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By Kelsey Martin

Respect is the foundation of every successful company culture, and leaders need to embody the company's core values to lead by example.

In a ranch-style culture, which relies on a strong work ethic and teamwork, every job is just as important as the next — meaning that everyone at the company must give 110 percent in order for the company to move forward. This starts at the top, and the CEO must establish the rules of respect.

How respect impacts team-building

So what does a respectful culture look like? One simple example is abandoning dress codes in the office. Leaders should trust their employees enough to do their jobs and dress appropriately without creating rules and regulations around it. If you hire the right people, respect that they'll get the job done.

At Bristlecone Holdings, we foster a culture of approachability. Employees at all levels know the president, and he makes himself available for meetings with any employee if they so wish. And because our employees respect his time as well, they come to him with only specific questions that involve him directly.

We also provide as much clarity as possible within our organizational structure. Although we're not a flat or holacratic organization, we try to be as flat as possible. We encourage permeability between teams, and we try to foster a sense of agency within each person.

Although holacracy doesn't work for us, we do place a strong emphasis on trust. With this structure, every employee should feel that when they go to their supervisor or HR representative with a problem, that person will not only listen, but will also do something to help.

The effect on productivity and empowerment

Trust between employees and their managers also increases productivity and the sense of empowerment because leaders don't need to micromanage. Micromanaging hinders creativity and problem-solving, which in turn hinders the company's ability to succeed.

Research has shown that micromanaging hurts productivity, and employees who are given autonomy over their own schedules work harder and better than those who are under constant supervision.

We give our employees projects we know they can handle and let them run with it, providing guidance and resources along the way. Trust goes both ways in these scenarios: Leaders need to trust that their employees will get the job done, and employees need to trust that their managers aren't setting them up to fail.

Growing pains

As a team grows, there are often culture challenges. We discovered that we needed more structure (which can be a hard sell in a startup) because our approachable culture actually led to hours of wasted time.

We ultimately implemented a system of partial structure, which was a blend of holacracy and traditional organizational hierarchy. The structure helped us avoid wasting everyone's time because it created boundaries so that we didn't get bogged down in unnecessary layers.

Our culture of respect has helped us grow as a company, and we have even bigger plans for 2017. We consistently measure our employee engagement, and we rank in the 93rd percentile in the Gallup Q12 survey results, which speaks to our company culture.

Implementing a culture of respect

Communicating a vision is more complicated than simply sending a memo and hoping everyone understands. Leaders need to be held accountable for their actions, as they're the ones setting the cultural bar. There are a few ways this can take shape:

1. Make trust the law of the land: If you hire the right people, then everyone will be giving 100 percent every day to help the company succeed. That fosters an atmosphere of trust and honesty, and employees and managers alike are more comfortable talking about successes and failures.

In the case of failure, employees should be able to talk to their managers about what went wrong without feeling accused of anything. Trust that your employees are doing their best, and work with them to help them improve for next time.

2. Open up communication: Communication is always a challenge, and many difficulties and failures are a result of breakdowns in communication.

That's why we start focusing on communicating our mission and core values as soon as an employee is hired, because we want to be as clear as possible about our organization's vision as soon as they step in the door.

3. Exhibit the behaviors you wish to see: Finally, it's important to ensure that leaders are walking the walk when it comes to respectful culture. Seeing is believing, and it's easier to believe in a company's values if you see leadership exemplifying those values.

Effective team leaders don't just focus on core values — they also have a strong focus on goals, relationships, and results, which benefits both the company and its employees.

The openness and communication within our team are at the core of our success, because we always aim to implement changes as a team. As we continue to grow, we know our collaborative and respectful culture will help us get to where we want to go.

Image credit: Pexels

Kelsey Martin currently serves as chief people officer at Bristlecone Holdings, a financial technology company that builds proprietary technologies and machine learning algorithms to better serve consumers through smarter financial tools. Her combined knowledge of finance and data-based decision-making bolster her strategy in addressing the needs of a rapidly growing fintech company. When she’s not fostering teamwork, you can find Kelsey on a remote trail in the Sierra with her husband and her dog, Macy.

We live in a time of massive, unprecedented trade: Goods, information and money all flow across borders almost seamlessly (people, of course, are another matter). While this new era of trade has brought immense prosperity to many, it has also resulted in damaging externalities.

It is because of demand for cheap global commodities that huge swaths of land are cut down in biodiverse hotspots such as Indonesian Borneo and Sumatra or the Amazon jungle, all for cheap palm oil, soy and beef. Demand for minerals spurred on harmful mining practices in the Congo, Papua, South America and elsewhere, even resulting in conflict.

The most damning fact is that this transfer of commodities tends to benefit only a tiny sliver of the global population, and the trade system has yet to address this. Those who farm cocoa, palm oil, or soy profit little from global commodity prices or access to new markets – instead, they are often forced to sell for less or be forced out of the market. This applies to workers as well, such as the hundreds of thousands working on palm oil plantations in Indonesia, the majority of whom are contract laborers who see few benefits from the multibillion-dollar palm oil trade.

The Fair Trade movement started as a response to this global trade paradigm that focused too much on profits and not people. Their goal was to tilt the balance toward farmers and workers, if even just a bit, ensuring they got a decent living.

From Fair Trade America: "For far too long, conventional trade has maintained a narrow focus on the lowest common denominator. Efficiency at all costs, lower prices, and little consideration for the full social, economic and environmental impacts have been hallmarks of conventional international trade. Massive consolidation of power in supply chains has resulted in fewer options for consumers, farmers and workers, and unprecedented wealth controlled by few."

The Fair Trade model proved successful, but it still only operates at the margins. Those of us living in well-off communities can afford the higher premiums of Fair Trade coffee, chocolate and tea, but the vast majority of people -- especially in developing countries -- cannot. This means that, despite the growth of Fair Trade, inequality is getting worse overall, as a recent report from Oxfam shed a bright light on: Eight men (and, yes, they are all men) own the same amount of wealth as half of the world, or 3.6 billion people.

“It is obscene for so much wealth to be held in the hands of so few when 1 in 10 people survive on less than $2 a day,” Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International, said in a press statement. “Inequality is trapping hundreds of millions in poverty; it is fracturing our societies and undermining democracy.”

Progress over the past few decades has been incredibly uneven. The report found that between 1988 and 2011, the years in which “globalization” became a hot term, the incomes of the poorest 10 percent increased by just $65 per person. The richest 1 percent saw $11,800 more per person – 182 times as much. That is not only unsustainable; it is a travesty.

Fair Trade needs to become more than a niche – it needs to grow into the norm, a true alternative to a trade systems that traps far too many in poverty. And all of us – the media, companies, and, yes, the 1 percent, all need to play our role.

Photo Credit: Kevin Dooley via Flickr

So-called “shadow banks” have edged out a larger portion of the U.S. financial sector, especially the mortgage market, over the past several years, according to a working paper released this month by economists from Columbia University, Stanford University and the University of Chicago.

Shadow banking includes a wide gamut of nonbank financial services that fall beyond the scope of traditional regulation, from hedge funds for the wealthy to payday lenders often accused of preying on the poor.

Investment banks, insurance companies, money market funds and private equity firms are also considered part of this booming segment of the financial industry. So are financial technology firms such as Quicken Loans which, depending on the source cited, is the second or third largest mortgage lender in the U.S.

Estimates of these nonbank financial institutions' cumulative size are all over the map, from $25 trillion to $36 trillion in assets. Last year CNBC estimated that the shadow banking system had grown by 25 percent since the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. This system of nonbank financial services is a global phenomenon, and institutions such as the International Monetary Fund describe it as a vehicle for growth while fraught with risks.

Shadow banks nearly tripled their share in the mortgage market from 2007 to 2015, according to the team of researchers from Columbia, Stanford and Chicago. And they warn this fast -- and largely unregulated -- growth could expose the financial sector to greater long-term risk.

Many of the customers to which these firms lend money are less creditworthy than the recipients of loans from conventional banks. The scenario is eerily similar to what happened a decade ago when sub-prime mortgage and refinancing schemes, along with the re-securitization of those loans, contributed to the falling dominoes that almost demolished the U.S. and global economies.

A cohort of these shadow financial institutions have entrenched themselves in the U.S. Federal Housing Administration mortgage market. This division of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development lends to borrowers who are at more financial risk than the general U.S. population. Shadow banks increased their share of this market sevenfold between 2007 and 2015 and now controls all but 25 percent of it, according to the research team.

Not all analysts are spooked by shadow banks. The Economist, for example, touts these financial firms as creating a more viable option compared to conventional banks, which often charge more to process and issue loans. But in some nations where shadow banks thrive, such as China, their surge in popularity and their ability to sidestep the country’s banking regulations has placed the bond markets at risk.

China’s central bank recently compelled these financial institutions to set aside enough deposits in order to account for any losses from investment vehicles, such as wealth management products (WMPs), CNBC reported in January. The result was higher borrowing rates in recent weeks, which squeezed both shadow financial institutions and their customers who have come to rely on them for credit.

And in a speech last fall, Federal Reserve Bank Governor Daniel K. Tarullo said these shadow banks could put the U.S. economy at risk in the event investors rush to pull their money out of these companies at any early signs of financial trouble. Tarullo also reminded the audience at Columbia University that the collapse of shadow banking companies such as Lehman Brothers and American International Group, not just the likes of conventional banks Washington Mutual and Wachovia, helped demolish confidence within the U.S. banking sector in 2008.

It is doubtful that the concern over shadow banking’s growth and inherent risks will score the attention of the presidential administration. Donald Trump’s White House is determined to undermine or rescind the financial reforms implemented by his predecessor after the global economy's near collapse nine years ago, such as the Dodd-Frank Act.

But on Bloomberg, Leonid Bershidsky said that if traditional banks fade away, such an outcome could leave many consumers with limited, and far riskier, investment options. These shadow banks are conducting the same kind of business as conventional banks, Bershidsky argued, only without being subjected to the same rules.

“Governments, however, could level the playing field by deciding that any lender is a bank and imposing the same tough rules on all of them,” he wrote. “Regulatory arbitrage is inherently unfair, and it's unclear why firms that claim a technological advantage should be given additional preferences.”

Image credit: Trey Ratcliff/Flickr

Uber released its first diversity report this week following months of bad press, including fierce backlash over workplace sexual harassment allegations.

At face value, critics can easily find fault with the company’s recruitment and retention strategies. Uber reflects a Silicon Valley that many say is still overwhelmingly white and male, especially in technical and leadership positions. Then again, it is not necessarily faring any better or worse than its most widely-known peers within the U.S. technology sector.

Compared to Silicon Valley at large, the Uber report shows a mixed bag. The ridesharing giant about as racially and ethnically diverse as Apple and Facebook, with Apple appearing to be more successful in recruiting and retaining blacks and Hispanics. Uber also has a higher proportion of female employees compared to those two Silicon Valley titans. But when it comes to where much of the diversity argument lies – technical and engineering hires – Uber makes it clear it has work to do, which to many is obvious by the controversy over how Susan Fowler described her brief tenure at the company.

It is on the technology front, however, where Uber faces an uphill climb in recruitment. Only 15 percent of Uber’s technology jobs are filled by women. Compare that figure to 23 percent at Apple; Facebook does about just as poorly, with 16 percent of its technical jobs held by women. When it comes to ethnicity and racial background, Apple also outshines Uber with Hispanics and blacks each comprising 8 percent of its technical positions; again, Facebook only slightly edges out the ridesharing giant with its last figures showing 3 and 1 percent, respectively.

“It’s no secret that we’re late to release our numbers,” Liane Hornsey, chief human resources officer for Uber, wrote in the diversity report’s opening statement. With Hispanics holding 2 percent of technical and engineering jobs and blacks filling in only 1 percent, those who have become cynical toward Uber would respond that such a slow disclosure occurred for obvious reasons.

In fairness to Uber, these challenges are widespread throughout Silicon Valley. Symantec, for example, also reports low percentages of women and underrepresented minorities within its technical workforce, but the company says it aims to boost those numbers by 15 percent from 2014 figures by the end of this decade. Uber certainly could look to Symantec for ideas on how to improve its recruitment efforts: The Mountain View-based firm, which produces a wide range of security, storage and backup software packages, has implemented a bevy of programs to boost diversity and inclusion, from employee groups that help the company make strategic decisions to investing in STEM education in underserved communities.

Uber insists it is striving to become a more welcoming employer for workers of all backgrounds. The company says it plans to hold more recruitment events across the U.S. and claims to have accelerated outreach at historically black colleges and universities, as well as college campuses designated as Hispanic Serving Institutions.

Over the next three years, Uber promised to spend $3 million working with organizations that aim to recruit more women and underrepresented minorities into technology companies.

In other words: The company insists it is open to anyone from anywhere, citing its 100 percent score on the Human Rights Campaign equality index for LGBT employees. Uber also said 15 percent of its workforce hold U.S. work visas and have emigrated from 71 countries. The company also plans to update at least 1,500 job descriptions to rid them from “unconscious bias,” which some human resources experts say is a huge obstacle to diversity recruitment.

One high-level member of Uber’s leadership team said that she will hold the company accountable for its actions. “I will be holding their feet to the fire,” Arianna Huffington, a member of Uber’s board of directors, said during a press call held last week. “Uber must change if it is to be as successful in the next decade as it has been in the last seven years.”

But some observers, including a duo of Bloomberg staffers, say Uber left one glaring metric out of this report: employee retention. While many companies do not release such figures, a retention rate can say a lot about a company’s work culture, wrote Ellen Huet and Carol Hymowitz of Bloomberg, and whether non-white and non-male employees feel welcomed and valued.

Could this report indicate that Uber is ready to change its ways?

The company has been a proverbial punching bag as of late, with critics insisting it exhibits the worst traits of Silicon Valley and the tech sector. An ongoing leadership crisis has unfolded as the company is ensnared in litigation with Google over allegations of stolen technology; municipalities say Uber used its technology to sniff out local regulators; and many users deleted the Uber app after the company appeared to capitalize during a boycott of JFK Airport during the initial weekend of the Trump White House’s first travel ban.

Launching a frank discussion about its work culture and recruitment challenges are a first step for Uber, but the mountain of trust to which it must ascend is still a steep one.

Image credit: Núcleo Editorial/Flickr

Toyota has a message for anyone who still doubts the potential of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles: Lalalala we can't hear you! The company is set to launch a major new ad campaign for the Mirai sedan, its signature venture into the fuel cell mobility market, that consists of 37 billboards spread across Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Billboards generally get a bad rap as eyesores, and in that regard a billboard campaign doesn't exactly square with an environmental theme. But Toyota devised an unusual twist that makes a logical connection between outdoor advertising and a zero-emission car.

Hydrogen marches on

For those of you new to the topic, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are just that: electric vehicles. The difference is that conventional EVs use batteries, which have to be recharged periodically. Fuel cell EVs generate their own electricity on the go. They need to be fueled up periodically with hydrogen.

Battery EVs have a jump on the zero-emission mobility market, thanks partly to the public relations genius of Tesla's Elon Musk.

Toyota is among a number of legacy automakers that are making the push for fuel cell EV technology. The bet is that although fuel cell EVs are pricier now, they could compete with battery EVs for market share over the long run as costs go down.

The U.S. Energy Department seems to agree. The agency is eyeballing sustainable hydrogen and fuel cell EVs as key factors in the deep decarbonization of the U.S. economy.

From eyesore to pollution fighter

The new Mirai billboard campaign will run from April 3 to May 28. And here's the kicker: The new billboards will "reverse the equivalent of 5,285 vehicles worth of nitrogen dioxide (NOx) emissions per month," Toyota said in a press statement.

That's not a magic trick. The billboards will be clad in vinyl coated with titanium dioxide, which acts as a kind of catalytic converter. Here's the explainer from Toyota:

"When oxygen reacts with the energized titanium dioxide catalyst, NOx is converted to nitrate and removed from the air. The light-activated, smog-reducing billboards continue to purify the air as long as light, humidity, airflow and the titanium dioxide coating are present."

To publicize the new promotion, Toyota displayed a similarly-clad Mirai at the entrance to the first Environmental Media Association Impact Summit in Los Angeles last week.

Clear Channel turns to green advertising...?

In another interesting twist, the billboards are provided by Clear Channel Outdoor Americas, which comes under the umbrella of the mega-company iHeartMedia, formerly known as Clear Channel.

Under the George W.Bush administration, Clear Channel established an affinity with the right side of the American political spectrum, a relationship that has continued (think: Rush Limbaugh).

The hookup with Toyota takes Outdoor Americas in a different direction. In a prepared statement, Outdoor Americas EVP and Senior Regional President Gene Leehan hinted that the company is interested in a more expansive approach:

"We are pleased to offer our environmentally-conscious clients, like Toyota, an even more eco-friendly printed vinyl option for their Out-of-Home (OOH) media campaigns ... This campaign marks a U.S. first for the use of this technology on OOH, and we look forward to making it available to other like-minded advertisers."

The pollution-scrubbing technology comes from PURETi Group, which has an exclusive usage agreement with Clear Channel Outdoor Americas for the outdoor category in the U.S.

PURETi has also lent its technology to a campaign in the U.K. for Naked Juice, marking the first time that the beverage company has used outdoor advertising.

Photo (cropped): courtesy of Toyota.

It may be a tall order, but if everything goes the way lawmakers promises, Flint residents will have new, lead-free water pipes by 2020.

Faced with a lawsuit from Flint residents, the state of Michigan and the city of Flint hammered out a settlement to replace the city’s corroded pipes that are leaching lead into residents' drinking water. The settlement agreement was approved by a federal judge on Tuesday.

Here’s how it will work:

The state will pay $87 million to Flint, which will replace the city’s water pipes. As part of the court deal, the state agreed to put aside another $10 million in case of unforeseen expenses.

The legal settlement is enforceable by the courts, which means the city has three years to fulfill the commitment.

Not all of the money will come out of the state’s coffers, however. The $87 million includes the roughly $30 million that Congress allotted last year toward the effort.

The agreement also requires the state to maintain a door-to-door water filtration installation and education program and provide bottled water for residents.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, which helped launch the suit, the state must also “extensively monitor” the city’s water. NRDC will receive copies of the test results.

Michigan will also continue to provide funding for seven medical programs that were set up to monitor and treat effects from lead exposure.

Dimple Chaudhary, a senior attorney with NRDC, said the settlement is a major step forward for residents, after nearly two years of legal effort to get the city to resolve its water crisis.

“This hard-fought victory means safer water for Flint. For the first time, there will be an enforceable commitment to get the lead pipes out of the ground. The people of Flint are owed at least this much,” Chaudhary said in a press statement.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan also represented plaintiffs in the suit.

“We are thrilled that, after nearly three years of grappling with lead-poisoned water, the residents of Flint can finally look forward to a long-term solution to a catastrophe that has devastated the community,” said Michael J. Steinberg, legal director of the ACLU of Michigan and a member of the council representing plaintiffs on the case.

“This ground-breaking settlement marks a huge step toward restoring a long-neglected community to some semblance of normalcy.”

Meanwhile, struggles aren’t over for either residents or the city. Flint Mayor Karen Weaver announced last week that the city would start turning off the taps to a small number of homes and apartment complexes are at least five months behind in water payments, arguing that the city itself is struggling to pay its water bills.

“Customer payments are necessary to help the city of Flint collect the funds needed to pay over $1.2 million per month for treated water and provide for water and sewer services as Flint continues to recover from the effects of the man-made water crisis,” David Sabuda, the city’s interim finance officer, explained in a statement.

In February, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder announced that the state would stop paying water bill credits to Flint residences by March 1 because lead levels had dropped below federal maximum threshold. The city of Flint appealed, but was unable to convince the state to reverse its decision. Local stakeholders, as well as both Democratic candidates in the 2016 presidential election, have called on Snyder to resign for his role in the crisis.

The city says it has extended the deadline for delinquent customers to pay their bills until April 1, after which it will begin shutting off the taps.

Image credit: Wikimedia/Connor Coyne (PD)

If anything good has come out of incoming U.S. President Donald Trump’s unsettling attack on Obama-era legislation, it’s the incentive his actions give states to step up to the plate and address those issues within their borders.

This month, one of many hot topics in Washington is Internet privacy laws, which American voters once fought long and hard to ensure the White House would protect. With Congress’ recent vote to strip new (and not yet in effect) privacy rules that would have limited Internet companies from mining your personal information for commercial purposes, states across the nation are now taking action.

Illinois is only the most recent state to consider legislation that would affect providers' efforts to silently collect your personal information and sell it to advertisers. Under the proposed bill called the Right to Know Act, consumers would have the right to know what information online companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google collect, as well as the kind of businesses that buy their information.

The state is also considering two other measures, one which would limit geolocation tracking of consumers without their consent. At the present time, Web browsers are not required by law to ask you for permission to reveal your location. This law would change that.

The Microphone Enabled Device Act would require companies to get your written permission before they could enable the microphone your device. It also paves the way for damages when the law is broken.

Other states already have such legislation on the books. Laws in California and Connecticut restrict government access to users’ emails, while West Virginia and Nebraska adopted new laws that define if and when companies can look at their employees' social media accounts. New Mexico, Hawaii and Missouri are just a few of the other states considering similar personal Internet protections.

The proposed bills relating to employers are likely in response to a spike in companies that use the social media accounts of workers and renters to determine whether they are a good fit for their client’s professional ideals.

Not everyone is sold on the idea of more consumer legislation. Omri Ben-Shahar, who is the Kearney director of the Coase-Sandor Institute for Law and Economics at the University of Chicago Law School, noted in a recent Forbes op-ed piece that Illinois already champions state privacy legislation and wondered whether a new law that essentially legislates something Internet companies are already doing is really necessary.

“Apps like GoogleMaps already request people’s permission to store and use their geo-locations, thus precluding a tsunami of 'gotcha' litigation,” wrote Ben-Shahar, who argued that laws like this are really meant to “blaze a new trail of class-action activity. Illinois, in other words, is solidifying its stature as the Mecca for privacy litigation pilgrimage.”

But to the consumer who is grateful that GoogleMaps does ask for permission each time it wants to broadcast his or her location, it isn’t that simple. New aggressive federal roll-backs of privacy legislation has a tendency to change the perceived topography and limits of where a company can go. That is the purpose, it would seem, to repealing legislation the White House views as over-restrictive.

And just because a company asks politely doesn’t mean the next guy will do the same. Privacy legislation doesn’t just protect current consumers, but future Internet users who may not receive that same courteous request from the next online startup.

Whether or not Illinois is proposing privacy legislation because “[their legislative battles] can be easily won,” as Ben-Shahar suggested, other states are likely to follow suit. The federal government’s roll-back of environmental and immigration legislation has prompted states to adopt their own rules and, in some cases, to set up declared boundaries for what federal authorities can do within the state’s borders. The issue of privacy rights may well follow suit.

And as Connor Dougherty of the New York Times pointed out this week, that means more onerous responsibilities for companies that want you as a customer. It means hiring more lawyers to write privacy policies that meet the state’s expectations. And it means more costs to ensure privacy is protected

That poses an ironic twist for the Trump administration that has lobbied its legislative repeals as a way to decrease the number of business regulations affecting companies today. It begs the question whether standardizing expectations at the federal level doesn’t lessen the cost and the burden of compliance for everyone in the long run.

Wikimedia/Matthew Bowden

Nike's new shoe packaging is made from 100 percent post-consumer waste, including milk and orange juice containers and coffee lids. The shoe boxes are made from a single process of polypropylene with no added chemicals.

Nike partnered with the Taiwanese company Miniwiz to create the packaging. In addition to being made from recycled materials, the boxes feature a modular design with an interlocking component that allows them to be stacked for either display or storage.

“These are all intentional features and qualities which revolve around the intent of every Miniwiz product — reducing the impact on the environment in every way it can,” Arthur Huang, CEO of Miniwiz, said in a statement. “In this case, we’re adding features and efficiency to an existing product (shoe boxes) and by re-using non-virgin materials in a sustainable and responsible way.”

The shoe packaging can be used as a backpack. And the shoe it's built to support, the NikeLab Air Max 1 Royal, is made from the company's Flyknit material. As Nike explains on its website, Flyknit is “precision-engineered stitch by stitch to create targeted zones of stretch and support for adaptive performance.” As a result, the material reduces waste sent to landfill by millions of pounds.

“We love Flynit as a technology,” Huang said. “It gives designers a new canvas to create cool, while lowering environmental impact. We want to be associated with that and are glad that we are a part of this revolution.”

In its latest sustainable business report, Nike said it envisions a “transition from linear to circular business models and a world that demands closed-loop products – designed with better materials, made with fewer resources and assembled to allow easy reuse in new products.”

Achieving that will require “up-front product design, with materials reclaimed throughout the manufacturing process and at the end of a product’s life,” Nike concluded in its report. And the company is doing just that. For example, its leftover production materials are finding new life in shoes, athletic tracks and tennis courts. The ultimate goal is to “accelerate system-level change."

Most plastic packaging is used only once. And a whopping 95 percent of the value of plastic packaging material, or $80 billion to $120 billion annually, is lost to the economy, according to a report released last year by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. And over 8 million tons of plastic waste is lost annually to the world's oceans each year.

Some companies are working to address the problem by designing packaging made from recycled ocean plastic. Back in 2012, Method released a hand soap in a bottle made from recycled ocean plastic and post-consumer recycled plastic.

And last fall, Adidas launched a running shoe and soccer jerseys made from ocean plastic Parley for the Oceans recovered in coastal areas of the Maldives. Adidas hopes to make a million pairs of shoes using ocean plastic this year, and its “ultimate ambition is to eliminate virgin plastic from our supply chain,” said Eric Liedtke, an Adidas Group executive board member responsible for global brands. The company’s 2017 goal would mean that at least 11 million bottles would be retrieved from coastal areas by the Parley Global Clean-up Network and turned into sportswear.

Procter and Gamble announced in January that its Head and Shoulders brand would produce a shampoo bottle made from up to 25 percent recycled beach plastic. It was the world’s first shampoo bottle made from beach plastic. P&G also announced in January that by the end of 2018 over half a million bottles a year will include up to 25 percent post-consumer recycled plastic.

Meanwhile, in the electronics sector, Dell announced the industry’s first packaging trays made with 25 percent recycled ocean plastic in February. The packaging is part of a pilot program that supports the company’s goal to achieve 100 percent sustainable packaging by 2020.

Image credit: Nike

The world is on track to both quadruple its GDP and to triple consumption of natural resources by 2050, according to new research by World Resources Institute. Experts project Earth will be home to 9 billion people in three decades, with the global middle class totaling 3 billion by 2030.

And business growth is grow in kind, as it capitalizes on the fast expansion of consumer-driven markets. “The problem is that the planet’s natural systems and finite resources cannot keep up,” WRI concluded in its report released last week. A change in current business models is essential in order to avoid added stress on the environment.

WRI researchers dubbed unchecked consumption "the elephant in the boardroom," and the NGO said it hopes to "normalize the topic" so companies can begin to explore alternative models. Just 15 years ago, climate change was the big corporate elephant, but now over 200 multinational companies have set greenhouse gas reduction targets. An alternative to growth driven by greater and greater consumption is the next challenge for business leaders.

“The hard truth is consumption is a critical issue for companies to be sustainable in the long term,” Kevin Moss, global director of WRI's Business Center said in a statement. “Business models that rely on unchecked consumption and unlimited resources cannot last – they will be replaced by better models that deliver more value with the resources available.”

Fast fashion: A case study in unchecked consumption

WRI points to fast fashion as an example of how business growth driven by unchecked consumption is just not sustainable. Take the U.S., where the average household spends about six times more on clothes than people in an emerging economy like Brazil. The amount of clothes the average consumer buys increased by 60 percent from 2000 to 2014. And they now keep the clothes half as long.

Fast fashion companies like Zara put out 50 to 100 micro seasons a year. And that creates “an enormous amount of waste,” says WRI. 

The global apparel industry is worth anywhere from $900 billion to $3 trillion, depending on the figured cited. But the toll the industry has on the environment is clear. It accounts for 10 percent of the world’s GHG emissions, uses 1.33 trillion gallons of water for dyeing processes annually, and sends about 48 billion to 144 billion square yards of fabric from factory scraps to the landfill every year. Just one mill can use 200 tons of water for every ton of fabric during the dyeing process, and release up to 72 chemicals into the local water supply.

The fashion industry needs a radical shift, says WRI . Clothes designed to last longer would both limit environmental impacts and create jobs. Patagonia’s Worn Wear program employs 45 people who make about 40,000 repairs on clothing a year. In 2008, sustainable design consultant Kate Fletcher coined the term slow fashion. A good example of a slow fashion company is U.S. based Zady. One of the company’s t-shirts is made in the U.S. by environmentally and labor friendly suppliers with U.S. grown organic cotton spun by a family cooperative.

Companies need to start addressing unchecked consumption

WRI gives three recommendations for companies:

• Do the math about their dependency on natural resources and the limits on business growth.


• Take a leadership role by changing the conversation with key stakeholders.


• Transform their business to one that can thrive in a resource-constrained environment.

A good place for companies to start is to have a conversation about the ecological limits of consumption-driven business growth. Most companies are simply not talking about it.

A recent Danish study found that only around 5 percent of companies refer to ecological limits in their corporate responsibility (CR) reports. And when companies did refer to ecological limits in their CR reports, they failed to specify references to either ongoing or planned changes in their activities as a result of recognizing the limits.

Photo: Flickr/bfishadow

By Brian Collett — A green Australian electricity company has given customers the option of paying slightly higher rates to finance community solar projects.