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It has been over two weeks since Hurricane Dorian decimated large portions of the islands of the Bahamas, most notably the Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama. Dorian was the strongest storm ever to hit the Bahamas, and the islands were besieged by rains from Hurricane Humberto before recovery had gotten much underway.

Recovery from major storms is often a long, lingering process, and there is every expectation that it will be no different in this case. The official death toll is currently around 50, although that is expected to climb, and more than 70,000 people have been displaced.

As with most natural disasters, individuals and businesses are keen to help in the aftermath. Tourism accounts for about half of the Bahamas’ GDP, and businesses in that sector have been quick to step in to help out.

Companies like Atlantis are playing a significant role: pledging $3 million (together with Paradise Island and Brookfield Asset Management), creating a donation site, and providing space for Chef Jose Andres’ World Central Kitchen to operate, enabling the group to provide thousands of meals like they did in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

The major cruise lines are also stepping up. Disney, Royal Caribbean, Carnival, and Norwegian are all pledging at least $1 million in addition to in-kind assistance, like meals, bottles of water and generators.

The Bahamas are only 50 miles off the coast of Florida (Puerto Rico, for comparison, is about 1,000 miles from Miami), and many Florida businesses are contributing to the relief effort. Proximity and the shared experience of living through a devastating hurricane (not to mention that the state was in the initial predicted pathway of the storm) must certainly make the state feel the urge to help. Florida Blue, the state’s leading health insurance company, is contributing $150,000 to relief efforts. Further, several supermarkets in Florida have set up customer donation sites, and Publix, a regional supermarket chain based in Lakeland, Florida, has pledged $250,000 in addition to any customer donations.

While people are, and should be, the most pressing relief priority, some attention has started to turn to the toll the storm took on the electric power infrastructure of the islands. North Abaco, in particular, suffered from devastating destruction, including power grid losses, damage to transmission and distribution infrastructure, and at least one power station completely destroyed. A similar scenario played out in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, and has resulted in a plan for an almost wholesale restructuring of the power sector, including grid resilience and rebuilding using more clean energy. The utility sector of the Bahamas could be facing some similar calls as relief turns into rebuilding, and many utilities in the United States and elsewhere have extensive experience to advise and assist.

Rebuilding systems so that they are more sustainable and resilient in the long term will continue to be of increasing importance. With climate change likely bringing more intense storms, and more communities facing resilience issues in the face of such storms, rebuilding both power and water infrastructure as well as natural infrastructure, such as wetlands, mangrove forests, barrier islands, and reefs, will be imperative. Hurricane Dorian was the 5th Category 5 storm in four years, and there is talk that a sixth category should be added due to the increasing intensity of recent storms.

The 2019 hurricane season still has over a month to go, and two active named storms are currently churning in the Atlantic. At some point, individuals and companies will tap out in what they can give to victim relief from storm after storm. Resilient systems should be baked into every rebuilding effort after every storm. The climate is changing, and so must the way industries and governments renew themselves in the aftermath of a natural disaster.

Image credit: U.S. Coast Guard/Wiki Commons

The leading U.S. meat producers may appear to be under siege with all the continued buzz over plant-based protein companies, but there is some good news for the industry out there. Last week, Chick-fil-A announced that it had ceased sourcing chicken raised with antibiotics, joining the likes of Chipotle, KFC, McDonald’s and Wendy’s. Other large companies, including Darden and Costco, have also hopped aboard the antibiotics-free chicken train in recent years.

“This reflects a stunning antibiotics success story that has unfolded across the U.S. chicken industry in the last decade,” wrote Avinash Kar and Lena Brook of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

And unlike a lot of sustainability news we hear out there, this isn’t happening by 2020, nor will this undergo a long phasing out to meet some nebulous 2030 goal – for the most part this is done, done with a capital D. According to the NRDC, 92 percent of chicken sold across the U.S. was produced without antibiotics – at least those medicines deemed “medically important” by the federal government’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The NRDC and other organizations have long opposed the use of antibiotics in livestock over concerns that they could lead to widespread resistance to such drugs. In the end, their public awareness campaigns and litigation have paid off.

Overall, antibiotics use within the food sector fell 73 percent between 2013 and 2017, according to the NRDC’s number crunching.

It’s been a long road for the NRDC. The NGO filed a lawsuit against the FDA in 2011 in a ploy to stop the use of antibiotics in animal feed. At the time, data suggested 70 percent of all antibiotics used in the U.S. were given to healthy livestock in order to get them to grow fast and fattened up for human consumption.

“We have to ensure these life-saving medicines continue to work when we need them most: when our families are ill,” the NRDC wrote in May 2011. “We need to stop wasting them on healthy animals so they remain effective for sick people.”

There is a lesson here for food companies, and not just about prioritizing antibiotics for humans. When consumers push back against a business practice they see as harmful, rather than pushing back in kind, perhaps listen to those concerns and sort out how you can make this change work. Your industry, and company, will benefit in the long run from having a better reputation. This leads us to other segments of the meat industry.

The NRDC has not given a pass to beef and pork producers, to be clear; the group infers that antibiotics use is still rampant across those food sectors – but there is still much to learn because critics say the industry so far has been far from transparent.

Image credit: Max Kleinen/Unsplash

Today, as the world continues to struggle with the more than 86 million metric tons of ocean-bound plastic, computer tech giant HP Inc. announced it is taking another step to keep plastic bottles out of the oceans.

According to the company, the HP Elite Dragonfly laptop—the world’s first PC built with ocean-bound plastics—will include 50 percent post-consumer recycled plastic, including 5 percent ocean-bound plastics from the company’s supply chain in Haiti. HP also committed today to include ocean-bound plastic material in all new HP Elite and HP Pro desktop and notebook computers launching in 2020.

HP adds to its line of products made out of ocean-bound plastic 

The Elite Dragonfly laptop is the third HP product to be made with ocean-bound plastics. Others include the HP EliteDisplay E273d and the Original HP ink cartridges. 

“Our circular economy strategy is about shifting our production to eliminate waste and enable a system that can sustain our levels of consumption in harmony with nature and our singular planet Earth for generations to come,” said Ellen Jackowski, global head of sustainability strategy at innovation at HP Inc., in a press statement issued today.

In an interview with TriplePundit, Jackowski explained that the company started with 5 percent ocean-bound plastics in this latest endeavor—a seemingly small amount at first glance—to ensure it can be recycled at the product’s end of life before scaling up. “Even though it’s one small component, with our commitment to include ocean-bound plastic material in other desktops in 2020, this represents a huge volume.”

Creating new opportunities for economic advancement and education

To date, HP has sourced more than 1 million pounds of ocean-bound plastics—the equivalent of more than 35 million plastic bottles— for its EliteDisplay E273d and the Original HP ink cartridges from its Haitian supply chain, first developed in 2016 with the help of the First Mile Coalition and supplier partners.

When the HP program began, an informal network of Haitians were already collecting recyclables under hazardous conditions, including an estimated 300 children. Income was not always consistent for the collectors, making it difficult to escape the cycle of poverty so many experienced.

As the program launched, HP and First Mile stepped in to provide the children with educational opportunities, including scholarships, as well as full access to medical care and health and safety trainings. Additionally, partners provided job training for the adult family members of the children who are also working in the landfill. The program has also committed more than $150,000 to entrepreneurs, micro-enterprises and small-to-medium enterprises in targeted neighborhoods.

HP says its partnership with the First Mile Coalition has helped create more than 1,100 income opportunities for adults in the country and has provided 150 children with quality education, food and medical assistance. HP is also working with National Geographic Explorer and professors at the University of Georgia to document the project and women’s roles in waste management in Haiti. The report is expected in early 2020.

In April of this year, HP announced an additional $2 million investment to expand operations and build two new learning centers in Haiti. The investment will fund a new plastic washing line that will allow the program to produce cleaner, higher-quality recycled plastic and enable Haiti to better compete on the international plastics market. For HP, it helps ensure a sustainable source of high-quality recycled materials.

Working with industry leaders to implement change today

In 2018, HP joined NextWave Plastics, a collaborative, open-source initiative convening leading technology and consumer-focused companies to develop the first global network of ocean-bound plastics supply chains.

Today’s announcement marks HP’s ongoing contribution to NextWave member companies’ goal of diverting a minimum of 25,000 tons of plastics, the equivalent to 1.2 billion single-use plastic water bottles, from entering the ocean by the end of the year 2025.

“There are lots of global proclamations and policy changes around ocean plastics being announced, but many don’t even take effect until 2025. What HP is demonstrating is that it  is possible to implement change today,” said Dune Ives, executive director of Lonely Whale, the convening entity for NextWave Plastics, in an interview with Triple Pundit. “HP and other NextWave member companies are illustrating that change at scale is possible.”

Beyond Haiti, NextWave also has established programs supplying various plastics used in products, such as nylon, high density polyethylene (HDPE) , polypropylene (P/P) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET), in the Philippines, Indonesia, Chile, Cameroon, Spain and Denmark. Future sites currently in development include India, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Argentina, Peru and Uruguay.

”These are nascent markets. Companies are working with small suppliers to build out entire supply chains,” says Ives. “It’s a gradual, evolving process. There is no ocean-bound plastics market to plug into, so these efforts tend to take 18 to 24 months to get off the ground.”

NextWave member companies, including HP, have committed to not only expand the number of products that incorporate ocean-bound plastics, but also to scale up the number of places around world where they source the material.

By doing so, Ives says, companies demonstrate this is part of their business practice -- not a one-off activity. “They are demonstrating they are in it for the long haul and, in the process, helping to inspire consumers, other corporations and their competitors to do as much as they can to solve for the ocean-bound crisis.”

Image credit: HP

If you listen carefully during reporting season, you can hear the screams of sustainability and corporate responsibility (CR) practitioners as they slowly drown in the sea of proliferating reporting frameworks. From the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to the industry-specific guidance issued by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), the ESG (environmental, social and governance) reporting field—and what is expected of companies—is evolving at an accelerating pace.

“Companies can’t see a clear ‘winner’ emerging from the different frameworks and are in a dilemma — do they choose one, ignore them all, or hedge their bets by producing multiple reports, or one main report with multiple appendices?” said Paul Scott, managing director of Corporate Register in announcing this year’s CR Reporting Award winners.

Wesley Gee, director of sustainability at Works Design Communications, a Canadian firm specializing in sustainability communications and reporting, agrees. “It isn’t always easy to choose the perfect mix of frameworks, especially when companies have different needs to meet.” He adds that internal teams he works with often don’t have the time – or inclination – to address all of them.   

To help, here is a breakdown of some of the most common frameworks and reflections from ESG reporting masters.

Reporting frameworks abound, from GRI to SASB

GRI, which offers reporting guidance for a range of economic, environmental and social impacts, remains the most popular framework for CR reporting with around two thirds of reports analyzed in the most recent KPMG Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting using it.

“GRI is a great place to understand how companies compare in general and to understand what issues are most important to you and your stakeholders,” Judy Sandford, senior strategist and managing director of sustainability and CSR at reporting firm Addison, told TriplePundit.

GRI continues to add to its framework, with a new standard for tax and payments to governments expected to be released by the end of this year.

In less than five years since they debuted, the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have resonated strongly with businesses, with many attempting to connect their activities to them.

According to KPMG, 43 percent of reports in its study included the SDGs in some way. However, corporate narrative surrounding the SDGs remains rudimentary, some experts say.

“Many companies just show alignment with the SDGs, but do not talk about how they are making progress,” observes Sandford.

Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) agrees. A BSR insights memo summarizing 2019 reporting trends from earlier this year suggested that “companies should move from mentioning the SDGs and mapping their existing programs to them, to prioritizing those SDGs most relevant to their business and measuring their contributions and impacts. Ideally, this measurement should also inform company strategy—it creates an opportunity to link disclosure with performance.”

Fortunately, GRI and the UN Global Compact issued guidance last year to help companies measure and report on their impact on the SDGs: Integrating the SDGs into Corporate Reporting: A Practical Guide.

Investors yearn for more

A key criticism of GRI and other reporting frameworks comes from investors who seek reliable non-financial data to incorporate into their asset management strategies and company valuation models to gauge if companies are managing sustainability-related risks and opportunities effectively. They say that, often, GRI-based reports do not contain material information that allows for company-to-company comparison.

Both the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) Recommendations and SASB help companies identify and report “decision-useful” material sustainability information, either in sustainability or financial reports such as the 10K.

As of July 2019, more than 800 organizations had publicly voiced their support for the TCFD. Yet, according to Mardi McBrien, managing director of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board, only 4 percent of companies worldwide disclose information aligned with at least 10 of the 11 TCFD recommendations.

“We need to scale up high-quality disclosure across the board if we are to combat the most severe consequences of climate change,” McBrien said during the launch new climate disclosure e-learning courses on TCFD Knowledge Hub earlier this month.

While SASB’s Investor Advisory Group represents more than $30 trillion in investments and assets under management, its 77 industry-specific standards have been relatively slow to be adopted by corporations. Eight years after SASB was established, less than 90 companies are using the standards, according to the SASB website. Those that do, such as Diageo, Ford, Intel, JetBlue and Merck, can benefit from greater transparency, better risk management, improved long-term performance and a stronger, more valuable brand, according to SASB.

ESG experts predict more companies will report on how sustainability impacts their financial performance in the coming years -- and will need support from their sustainability and CR teams.  “The merging of financial and ‘non-financial’ reporting will accelerate quickly in the next few years and it is the finance teams that will be expected to deliver the disclosures,” said Adrian King, KPMG global sustainability reporting and assurance leader. “…increased dialogue and collaboration between the finance and sustainability functions – which are too often separate and siloed – will be critical.”

What about integrated reporting? There are still few companies that publish true integrated reports.

Addison’s Sandford doesn’t see the numbers going up. “I don’t think we will see an increase in companies publishing truly integrated reports until there is regulation. Given that the current [U.S.] government is not focused on sustainability right now, I don’t think formal integrated reporting is likely to get much traction anytime soon [in the U.S.].” 

Instead many experts believe that the top priority over the next five years will be to harmonize the various standards and frameworks. “Collaboration between reporting practitioners and standards organizations in a process of metrics harmonization and will help ensure that reporting standards evolve in ways that both simplify the reporting process and support the creation of decision-useful reports,” predicts BSR.

Wesley Gee and his team at Works Design Communications firm will share new findings from their research on CR reporting during next month’s 3BL Forum: Brands Taking Stands - What's Next, October 29-30 at National Harbor, MD, just outside Washington, D.C.

Don’t miss Works Design's Issue Table during the Forum, during which the firm’s leaders will share their insight on how to transform turning trends, issues and data related to CR reporting into action.

Together, the 80-plus speakers we will showcase on the Forum’s stage promise a two-day event that will be fast-paced, high-octane and invaluable with their perspectives on the latest in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) community.

We’re pleased to offer TriplePundit 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 credit: Pixabay

Palantir CEO Alex Karp raised an interesting point about patriotism and corporate social responsibility in a recent op-ed critical of Google published earlier this month in the Washington Post.

Karp contrasted Google with his own company on the basis of willingness to accept work with federal defense and national security agencies. Viewed through that lens, one could conclude that Palantir is a patriotic company and Google is not. The question is, does Karp make his case?

Corporate social responsibility and corporate patriotism

Before taking a look at the logic behind Karp’s argument, it is helpful to understand how patriotism fits into the mold of corporate social responsibility.

If patriotism means wanting the best for your country, there are clearly points of overlap.

In economic terms, Dartmouth professor and author Richard A. D’Aveni has described "corporate patriotism" — sometimes referred to as economic nationalism — as “making decisions that strengthen a country’s economy while strengthening a company’s bottom line.”

Interpreted narrowly, economic nationalism will not necessarily make shareholders happy, but D’Aveni argues for a broad, strategic approach that integrates shareholder confidence with domestic social concerns and the national interest.

This view of corporate patriotism can be expanded outward to encompass the general understanding of corporate social responsibility, in which shareholders ultimately benefit from corporate decisions that benefit people and the planet.

Corporate patriotism and job creation

Corporate patriotism is rendered into its most familiar form whenever elected officials ask U.S.-based companies to create more manufacturing jobs at home rather than outsourcing those jobs to other countries.

That is often easier said than done. A somewhat more realistic approach to corporate patriotism was described by Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign, when she advocated for job creation in general rather than focusing on manufacturing jobs. In doing so, she summarized the economic view of corporate patriotism:

"I'm not asking corporations to be charitable, although that's important. I'm asking corporations to realize that when Americans prosper, they prosper too. The idea of corporate patriotism might sound quaint in era of vast multinationals, but it's the right thing to do and the smart thing to do as well.”

Corporate patriotism and consumer perception

Job creation aside, corporate patriotism can also function as a marketing tool in which patriotic consumers identify themselves with a patriotic brand.

That approach makes corporate patriotism a key factor in brand reputation, regardless of a company’s track record on outsourcing jobs overseas.

For example, the 2019 Brand Keys consumer survey of “Most Patriotic American Brands” lists Jeep at number one in its top ten, with the other nine following in this order: Disney, Ford, Coca-Cola, Levi Strauss, American Express, MSNBC, Hershey’s, AT&T, The New York Times, Walmart and Fox News.

As reflected in the Brand Keys list, a brand’s insistence on simplistic flag-waving is not a winning strategy.

In explaining some surprising omissions in its 2016 brand patriotism survey, founder Robert Passikoff explained that “waving an American flag and having an authentic foundation for being able to wave the flag are entirely different things, and the consumer knows it.”

What is “authentic” corporate patriotism?

Passikoff’s emphasis on authenticity is one key to understanding Karp’s op-ed.

Point by point, Karp builds the case for Palantir as an authentically patriotic company — not in terms of job creation, but in terms of national defense and homeland security.

Part of his argument rests in a direct characterization of Palantir as a company that was founded with patriotism built into its DNA.

That approach is consistent with Palantir’s ongoing marketing strategy, as described by Bloomberg among other news organizations.

As Karp writes, Palantir was “founded after 9/11 with a commitment to helping those on the front lines use data analytics to protect the United States, a mission that grew to include combatting genocide, sex trafficking, terrorism, drug cartels, and “malicious computer-hacking software.”

He further entwines the corporate mission of Palantir with the national defense mission of the U.S. government by evoking the patriotism of those who serve in the U.S. Marine Corps.

That part of the argument rests on the contrast between Palantir’s government contracts and Google’s decision to stop working on an artificial intelligence project for the Department of Defense.

By deciding to drop the contract, Karp argues, Google let down “the young people who volunteer for the Marines and get deployed overseas.”

He further emphasizes that point by casting Google’s work as a military style mission:

“…Google executives backed away from the mission. The U.S. Marine serves; the Silicon Valley executives walk. This is wrong.”

Making it personal

Karp also reinforces his case by comparing his own personal patriotism to other Silicon Valley executives – and the images readers could conjure includes Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who was born in India. And therein lies Karp’s venture into quite the grey area.

Early in the op-ed, his description of Silicon Valley executives practically describes them as a sort of un-American cabal. He pulls no punches as he casts them as “a small group of executives at the largest Internet companies in Silicon Valley” who “try to impose their moral framework on America.”

Karp hammers home the point toward the end of the piece:

“…some Silicon Valley companies are taking the power to decide these issues away from elected officials and judges and giving it to themselves — a deeply unrepresentative group of executives living in an elite bubble in a corner of the country…”

In contrast, Karp makes it clear that he is a U.S. citizen by birth. He places himself squarely in the legacy of the American civil rights movement:

“I grew up the son of two civil rights activists and came of age in a progressive family and adopted many of the movement’s values as my own.”

To be clear, civil rights activism is not universally accepted as part of the patriotic tradition in America. Nevertheless, civil rights activism is deeply embedded in American history, and Palantir has attempted to brand itself as a defender of individual liberty through an in-house team of “privacy and civil liberties engineers."

By evoking his parents, Karp comes across as staking his claim to authenticity — as an American by birth, not by immigration or naturalization.

The dark side of corporate patriotism

By evoking both military-style loyalty and birthright citizenship, Karp’s pursuit of authenticity leads his company into the area of flag-waving cautioned against by Passikoff. Those lines of argument also venture down a dark pathway implicit in the concept of corporate patriotism described by D’Aveni.

That pathway is one in which executives support national policy with an uncritical eye.

To cite one example, D’Aveni includes China — “especially China” in his list of companies where executives “care more about serving their home countries than about serving shareholders.” 

In that view of patriotism, Google’s decision to stop working on a Defense Department contract is by definition an unpatriotic one.

However, the American understanding of obedience to national policy is somewhat different.

Perhaps unintentionally, Karp himself evokes the American understanding of obedience, through his references to the obedience of members of the U.S. Marine Corps to their commander.

That calls to mind the Military Law of Obedience.

The Military Law of Obedience does obligate members of the armed services to obey lawful orders. However, under certain circumstances the Law of Obedience also obligates them to disobey orders that are fundamentally or “manifestly” illegal.

My country, right or wrong

By hinging his argument on the Armed Services, Karp brings up the origins of the familiar phrase, “my country, right or wrong.”

Historians have traced one early example of that remark to the much-decorated U.S. Navy officer Stephen Decatuer, who achieved the rank of Captain in 1804 at the age of 25.

In 1816, at a banquet in his honor, Decateur toasted the U.S. as follows: “Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.”

By that time, Decatuer had a long list of military credits to his name, yet he felt comfortable enough to point out, in a public setting, that U.S. foreign policy “may” not always be right.

That sentiment was expanded in 1872 by another military veteran, Missouri U.S. Senator Carl Schurz.

Born in Germany, Schurz emigrated to the U.S. in 1852 and was active in the abolitionist movement before joining the Union army, where he served as brigadier general of volunteers at the Second Battle of Bull Run as well as at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Chattanooga.

Responding to a colleague’s use of the phrase “my country, right or wrong” during a session of the Senate, Schurz rejoined:

“The Senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming, ‘My country, right or wrong.’ In one sense I say so too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”

In any case, U.S. companies are not bound by the Military Law of Obedience. They are subject to civil law and to certain orders of the U.S. President.

In the context of a President who dashes off “orders” to companies through Twitter, only to revise, reverse course, or drop them entirely, perhaps the only responsible — and patriotic — course of action is for Silicon Valley executives to make decisions with a critical eye on the national interest and the public good.

Editor's note: CEOs, including the one featured in this story, are facing all kinds of challenges due to the ongoing surge in employee activism. Hence this discussion will be a valuable part of the agenda next month at 3BL Forum: Brands Taking Stands - What's Next, October 29-30 at National Harbor, MD, just outside Washington, D.C. Together, the 80-plus speakers we will showcase onstage promise a two-day event that will be fast-paced, high-octane and invaluable with their perspectives on the latest in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) community.

We’re pleased to offer TriplePundit 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 credit: Kevin Lanceplaine/Unsplash

The upcoming Global Climate Strike has provided employee activists at big U.S. tech companies with a powerful opportunity to speak out on climate change. Few leading employers, though, have publicly voiced their support. Nevertheless, an important development occurred last week, when the nonprofit organization Common Dreams announced that more than 1,000 websites and companies have joined an online or “digital” version of the Global Climate Strike, to take place on September 20.

Few companies will publicly join the Global Climate Strike

The Global Climate Strike is a weeklong series of walkout protests and other street actions, beginning on September 20, organized through the #FridaysforFuture movement to coincide with the United Nations Climate Week activities in New York City.

As of this writing, the movement has attracted more than 2,500 participating events globally, with 500 taking place in the U.S. alone.

Until last week, though, corporate participation has been minimal.

A group of employees at Amazon did recently catch the media eye by publicly pledging to join the Global Climate Strike, but that pledge does not represent official company policy.

Otherwise, at first, the list of well-known U.S. employers publicly supporting the Global Climate Strike could be counted on one hand: Lush, Patagonia, Seventh Generation, Ben & Jerry’s and Burton Snowboards. A few other companies have since joined, but in the grand scheme of things, they are outliers in the U.S. business community.

In addition to digitally promoting the Global Climate Strike on their websites, these companies are also planning to shut down or suspend business, with the aim of encouraging employees and customers to physically join a walkout protest in their area.

One company sets a high bar for Global Climate Strike — in Australia

One notable exception to the tech sector’s silence is occurring not in the U. S. but in Australia, home base for the software firm Atlassian. On September 2, Atlassian publicly announced that employees could use paid time off from their annual allotment of volunteer work with the Atlassian Foundation to participate physically in a Global Climate Strike activity.

Treating participation in a street protest as paid volunteer work may seem like an idea that dropped in out of nowhere, but it does derive from a broader evolution in the concept of corporate charity.

Rather than following the traditional gift-giving model, corporate charity has begun to embrace  collaborative, boots-on-the-ground efforts that apply corporate resources to social progress and economic sustainability.

In addition to encouraging Global Climate Strike participation within the company’s workforce, Atlassian is also publicly sharing its messaging and graphics related to this walkout with anyone who wants to participate.

The Global Climate Strike trickle turns into a (digital) trickle

Atlassian’s proactive approach is a sharp contrast with the corporate silence on the part of leading U.S. tech firms.

Nevertheless, some tech companies have been inspired to act, at least on the digital level.

According to another press release from Common Dreams dated September 12, the 1,000+ participants in the Digital Climate Strike have been organized through the nonprofit organization Fight for the Future.

Websites joining the campaign are featuring banners and advertisements promoting the Global Climate Strike, and they are replacing their landing page with a closable overlay (and using social media messages like the one shown above) encouraging the public to join.

The campaign is encouraging site owners to keep the overlay up all day on September 20 and shut down for business. Those choosing not to shut down for the day can continue to use the closable overlay.

That impressed-looking figure of “1,000” caught the media eye, but there may be a bit less to the campaign than meets the eye, at least so far. As of September 12, the campaign website only listed a handful of familiar names as leading participants: Tumblr, Kickstarter, WordPress, Imgur and BitTorrent.

A baby step, but still a step

Whether or not other leading tech companies join the Climate Strike, the Fight for the Future campaign marks an important step forward for corporate activism.

The nonprofit was founded in 2011, in the run up to internet-related legislation under consideration by Congress.

The so-named SOPA and PIPA bills pertained directly to the operation of internet companies and related tech firms, which responded with a massive online protest in 2012. More than 115,000 companies participated.

Though the Digital Climate Strike has attracted far fewer participants at this point, it marks an important next step because it focuses on climate change, an issue that a first glance, does not seem to directly affect the operation of internet and tech sector companies.

However, climate change does have an impact on every business at least indirectly, and these risks ripple out to impact millions of tech users, customers and clients.

Bridget Kyeremateng, head of Tumblr’s social impact efforts, articulated that sentiment in a public statement for Common Dreams, explaining that “Tumblr’s passionate and driven community is always eager to find ways that they can get involved in their communities and the Climate Strike is a great opportunity to take issues off the platform and onto the streets.”

The firms that have joined the Digital Climate Strike may also be responding to the recent wave of employee activism. Whether by engaging in behind-the scenes protests, lobbying their company through letters and petitions, or taking their concerns to the mainstream media by participating in street actions, employees are speaking out on climate change, federal immigration policies, and other matters of fundamental social concern.

Companies are beginning to recognize the need to address employees’ social concerns as a bottom line issue, especially as it relates to losing out in the global race to attract top talent.

As far as the Global Climate Strike goes, it looks like the majority of leading U.S. tech companies still have some ‘splaining to do.

Editor's note: We’re in a brave new world of corporate activism, where CEOs are increasingly speaking out and, well, we can see that employees are making their feelings known loud and clear. So, what’s next?

Join us for this discussion at 3BL Forum: Brands Taking Stands - What's Next, October 29-30 at National Harbor, MD, just outside Washington, D.C. Together, the 80-plus speakers we will showcase onstage promise a two-day event that will be fast-paced, high-octane and invaluable with their perspectives on the latest in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) community.

We’re pleased to offer TriplePundit 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: Global Climate Strike

The upcoming Global Climate Strike, a weeklong series of walkout events beginning this Friday, September 20, provides a unique opportunity for leading brands to engage their customers and employees — current and future — in what promises to be one of the most significant global movements of its kind. Nevertheless, only a scattering of well-known progressive brands has publicly endorsed participation by their employees.

What is the Global Climate Strike?

The September 20 Global Climate Strike was inspired by Swedish student Greta Thunberg, whose determination to advocate for climate action sparked a wave of school strikes in Europe, leading to the international #FridaysForFuture movement.

As of this writing, more than 2,400 Global Climate Strike events are planned in more than 115 countries, including 1,000 cities. The series of events coincides with the 2019 Climate Week activities in New York City.

Climate action is mainstream, in some places

Given that New York City is the location for Climate Week, of particular interest is participation by organizations in the United States. Groups in 145 U.S. cities have already registered their Global Climate Strike events.

As one demonstration of the degree to which climate action is perceived as a mainstream issue in at least one leading coastal city, the New York City Department of Education has announced that it will excuse all students with parental permission to participate in the Global Climate Strike from attending school on September 20.

Round up the usual suspects

If any leading U.S. corporations are supporting participation by their employees in the Global Climate Strike, they are not doing so publicly.

The scattering of exceptions to the corporate silence include these companies highlighted in an August 27 press release from the climate action organization 350.org.

Lush Cosmetics is supporting employees who participate by shuttering all of its operations and closing its 250 stores on Friday; Canadian stores will close a week later. The company also plans to amplify messages from the strikers through its stores and digital platforms.

Ben & Jerry’s is encouraging its fans to “ratchet up the pressure on politicians and policy makers,” and join a Global Climate Strike event in their area. They have provided a link to the Global Climate Strike event registration page on their website.

Seventh Generation is also using its website to encourage customers to register for events, and it is planning to donate all of its media resources to climate messaging from September 20 to September 27.

Patagonia is supporting the Global Climate Strike through its Patagonia Action Works organization. The company has also posted an essay on student climate activists by employee-activist Madalina Preda on its blog. Patagonia is also planning walkouts from all of its stores on September 20.

Since 350.org’s announcement last month, a few other companies have announced they will participate in Friday’s walkout as well.

For example, in an acknowledgment how climate change can have an impact on the sporting industry in the long term, dependent Vermont-based Burton Snowboards announced its support for the Global Climate Strike on August 30:

“We’re closing all of our global offices and owned stores for business on Friday, September 20th so everyone can walk out and join the strike in their regions. We’re using all of our owned flagship stores as a gathering place on the morning of September 20th where people can make signs and walk to nearby marches.”

Finally, the organic foods company Nature’s Path said some of its U.S. employees will participate in this Friday’s strike. A week later, the company’s staff in downtown Vancouver will join environmental activists during the Canadian Climate Strike on September 27. In addition, Nature’s Path said it will donate a portion of all online sales from the company’s online shopping portal, up to $10,000, to 350.org.

Employee activism takes center stage

With just a handful of companies in public support, the Global Climate Strike is turning into a test case for employee activism.

Many companies may well be quietly supporting employees who choose to participate in Global Climate Strike events, especially if they are acting as individuals. If so, they have not pushed their support into the media spotlight.

In addition, the participation issue becomes complicated if employee activists identify themselves through their corporate brand.

Traditionally, employee actions have fit into the worker union framework, dealing with personal issues like pay, hours, benefits and safety.

More recently, employee activists have begun to lobby their companies over corporate policies on climate change, sexual harassment, immigrant rights and other matters related to corporate social responsibility.

That can lead to tension between a brand and its workers. For example, Google sparked an uproar leading into last summer’s Pride march in San Francisco, when it asked employees marching with its float to refrain from protesting anti-LGBTQ content on YouTube.

Another type of tension can occur when employees protest corporate policies that support controversial government policies, as recently illustrated by the employee walkout at Wayfair.

A variation on that tension between a brand and its employees is also in play at Amazon, where hundreds of employees have publicly announced that they will join the Global Climate Strike. The action follows other attempts by Amazon employees to advocate for ramping up climate action at the company.

As the corporate social responsibility movement matures, companies are beginning to find their voices on many issues of fundamental public concern, from racism to gun safety.  It will be interesting to see how many leading U.S. corporations become part of the Global Climate Strike whether they intend to or not, through the actions of their employees.

Editor's note: This wave of employee activism won’t cease anytime soon. So, what’s next? Be a part of this ongoing conversation at 3BL Forum: Brands Taking Stands - What's Next, October 29-30 at National Harbor, MD, just outside Washington, D.C. Together, the 80-plus speakers we will have onstage promise a two-day event that will be fast-paced, high-octane and invaluable with their perspectives on the latest in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) community.

We’re pleased to offer TriplePundit 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 credit: Niek Verlaan/Pixabay

Friday, September 20, will not be business as usual at the Lush beauty and bath products chain. Instead, the retailer will close its 200 U.S. stores, factories, headquarters and even its e-commerce operations, and mobilize its 5,000 employees to support this Friday’s Global Climate Strike. On September 27, Lush will do the same across its Canadian operations.

With around 250 stores in the U.S. and Canada, the company has a loyal and growing base of mostly Generation Z and Millennial customers, reporting an impressive $530 million in North American sales in 2017. Boasting about 4.5 million Instagram followers, along with its thriving online sales, the brand is hitting the sweet spot for the values-driven younger generations that appreciate its “naked” (non-packaged) products and vegetarian-only ingredients.

A commitment to disruptive change at Lush

In July 2019, the chain launched "carbon-positive cork-based packaging," which Lush shipped by commercial sailboats rather than cargo ships. Building upon that decision, the company’s move to join the Global Climate Strike, while making a dent in profits, is likely to strengthen the loyalty not only of customers but of employees, who Lush said will be paid during their day of protest.

“As a business that’s long fought for the environment, we are acutely aware of the climate crisis and recognize both the indisputable science behind it, and the need for strong, tangible action to address it,” said Mark Wolverton, CEO of Lush Cosmetics North America, in a recent public statement. “We are committed to disruptive, transformative change. That means a break in ‘business as usual,” holding our global leaders accountable and answering the call of the youth activists to join them on the streets this September.”

Engaging customers to push ahead for climate action

This week Lush employees are handing customers pamphlets of carbon-saving actions and encouraging them via social media to join 350.org’s “week of climate action.” The campaign group’s North America director, Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, lauded the values-based decision by Lush, which is joining brands including Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s and Seventh Generation to take radical action. “The willingness to disrupt the norm is an indicator that the time has come for everyone, especially global leaders, to get out of their comfort zones to ensure that communities around the world can thrive with clean air, water, and are safe from the worst of the climate crisis,” O’Laughlin said.

According to Carleen Pickard, Lush’s ethical campaign specialist, the direct impact that hurricanes, wildfires, record-breaking heatwaves are having on U.S. staff was a major impetus for the decision to close down operations. “The losses as a business for the day are nominal in comparison,” she told the beauty magazine Allure.

In addition to the environmental costs associated the decision to strike for the climate, Lush can point to other reasons for supporting Friday’s actions as well. Companies across all sectors are facing the reality that employees increasingly want to work for organizations that are willing to take a stand on a wide range of issues. And given that the U.S. retail sector averages a 60 percent annual turnover rate, Lush may also be hoping that the loyalty factor it can inspire among its employees will be well worth any lost business – as the company could benefit from the expenses associated with recruiting, hiring and training employees.  

Editor's note: Employee engagement stories like the one discussed above will be a valuable part of the agenda next month at 3BL Forum: Brands Taking Stands - What's Next, October 29-30 at National Harbor, MD, just outside Washington, D.C. Together, the 80-plus speakers we will have onstage promise a two-day event that will be fast-paced, high-octane and invaluable with their perspectives on the latest in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) community.

We’re pleased to offer TriplePundit 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 credit: Lush UK/Facebook

It may be time to finally put to rest the debate over whether sustainable investing is “mainstream.” A remarkable 85 percent of U.S. individual investors now express interest in sustainable investing strategies, according to a new study from the financial services firm Morgan Stanley.

The third edition of the individual investor survey, Sustainable Signals, examines the attitudes, perceptions and behaviors of individual investors towards sustainable investing. This year’s study showed investor enthusiasm at an all-time high. That includes 95 percent of millennials who now express interest in sustainable investing, a generational trend closely followed in TriplePundit’s ongoing coverage.

These investors are putting words to action. About half of the general population (52 percent) and 67 percent of millennials are taking part in at least one sustainable investing activity, such as investing in companies or funds that target specific environmental or social outcomes.

Matching investments to impact

Morgan Stanley’s study underscores the growing popularity of impact investing, as 3p has reported, in which investors want products that match their interests. Some 84 percent of all investors surveyed, and 90 percent of millennials, want the ability to tailor their investments to their impact goals and they want to track the impact return on the investment in an impact report.

Individual investors’ embrace of sustainable investing is in lockstep with the 90 percent of institutional investors globally who believe ESG integrated portfolios are likely to perform as well or better than non-ESG integrated portfolios. An increasing number of banks also have their eyes on the $23 trillion global market for sustainable investing.

In the U.S., sustainable investing assets reached $12 trillion in 2018, according to the US SIF: The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment. That’s one in four dollars in total assets under professional management in the U.S.

Debunking the myth of a financial trade-off

Individual investors’ conviction about sustainable investing outweighs concerns that there might be a financial trade-off: 86 percent believe that corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices can potentially lead to higher profitability and may be better long-term investments, the Sustainable Signals study found.

In fact, there is growing evidence that investors don’t have to make a financial trade off. In August another study by Morgan Stanley showed that sustainable funds provide both financial performance and lowered risk. The returns of sustainable funds are no different, says Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing, while offering investors comparatively lower downside risk—as well as impact on a broad range of environmental, social and governance issues.

“The myth that sustainable investing requires a financial tradeoff has been surprisingly sticky, despite research demonstrating that companies with strong social or environmental practices outperform their peers on a variety of measures,” Matthew Slovik, Head of Global Sustainable Finance at Morgan Stanley said in a press release. “By looking at thousands of mutual funds across multiple asset classes, we found that sustainable investments can help investors meet a variety of financial objectives for generating returns and managing risk.”  

In its white paper, “Sustainable Reality: Analyzing Risk and Returns of Sustainable Funds,” Morgan Stanley analyzed 10,723 funds, using Morningstar data on exchange traded and open-ended mutual funds active in any given year from 2004-2018. The key findings:

• There is no financial tradeoff in the returns of sustainable funds and traditional funds. No consistent or statistically significant difference in total returns existed between ESG-focused and traditional mutual funds and ETFs.
• Sustainable funds may offer lower market risk. Sustainable funds experienced a 20 percent smaller downside deviation than traditional funds, a consistent and statistically significant finding.

Steady in turbulent winds

The study also found that in years of turbulent markets, such as 2008, 2009, 2015 and 2018, sustainable funds' downside deviation was significantly smaller than traditional funds.

Looking specifically at the last quarter of 2018, when U.S. stock market volatility spiked, the study found that, despite negative returns for nearly all funds, the median sustainable fund outperformed the median traditional fund by 1.39 percent in U.S. equity returns.

“While the last quarter of 2018 may have caused angst among many investors, those with investments in sustainable funds likely saw smoother fluctuations and potentially fewer losses,” said Slovik.

For the 53 percent of investors—including 59 percent of millennial investors—who believe that investing sustainably requires a financial tradeoff, according to Morgan Stanley, this news should send the current wave of enthusiasm for sustainable investing soaring even higher.

Image credit: Gerd Altmann/Pixabay