the power of the consumer

Overall, the survey suggests that individual consumers control a large, untapped well of financial resources that could help accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy, in addition to addressing other areas of social concern.

That means stakeholders in the financial services profession have a role to play in shaping and channeling investor choices to achieve maximum impact.

“This idea of individuals voting with their dollars and the choices that they make is powerful,” explains Martin. "It has to be harnessed and aggregated in a way that moves the needle, and companies are positioning themselves to resonate with the next generation.”

Financial stakeholders can only do so much, though. For example, harnessing the sustainable investment power of 401(k) retirement accounts would create a significant impact. However, according to a recent report by CNBC, almost 25 percent of adults in the U.S. have have no retirement savings at all, let alone a 401(k) plan.

There are other financial bottlenecks at work. Especially for millennials and the up-and-coming generation of potential investors, other obligations compete for their paycheck include student loans, along with the high cost of basic expenses like housing, health care and transportation.

Despite these obstacles, Morgan Stanley is among those foreseeing a strong upward trend in sustainable investing.

“These findings reaffirm that sustainable investing has entered the mainstream and is here to stay,” concludes Audrey Choi, the firm’s Chief Sustainability Officer and Chief Marketing Officer of Morgan Stanley. “Increasingly, investors want to know what they own and want those holdings to reflect their values.”

Image credit: Jake Ingle/Unsplash