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This article series is sponsored by DXC Technology and produced by the TriplePundit editorial team.

Even as diversity and inclusion (D&I) becomes a corporate buzz phrase, neurodiversity is often left out of broader D&I conversations. So, what is neurodiversity, and why does it matter to business?  

Neurodiversity refers to recognizing neurological differences the same way we do other differences. Neurological differences include diagnoses like autism, attention deficit disorder, dyslexia, clinical anxiety and depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. People with neurodiverse needs bring unique strengths to the table, but they often struggle to access the resources they need to prepare for successful careers—and companies are unsure how to train, recruit and retain them. 

For example, an estimated 80 percent of people on the autism spectrum are unemployed or underemployed worldwide. Meanwhile, millions of positions go unfilled due to a lack of skilled workers—particularly in the tech sector. 

Matching this untapped labor pool to the tech talent gap presents a lucrative opportunity. And case studies show that integrating neurodiverse workers into corporate teams can increase productivity, spur innovation and strengthen more inclusive organizations that celebrate the entire range of diversity. 

Organizations increasingly recognize the competitive advantages that a neurodiverse workforce brings. But overall, neurodiversity is rarely represented in corporate D&I strategies—and integrating neurodiverse individuals into the workforce requires a thoughtful approach. 

Fortunately for the tech sector and other industries that want to embrace this potential talent pipeline, a growing number of companies are showing the way. Among them is DXC Technology, an independent, end-to-end IT services company that serves clients across 70 countries. Since 2014, through its Dandelion Program, DXC has been working to increase technology employment opportunities for people on the autism spectrum and capitalize on their innate skills. 

Based in Australia, the program engages partners in government, business and academia to provide work experience and job placement for people on the spectrum—and to track best practices for training and engaging them. 

Neurodiversity and the workforce of tomorrow

The lack of employment opportunities for people on the spectrum and the overall tech talent gap are dual challenges that DXC set out to address. “It was the perfect intersection of problems,” Michael Fieldhouse, DXC Dandelion Program executive, told TriplePundit. “DXC was facing shortages in finding skilled labor in IT. And I had recently begun to recognize that people on the autism spectrum represented a talent pipeline that we—and many other tech companies—were overlooking.”

Fieldhouse recalled the moment he made the connection: One evening, while hosting friends and their two sons with autism for dinner, he noticed one of the boys dropping pebbles one by one into a Japanese pond. “At first, I glanced over at him, annoyed that I’d have to pluck them out later,” he said. But when the boy was still engaged in this activity two hours later, Fieldhouse was struck by “his incredible concentration at this repetitive task,” he told us. “That was my epiphany. How to bring that skill into the workplace was another question.”

Building a neurodiverse workforce: Ingredients for success

“We wanted to create a program that allowed neurodiverse people to have careers, not just a job,” Fieldhouse told 3p. That means creating space for people to develop themselves, he said, “and the organization has to be prepared and willing to support that development.”

After a year of research to better understand the circumstances around neurodiverse individuals—particularly those on the autism spectrum—in the workforce, DXC began employing its first group of neurodiverse workers in 2014. The company has since established seven teams across four states in Australia, employing over 100 people on the autism spectrum in fields like cybersecurity, data analytics and software testing.

The DXC Dandelion Program engages a range of government partners and private companies to provide work opportunities, and universities such as La Trobe, Cornell, Stanford, City University of New York and University of Haifa provide research support. The focus on research informs a sustainable program that creates the right environment with the right support structure to ensure that participants are able to learn and grow as employees and as individuals. 

“Companies get the ‘D’ of diversity but not the ‘I’ of inclusion,” Fieldhouse said. “It’s easy for people to tick the box and hire individuals of a certain background, but not actually change the fabric of the organization to be inclusive.”

When it comes to creating a culture that welcomes neurodiverse workers, buy-in from management is critical, Fieldhouse said. “Companies need to focus on what management practices they have in place and the level of education their general employee population needs about autism,” he told us. “The key thing is to create a sense of empathy. When you start to empathize, you hear other people’s thoughts, and that enriches the conversation. … This is the art of the manager, to navigate these situations skillfully and bring the organization together.”

Sharing the knowledge

“When we initially started the program, there was very little evidence-based information around employing people with autism,” Fieldhouse said. “We have conducted the only longitudinal research study on this type of program."

Now others are benefiting, too. DXC’s Dandelion Program methodology was open-sourced through Cornell University’s K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Institute on Employment and Disability (Yang-Tan Institute) to help other organizations further break down the employment barriers for people with autism. 

To date, some 330 organizations have downloaded research and organizational management materials from the program, Fieldhouse said.

Reaping the benefits

Embracing neurodiversity in the workplace carries a host of benefits, including boosts in productivity, innovation, organizational cohesiveness and inclusiveness, Fieldhouse said. For DXC, having teams of neurodiverse individuals has “enriched the diversity of thought” in the organization, he added. 

A survey conducted by La Trobe University indicated strong conviction among co-workers about the importance and value of the program. “They’ve actually helped sharpen up some of the thought processes amongst the teams,” one employee said of neurodiverse co-workers. “They’ll ask questions where others fear to tread.”

“We have found that co-workers are proud their organization is involved,” Fieldhouse told us. “They see diversity as important and relevant, and the program is a ‘go to’ when talking about positive aspects of work.”

Still, the main challenge is for companies to succeed at sustaining employment of neurodiverse individuals, Fieldhouse said. “For that, processes might need to change; engagement processes and on-boarding might need to change. How do you undertake performance management, for instance, and how do you provide the training and education for co-workers to interact with neurodiverse employees?”

The DXC Dandelion Program achieves a 92 percent retention rate, compared to a 76 percent retention rate from the company's graduate recruitment program. A 75 percent job satisfaction rate demonstrates that, when given the right tools, neurodiverse individuals can not only integrate into technology positions, but also thrive in these teams. “We have seen productivity rise by as much as 30 to 40 percent,” Fieldhouse added. “In fact, the feedback we most often get from the people in our program is that we should be giving them more work.”

The bottom line 

As more companies look to integrate neurodiversity into the way they approach D&I, case studies like the DXC Dandelion Program offer insight and incentive. “By strengthening our skills as managers and as co-workers of those with autism or other aspects of neurodiversity, the entire organization is lifted to deal with a whole range of mental health issues,” Fieldhouse said. “Organizations need to be reflective of their communities. You bring the best of the community into the organization—and that’s what the Dandelion Program has been able to accomplish for us.” 

Over the next six weeks, in partnership with DXC Technology, TriplePundit will explore what it means to create a corporate culture that welcomes everyone—including those with neurodiverse needs. You can keep track of the series here.

Image credits: Chris Knight, Hunter Newton and Charles via Unsplash

With Goldman Sachs suggesting the global battery market could reach $60 billion by 2030, it’s important to note that many of the companies leading battery technology advancements are based in Asia. The fact that the battery industry is centered on one side of the Pacific Rim is a long-term boon for those economies, but that reality is worrisome for other countries across the globe. The concern within other regions is that they are at risk of falling behind in battery research and development.

To that end, Germany, Europe’s largest economy is working to safeguard its role in the global battery industry—which could bolster its role in the worldwide electric vehicle (EV) market as well as build upon the German government’s complicated legacy of paving the way for a global low-carbon economy under the leadership of Angela Merkel.

The automotive industry is integral to Germany’s economy—and will have to be in the long term to sustain the country’s reputation for innovation and design. With the production of 5.6 million vehicles domestically in 2017 (and almost 16.5 million worldwide), Germany by most accounts is the world's third largest producer and largest exporter of automobiles. German automotive companies, including Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, have a particularly strong position in the luxury vehicle market, with a combined world market share of about 80 percent.

There is plenty of opportunity in the electric vehicles (EVs) market—witness the excitement over Porsche's venture into the EV sector. The German government wants to protect German carmakers as vehicles shift away from using combustion engines in accordance with the European Union mandate to reduce CO2 emissions by one-third. Hence this focus on battery technology is about more than profits for companies and reaping government revenues in the short term—it's about securing Germany’s leadership in the worldwide automotive sector beyond the mid-21st century.

While some critics question whether funneling €1 billion ($1.12 billion) toward the development and manufacturing of battery cells as part of Germany’s National Industrial Strategy 2030 plan is the right approach, to be clear, market share and profits are not necessarily what are at stake here. In the long run, this investment is about the German automakers’ long-term relevance and prosperity—which, of course, can only benefit Germany’s treasury.

Battery expert Martin Winter, professor of materials science, energy and electrochemistry at the University of Münster, told The Verge that large-scale production of battery cells by European or German companies will be crucial for the continent to maintain “its chances in taking part in an enormous and rapidly growing market.”

One goal for the automotive sector is to create a battery that can match or improve upon the performance of current lithium-ion batteries without the steep costs associated with their production. Within the lithium-ion realm, efforts have been focused on adding additional ingredients to increase batteries’ efficiency while lowering costs.

But not everyone is convinced. Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, professor of automotive economics at the University of Duisberg-Essen, was quoted in Forbes as saying: “It’s stupid. It’s crazy, what our ministry of economics is doing... The value does not exist in the manufacturing process in which they want to spend €1 billion. The value is in the materials.”

Of course, the response from some automotive experts is that when it comes to raw materials (e.g., cobalt and nickel) that are needed for making lithium-ion batteries, market primacy here may not be an economically viable solution either.

Another solution ready to be explored is solid-state batteries. While lithium-ion is the driving technology now, automotive research and development teams globally are testing solid-state batteries because, among many reasons, advocates for this technology say they are lighter, take up less space and are more cost-effective. As Volkswagen and other automotive manufacturers gear up for the next round of battery technology innovations, the German government is making its chess moves to ensure the future stability for its automotive companies, and the country’s economy at large, with this investment.

In the end, across the world, electric vehicle technology, adoption and production are accelerating. With the future of vehicles going all-electric, there is plenty of room for more battery cell manufacturers to come on board in Germany and elsewhere.

Image credit: Pixabay

We made a decision here at TriplePundit not to have special “Earth Day Coverage,” as we believe every day should be one in which we are conscious about our impact on people and the planet. We did, however, ask various leaders in the ESG (environmental, social and governance) sector for their thoughts about today. And with that, let their words speak for themselves:

“Every Earth Day is important, a reminder of the enormous and growing pressure that our way of life places upon our one planet. But this one really stands out for three reasons. Firstly, we’ve gone through a tipping point of scientific evidence, definitive proof of the climatic, pollution and biodiversity harm that we are causing. Next, we have a response from people that’s saying enough is enough, we need profound change, whether through protest or the ballot box. Finally, we are just months away from the start of the 2020s, the decade where we must make a conscious choice to scale rapidly the sustainable solutions and technologies (from renewables to diet, a circular economy to wellbeing, preventing deforestation to embracing human rights) that exist already and bend the arc of our pathway to a sustainable one.”

- Mike Barry, Director of Sustainable Business Plan A, Marks & Spencer

“First: environmental sustainability challenges are generally shared across an industry leading to common practices and shared concerns. The next logical step is collaborative partnerships that can scale solutions through the supply chain. The Alliance to End Plastic Waste is a classic example that combines expertise and resources across a supply chain for potentially substantive impact. Second, innovative partnerships that turn one company’s waste into another company’s asset is another opportunity to invent “we” solutions. For example, Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, has partnered with Dominion Energy to form Align Renewable Natural Gas to capture methane released by hogs.”

- Barie Carmichael, Senior Counselor, APCO Worldwide; Batten Fellow, Darden School of Business University of Virginia, Co-Author, Reset: Business and Society in the New Social Landscape 

“This Earth Day, I'm reflecting on the statistic that less than 3 percent of philanthropic giving in the U.S. goes to protecting the environment. In the face of climate change, the rollback of protections for public lands, and threats to critical ecosystems like coral reefs and our oceans, we have a role to play, from our long-standing corporate sustainability agenda and commitment to responsible sourcing, to our strategic philanthropy to support marine conservation and abandoned mine reclamation. But the sheer magnitude of today’s challenges requires collaboration. No one funder, nonprofit, government or company alone can protect our oceans, stabilize our climate, or conserve our wild places. I urge leaders in business, philanthropy and government to consider how they can best sustain the Earth's natural environment—and put both their sustainability practices and philanthropic dollars towards strategic partnership to make a long-term, meaningful impact.”

- Anisa Kamadoli Costa, Chairman and President of The Tiffany & Co. Foundation;| Chief Sustainability Officer at Tiffany & Co.

“As a risk pro, director and advisor, my attention is on the $30 trillion invested in ESG for a sustainable future. From climate change to human capital, investors understand that the modern corporation has materiality coming from emerging risks. I recently returned from Paris where the Center of Safety & Health Sustainability held a summit on focusing and disclosing people’s safety in the workplace sustainability agenda. As much as we named it “Earth Day,” it really is people’s day—our air, water, soil and well-being all depend on a healthy earth. Directors are working to meet these new expectations from activism from investors, employees, clients and more. This activism will move the earth and people back to a healthy state of well-being.”

- Fay Feeney, CEO, Risk for Good

“Earth Day 2019. It’s unfathomable to me to see where are today given all the promises that were made at Rio+20 back in 2012 ... But I am optimistic when I see the hundreds of thousands of youth around the world standing up for change and doing so loudly. The relatively new public awareness about the detrimental problems caused [by] plastic pollution is also reassuring. And hearing Noble Prize nominee Greta Thunberg’s passionate plea gives me hope. In January at Davos, she told a silenced room that she wants leaders to 'behave like our house is on fire, because it is.' And we all must wake up to this fact BEFORE 2020.”

- Susan McPherson, Founder and CEO, McPherson Strategies, a social good and corporate responsibility consulting firm.

Image credit: Suzy Hazelwood/Pexels

With this weekend’s 4/20 becoming more mainstream and celebrated more than ever before, it’s high time (I know, bad pun) to take a look at the industry to gauge this sector's sustainability. From an editor’s point of view, it’s an interesting task. After all, second to Earth Day stories, cannabis tales have been the most common types of pitches we’ve been receiving here at TriplePundit this week.

And the hype is understandable. Unthinkable just a couple of years ago, cannabis-infused products—especially those with the non-psychoactive ingredient CBD (or cannabidiol)—are now being pushed by brands from personal care products on CVS shelves to a special 420 burger at Carl’s Jr.

So whether the product is a bag of CBD jelly beans or a satvia pre-roll, this industry’s growth brings up a fair question: Is this a sector that can be responsible and sustainable in the long term? After all, one argument for legalizing marijuana a few years ago was the environmental case, as marijuana growers in Golden State were diverting water, using diesel generators and consuming an exorbitant amount of the state’s electricity. And until industrial hemp became legal to grow in the U.S., it was absurd that raw materials for everything from clothing to hand cream to seeds for your yogurt were imported from countries such as Canada.

The challenge for the cannabis industry is more of a cart-before-the-horse question. As the plant was illegal for decades in all states until recently, there is little precedent dictating what makes for sustainable cannabis. How much water is sufficient, what amount of energy is responsible, how can the use of nitrates be limited—the fact remains there is little available information out there.

“There is limited data to support the design of best practices for the industry,” Nick Kovaceich, a business writer who often focuses on the legal cannabis industry, wrote in Forbes earlier this year. “And unlike other valuable agricultural crops, there has been virtually no publicly-funded research on how to produce cannabis most effectively and efficiently, nor which of the various cultivation methods has the smallest carbon footprint.”

Organizations such as the Cannabis Alliance are trying to sort all these details out for growers and manufacturers alike, but this will be a steep hill to climb for the industry.

Then there is the social impact of the legal cannabis industry—a sensitive issue when considering the long history of the U.S. War on Drugs.

“FBI data reveals that 659,700 cannabis-related arrests occurred in 2017, comprising 40 percent of all reported U.S. drug arrests,” attorney Darryl K. Henderson wrote earlier this year for a cannabis industry publication. “Studies show that [people of color] are arrested for cannabis crimes at four times the rate of whites despite the fact that PoC consume cannabis at roughly the same percentage rate as whites.”

One survey from 2017, however, suggested the legal cannabis industry is one dominated by white males at a rate of 81 percent.

Nevertheless, evidence now suggests that since the 2018 Farm Bill has given the green light to CBD and hemp, the industry will rapidly grow and therefore could open more doors. Forbes, for example, recently profiled nine women who are having an impact on what could soon be a $17 billion industry. And in another pun on the sector’s potential, David Moye on HuffPost wrote, “Last year, baby boomers were seen as the future of sales, but industry experts now see women as the next budding market.”

Finally, don’t be surprised if education has a role in shaping the cannabis sector’s environmental and social impact. One career college in Canada’s Newfoundland and Labrador is launching a greenhouse design and production program specifically targeted for the cannabis industry. Just as enology and viticulture programs helped groom the U.S. wine sector, so too could scientia cannabis do the same for cannabis here in North America—and beyond.

Image credit: Rick Proctor/Unsplash

Join us on Earth Day, this coming Monday, April 22, as 3BL Media’s professional development series focused on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) continues with AEG, the world’s leading sports and live entertainment company. The one-hour “AEG Aligns SDG Actions with Earth Day” webcast is free to attend and is designed for corporate responsibility and sustainability professionals.

John Marler, vice president of energy and environment for AEG, will provide an update on the Los Angeles-based company’s 2020 sustainability goals, and he will also discuss the SDGs along with AEG’s 2030 agenda. 

REGISTER FOR THIS EVENT HERE

“We are committed to using the power of sports and live entertainment to advance sustainable practices and uplift the communities where AEG conducts business,” Marler said. “Widely recognized for pioneering innovative, sustainable civic redevelopment projects, AEG has transformed blighted urban sites in Los Angeles, London and Berlin into thriving pedestrian districts that reflect each city’s unique culture, create jobs, generate economic growth and improve the lives of people in the surrounding neighborhoods.”
 
3BL Media’s CEO, Dave Armon, will lead the discussion—the fifth in 3BL Media’s ongoing webcast series profiling how companies are tackling the SDGs. Among the topics to be discussed include: 

• Approaches companies like AEG can take to boost the triple bottom line
• How AEG plans to meet its existing 2020 Environmental Goals for GHG emissions reductions, waste diversion and water conservation
• What AEG envisions for 2030 and beyond

In September 2015, the United Nations officially introduced the 17 SDGs to transform the world for the better and to “leave no one behind” by 2030. The goals were adopted by 193 nations, and the U.N. has called for broad-based support of the SDGs, including the involvement of the private sector.

And down the road, stay tuned for a special series sponsored by AEG here on TriplePundit. In the coming months, we’ll explore how the sports and entertainment sector can support the SDGs, as well as boost their overall positive impact by engaging more with the communities in which the industry operates.

Image credit: Chris Yarzab/Flickr

In early April, global investment firm BlackRock released a seminal report on assessing climate risks. It focused on U.S. municipal bonds, commercial mortgage-backed securities and electric utilities. The report got me thinking about where we might look for funds and finance for climate resilience. Here’s what we found: On balance, if we make strategic decisions for resilience starting now, the numbers suggest we can find such necessary financing now.

By the numbers:

• According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. economic losses from 14 natural catastrophes in 2018 amounted to $91 billion. 80 percent of that total loss was caused by Hurricane Michael, Hurricane Florence and the California wildfires.
• Although quite a staggering loss, $91 billion is nominal compared to the cost of real estate assets at risk in 2070 if we make no changes to our current carbon emission trajectory. The United Nations Environmental Program Financial Initiative estimates that $35 trillion is at risk. That represents about half of today’s global assets under management in any industry sector ($79.2 trillion global assets under management, as of 2018). 
• Globally, $463 billion is invested in climate change—a number that only continues to rise. But when $13.5 trillion in global energy investment is needed from INDCs (for Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) and nearly $7 trillion must be invested in global infrastructure between 2017 and 2032, $463 billion seems, again, quite nominal. 

These numbers demonstrate that a changing climate is having a significant impact on the economy, and the economic cost of climate change will only worsen if we make no changes to our current carbon emissions trajectory. While the amount invested in climate change doesn’t match the global investment needs to update infrastructure, the $79.2 trillion in assets under management globally suggest we still have the means to reduce climate risks through both mitigation and resilience.

This urgency will continue to grow, driven by tragedies that define the resilience gap. Last year’s National Climate Assessment spotlighted the costs we already are experiencing:

• Flooding along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers in 2011, triggered by heavy rainfall, caused an estimated $5.7 billion in damages.
• Drought in 2012 caused widespread agricultural losses to crops and livestock, and low water levels along the Mississippi River affected transportation of goods, resulting in an estimated $33 billion in losses.
• Annual federal firefighting costs have ranged from $809 million to $2.1 billion per year between 2000 and 2016.

Important work is already being done. From the Climate Bonds Initiative to the Global Adaptation and Resilience Investment WorkGroup, financial sector experts are working to create mechanisms in the financial markets that make it more likely that assets under management will include more climate change resilience projects. That’s important as the gap in resilience finance, which the Climate Policy Initiative doggedly tracks annually, grows wider. But the longer we wait to fund such projects, the far more expensive they will be in the long term.

Image credit: David Mark/Pixabay

Leading U.S. businesses have been pushing back against the White House’s anti-immigrant policies since the weeks following Inauguration Day, and now they have joined the fight to keep a controversial new citizenship question out of the 2020 census.

The legal battle over the new census question has been in the media spotlight as a lawsuit—joined by major U.S. business organizations—inches closer to a Supreme Court hearing.

In the trenches, though, an equally important fight is shaping up. If the courts preserve the new citizenship question, major U.S. businesses are already in position to launch a holistic, boots-on-the-ground outreach campaign to encourage census participation.

Why U.S. businesses need an accurate census

The new census question asks, “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” It further breaks down the question with different boxes to check for persons who are born in the U.S. or Puerto Rico and other territories, born abroad with at least one U.S. citizen parent, naturalized citizens, and lastly, “No, not a U.S. citizen.”

All things being equal, the question is a straightforward one. However, under the current administration, anything related to immigration is far from innocuous. Critics—and they are numerous—argue that the question appears deliberately designed to discourage counting in urban areas where immigrants congregate.

An inaccurate census may serve political purposes, but it is anathema to the U.S. business community.

Earlier this week, Reuters took a deep dive into the relationship between the business community and the Census Bureau and noted several significant reasons why U.S. businesses depend on accurate data:

“Retailers like Walmart and Target Corp use Census data to decide where to open stores or distribution hubs, and what to stock on shelves," wrote Reuters reporter Lauren Tara LaCapra. "Big banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co use the information similarly for branch strategy, and real-estate firms scrutinize the statistics to determine where to build homes and shopping centers. TV networks like Univision, meanwhile, rely on the numbers to plan programing in local markets. And the Census is an important input for tech giants like Google when they create myriad data-based products, such as maps.”

To cite just one example, Amazon’s multi-city search for a second headquarters also harvested Census data to aid the company’s decision making, LaCapra explained.

How U.S. businesses can help ensure an accurate census

In this context, a new census question that could discourage millions of U.S. residents from participating—or participating accurately—is a bottom-line bombshell.

Nevertheless, there is an opportunity for businesses to step forward and take the lead, even if the new census question survives in court.

LaCapra of Reuters suggests that U.S. businesses have already amassed experience in encouraging census participation at a grassroots, face-to-face level: “Ahead of the 2010 Census, McDonald’s Corp featured information on restaurant placemats, Walmart greeters handed out flyers, big retailers featured reminders on receipts and utility companies stuck inserts into electric, gas and water bills.”

Intentionally or not, AB-InBev has already taken the lead on the 2020 census. The global company’s Budweiser brand touched off a media firestorm by unveiling a pro-immigrant advertisement at the 2017 Super Bowl.

Partnering with the U.S. census bureau

That could be just a small harbinger of private-sector participation in the 2020 census.

The U.S. Census Bureau itself provides guidance for companies that want to get involved in the 2020 census. It is actively recruiting private-sector partners through its Integrated Partnership and Communications program, which is tasked with “building ties with more than 300,000 state, local, and tribal governments, community-based organizations, nongovernmental organizations and advocacy groups, and the private sector.”

The IPC program appeals directly to the corporate social responsibility movement, explaining that “you benefit by fulfilling your CSR goals, accessing our personalized data training and information services, networking with other businesses you otherwise wouldn’t encounter, and engaging with your customers and employees around a civic duty.”

IPC is keenly aware of brand reputation, telling companies: “You have invested heavily in understanding how to reach and how to communicate with your customers and employees. You are trusted brands and trusted voices.”

Furthermore, IPC underscores the bottom-line benefits:

“The 2020 Census data will help you create projections of growth to identify prime locations to open new operations or close old ones. You can enhance your hiring practice and identify skilled workers. Our data provide valuable information on your customer base (income level, household size, homeownership status) to inform your pricing and location strategies.”

Helping the Census Bureau help you

As IPC partners, companies receive messaging, branding and guidance on spreading the word. That includes basics like sharing a link to the 2020 census on company websites, providing Internet connections and free call time to underserved households, and hosting community educational events.

IPC also suggests that companies engage in commentary, through op-eds and similar content, to explain why partnering with the Census Bureau is so important to them.

In addition, the IPC guidance aims to build the 2020 census-taker workforce. IPC partners are asked to advertise Census job openings and help applicants with filling out forms. That can include providing transportation to libraries and other locations where help is available, or where training sessions are located.

That’s just for starters. IPC also encourages companies to sign up for Census Bureau news alerts, spread the word by following @uscensusbureau on Twitter, and distribute Census bureau infographics and other materials. The organization also hosts workshops to develop local solutions to specific challenges in their community and generate commitments to tackle them.

How brands can take stands supporting the census

IPC also asks companies to use text messaging and social media to encourage Census employment and participation. In that regard, IPC has one particularly salient piece of guidance for its partners, and that is to “actively monitor, fact check, and correct misinformation on social networks about the 2020 Census.”

Reportedly, the Census Bureau has received “initial” commitments from Facebook, Google and Twitter to clamp down on misinformation.

It will be especially interesting to see how the commitment plays out for Facebook. The company has a years-long history of alleged civil rights violations to account for and overcome, in addition to an ongoing connection with white nationalism and tolerance of white nationalism through one of its controversial board members, along with its alleged facilitation of Russian propaganda during the 2016 election.

Companies that have come forward include Levi Strauss & Co, Uber, Lyft and Univision. Yet Reuters also reported that companies involved in the lawsuit against the new census question have been reluctant to publicize their stand, fearing backlash from the Trump administration.

Image credit: U.S. Census Bureau/Facebook

Finding the perfect stock photo is a tricky task. You want something captivating enough to draw in the viewer, but also vague enough that the same picture can apply to thousands of different situations, with the details filled in by the viewer’s imagination. Oh, and you don’t want someone to remember seeing the same stock photo used by another organization. That can be downright awkward.

As advertising and journalism continue to shift to more visual social media platforms, both the demand for and exposure to paid stock images are increasing rapidly. There’s one thing missing from many paid stock photo services, however—diversity.

A recent survey found that 70 percent of women do not feel represented in media and advertising. This isn’t surprising, considering 90 percent of stock images are taken by male photographers. To address this disparity, Getty Images partnered with Dove and creative agency Girlgaze to launch Project #ShowUs.

According to the project’s website, #ShowUs is a library of more than 5,000 photographs “devoted to shattering beauty stereotypes by showing female-identifying and non-binary individuals as they are, not as others believe they should be.” Thirty-nine countries and 116 photographers are represented in the collection, which was shot entirely by female and non-binary photographers.

Women have traditionally been depicted in stock photos as young, thin, white and able-bodied, often wearing revealing outfits. Search results for “career woman” or “empowered woman” often include a variety of stereotypes—none of them flattering.

The #ShowUs collection, however, highlights subjects of different ages, races, professions, body types, religions, gender identities and physical abilities. Getty says searches for the phrase “strong women” are now up 187 percent, and those for “women leaders” are up 202 percent.

One unique feature of Project #ShowUs is the ability for the photographed subjects to add their own search tags to their images. Some of these self-assigned tags include “warm,” “confident,” “bosslady,” “proud” and “validated.” These labels are empowering both to the subjects and to women who see themselves represented in the photos.

#ShowUs is not Getty’s first collaboration for increased diversity in its stock photo offerings. The photo company partnered with Sheryl Sandberg’s nonprofit LeanIn.org in 2014 to launch the Lean In Collection, with more than 2,500 empowering images of women, girls and supportive communities. In addition, Getty pledged a portion of the licensing fees to fund grants "for images showcasing female empowerment and to supporting the mission of LeanIn.Org.” Five years later, the curated collection has grown to include more than 6,000 stock photos and videos.

In 2018, Getty joined with Oath and the National Disability Leadership Alliance to create The Disability Collection, a series of stock images highlighting people with disabilities carrying out everyday tasks like shopping, raising families or playing sports.

“This project for us as a business is about getting it all down and saying: Don’t just focus on wheelchairs. Think about the entire range, and think about how people with disabilities want to be depicted,” said Getty Images’ Rebecca Swift in an interview with Fast Company.

As Swift mentioned, the assortment of disability photos available usually starts and ends with (mostly elderly) people in wheelchairs. Getty’s project has sought to expand offerings, though, by focusing on the subjects and their viewpoints. Photographers with disabilities were involved throughout the development of the photo collection. After all, while 15 percent of people have a disability, only 2 percent of stock photos include representation of disabilities.

And if Barbie can represent a more inclusive society, shouldn’t stock photos do the same?

Image credit: ATC Comm/Pexels

Signs are finally beginning to emerge that the political and social polarization in the U.S. could be nearing the end of its long, painful upswing. Nevertheless, the chasm is still extreme, and it has taken on a gender-based aspect in recent years. That split could ripple out to impact the ability of some companies to attract top female talent in the rising generation of workers.

In particular, Facebook’s history with hate speech, Russian propaganda and conservative leadership has already inflicted a series of dents in its brand reputation, putting it at risk of losing a generation of women innovators.

Gender diversity and talent

Gender diversity is becoming a top goal in tech fields, as leading companies compete for the best and brightest innovators on a global scale.

Businesses in more traditional fields are also finding that additional time spent on recruiting and training women is well spent. The waste hauling and recycling company Republic Services, for example, noted improvements in employee performance and customer satisfaction when it recruited female school bus drivers into its formerly all-male fleet.

On the flip side, industries that continue to be dominated by males are facing near-term talent shortfalls. The U.S. coal industry is one example of a male-dominated industry in steep decline. America’s oil and gas sector is also facing a gender diversity problem, despite the ongoing boom in domestic production.

Gender diversity and the millennial generation

In some respects, it may seem that Facebook has the gender diversity issue in hand. The company says it has recently made significant strides in recruiting women. 

However, the state of gender diversity among fossil energy companies in the U.S. provides some insight into the recruiting issues Facebook may encounter moving forward.

The problem for fossil energy companies is that talented millennials who are interested in energy-related careers have a much wider range of choices today than a generation ago: wind, solar, energy efficiency and energy storage. These alternatives resonate sharply along the political divide, with leadership in one party undercutting climate science and staking out ground as the champion of fossil fuels while the other advocates for climate action and policies including the Green New Deal.

The intersection of politics, energy, climate change and women in the workforce has also rippled into other fields. For example, a woman was a key advocate among the Amazon employees who launched an “unprecedented” open letter in support of a shareholder proposal on climate action.

Facebook and the political divide

Insofar as Facebook’s recent travails reflect the same political divide, the company also risks alienating women—not just current platform users, but future workers.

In the area of advertising discrimination, for example, progressive activists won a major battle last year when Facebook agreed to conduct a third-party civil rights audit of its advertising practices for the first time. 

Last week, though, Mother Jones took a deep dive into the subject and described how the company is diluting the civil rights issue by simultaneously conducting an investigation into alleged discrimination against conservative voices on its platform.

In addition, the company is still dealing with blowback from its role in amplifying Russian propaganda during the 2016 election cycle, which resulted in a presidential administration dominated by extremist positions on immigration, health care and other issues of concern to women.

More trouble for Facebook

Facebook’s brand reputation is already on shaky ground, and it has taken several other major hits in recent days.

Another blow came earlier this week, when NBC News published a long-form investigative piece accusing the company of deploying users’ private data as “bargaining chips” to reward “friends” and hurt “enemies.”

On top of that, this week the high-profile New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez publicly announced that she was dropping her personal Facebook account. The announcement came on the heels of President Trump’s vitriolic criticism of fellow freshman Representative Ilhan Omar.

The move was significant because, for many, Ocasio-Cortez occupies the confluence of the millennial generation, social tolerance, gender-defined political preferences and gender diversity in the workforce, including congressional staff on Capitol Hill.

Describing Ocasio-Cortez’s decision for CNN, business journalist Rachel Metz reported that “she called social media a ‘public health risk’ that results in issues like increased isolation, depression, addiction, escapism and anxiety.”

Metz also described her own disconnection from Facebook after years of steady use. “It gave me connections to people I care about, but it took much more—not just my data, but my trust, too—and misused it,” Metz wrote.

Companies recognize that gender diversity is a bottom line benefit. However, the leap to tolerating misogynistic, xenophobic and racist thinking is a wide one. When the topic turns to political identity and hate speech, Facebook, social media companies - and in reality, all companies - need to be warned that the line between diversity and “catastrophically bad" judgement can be a very thin one. To that end, public announcements about diversity hiring efforts at a company must be matched by action and genuine progress on all fronts.

Image credit: Mimi Thian/Unsplash

With warmer weather finally returning, people are breaking out the beach towels and sunscreen. The spring and summer fashion seasons are in full swing, and sales of swimwear this time of year are naturally on the uptick.

Although the fashion industry is notorious for wasteful practices, swimwear is rarely called out as a culprit. To bring attention to the potential impact of producing—and using—swimwear, the fashion label Reformation is calling out . . . themselves.

An Instagram post announcing Reformation's new swimwear line reads, “This swimsuit is not sustainable enough. But it’s the best we can do right now.”

Wait, what's wrong with my swimwear? 

Swimwear often trends toward minimalism in an aesthetic sense, but the design of these garments is anything but. They have to endure harsh conditions that everyday clothing does not—saltwater, chlorine or bromine, direct sun exposure, and the mechanical abrasion of waves and sand. All of these cause the fabrics to degrade rapidly through either chemical or physical processes.

Few people (outside of the fast fashion industry) buy clothes to wear only a few times, so clothing manufacturers are incentivized to make swimwear tough enough to stand up to the elements. The only materials that will last through repeated uses are synthetic fabrics like nylon, spandex, lycra, and polyester.

In addition to their strength, elasticity and low production costs, synthetic fibers have another thing in common—they are comprised of plastic or polyurethane, and therefore break down into microplastics as they degrade.

Reformation's swimwear line, for example, utilizes a recycled fiber made from things like fishing nets and industrial plastic. But it's essentially nylon, meaning it can shed microplastics in the washing machine, which go on to enter local waterways. "When you wash anything made from synthetics, even recycled materials, tiny bits of plastic called microfibers are shed into the environment," the brand explained in a media release, as quoted by the online magazine Fashionista. 

The low-down on microplastics 

Microplastics can’t be easily dismissed as “nature’s problem." The insidious fragments have already flooded the ocean in uncountable amounts, showing up everywhere from beaches to the bottom of the Marinas Trench, the deepest point in the ocean. Autopsies of sea creatures often reveal alarming amounts of manmade plastic in their digestive tracts—which, of course, can often lead to their cause of death. Some microplastics are so small they can wind up in the blood and muscles of animals.

Which, in turn, means that those plastics have infiltrated into our human food system. Even processing fish won’t strip out the plastics that have made their way into the meat. Microplastics from food have been confirmed in people, prompting frantic research into the health effects. We understand very little about the impact of microplastics in the human body, but judging by their effects on wildlife, the prognosis isn’t good.

In addition, though microplastics are present in municipal water systems across the United States, many water treatment plants are only equipped to filter out particles of a certain size. In other words: Even if you’re not eating it, you’re probably drinking it.

So, how do bikinis and other swimwear fit into this grim picture? The world produces 80 billion new articles of clothing each year, and about 60 percent of them are synthetic. That represents an enormous annual influx of microplastics into the ocean, as wastewater from washing machines makes its way into local waterways and eventually to the ocean. We can’t address ocean pollution without considering the significant burden the textile industry imposes.

Addressing microplastics pollution in the fashion industry

An obvious solution is to minimize the use of synthetic fibers. As far as swimwear is concerned, however, natural fibers won’t cut it. Cotton and wool are neither appropriate for in-water use nor durable enough to stand up to the many stressors of the environment. Similar obstacles exist for active-wear and sport clothing.

Some brands recognize these challenges and opt for a compromise. Making clothes out of natural fibers, or even reusing synthetic fibers like recycled nylon, and reinforcing them with virgin synthetics can increase the longevity of a piece while reducing its impact. After all, making pseudo-disposable clothes out of solely natural fibers is just kicking the pollution can down the road. There’s a tradeoff between making clothes out of synthetic fibers and keeping clothes out of landfills.

The news isn’t all bad. Sustainability is becoming trendy, believe it or not, and the fashion industry is certainly not above capitalizing on trends. Customers are increasingly gravitating toward brands that display their eco-friendly initiatives. Many brands are offering to repair their clothing for free and reaping the brand affinity that can follow. Some fashion companies have even committed to full-circularity, a huge step in the right direction.

In the end, if apparel giants like Nike are making the switch to a circular clothing system, then even smaller brands will find the necessary infrastructure already in place, smoothing the transition to a more sustainable fashion industry. And when labels like Reformation step into the fray and point out room for improvement, it certainly raises the bar. 

Image credit: Pixabay