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Business leaders often find themselves in the tricky position of wanting to make their establishments more sustainable, but realizing they don’t possess the knowledge and resources required to successfully do so. In that common case, sustainability partnerships can fill the void.

These partnerships involve two or more businesses teaming up with each other for mutual benefits related to sustainability goals. Sometimes, a corporate brand and a nonprofit from the same industry will pair up, but, otherwise, entities from multiple sectors get together and pool their resources.

The latter situation is called a cross-sector partnership. There have also been instances where multiple companies have gotten together and relied on crowdsourcing to pinpoint needs and figure out how to tackle them.

Benefits Beyond Sustainability

These collaborative efforts don’t only have sustainability-related advantages. For example, the companies involved can learn best practices from each other, highlight inefficiencies and improve them, discover shared skillsets and more.

Also, a recent survey from Ask Your Target Market surveyed 1,000 people and found 59 percent of them will pay more for products they consider to be environmentally friendly, and 70 percent generally try to buy sustainable products whenever possible. If companies can take visible steps toward sustainability with the help of a partner company, they’re serving the planet and boosting profits at the same time.

Furthermore, generation Z, the youngest generation of adult consumers marketers target, is projected to make up 40 percent of all buyers by 2020. Analysts say brands must be active on social media to make a positive impact on this age group.

It’s also important for brands to be transparent about the causes that matter to them. A promoted sustainability partnership could help companies market to people from generation Z with a strong sense of social consciousness.

Engaging in a Partnership With Suppliers

Sometimes, it might be fruitful for a brand to start a partnership with an entire group. Knorr, a German soup company owned by Unilever, did that by appealing to its global suppliers. Once one of its growers designated a monetary amount for sustainable agriculture projects, Knorr would contribute half the total amount on top of a matched amount by the grower.

This team effort makes it easier for farmers to experiment with Earth-friendly practices that might otherwise be unaffordable. Knorr also gives priority to projects that investigate certain pressing matters such as biodiversity projects, efforts to reduce water waste and the phasing out of pesticides.

By getting involved in the farmers’ projects, Knorr shows commitment to progress in an actionable way, and the growers get much-needed funds. Also, Knorr can differentiate its brand from others by promoting this initiative on its consumer-facing materials, such as product packaging.

Helping Employees Understand Why Sustainability Matters

Most business leaders know if their employees don’t care about sustainable practices, it’ll be difficult for the company itself to make a meaningful impact. Microsoft understands that fact well, and that’s one of the primary reasons the tech company teamed up with the Earthwatch Institute, a worldwide environmental charity.

Microsoft employees involved in a leadership training program in Reading, United Kingdom, went into the woods near their workplace, led by Earthwatch Institute representatives. They spent the day collecting data about climate change and how it affects forests. They wanted information that would help them create a team-wide action plan for environmental sustainability at Microsoft and understand why energy-reduction strategies are crucial.

A year before that happened, Microsoft assisted the Earthwatch Institute via a technology grant that allowed the charity to build a customized database and enhance its website user experience, among other things. This case study is a good example of how both the corporation and the nonprofit used their resources for the greater good and offered advantages that made projects possible.

Forming a Strategic Relationship That Puts Competitiveness Aside

Some brands are longtime rivals, but when there’s sustainability at stake, they might put animosity on the back burner and realize they’re both working toward similar goals, and there might be a nonprofit that could help. So, mega-retailers Target and Walmart — along with 16 other merchants — got together to figure out how to bring more sustainable personal care products to store shelves.

This partnership happened with help from Forum for the Future, a British charity focused on Earth-friendly practices. The retailers knew they wanted to make gains in the quest to bring a wider selection of sustainable beauty items to consumers, but couldn’t do that without help.

Together, the participants discovered the lack of a shared vision for sustainable merchandise in the personal-care sector. Furthermore, they are developing criteria all retailers can use to determine whether a product is sustainable or not.

Besides this pioneering group project, Target and Walmart also came together publicly in Chicago, Ill. The brands were co-hosts of the 2014 Beauty and Personal Care Product Sustainability Summit. Forum for the Future used its connections to help organize the event and gave stakeholders an opportunity to officially discuss their current practices, as well as the challenges faced.

Whether for-profit organizations and charities team up for one-off events or ongoing efforts, these case studies clarify why these joined resources can provide so much momentum for sustainability goals. Alternatively, they can give companies the necessary knowledge to emphasize Earth-friendly practices from the ground up.

 

Image credit: Pixabay

By Eliza Roberts

As Cape Town struggles to keep the taps flowing amid the worst drought in a century, agriculture is taking a hit. Water restrictions have especially impacted the fruit and vegetable industries, with 80 percent fewer potatoes being planted this season, for example.

The unfolding water crisis in South Africa may play out with increasing frequency around the world, as population growth, water pollution and climate change stress dwindling water resources.

Procuring ingredients from water-stressed regions is becoming riskier. That’s why a growing number of companies are seeking to minimize their risks by setting goals to source key commodities sustainably—or, in ways that reduce the environmental and social impacts of growing those crops. In fact, more than half of the 42 companies ranked in Ceres’ analysis of how the food sector is responding to water risk have set sustainable sourcing goals for some of their major commodities.

The problem is, too often, these sustainable sourcing commitments aren’t backed by robust directives or incentives for internal procurement teams. And without the support of procurement –the corporate function that optimizes supply security and quality, while minimizing costs and price volatility–companies are unlikely to solve the massive agricultural sustainability risks they’ve identified.

Some 70 percent of the companies we ranked haven’t taken steps to integrate sustainability commitments into their procurement processes. This means that their procurement teams and suppliers aren’t up to date on the company’s sustainability commitments. Buyers aren’t equipped with the understanding they need to decide which suppliers they should source from and what kinds of obligations they should include in contracts. And companies aren’t tracking whether suppliers are following through on commitments the company has set.

While a growing number of companies recognize this disconnect between sustainable sourcing goals and procurement as a key obstacle to achieving their sustainability commitments, few are digging in to address it. Campbell Soup, Mars, ABInBev and Group Danone are among those who are.

One of Campbell’s key steps is placing people with sustainability expertise into the procurement department. Two formal positions now integrate sustainability and procurement, including the Director of Responsible Sourcing, who has CSR and sustainability expertise, sits on the leadership team and reports to the Chief Procurement Officer.

According to Dave Stangis, Vice President for Corporate Responsibility and Chief Sustainability Officer for Campbell Soup, embedding these roles within the procurement team makes training buyers on sustainability commitments, and the supplier expectations that flow from them, more organic. “The company benefits when the department that delivers on those commitments is also the one that makes them,” says Stangis.

At the same time, Campbell has also built a roadmap for responsibly sourcing its priority ingredients, and trains buyers on using this roadmap with updated supplier expectations.

As a result, the supplier expectations are now incorporated into the suppliers’ contracts, and the procurement team is advancing more strategic conversations with suppliers about what sustainability and transparency look like. The company still has work to do. Says Stangis: “We’ll consider ourselves successful when we can speak with our suppliers about sustainability as something that is better all-around from a cost savings, relationship building, quality and economic point of view.”

Like Campbell, Mars has embedded sustainability roles into the procurement department at the highest level. Its long-time Chief Sustainability Officer, Barry Parkin, has assumed the lead role in procurement, according to Mars spokesperson, Lisa Manley.

The company has also set impressive science-based goals for reducing its impact on land, water and farmer communities, and is working to integrate these into the procurement process, with an emphasis on its top 10 ingredients.

Mars trains its buyers on sustainability commitments, embedding details about sustainable sourcing into supplier contracts, and it works closely with its suppliers, sharing its commitments and developing farmer partnerships. It offers agronomist support and farmer training, and pays a small premium to rice farmers who adhere to its sustainable sourcing guidelines.

The brewing giant ABInBev factors sustainability into procurement directives, providing guidance to suppliers on agricultural ingredients through its sustainable agriculture guiding principles. These principles are being integrated into AB InBev’s internal governance routines and procurement processes. Group Danone follows a similar approach.

Clearly, there is no one-size fits all approach to integrating sustainability into procurement practices. Each company needs to find a system that works best for it.

Regardless of the approach, the first order of priority is to set time-bound measurable goals for sustainable sourcing, and to simultaneously get senior executive buy-in and understanding of the business case for sustainable sourcing. Other important steps include: ensuring that your supplier codes and polices are both strong and linked to sustainable sourcing goals; and implementing structures for training and incentivizing both buyers and suppliers.

Making sustainability a standard part of how food companies purchase the ingredients they rely on is an evolving practice. But as our agricultural systems face the new reality of water scarcity and climate change, food companies must hasten to forge the missing link.

Eliza Roberts is Senior Manager of Water at Ceres, a sustainability nonprofit organization working with the most influential investors and companies to build leadership and drive solutions throughout the economy.

What about credit rating agencies as a market actor to inspire climate resilience? Already, the 11 recommendations by the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosure – sorted into Governance, Strategy, Risk Management and Metrics/Targets – are sinking into the market.  Many are turning to the credit rating agencies and asking them if they are even looking for information on climate risk and what they’re doing with any they find.

As I reported in late 2016 in a Triple Pundit article, “Laurels for Credit Rating Agencies, Levers of Change in the Adaptation Market,” the rating agencies have been exploring this subject for several years.  Last November, Moody’s Investors Service explained how it incorporates climate change into its credit ratings for state and local bonds. It said that cities and states are at greater risk of default if they don’t deal with risks from rising seas or strong storms.

So, what specifically should we expect from the rating agencies?  I recently participated in a Brookings Institute panel with Standard and Poor’s Managing Director Kurt Forsgren, who said that the S&P will increasingly consider climate change in its rating analysis.

Climate change risk and credit rating agency assessment

Today, in factoring climate change risk into municipal ratings, the rating services focus primarily on management effectiveness and planning that includes climate change risk. This is especially true in sectors with distinct climate risks that apply to their assets or revenue sources (such as water and electric utilities).  They often perform a qualitative assessment of the climate change risk when detailed information is lacking.

In addition to risk, they assess municipal resilience that looks for:

• Long-term management plans with adequately funded emergency funds


• Proper insurance coverage for the climate related risks for the region


• Deeper and more diverse economies

Evidence from Utility Districts

But, in reality, what are they seeking? For instance, S&P analysis for corporate ratings indicates that natural catastrophes lead to a one-notch downgrade 40 percent of the time. We know that the Municipal Utility District (MUD) ratings in and around Houston did not take a near-term hit in S&P’s assessments immediately following Hurricane Harvey, although the agency notes that it does “not preclude longer-term [rating] challenges for Hurricane []- affected [] MUDs.”

S & P’s specific comments for the MUDs are instructive for all build projects, planned or in place: “S&P Global Ratings believes the largest potential long-term rating impact to MUDs would be caused by a decline in the district’s assessed values, which support not only operational revenue but also the district's ability to pay its debt burden, which is a primary driver for our MUD ratings.”

It added: “MUDs with comparatively higher tax rates may face some practical taxing limitations as affected areas adjust their tax rates to compensate for declines in assessed values.”

Although S&P believes the robust reserves of most MUDs will insulate them from rating downgrades, the impacts they expect from climate disruption are pretty clear here. Credit rating agencies see the physical impacts of climate change as material to the financial system. The larger the shock event, the longer and deeper the impact on credit quality, especially for those with poor credit quality before the event.

This is a major reminder about the importance of resilience.  Communities struggling with poor credit quality will find it doubly difficult to borrow at favorable rates as the impact of climate change continues to grow – further exacerbating both market and social inequities.

Resilience Likely Helps

It seems we have the market signal we’ve been waiting for in the climate action community. This is a call to arms for all resilience brokers to build security, stability and sustainability in lower-resourced communities.

The key actions:

1. Get ahead of climate risk by making knowledge of it front and center for existing physical asset and future investment planning.


2. Collaborate among sustainability, risk, finance and insurance leaders internally and externally; climate change is no longer an issue to shift to the sustainability officer’s desk.


3. Through actions one and two, make sure that every investment is an investment for resilience, not just a few show ponies.

References:

S&P Global “Near-Term Rating Stability Does Not Preclude Longer-Term Challenges for Hurricane Harvey-Affected Texas MUDs” 5 September 2017. https://www.spglobal.com/our-insights/Near-Term-Rating-Stability-Does-Not-Preclude-Longer-Term-Challenges-for-Hurricane-Harvey-Affected-Texas-MUDs.html

S&P Global “How Long 'Til We Get There? Major Post-Hurricane Recoveries in Recent Years.” 7 September 2017. https://www.spglobal.com/our-insights/How-Long-Til-We-Get-There-Major-Post-Hurricane-Recoveries-In-Recent-Years.html

S&P Ratings Direct, “Climate Change Will Likely Test The Resilience Of Corporates’ Creditworthiness To Natural Catastrophes”, 20 April 2015.
 http://www.actuarialpost.co.uk/downloads/cat_1/SP_Climate%20Change%20Impact%20On%20Corporates_Apr212014.pdf

Sustainable tires that don’t contain fossil fuels and are easy on the environment? They may be just around the corner.

Last week Bridgestone Tires unfurled a new sustainable procurement policy announcing a goal of converting its supply chain to “100 percent sustainable materials” by 2050. The announcement follows similar commitments by competitors Pirelli, Michelin and Goodyear, which have assured consumers that they are developing new, sustainable ways for manufacturing rubber-based products.

In Bridgestone’s case, the new four-prong sustainable procurement policy includes increased guidelines for its suppliers in how they address a) transparency, b) compliance, c) quality, cost and delivery, and d) sustainability in its procurement practices.

The policy places the greatest focus on “direct” suppliers by requiring them to comply with the policy and encouraging them to motivate their own supply chain to do the same.

Most of the policies it’s passing down to its suppliers are noted as “preferred” goals, meaning the suppliers are encouraged to participate but not required to meet the benchmarks in order to remain in the supply chain. Suppliers for example are encouraged to collaborate with Bridgestone to increase transparency, traceability, and other goals that the tire company has set, but aren’t required to meet specific levels of cooperation.

Still, the policy places emphasis on traceability and openly calls on farmers, Suppliers, brokers, business partners, peers, other industry groups, NGOs, and other experts to collaborate with Bridgestone teams to achieve the Company’s ambitious goals. It calls on suppliers to “demonstrate contribution to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals” as well as other universal indicators of sustainability.

Where Bridgestone appears to have made some progress is in identifying renewable sources for rubber that may cut down deforestation in Southeast Asia. A report by Global Forest Watch links the global price for rubber with the deforestation of rubber-producing nations like Cambodia.

New sources for rubber include the desert plant, guayule (pronounced (whuay-yu-lay), which produces a grade of rubber that is similar to that of the commonly used Hevea brasiliensis rubber tree. In 2015 Bridgestone manufactured tires using rubber from its own cultivated crop of guayule, demonstrating that with enough cultivation, the world’s largest tire company could manufacture its products without dependence on rubber trees.

Other research includes developing sustainable methods for recycling tires and finding materials to replace the “carbon black” that is commonly used in tire products. The petroleum-based ingredient has been an essential component of tires in past years, but manufacturers are finding way to replace it with food-grade ingredients like eggshells and other food waste.

Bridgestone’s revamped approach toward its supply chain offers new hope for converting an industry that has long been criticized as a major contributor to deforestation.

Flickr images: Peter Rowley; USDA

Think of engineered microbes as a kind of living software, and you have an idea where the company LanzaTech is going with its carbon capture and recycling technology. The company specializes in a system that recovers emissions and converts them into ethanol and other building blocks for liquid fuels and synthetic materials including plastic and rubber. That's a significant improvement over the conventional formulation of carbon capture, which gets to the "capture" phase and stops there.

Last month Triple Pundit spoke to LanzaTech's head of communications and government relations Freya Burton for a look at the future of carbon recycling, and it looks like the company's approach is well-timed to take advantage of emerging trends in recycling and waste recovery.

What's all this about robust bugs?

LanzaTech pops up regularly on the Triple Pundit clean technology radar when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and for good reason. The company has developed a unique carbon capture and conversion technology based on the natural process of fermentation.

Fermentation is the means by which microbes convert plant sugars to ethanol. The LanzaTech process skips over the middleman and goes straight to the carbon dioxide that plants use to convert solar energy into plant sugars.

The inspiration for LanzaTech's system comes from naturally-occurring acetogens, an ancient family of gas-fermenting organisms found near undersea hydrothermal vents. The vents provide acetogens with all the nutrients they need for their entire lifecycle, in the form of gases.

The vent gases have much in common with emissions from steel manufacturing and other industrial and landfill sources, namely carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide as well as hydrogen, hydrogen sulphide and methane. That's what caught the attention of LanzaTech, which was founded in 2005.

It took some tweaking, to come up with a strain of "robust bugs" that can survive -- and thrive -- in industrial waste gases, but the company did succeed in engineering its own version of the microbial family to produce products like jet fuel and diesel.

The technology has also caught the eye of several key partners including the US Department of Energy, which chipped in with $4 million in funding back in 2016 to help ramp up a demonstration facility here in the US.

Carbon capture good, carbon upcycling better

Check out a 2013 Triple Pundit video interview with LanzaTech CEO Jennifer Holmgren for more background on LanzaTech's clean tech. At the time, the company was focused on China. More recently it has expanded elsewhere in the globe, one highlight being the US. LanzaTech now has an office in Chicago, a research partnership with the Department of Energy and a commitment for a demonstration scale biorefinery that will produce jet fuel and diesel from industrial waste gas.

"We've branched out," Burton explained in last month's phone interview, "But for now we're still staying with ethanol. It can be converted to jet fuel, ethylene and polyethylene. We can also demonstrate isopropyl alcohol and 20 other chemicals."

Burton also dropped a hint about the role of the LanzaTech process from the bottom line perspective:

It's another way of recycling carbon, and it can be locked into a proper circular economy.

In other words, reclaiming carbon for high-value products could make carbon capture economical. That's an important step beyond the conventional approach of carbon capture and sequestration.

The shortcomings of carbon capture were vividly illustrated in 2015, when the US Department of Energy pulled the funding plug on the much-touted FutureGen "clean" coal carbon capture and sequestration project. FutureGen launched under the Bush administration to great acclaim in 2005 and was supported by the Obama administration with a $1 billion pledge, but it ran out of steam after private sector partners took a cold, hard look at the economics.

Microbes as software

LanzaTech has not lost its interest in industrial waste gas, but it is currently focused on municipal solid waste (MSW) as a feedstock.

That makes sense for a variety of reasons, including stability of supply. Factories can come and go within a few years, but cities -- and their waste -- have far more staying power. It also makes sense for markets like the US, which are seeing industry shrink while becoming less dependent on coal and diesel power.

In the broader arena of recycling, the challenge of MSW is that it exposes municipalities and/or their contractors to the global commodities market. Until now, one relief valve was the globe itself. Recyclers could ship scrap literally around the world in search of markets. China recently threw a monkey wrench into that strategy, though, by banning two dozen kinds of scrap imports.

One result of China's clampdown is that municipalities have more incentive to seek out recycling streams that can be used locally. That opens the door for more waste-to-energy conversion.

In the past that meant incineration, but waste-to-energy is becoming far more sophisticated. Landfill gas is one increasingly common MSW resource recovery strategy. The recently opened Hiriya Recycling Park in Tel Aviv, Israel, stepped up the strategy by recovering gas from an adjacent landfill, biogas from recovered organic material in MSW, and carbon-rich fuel consisting of scrap separated from the mixed waste stream. These energy products are used by two local factories.  Here in the US, Dow has also ramped up the waste-to-energy approach by partnering with cities to recover hard-to-recycle plastics for processing into diesel fuel.

The new waste-to-energy strategy is an improvement, but generally it ties the facility to a single product or group of products. That's where the idea of microbes as software comes in. Burton explains the advantage of a production system that can rapidly switch products. Like a computer responding to different programs, the expensive hardware remains the same. The software can be switched in and out seamlessly, at less expense than building a new facility (following comment edited for flow):

"We can change the bugs. They're the 'software.' To produce the different products using the same equipment, we just change the bugs. It only takes about 24 hours, and it makes our system disruptive. It speeds up chemical production to respond quickly to the market.

Burton also contrasts the 24-hour changeover timeline with conventional refinery retooling:

"It takes five to ten years for permitting and planning conventional facilities. The flexibility of using waste as a feedstock means that you're not tied to fossil fuels..."

The LanzaTech system could also piggyback on existing waste-to-energy facilities. The company has been working with Sekisui Chemical Co. on a project that diverts and "upcycles" some of the syngas generated by an existing gasification system at a landfill in Japan. Here's the rundown from LanzaTech:

In contrast to traditional fermentation that uses yeast to convert sugars into products such as ethanol, LanzaTech ferments gases and produces ethanol and a variety of chemicals using a naturally occurring bacteria. These chemicals are precursors to plastics, rubber and synthetic fibres and can be used to produce new packaging, sneakers, cell phone covers and yoga pants while avoiding the need for more fossil resources to come out of the ground.

That certainly provides MSW stakeholders with a range of marketing options.

What about clean coal?

As for "clean" coal, the Energy Department still hasn't given up. Part of FutureGen's problem was technological, and the agency is still committed to improvements with a new $44 million pledge for improving carbon capture at coal power plants.

That's all well and good, but that may not be good enough to save the US coal industry. Even if the Energy Department-funded research pans out, there's no guarantee that coal power plants will be in position to invest in the new equipment.

Coal power plants in the US have been tumbling like dominoes. That's mainly because cheap natural gas, and more recently low cost renewables, don't favor the bottom line for upgrades to aging coal facilities.

Despite President Trump's frequent pledges to support coal miners and coal stakeholders, the Trump administration will see its first coal mine close this spring, and industry analysts predict that the pace of coal plant closures will accelerate this year.

Image: via LanzaTech.

By Erin Green

 Kristjan Edwards has lived in Nepal since 1972 and runs Tiger Tops Lodges, located in Nepal. His father initially started Tiger Tops in 1964 and was a pioneer in ecotourism. Throughout the years Kristjan has made sure the company has evolved with the changes in responsible, sustainable tourism and animal rights. Currently Tiger Tops offers elephant treks, where guests roam with the elephants and observe them going about their daily lives. Guests don’t ride or touch the elephants; instead, they live among them, getting to know the elephants themselves. It’s a new model for Nepal, and both elephants and guests are loving it. I spoke with Kristjan about his involvement in the ethical and sustainable elephant tourism business.

Why has elephant tourism come under so much fire in the last few years?

I think it’s a trend, and I think it’s education. I didn’t know smoking was bad for me when I started it! Ethical elephant tourism is a real issue for a lot of people. There is a huge sensitivity. People were concerned about chains around the elephants’ feet and problems with their nails. These can be eliminated with proper housing and maintenance of the elephants, but often they aren’t. Then there’s the issue of “crushing,” or breaking an elephant’s spirit while it is being trained. Our hope is to one day use positive reinforcement to train our elephants. I can’t say how sorry I am that we once did crush our elephants. We just didn’t know at the time. Other issues are with bull hooks and whips, which we have eliminated by not having elephant safaris.

What was the reason you started elephant treks a few years ago?

About four years ago, our lodge had to move out of the national park because of government rules, and so did our elephants. So, we put them in a compound. Being chained in a compound seemed different from being chained in the jungle, which was how it used to be. The elephants didn’t mind that at all. But their psychology changed in the compound. So, I decided to look into ways to change. I built corrals and let the elephants free so that they could touch and be with one another, which they love. Then we changed our product. We used to have elephant safaris, which required the use of bull hooks. I didn’t want to use bull hooks. That’s not good for the elephants. So, we started the treks, an entirely new product for Nepal.

How does this benefit the elephants?

The only people who now touch the elephants are their mahouts, or drivers. The elephants and their mahouts have wonderful relationships with each other. Some elephant safaris have too many guests ride the elephants on top of painful saddles. At our lodge, we never did that, but it is the case in many, many places. And, of course, we no longer use bull hooks, which is aggressive for everyone, including the elephants.

What has been the response of the guests?

They love it. Unlike elephant safaris, you really get to know the elephants as an observer. If you’re sitting on top of the elephant, you never really see the animal. Before, the elephants were just the vehicles—now they are the main show. Our guests love walking among the elephants and watching them interact. It’s about the individual elephants, who each have incredible stories, in addition to how elephants behave in general. And people are learning. We want this experience to be an education as well as a mesmerizing encounter.

How does ethical elephant tourism help the local community?

Employment, mainly. The tourism business is so diverse because you have to buy many things, from food to wine to pool parts and car parts, and of course, vets, and just everyone involved. We’ve been employing the local community since before we started the elephant treks, so that hasn’t changed. But of course, everyone wants what’s best for the elephants. It says in our employee contract that you must show love to the elephants. And that’s what we do.

What is your main hope for elephant tourism?

Education. To keep learning, to educate the public, and to do the best by our guests, elephants and the local community. To work with animal behaviorists. We have researchers coming to study elephant speech. There is so much to learn.

Erin Green is a freelance journalist for kimkim.com, an educator, yoga teacher, and a former tour leader all around Asia. She’s been based in Kathmandu, Nepal for the past four years.

In the event some multinationals, along with their complex global supply chains, have not gotten the memo, here it is: your stakeholders want transparency, and want to know where your raw materials are sourced. If these materials are not coming from sustainable sources now, you need a plan to shift to a more responsible supply chain. And if such steps are not possible, be ready to explain why. This is particularly true of palm oil, which has become a popular replacement for hydrogenated vegetable oils and other emulsifiers found in both food and beauty products.

One company that has taken such a step is Unilever, which announced last week that it will now disclose the suppliers and mills that process the palm oil used in the company’s wide range of personal care and processed food products. This was no simple feat: Unilever says it can trace its palm oil purchases to approximately 1,400 mills and over 300 direct suppliers. In the meantime, the company has appeared to be walking the talk, as when it severed business ties with a major global palm oil supplier two years ago after NGOs claimed that company’s operations were linked to deforestation in Southeast Asia.

This news follows up on a promise the company made in 2013 with its palm oil policy as it pledged to procure only sustainable palm oil by next year. At last count, the company was only sourcing 36 percent of palm oil from sustainable sources in 2016 - Unilever aims for that metric to reach 50 percent when 2017 numbers flow in, and according to its plan, the total amount should reach 80 percent for 2018.

Unilever says becoming more transparent is not just about keeping stakeholders informed; this decision is also smart long-term business. Knowing where all that palm oil exactly comes from allows the company to become more proactive in identifying problems, in turn giving supply chain managers the ability to address such challenges quickly. Having all this data out in the open also makes it more seamless for Unilever’s business partners and other stakeholder groups to bring any palm oil-related issues to its attention.

Furthermore, Unilever claims it will have the ability to identify indirect suppliers - an absolutely important step because the kernels churned into palm oil often change hands many times - making those human rights and environmental risks often difficult to locate.

For companies that insist supply chain transparency is too cumbersome and costly, this latest development from Unilever shows that those complaints are false. And the reality is that as consumers become more discerning about the products they buy, food and personal care product companies really do not have a choice. The alternative is for those products to sit on shelves - if they even get there, as retailers are feeling the pressure, too.

Image credit: CIFOR/Flickr

Silicon Valley billionaire and Facebook member Peter Thiel made his fortune placing early bets on tech startups. His financial sixth sense merged with politics early in the 2016 presidential campaign when he staked his reputation on Donald Trump. The bet paid off for Thiel but Facebook itself has not fared well over the past two years. Now the company faces even more heat this week as evidence grows that Russian operatives used it and other social media platforms to influence voters.

This week, news also surfaced that Peter Thiel is distancing himself from Silicon Valley in general and Facebook in particular. That coincidence of timing opens up an opportunity to revisit some of the corporate social responsibility issues that Triple Pundit has been exploring in regards to Thiel and the prevailing ethos among leading tech companies in particular, and the corporate world in general.

Profit yes, people and planet not so much

For those of you new to the topic, tech influencer Peter Thiel is best known in the popular arena as a founder of PayPal. Though the Paypal venture was acquired by eBay a long time ago, in 2002, the eye-popping payout of $1.5 billion gave Thiel a ticket to the top of startup culture's A-list. His stature also grew thanks to a 2004 investment that helped launched Facebook into the stratosphere.

Thiel's less successful ventures have received less attention in the general press, though they have been covered regularly in tech and financial media.

Regardless of the occasional failure, Thiel has amassed a reputation for bottom line success. That accounts for the "profit" leg of the people-planet-profit stool. However, the other two legs are noticeably absent.

On the topic of planet, for example, a top flight undergraduate education at Stanford University seems to have had no lasting impact on on Thiel. As recently as last spring, Thiel characterized the scientific consensus on climate change as "group think" worthy of debate.

That position supports the Trump party line on climate action, but it does not help Facebook's efforts to reduce its carbon footprint. Facebook and the entire data-driven tech sector have a clear financial incentive to cut carbon emissions. By failing to support that goal with urgency, Thiel is missing opportunity to leverage bottom line results in the service of broader CSR goals.

Okay, so no planet -- what about people?

To be clear, that missing element of leadership on climate action is not only characteristic of Peter Thiel. It also reflects the attitude of Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Though he has acknowledged the need for action on climate change, Zuckerberg has not been as proactive as other corporate titans. That is consistent with his general concept of corporate social responsibility.

In an interview with Fast Company last year, Zuckerberg dismissed the growing consensus that CSR is a strategic management decision in its own right. Instead, he claimed that Facebook's business model in and of itself is sufficient (dismissiveness emphasized):

I think the core operation of what you do should be aimed at making the change that you want. A lot of companies do nice things with small parts of their resources...

As for missed opportunities, Facebook's failure to lead is reflected in CR Magazine's influential 100 Best Corporate Citizens list (note: CR Magazine and Triple Pundit are both part of the 3bl Media organization).

Facebook is not listed among the 2017 top 100, which puts it well out of the league of familiar names in tech like Intel (#2), Microsoft (#3), Texas Instruments (#15) and Adobe (#18).

Peter Thiel and Facebook

Zuckerberg's attitude toward CSR could explain why he has avidly defended Peter Thiel's continued presence on the Facebook board, despite the  growing list of Thiel's controversial non-Facebook activities over the past two years.

During the 2016 campaign that includes Thiel's decision to support the Trump campaign as an official California delegate during the primaries and as a strategically positioned keynote speaker at the climax of the Republican National Convention. Thiel also wrote op-eds at key points in the campaign and capped it with a $1.25 million contribution that helped push Trump over the finish line in the runup to Election Day 2016.

All of this was anathema to forward-thinking Silicon Valley leaders who were horrified at the anti-immigrant, racist and misogynistic rhetoric of the Trump campaign, capped by the release of the notorious "grab them by the pussy" audiotapes However, venture capitalist Ellen Pao was among the very few who forcibly, and publicly, criticized Thiel in the late stages of the 2016 campaign.

Nevertheless, Trump's campaign rhetoric explains at least part of Thiel's attraction. To cite just one example, one core element of Trump's political success is his ability to disqualify his critics in the media. Thiel adopted that formulation in defense of his financial backing for the Hulk Hogan lawsuit that eventually bankrupted Gawker media (it's worth noting that Thiel's money went to Trump-connected attorney Charles Harder, who represented Hogan in the action).

Thiel characterized his support for Hogan as a philanthropic gesture aimed at protecting ordinary citizens from "media bullies." As justification, he cited his personal experience being outed as a gay man in 2009 by Gawker's ValleyWag site, but it also happens that ValleyWag was gleefully shooting holes in Thiel's golden-touch image by repeatedly bringing up the disastrous failure of his Clarium hedge fund.

In an interesting turn of events, Thiel recently indicated an interested in buying Gawker, possibly with the sole aim of shutting down its archive. That would include the digs at Clarium as well as references to his personal life.

Speaking of people...

Another area of synchronicity between Thiel and Donald Trump more deeply involves the people leg of the stool.

As soon as Trump took office, he followed through on his anti-immigration rhetoric. Mark Zuckerberg and many others in the tech world pushed back vigorously, but not Peter Thiel.

That's not surprising, considering the influences swirling around Thiel's role in the Trump campaign. During that time Thiel's affinity for the white nationalist movement and the anti-immigration campaign Numbers USA received renewed attention, as did his notorious 2009 essay on libertarianism which he linked women's suffrage to the purported ills of the welfare state, and his earlier support for the libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul, who is credited with a record of racist publications.

Among all these issues, the focus on immigrants stands out partly because Thiel was born in Germany, emigrated to the US at age 1 with his parents, and recently became a citizen of New Zealand. In a similar vein, two of Trump's three wives are immigrants and the immigration status of his current wife's parents has recently come under scrutiny, all of which is problematic for his vociferous stance against so-called "chain migration."

Even more interesting is the disconnect between Thiel's longtime affinity for the libertarian ideals of limited government, and his recent activity in both business and politics.

Peter Thiel and the surveillance state

Though professing the limited government ideals of libertarianism, Peter Thiel co-founded a successful big data company, Palantir, known for its facility in collecting and synthesizing mountains of personal information. That's more than a little ironic, especially considering that the Palantir business model rests heavily on government contracts.

In light of the Palantir venture -- and amid concerns that the company can and will play a role in Trump's immigration policies -- Thiel's support for the libertarian cause takes on the appearance of a philosophical version of greenwashing, deflecting attention from the real-world activities of Palantir.

As for the political side, Thiel's payoff for boosting Trump into the Oval Office initially included a seat at the inner circle table through his leadership of the President's now-disbanded tech advisory council, the Strategic and Policy Forum.

Early last year rumors began circulating that the relationship between Trump and Thiel had cooled, but by last fall he was officially in the running to lead the President's Intelligence Advisory Board.

Unlike the awkwardly titled Strategic and Policy Forum, PIAB is no fleeting creature of the Trump administration. It has been a permanent office for 50 years, as described in the Obama White House archive:

The President’s Intelligence Advisory Board exists exclusively to assist the President by providing the President with an independent source of advice on the effectiveness with which the Intelligence Community is meeting the nation’s intelligence needs, and the vigor and insight with which the community plans for the future. The Board has access to all information needed to perform its functions and has direct access to the President.

That last item involves security clearances, and considering the current security clearance travails of the Trump White House it's not surprising that Thiel eventually withdrew his name from consideration.

However, Peter Thiel has still left his mark on the Trump administration. For example, the responsibilities of Science Advisor to the Trump administration fall on former Thiel chief of staff and climate science denier Michael Kratsios. The 31-year-old Kratsios is the de facto head of an office with broad responsibilities including homeland security.

Earlier this month, word also bubbled up that longtime Thiel financial associate Kevin Harrington has garnered a position on the staff of the National Security Council.

Combined with the Palantir activity, all of this seems to indicate no small degree of conflict between Thiel's role in business and his influence on US policy making.

And, that's where things get even more interesting.

What about the Russians?

Whether or not appearances are borne out by fact, the corporate social responsibility trendline is providing Thiel with less room to maneuver in the tech world, and more generally in the corporate world.

In that light, last week's news is not particularly surprising. Apparently seeking kindred souls, Thiel is reportedly moving to Los Angeles, where he will find himself on more sympathetic ground.

The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp, offered up kudos from its editorial board:

The news that billionaire investor Peter Thiel is decamping to Los Angeles to escape the stifling political conformity of Silicon Valley won’t shatter the republic, but pillars of the Valley would be wise to heed its warning. One reason the maestros of tech are becoming political targets is because they are seen as partisan and disdainful of middle America.

Setting aside the notion that other "maestros of tech" are political targets on the same order as Peter Thiel, The Guardian takes a more sanguine approach to the move:

PragerU is one of a cluster of LA-based digital media organisations in the conservative movement that have... “a disproportionate amount of influence on the right”. This makes it the perfect place for Thiel to build his new right-leaning media business, first reported by BuzzFeed in January. The plan is to create a cable news network that would compete with Fox News and “foster discussion and community around conservative topics”, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, news of Thiel leaving the Facebook board may be somewhat premature. However, as the Mueller investigation zeroes in on the 2016 Trump campaign, Facebook and other social media, exposing deep and potentially damaging knowledge gaps in US intelligence, it's all the more curious that the name of Peter Thiel has yet to surface.

Photo: Peter Thiel by Luc Van Braekel.

By Jacoba Gundle

At the start of each year, The Climate Trust publishes carbon market predictions based on experience and interactions with their diverse group of working partners from various industries. Putting to use their singular vantage point in the market, internal experts at The Trust come together to identify areas of growth, change or movement that are likely to become larger industry trends that year.

In the face of federal climate inaction and the impact of a record-breaking year for natural disasters, The Trust surmised that states and U.S. cities would quicken the pace of developing climate change adaptation plans. As severe weather continues to cripple U.S. cities, and the world at large, lamentably, the likelihood of this prediction becoming a reality also increases—while the importance of it coming to fruition becomes imperative. Without federal assistance, citizens and officials must take the lead in preparing for a future with more frequent and stronger disasters.

It is hard to miss the almost daily news articles about the next impending weather crisis. In January alone, there was mention of wildfires, a bomb cyclone, mudslides severe enough to warrant mandatory evacuations, and snowstorms spread across the U.S. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, there were 16 weather and climate-related events in 2017 which cost over $1B each. The aggregate cost of all weather and climate related events last year reached a new annual record, totaling over $300B. Beyond the intolerable loss of life, our country simply can’t afford to continue accruing damages at this rate, which is why some cities are planning ahead.

Time Magazine reported that three years ago, the City of Miami Beach allocated $500M to prepare for climate change. Miami Beach is one of the more susceptible locales to weather-related disasters driven by climate change as 93% of the city is considered to be in a flood risk zone. Sea level rise, temperature extremes, coastal erosion, extreme storm damage, the threat of hurricanes and other unforeseen natural disasters are all risks this city faces, and as growth continues, construction has to adapt. Part of the climate action plan details infrastructure changes that will need to occur, which are already being seen in new buildings. The news coverage of climate disasters over the last few years has been overwhelming, but also eye opening; clearly demonstrating the need for all U.S. regions to adapt to the changing environment with forward-thinking plans of their own.

In 2010, Eugene, Oregon was among the first to create a city-wide plan (adopted in 2014) that addresses the challenges their city will face due to climate change. The plan includes initiatives aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, and outlines needed infrastructure adaptations to deal with elements of a changing climate. As a result of this plan, Eugene has already cut natural gas consumption by 12% and diesel by 17%. To look at the problem more broadly, researchers and academics at both the University of Kansas and Texas A&M mapped 51 cities that had a plan to deal with climate change. The majority of these cities are, perhaps unsurprisingly, found on or near U.S. coastlines, which suffer the immediate threat of coastal erosion and sea level rise. However, these are not the only communities threatened by this pervasive issue.

In the absence of strong federal action and a political agenda to fight climate change, it is imperative that cities and states act now on their own behalf, preparing for extreme weather events with adaptation measures shaped for the unique needs of their region. State and municipal adaptation plans are a great place to start, but widespread planning, across all states, is also needed to adequately prepare for a future where extreme weather is the new norm. A joint effort will be needed which crosses city, state, and political lines to lessen the impact from the increasing intensity and frequency of these natural disasters.

The Paris Climate Accord was an impressive effort to align the majority of countries across the globe to prioritize the decrease of dangerous greenhouse gas emissions. As the U.S. proclaims its intent to withdraw from this historic agreement, individual adaptation plans can help send the message to the international community that even if U.S. leadership has chosen not to honor the agreement, the individual parts that make up this great country can still be counted on to hold up our end of the deal.

In 2018, state and city policies should focus on climate change prevention, with programs that reduce emissions, while also preparing for worst-case scenarios with action plans to cope with the (inevitable) aftermath of disasters. It is critical that adaptation is planned for in parallel with regulatory efforts. Slowing down and halting emissions is of the utmost importance, but places like Miami Beach are already feeling the impacts of climate change. We are not preparing for some distant future. It is already here.

U.S. citizens should not have to live under threat of the next natural disaster, which could (and already has for millions) chase them from their homes and threaten their lives. We should all hope that The Climate Trust’s prediction for increased adaptation plan development comes true, ensuring strides toward preventative action and worst case scenario strategies that protect the welfare of the U.S. and all who live here.

Image credit: Flickr/maxstrz

Jacoba Gundle is the Information Manager for The Climate Trust