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Just 10 percent of tourist destinations host up to 80 percent of visitors, according to a report by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. Such overtourism is at the heart of recent backlash directed at the industry. But one nonprofit hopes to encourage industry insiders to promote a more sustainable approach to travel.

Tourism Cares is a business-to-business organization focused on “Inspiring the travel industry to put people and places first.” In order to do so, it developed the virtual Meaningful Travel Map, which features sustainable travel experiences, accommodations and shopping that benefit the local communities.

The consequences of overtourism

Too many visitors crammed into a few popular destinations creates a host of complications. There’s environmental degradation from land being cleared to build resorts, hotels, attractions and roads. Natural and heritage sites suffer from erosion, pollution, and wear and tear as visitors trample through en masse. Cities and small towns quickly become crowded and congested, with infrastructure unable to sustain the surge of tourists. Locals are forced off of beaches and other lands as they’re privatized. And the rise in short term rentals means fewer homes available for those who live in the community. 

“You’re seeing a lot of communities being overrun and inundated,” Paula Vlamings, the chief impact officer for Tourism Cares, told TriplePundit. “It’s not great for the traveler, and it’s not great for the community, either.”

This issue led to backlash in places like Barcelona, where locals marched in the streets and sprayed tourists with water guns. And Hallstatt, Austria, where community members blocked the tunnel leading to the small, lakeside village in protest of the 10,000 tourists descending upon them daily.

Ensuring spending actually benefits local communities

While tourism of this scale does bring a lot of spending, very little of that money stays in local communities. That’s where sustainable tourism can make a huge difference. Not only does it protect the quality of life at a given destination, it allows locals to benefit from the influx of cash.

“It’s much better for the community because of this concept of leakage, where a lot of money leaves the local community,” Vlamings said. “That’s where we really want to say go local, local restaurants and impact organizations. Figure out a way to shift [travelers] from the hotel that doesn’t have a sustainability strategy at all to one that does, and see how that can change the carbon footprint of what you’re doing. And your travelers feel like they’re part of the solution instead of part of the problem.”

Being a part of the solution doesn’t have to be all or nothing, she said. Travelers can make a difference one experience at a time.

“If you look to integrate just one experience from the map into that itinerary then you can kind of grow from there,” Vlamings said. 

Getting on the Meaningful Travel Map

Organizations have to be vetted before they can be included on the Meaningful Travel Map, ensuring that they meet sustainability criteria. This includes animal welfare standards, child safety guidelines, hiring local guides, and positively impacting the local community — preferably by working with underrepresented or marginalized groups. The map accepts social enterprises, nonprofits, and community-based tourism cooperatives but not big businesses that are already flourishing, Vlamings said. 

“We really look to support those kinds of community-driven, community-led, grassroots organizations,” she said. To make it on the map, they must focus on sustainability and regenerative principles, DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), or protection and preservation of cultural heritage, biodiversity or natural resources.

One featured organization is Café Reconcile, a training kitchen focused on victims of youth violence in New Orleans. Located outside of the city’s main French Quarter, it takes tourists off the beaten path for a delicious meal and immersion into the local culture, while learning about the organization’s community impact, Vlamings said.

What’s not on the map, yet

A quick look at the Meaningful Travel Map reveals an uneven distribution of pins, with vetted organizations clustered together in some areas and other regions that don’t have any. This will change as the map expands into more countries, but that takes time and staff, Vlamings said. 

The map began with Jordan in 2018 and Colombia the following year. Since then, partnerships ramped up, and there are currently about 350 organizations featured.

“We tripled the number of destination partners, so the scale is happening,” Vlamings said. “It’s a big, huge world, but we definitely have plans to have representation in all of the communities that we don’t have any pins in yet.”

The map helps travel professionals develop more sustainable itineraries, but what about travelers who are visiting destinations that aren’t represented? Vlamings suggests that tourists or their travel providers do a little research into what local nonprofits and social enterprises are doing. 

“There’s actually a fair amount of consumer-facing companies and apps and websites that are sourcing sustainable [travel] products,” she said. “What you’re looking for is anything on their website that talks about sustainability. Are they hiring local guides? What is their stance on plastics? Do they have an animal welfare policy?”

Working together towards sustainability

Consumers are increasingly expressing a desire to make their travel more sustainable, and Vlamings said she is confident that the industry is responding to their wishes.

“That’s where we’re really hoping to work with our tour operators to say, ‘Okay, start building this,’” she said. “Just start building your itineraries and your businesses and all of your supply chain more sustainably. And then the traveler can experience that just by going on a trip with you … We’re hoping that impacts the entire industry, because I think one thing we all forget is … every one of these companies sells the exact same place … so it’s in their benefit to work with their competitors around sustainability.”

With our burgeoning population and sprawling cities, it’s no surprise that humans use the majority of terrestrial land globally. And we haven’t exactly been good occupants. We’re degrading ecosystems from farmlands to forests. Land degradation impacts 3.2 billion people, nearly 40 percent of the world’s population. This fuels the loss of ecosystem services worth over 10 percent of our annual global economic output. 

To combat this downward spiral, the United Nations Environment Program wants one billion hectares of land to be restored by 2030. But rehabilitating an area approximately the size of China isn’t easy.

However, there’s a ray of light in the degradation darkness: Restor. Part social network, part marketplace, Restor is a global, open-access restoration platform. Started in 2020, it already boasts over 21,000 users and organizations on its roster. While designed to help the environment, this platform firmly places people first.

The social side of restoration

Land degradation isn’t a level playing field. Much like leafy trees blanket wealthy neighborhoods more than lower-income ones, degradation disproportionately affects Indigenous groups, women, children and people with incomes below the poverty line.

“The underlying driver of degradation, we believe from recent research, is actually inequality,” said Thomas Crowther, a professor of ecology at ETH Zurich, a public research university in Switzerland, and founder of Restor. “We have very rich people with huge footprints. And we have billions of people who are living most closely in association with nature, living below the poverty line, living without the resources that they need to live sustainably. They are forced to live day-to-day, and they have no non-extractive options.”  

Degraded areas cause numerous problems. For instance, they threaten agriculture and food security, and air pollution contributes to over eight million deaths per year. And that’s not all.

“There are already millions of people experiencing the devastation of climate change and biodiversity loss,” Crowther said. “Heat-related morbidity and mortality are the highest climate-related drivers of death, and that is being faced by billions of people in the global south who are vulnerable to these growing threats.”

Restoration can turn this ship around by fighting global warming while aiding in climate adaptation. For instance, restoring ecosystems can reduce erosion, flooding, and storm surges while cooling temperatures, especially in urban areas. Restoring natural environments also reduces air pollution, provides clean water, improves food security and prevents biodiversity loss.

What Restor offers

With an array of online tools, Restor is tackling the mismatch between healthy ecosystems and degraded ones.

“Our hypothesis was that, actually if we can find and distribute wealth to those local stewards of the people living with nature, that is our best opportunity for ecological recovery,” Crowther said. “That was the mission for Restor — to build a single platform that finds and empowers millions of local stewards of nature.”

Started by Crowther’s lab at ETH Zurich, Restor is now an independent nonprofit organization. The platform covers 209,000 sites worldwide, ranging from grazing land restoration in the United Kingdom to lake rehabilitation in Nepal. And it’s easy to use.

“As a farmer, I can draw out my farm, and I immediately get information about the ecology of the farm,” Crowther said. “I learn about the species that naturally live there. I learn about the carbon that's stored there and the water and how these things are changing.”

In addition to these factors, users get information about land and tree cover, tree loss over time, biomass, human populations, and other climatic and site measurements. Much like Google Earth, you can zoom into sites for a detailed view and watch time-lapse videos.

All this data can help users manage their land by showing regions with the potential for carbon storage or conversely erosion, for example. But Crowther emphasizes the platform’s goal is to share information and not prescribe what landowners should do.

Restor’s marketplace

Besides learning about their land, Restor users can connect with funders, some of whom already advertise on the platform, Crowther said. And they can reach customers for their products or services.

“In the same way you would use Google Maps, you can find coffee to buy, or you can find holidays to go on or whatever else,” Crowther said. “It's just that you can actually see where those products come from [on Restor].”

One coffee grower’s profits increased by 600 percent after joining Restor and creating a QR code. The code, which let customers see exactly where their coffee is coming from, promoted sales.

“My dream is that you've walked down a supermarket aisle, and you can scan your cereal, and you see where it came from,” Crowther said. “It doesn't need to come from a good project or a bad project, but at least you see it. And that gives you agency to then choose what kind of cereal you want based on its flavor, but also based on its environmental footprint.” 

Besides products and services, Restor could help with another tricky market — the one for carbon. While cabon credits have been problematic at times, Restor would boost transparency by allowing potential buyers to see the sites they stem from. It could also used for biodiversity credits, where a buyer pays to conserve or restore a certain amount of land.

While the platform has a lot of potential, not all of its sites are very healthy or diverse ecosystems. The organization wants both good and bad projects on Restor. It hopes that by doing so landowners can learn from their successes and failures.

The future of Restor

Despite Restor’s impressive record so far, there’s even more coming down the platform’s pipeline. It plans to add bioacoustics data, so when users click on a site, they can actually hear the area’s sounds, Crowther said. This information is useful since the soundscape of an ecosystem can accurately predict habitat quality and biodiversity.
Further, its launching a new way to display portfolios and projects later this year.

“A government could display all 100,000 sites in their country and show the footprint of that nation and how it's progressing,” Crowther said. “The same way a company can display 100,000 sites that they source from, and that would show their aggregated footprint.”

The organization is also working on a verification process for land ownership. While not currently a problem, Crowther is concerned about misuse of the platform as it scales up.

The power of restoration

Restoration is one of the smartest things we can do. Every $1 invested in restoration can generate up to $30 in economic benefits. Plus, it’s one of the rare actions that simultaneously benefits the economy, the environment, human health and food security. 

Restor already covers 167 million hectares of restoration projects — an area nearly the size of Alaska — and it’s growing. By giving users the tools and funding they need to restore their land, Restor recognizes the essential link between the environment and people. 

“If our society plans to continue in the long term, we just fundamentally have to limit climate change and biodiversity loss,” Crowther said. “It's a global thing, but more urgently, I actually think it's essential for the people who are facing those threats right now.”

A number of high-profile business leaders have promoted their fierce adherence to meritocracy in their attempts to distance themselves from diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) principles. In June, for example, Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang posted to X about his company's embrace of a similar acronym to drive hiring policies, MEI, which he said stands for "merit, excellence and intelligence." In an email to employees he included with the post, Wang insisted, "Scale is a meritocracy, and we must always remain one." His stance earned cheers in the comments section from the likes of Twitter owner Elon Musk and Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey. 

At its core, meritocracy is meant to elevate people for roles and promotions based solely on their abilities. But experts like Stuart McCalla, managing partner at the leadership coaching, consulting and investment firm Evolution — and many commenters on Wang's repost to LinkedIn — say it isn't always so straightforward. 

"I understand it, and if it was true, it would be a great thing. It would be a wonderful thing if everybody was judged on their abilities, skills and achievements," McCalla said. "But what skills, what abilities, what achievements, and who's doing the judging? And of course, that's where meritocracy breaks down. If you're saying that you are dealing with a meritocracy, or that you are wanting to embrace meritocracy as an ideology, then how do you know the merits you're basing your decisions on don't have bias in them? Forget about unconscious bias. Human beings have cognitive biases, and cognitive biases are regardless of race, culture, ethnicity, orientation and ability."

For example, research shows that most managers — even those with sincere intentions to select the best candidate — tend to hire and promote people like themselves, a type of cognitive bias fittingly known as the similar-to-me effect. This natural human inclination can also creep into the way companies shape seemingly objective requirements for roles and promotions, as leaders intentionally or unintentionally set parameters around degrees, skillsets and experience levels that mirror their own. 

"I love when I see a LinkedIn job posting that says you have to have an MBA from a certain school. I'm like, why from this school? It's frustrating to see that level of disconnect in people's minds," McCalla said. 

Overcoming the flaws of meritocracy with experimentation 

Meritocracy is closely linked to individualism, but in order to the build the type of inclusive culture that drives better financial performance, McCalla says organizations need to pay more attention to the group. 

"Let's think about a collaborative model instead of a meritocracy. Let's all get together, whoever's in the room, and let's hear some of the inputs that make anybody within the organization successful," he said. 

Many leaders may read that and think it's cryptic: Okay, but practically speaking, what does it even mean? The answer isn't so simple and will be different for different organizations and different workplace cultures. 

"People want to go by a [set] playbook, but there's no right or wrong way to do this, so let's experiment our way to coming up with the right thing," he said. "Organizations that can do that end up having a much better experience because not only do they expose their own cognitive biases, their own belief systems that may be holding somebody back, but they also end up learning together as a group, which is way more powerful than the individual. We tend to celebrate too many individuals, and we need to start celebrating teams." 

McCalla and other coaches at Evolution often lead the organizations they work with through an experimentation framework with the aim of creating workplace cultures where everyone feels included and empowered to grow in their careers. 

This could mean creating space for more employees to speak during all-team meetings or establishing employee resource groups (ERGs) where staffers of similar backgrounds can convene with each other. Or it could expand into more involved projects that seek to address how organizations recruit, hire and promote employees. 

One company, for example, realized it consistently sourced young talent from the same colleges and expanded recruitment efforts to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) as a way to diversify the hiring pipeline. Others moved to replace degree requirements with skill-based assessments to determine if someone is qualified for a job, or looked to source talent from organizations like Next Chapter, which trains people in software engineering while they are incarcerated. 

"Skills are more important than prestige degrees," McCalla said. "Next Chapter is an incredible example in my mind of taking people who would be considered 'less than' or 'not smart' and using skill-based assessments to give them opportunities. The course of their lives change drastically, because now they have access to a skill that is in demand and incredibly lucrative."

While much of this work is organizational, individual leaders will often find themselves feeling more comfortable talking about DEI and interacting with diverse colleagues through the process, McCalla said. 

"There's joy at the end of this," he told us emphatically. "What we get from a lot of the organizations that have persisted with this is a lot of ease. 'Oh my God, I can talk about this stuff. It's easier. I can talk to my ERGs, I can talk to my senior leaders who are diverse and empathize with their experience and feel like I'm not afraid to have deep human connections.' And what happens with that is that then teams feel closer, they feel more connected."

It's not just for organizations: How professionals can experiment their way into the roles they want

Experimentation isn't only for organizations. Professionals can also leverage this mindset to take command of their own career trajectories. "For myself, I started my career in printing ... and that's what got me into tech," said McCalla, who worked in coaching roles at Salesforce, Ticketfly and Lumos Labs before joining Evolution. "I knew I was behind the eight ball in a lot of ways, so what I was determined to do was to experiment my way into getting positions that I wanted." 

McCalla's journey from an IT consultant at an NGO publishing health guides to an executive coach for some of the most prominent leaders in tech and business is one he encourages other professionals to follow and make their own. 

"A way for a lot of individuals to break into companies and systems is to experiment your way in. Try different things, see what happens, don't be afraid of rejection. Over time, you'll figure out the right path for you," he advised. "It's a great antidote to the shadow side of meritocracy, which is: I believe you can only achieve something if you look a certain way or you come from a certain school or you have a certain pedigree."

The bottom line: Change is challenging, but it's inevitable 

Creating more diverse teams and empowering them to thrive is proven to drive business outcomes. Skills-based assessments, for example, are five times more likely to result in hiring top performers compared to hiring based on degrees, according to research from McKinsey, and analyses continue to show that diverse teams perform better overall. But companies are faced with internal and external limitations that can hold them back from doing this work effectively. 

"We have examples of brands who tried things that have gotten backlash," McCalla said. "A lot of companies are also facing burnout and change fatigue: 'Why should I even think about this? I just want to do my job and go home and make money and have my kids,'" he explained. "So, businesses are saying, 'We don't want to worry about that stuff.' But the thing I tell them is that your staff, your employees, are being affected by this, and then they're coming into your business and they're fighting, ignoring, whatever it is. Business is a force for change, so think about it."

Considering Generation Z is the most diverse generation in history and places higher value on corporate diversity efforts, the momentum driving companies to become more inclusive is not going anywhere. Beginning the hard work today, and learning and iterating as you go, can better position companies for the future, McCalla said. 

"If I could offer anything to the businesses coming up, it’s to understand that we're 24 years into the new century, and the ways businesses were run in the last century cannot work in this new world. We're facing multiple existential crises, and everything's connected, and systemic oppression and DEI are among them," he concluded. "Of the companies we've been dealing with, some have stopped their DEI practices, and it's the companies who see it as more than the phrase 'diversity, equity and inclusion' — but really this idea of ending systemic oppression — that are persisting and continuing."

Renewable energy can be a challenge for businesses with a foothold in coastal communities. Nearby land for solar arrays and wind turbines is scarce, and new transmission lines for faraway renewable resources are expensive. One emerging option is wave energy. The potential payoff is enormous, but business stakeholders need to be aware of the obstacles, too.

The enormous potential of wave energy

Wave energy converters are mechanical devices that move with the motion of waves. Some are configured like buoys. Others are designed to be tethered to barges, or attached to seawalls and other coastal infrastructure. Regardless of their differences, all of these devices capture motion in the form of kinetic energy and transfer it to a generator to produce electricity.

The oceans are vast and the motion of waves is constant, opening up a significant opportunity to harvest renewable energy from the sea on a predictable, 24/7 basis. Measuring the amount of ocean wave energy potential is a work in progress, but the most recent assessment of the United States Energy Information Administration cites a figure of up to 2.64 trillion kilowatt-hours. To put that in perspective, if the U.S. wave energy sector was fully built out in 2023 it would have accounted for roughly 63 percent of the total utility-scale electricity generation in the country.

For all its potential, this is considered an emerging technology. Innovators are still trying to find a commercial-worthy balance between cost and efficiency. Because there are so many different variations on the technology, certification and standardization are slow to develop. Engineering a mechanical device that can withstand saltwater and ocean storms adds another layer of complication.

Still, years of research and testing are paying off. A global commercial wave energy industry is taking shape and interest in it is materializing on the user side, with seaports being one likely area of early adoption.

Another challenge for advocates

Overcoming the technology challenges is just one hurdle. As amply demonstrated by the experiences of wind and solar developers, renewable energy projects face opposition from local critics and fossil energy stakeholders, too.

In terms of offshore energy development, wave energy does have one significant advantage. Coastal communities routinely raise aesthetic objections to the size and height of offshore wind turbines, but wave energy devices sit close to the surface of the water, alleviating those concerns.

Still, wave energy advocates are not taking community acceptance for granted. Researchers at the University of Michigan, for example, received a $3.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation that focuses on community engagement for potential projects at two locations, Beaver Island in Michigan and Nags Head in North Carolina.

The multi-institution project aims to create a platform for providing stakeholders with insights into the relationship between wave energy and the needs and concerns of coastal and island communities.

“We need to develop a method to holistically assess wave energy devices, and that's something that can't be done by one person with one area of expertise working individually," said Lei Zuo, the lead principle investigator on the project and an engineering professor at the University of Michigan.

Community engagement is the key to the whole project. “For Beaver Island, wave energy might be a pathway to increased energy security and independence from expensive diesel for the island's back-up generators,” according to the university.

Community priorities at Nags Head may be substantially different. At that location, one potential need could be emergency power after hurricanes and other catastrophes, particularly in regards to running water desalination equipment. 

With community input, the researchers will be able to see whether their assumptions are correct. “Coastal communities often know more about what is happening locally on the coast and about what is likely to work for their communities," said Eric Wade, an assistant professor of coastal studies at East Carolina University who is participating in the project.

“Without that community-centric design, renewable energy projects are likely to face terminal pushback,” according to the University of Michigan. 

Next steps for wave energy

Economic development and net zero planning also fall under the umbrella of community needs. The energy needs of tourism, recreation, and other coastal industries like aquaculture may encourage communities to consider making space for wave energy in their decarbonization roadmap.

Keep an eye on the U.S. Department of Energy, which is supporting innovators with funding and technical assistance. The department recently announced its largest ever round of funding for wave energy, totaling up to $112 million. 

“This investment will help identify and mature high-potential WEC [wave energy converter] technologies, reduce financial risks for developers and incentivize investors, progress technologies at smaller scales while developing toward utility scale, and increase learning for installation, operations and maintenance,” according to the Department of Energy. 

In particular, the department is looking for proposals related to coastal community needs such as water treatment. At-sea applications including aquaculture and marine carbon dioxide removal are also targeted. In addition to these decentralized use cases, the department is also encouraging proposals that can be applied to utility grids.

It's planning a five-year timeline for the new program, culminating in commercial-ready wave energy converters. Coastal economy stakeholders can prepare now by reaching out to communities and engaging in discussions about local needs, priorities and aspirations for the future.

It can be argued that taking discarded materials and transforming them into something useful is the essence of recycling. That’s how Logan James, a finance major at Utah State University, is working to bring sustainability to fashion.

James is the founder of ThriftJam, a vintage clothing store selling handcrafted clothes made from discarded clothing. ThriftJam operates from a refurbished school bus to meet consumers in the middle ground between brick-and-motor stores and online shopping. It was originally conceived as a side hustle to raise funds for college, James said.

“We initially started by just curating vintage collections, which is very common,” James told TriplePundit. “After about two years of doing that on the side, we got involved with the Center for Entrepreneurship at Utah State … They really pushed us and were like, ‘Hey, you know what? You could make this a full-time thing if you put a unique spin on it.’”

That’s when ThriftJam started selling its own designs from unwearable old clothing. 

“We figured, there’s a lot of different types of fabrics and materials that if we’re able to cut out the wearable parts, the usable parts, we could potentially create some new pieces out of them,” James said. “We just got started on some designs and got very lucky with a connection to one of our vintage suppliers, who owns a recycling center.”

ThriftJam got "very lucky" again when its first recycled high-end piece was a big hit, he said.

“We sold enough of them to pile onto that idea and design new pieces and keep rolling with it,” James said.

About a year and a half ago ThriftJam reached a potential turning point when one of its designers suggested they use pieces of recycled garments alongside some new fabrics to ensure a higher quality product. 

“We really thought about that for a long time because it would really streamline our manufacturing and bring down prices,” James said. “It’s far more expensive to use recycled materials than it is to use new materials … But at that point, we decided that we didn’t want to feel like we were lying to our customers in any way, so we decided to stick with 100 percent recycled materials.”

James is among several budding sustainability entrepreneurs from across the globe whose efforts are documented in a video series that follows their progress through the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards called “Start it Up.”

Sponsored by the nonprofit Entrepreneurs’ Organization, the competition hosts college students from around the world who run a business with at least $500 in revenue or $1,000 in investment. Those featured in the video series are their countries’ sole representatives in the finals, having already won local and national competitions where their entrepreneurial skills and businesses were judged. 

The competition is unique because it focuses on “the individual and their capacity to sustain in the face of challenges in their entrepreneurial journey,” said Tamarin Morrell, director of Entrepreneurs’ Organization. 

Another contestant, Yara Yousry, an architecture and engineering major at the American University in Cairo, launched the social enterprise Bahtinet to address declining fisheries and lost fishing gear pollution. Bahtinet aims to introduce local, sustainable, biodegradable and affordable fishing nets manufactured from banana tree waste to fishing communities, creating more jobs for Egyptian women in the process.

Yousry studied the decline of the fishing community El-Bahtiny in an urban design course, particularly the impact of the increasing cost of fishing nets. Traditionally, fishing nets in Egyptian communities are made of nylon or silk, expensive materials made even more costly because of the devaluation of the Egyptian pound. Yousry teamed up with three mechanical engineering students to seek a solution. 

The group discovered that a locally available material, banana tree fiber, could be used to fashion fishing nets that were sustainable and much cheaper. But convincing the residents of a conservative fishing community to listen to four female university students wasn’t easy. In a more conservative community like El-Bahtiny, fishermen usually like to talk with other fishermen or to community anchors, Yousry said. 

“That’s why we started reaching out to community anchors, communicating with them our idea and our initiative,” she said. “And they were very, very open to promote the product to other fishermen.” 

Yousry and her colleagues handle the logistics of sourcing banana fibers, provide training for men and women in weaving the nets, and teach the fishermen about the importance of using sustainable materials in fishing. 

Half of the people who work in the Egyptian fishing industry are women, who have historically woven fishing nets from materials like flax before nylon nets became more commonly used. Training women to weave the fishing nets puts them “back on the wheel of economic development” in ways that aren’t disruptive to social norms, Yousry said. 

Yousry and James didn’t take home the first-place prize, but they gained plenty from the competition in other ways.

“I think if you interviewed any of the people that were involved in the competition, they would say the same thing,” James said. “The connections they made with not only the other competitors, but the mentors there who are also from the whole globe, that’s by far the most valuable part of the competition in itself.”

Yousry echoed the sentiment. 

“It was a life changing experience, and it somehow showed to me what true entrepreneurship is really about,” she said. “It’s about making an impact. It’s about supporting each other. It was a safe space to share ideas and grow together.” 

This story about how business leaders can support reproductive rights is part of The Solutions Effect, a monthly newsletter covering the best of solutions journalism in the sustainability and social impact space. If you aren't already getting this newsletter, you can sign up here.

Reproductive rights are a focal point of the upcoming United States elections. They’ll be on the ballot in 10 states, are a key topic of discussion on the campaign trail, and impact women and everyone else — yes, everyone else — across the nation. 

In a country where childcare responsibilities largely fall on women and parental leave policies lag behind the rest of the world, taking away a woman’s ability to make their own reproductive decisions radically impacts their ability to live the life of their choosing, said Michelle Greene, senior advisor for the Women and Democracy Initiative at the bipartisan, pro-democracy Leadership Now Project. 

“This is really fundamental to women's ability to make their own choices about how their lives and their careers will unfold,” Greene said. “For this fundamental right to be impaired by misinformation and an undemocratic process is highly problematic.”

The ripple effect extends to women’s annual income, participation in the labor force, workplace productivity and the entire national economy. 

The 16 states that instituted abortion bans or extreme restrictions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade cost the U.S. economy an estimated $68 billion, according to an analysis by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. If reproductive health restrictions were eliminated, employed women would have earned over $8 billion more in 2023 and over 360,500 more women would participate in the workforce each year. 

“So there's a whole economic case for why this is important,” Greene said. “The even more important point is literally women are dying, and that just should not be happening. And it certainly should not be happening because of decisions made by a not-fully-representative body that is not reflecting the will of the vast majority of Americans.”

That’s not hyperbole. A Gender Equity Policy Institute report found that mothers in states with abortion bans are up to three times more likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth or soon after giving birth. Earlier this month, the organization found that Texas’s maternal mortality rate rose 56 percent from 2019 to 2022, far outpacing the national average of 11 percent. The state’s ban on abortion care began in 2021. 

Despite the seeming polarization of the issue, 63 percent of Americans — four percentage points more than in 2021 — say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to a recent poll from the Pew Research Center. That trend has remained stable for several years. 

Seven in 10 Americans also support access to in vitro fertilization (IVF), with just 8 percent saying it’s a bad thing, according to another Pew poll. The fertility treatment is under the reproductive rights spotlight in U.S. politics, too. 

“This is an issue where there is actually pretty widespread agreement across Republicans and Democrats, across men and women, about the fundamental right to have reproductive choice,” Greene said. “One of the disturbing realities of our democracy is that women are underrepresented. They're underrepresented, certainly, in our federal government. They're underrepresented in almost every one of our state houses. So you see decisions being made that are at odds with what the democratic majority actually thinks on this issue. And those are often being made by legislative bodies that are really not representative of the broader population.”

Considering all of this, I asked Greene if business leaders have a role to play. 

“I think the answer to that happens at a few different levels,” Greene said. “There's the level of the individual business, and we've seen businesses taking many different stances to how they can address that at an individual level.”

Businesses in restrictive states might support employees who need to travel for reproductive health services, offer benefits and healthcare coverage related to reproductive rights, or give employees paid time off to vote, she said. 

“Then when we look more broadly, there's also: What is business as a whole doing to speak up on issues?” Greene said. “There's a lot of controversy around should business as a whole be speaking up on individual issues … But I think there really is a strong case to be made that business needs to protect democracy, and business needs to play a role in protecting democracy. And that can happen in lots of different ways.”

Though it’s not a business leader’s job to fix democracy, they have the trust to help do it, she said. Business is still seen as the only institution truly trusted by the public in the annual Trust Barometer Global Report from the Edelman Trust Institute. So making public statements, signing on to statements, and using their voices can have a big impact. 

Last year, the Leadership Now Project worked with Ohio business leaders to express opposition to a proposed constitutional amendment that would have required a 60 percent supermajority to pass constitutional amendments, making it more difficult to protect reproductive rights in an election later that year. 

The campaign consisted of an open letter and advertisements featuring local business leaders, including the founder of Columbus-based Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, Jeni Britton. 

“Columbus is a place where everyone’s voice matters,” Britton says in the video. “It is the thing that people see when they first come here, that they matter, their voice matters, and that they can make a difference here. I think Issue 1 puts that in jeopardy in a huge way. Please vote on August 8, and vote no on Issue 1. It’s the only thing on the ballot.”

Local voices have a lot of influence, Greene said. In this case, hearing from a local leader might have encouraged some of the voters who resoundingly rejected the proposal at the polls and, later that year, passed a constitutional amendment to protect reproductive health care. 

“Certainly folks in Ohio felt like that was an important voice,” Greene said. “That was one of their own, right? It was a business leader from Ohio. It wasn't someone from outside coming and telling them what to do.”

Of course, businesses should not run the country and dictate policy decisions in lieu of voters, but there are appropriate times for them to step up to ensure democracy is protected, Greene said. 

“I don't think any of us want to live in a country where businesses dictate what our policies should be or where campaign donations dictate what our policies should be,” she said. “It’s not the role of business to dictate policy at all, but I think we are living in an extreme time where democracy is at peril. And for businesses, I think there are some realities around if you want to be part of a thriving economy, if you want to have the conditions in place for business to thrive, our democracy is fundamental to that, and that is at risk.”

The artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is powering innovation, but it's also powering a surge in electricity demand that could strain our energy grid and lead to higher utility bills for consumers, according to a new report from the Bank of America Institute. While consumers recently saw some relief with a slight decline in the median utility payment per customer in early 2024, utility bills remain significantly higher than they were five years ago. 

“The steady rise in population is a bedrock of demand growth,” said David Tinsley, senior economist at the Bank of America Institute. “But industry and commerce, already massive consumers of electricity, together have double the demand for electricity as residential use.”

The report identifies several key factors contributing to the escalating electricity demand. First, AI processes are incredibly energy-intensive, and AI chips require both substantial power to operate and to cool. The proliferation of data centers and cloud computing services, essential for supporting AI and other digital technologies, requires massive amounts of electricity for servers, storage and cooling systems. 

“AI processes are so energy-hungry because they do things computationally faster,” Tinsley said. “For example, AI uses two kilowatt hours per 1,000 tasks, and AI chips run so many tasks per second that they get very hot, much more so than regular chips. The cooling requires electricity over and above what regular chips need. The use case is exploding.” 

To meet current AI demand projections, the U.S. will need to increase its electricity generation capacity by 3 percent, Tinsley said. 

Policy changes have also influenced electricity demand and use. Government incentives like the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the CHIPS and Science Act have helped lead to a resurgence of North American manufacturing, including the construction and operation of new factories and manufacturing facilities, which requires a significant amount of power. 

“The IRA and CHIPS Act have stimulated a lot of investment into manufacturing capacity in the U.S., so people are bringing their long supply chains back,” Tinsley said. “There are a lot of positives attached to that, but manufacturing tends to be an intense driver of electricity demand, so there will be increases to service the onshoring process.” 

Additionally, the steady growth in the U.S. population, shifting demographics, the rise of electric vehicles, and demand for larger homes are putting further strain on the power grid.

As electricity demand continues to rise, lower-income households have the largest utility cost burden. Households with monthly incomes below $4,000 spend about 8 percent of their income on utilities, compared to only 1 percent for households earning over $10,000 monthly, according to the report. 

However, while there has been some recent dips in utility bills, the report notes one solution that could bring about longer-term relief: renewable energy. Electricity generation in the U.S. is predicted to increase by 3 percent this year and 1 percent next year, according to the report. The majority of that growth comes from renewable energy sources — 70 percent from solar alone. 

While renewable energy sources are expected to contribute significantly to new electricity generation moving forward, the U.S. currently relies on fossil fuels for about 60 percent of total power generation. 

“The big question is can renewable electricity generation capacity rise to meet demand,” Tinsley said. “While AI is unpredictable, the good news is that most of the additional capacity currently forecasted is coming from solar, which has become cheaper. As that continues, it is possible for the supply of renewables to meet that demand. The current rise and strong investment in solar needs to continue.”  

The future of utility costs and electricity demand is complex, with technological advancements and economic shifts likely to continue driving demand upward, which may lead to higher long-term costs. 

Tinsley emphasized the importance of policymakers and stakeholders monitoring these trends to mitigate their impact on consumers, especially those most vulnerable. “The AI rollout is a multi-decade thing, so we can feel relatively comfortable that solar and renewables can build out in the next four to five years to meet the demand,” Tinsely said. “Policy needs to be supportive of that, ultimately.”

Education and training have to be accessible to be effective. But for those in poor and rural communities, menstruation can be a barrier. Entrepreneur and innovator Jamila Mayanja recognized this and did something about it. 

Mayanja founded the nonprofit Smart Girls Uganda, which offers education programs and ensures accessibility by distributing menstrual hygiene bags that solve one of the primary issues causing girls to drop out of school: period poverty. 

Vocational and tech training brings success

“Smart Girls Uganda is a social enterprise I started to empower girls and women to live a healthy and economically sustainable lifestyle,” Mayanja told TriplePundit. “We do this through one of our biggest programs that is called the Girls With Tools, where we train girls in male-dominated, non-traditional, STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] skill sets. Skills like electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, motor engineering, building and construction welding.”

The organization also runs Girls in Tech, a four-month certification program that equips participants with computer skills. While the program ensures that graduates have the necessary tech literacy to succeed in their careers and is also available to community members, Mayanja said 

So far, 729 students have graduated from Girls With Tools and another 210 are enrolled, Mayanja said. While most participants are girls or young women, boys and young men make up 20 percent of participants. 

Girls in Tech, which began last year, has certified 529 graduates. The goal is to educate 500 students each year in computer literacy, 80 percent of which are also expected to be girls or young women.

“You'll be amazed if you come to Uganda,” Mayanja said of the young women who are now working in the country’s energy sector. Graduates of Girls With Tools are filling electrical engineering roles in the country’s newly developing oil industry, and they’ve signed a contract to employ more graduates in the industry every year.

Graduates are also working in garages and mechanical and water engineering, which she said made Smart Girls Uganda a household name. “Everybody now has started appreciating the need of hands-on skills, and mostly those vocational skills, for young women and how they're thriving in their job sector.”

A solution to period poverty

It’s a huge accomplishment for young women who would otherwise have very little opportunity for economic independence. “Some of them are usually school dropouts,” Mayanja said of Girls With Tools participants. “And we found out why … they're dropping out because of their menstruation periods.”

Not having access to proper menstruation products and facilities is a common cause of absenteeism and early school leaving worldwide. This issue is exacerbated in areas with limited resources and a lack of restroom facilities equipped for managing menstruation. 

Mayanja, who was familiar with the problem before starting Smart Girls Uganda, used to hand out reusable pads. But that wasn’t enough to keep the girls in school, she said. The problem inspired her to develop a solar-powered smart bag made from recycled materials that would better meet their needs.

“It's a bag we make out of recycled [plastic] waste to make it waterproof, and then [we] add a solar panel to it that charges a light bulb in the bag,” Mayanja said. “That gives light to the girls after dark to be able to read their books, but also light [for] them when they're going to wash facilities at night to use to change their pads.”

The smart bags are made by tailoring students from Girls With Tools, thus providing them with employment, Mayanja said. The plastic used to make them is purchased from collectors, keeping plastic out of the environment and creating an income stream for the collectors. 

In addition to giving the bags to students for free, they are sold at local markets and to local and international organizations. The proceeds fund more free bags for students in need. The bags are distributed with a pack of reusable pads. 

Because of the bags, “More girls are being given the ability to stay in school during their menstruation period,” Mayanja said. “But also, we’ve indirectly given light in the home … because when the girls finished reading … the family uses the light.” 

Scaling up will take time

Mayanja credits the American Express Leadership Academy, which she recently attended, with giving her the confidence she needs to scale up Smart Girls Uganda. 

“It has really taught me [to] appreciate my resilience,” she said. “I was a bit depressed for my failure from scaling to South Africa. But being there and learning about how, [in the] leader's position I'm in, I need to be fine that sometimes I fail. But also to appreciate my hard work, and really understand that, to be able to do new strategies on getting up [from] that failure.”

Adirupa Sengupta — group chief executive at Common Purpose, which provides the programming for the academy — echoed the importance of confidence, resilience and leadership.

"We are committed to supporting leaders in the non-profit sector who are driving social impact," Sengupta said. "Visionary leaders like Jamila are at the forefront of addressing complex social challenges, and the academy provides them with the space to reflect, collaborate, and unlock new strategies for driving change."

Requests to scale the model have come in from other African countries like Nigeria, Tanzania and South Sudan, but Mayanja wants to take it slow. She’s interested in reaching all of Uganda before starting in other countries, and she wants to develop solid partnerships that will make scaling up less costly and more effective.

“The more I kept on learning … from the scale I started in South Africa, is that I needed more knowledge and more partnerships to scale, to scale properly without rushing, and so that my brand is not affected,” she said. “So yes, it can be replicated. … Don't be surprised if you see us in other countries, that same exact model, because we’re working on it.”

As the adage goes, “if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Some companies are adopting this approach in their sustainability communications strategy through a practice known as “greenhushing.”

Greenhushing is when organizations keep quiet about environmental sustainability to avoid attention, even when they have strategies and efforts underway. At first glance, this may seem like a cautious — even logical — approach to mitigate reputational risk, but as a sustainability communications practice, it has significant drawbacks.

While businesses have valid reasons for greenhushing, just because companies can justify it, doesn’t necessarily mean they should. Here’s why the arguments for greenhushing — though understandable — are easily refutable.

1. Fears of being labelled greenwashers

Companies are hesitant to open themselves up to scrutiny, particularly if they’ve had a run of inadvertent greenwashing. There’s a certain leap of faith required from brands to spotlight their efforts and celebrate their successes. The inclination to accentuate the positive in sustainability communications has, in many cases, given way to skepticism of the veracity the company’s own efforts for fear that it may be positioned the wrong way or prove untrue due to an overlooked nuance. Considering this, greenhushing has an understandable allure.

But greenhushing is not the solution to greenwashing that it might seem. In fact, they’re just two sides of the same counterfeit coin in the sense that both are detrimental to brand reputation and corporate environmental action.

Just because greenwashing is typically inadvertent doesn’t mean it’s inevitable. How you communicate is in your control. If you know what you’re doing, are certain you’re not making false claims and can back them up with clear unimpeachable facts, your greenwashing risk is minimal. Do the work and investigation to gain this level of confidence. And remember: consumers are on a journey, too. If you’re intentional and authentic, they’ll be in your corner.

2. Concerns over consumer and stakeholder backlash

Much is made in the media about climate change denial and the deniers are doubling down on tactics that create headwinds for society’s progress toward net zero.

Even though the distrust of climate science is arguably most focused in the US, 54 percent of adults view climate change as a major threat. In Europe’s two largest economies, France and Germany, it’s 81 percent and 73 percent, respectively. You can be sure that the numbers are on your side. And as firsthand evidence of the climate crisis mounts, the odds of that trend reversing are low, especially as impacts are increasingly felt on an individual level. Further, if business leaders are seen as taking sustainability seriously, it will go a long way to normalizing it.

3. Lack of understanding and communication skills

Unless a company has put measures in place to communicate from a place of knowledge, the risk of miscommunicating remains high. Interpreting data and outcomes from sustainability initiatives does take a level of skill gained from hiring talent with the right expertise, training current employees or enlisting outside help. It’s true, sustainability isn’t an area where you want to be talking off the cuff. So, don’t do it.

Implement an upskilling program for your internal and external communications functions to support their subject-matter expertise on sustainability and key communications watchouts to consider. Ensure that your sustainability efforts and what they are meant to achieve are well-understood. Create governance mechanisms to sense-check what you put out there. Partner with organizations that have spent decades operating at the intersection of communications and sustainability science that can help you navigate the nuances of this ever-changing world

4. Worries about not doing enough

What if you’re not doing enough? This concern isn’t unfounded, since most companies still aren’t. It’s certainly true there’s brand risk to being perceived as taking inadequate sustainability action. In that sense, the fear of being exposed as not doing enough is understandable. But it does beg the question: Given the seriousness of the challenge facing humanity right now, what’s quantified as enough?

Rather than treating this apprehension as an excuse to greenhush, treat it as motivation to do more. Communicate your ongoing efforts and future goals authentically and transparently. Consumers understand that sustainability is a journey and appreciate brands that are honest about their progress and challenges.

5. Competitive concerns

It’s understandable that broadcasting internal initiatives to the competition in most cases is ill-advised. Anything you say could be used against you either through counter-communications or by setting a higher standard to surpass.

Don’t let competitive concerns cloud your competitive advantage. Transparency about your company’s sustainability efforts is more likely to enhance your competitive advantage than undermine it. Consumers want to feel good about their choices, even long after they’ve made them. How many brands have a customer base that can also be described as a fan base? Moreover, it’s important not to lose sight of why you’re embarking on a sustainable transformation in the first place. Dare your competitors to rise to the challenge. The planet and your brand will be better for it.

6. Regulatory risks

Many companies could be taking a wait-and-see approach to ensure their communications pass regulatory muster or avoid having to report certain topics altogether. Between regulations such as the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, the United States Federal Trade Commission's Green Guides and various others, there's a real risk that making certain claims could lead to liability if they cannot be fully substantiated or if they inadvertently mislead consumers.

While it’s near-certain there will be regulatory considerations with sustainability communications, for the most part these initiatives are shaped by best practices already in use, like the Science Based Targets Initiative and Science Based Targets for Nature. Far from exacerbating legal and regulatory risks, proactive communication about sustainability efforts positions companies to better navigate the regulatory landscape, ensuring compliance and safeguarding against potential legal challenges. In other words, if you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready.

On some level, the upside to greenhushing is that companies are recognizing these risks and exercising more caution about what they say. Nonetheless, it would be short-sighted to welcome it. Talking about sustainability in an accurate and frank manner needs to be standard operating procedure across industries.

Yes, today’s consumer is far more critical and skeptical, but it’s important to consider how they got that way. It’s also important not to lose sight of what’s at stake. While a robust sustainability program might help brands win in the market, healthy markets can’t exist without a healthy planet.

Amid this skepticism, the consumer is more likely to misinterpret greenhushing as having something to hide, building distrust whether conscious or unconscious, rather than creating it. The news may not always be good, but looking good should be a byproduct of your efforts, not the aim. The aim is addressing an existential threat to your business and the consumers’ communities.

Consumers have high expectations and directing them to make sustainable choices is not enough, your brand has to be the sustainable choice. When you ultimately get there, you’re not only going to want customers to know it, you’ll want them to believe you.

For many communications pros, especially those working in business-to-business industries, a content victory is getting a nod from the boss to spend a few hundred bucks for a video or stock images to illustrate a story and, hopefully, drive just a little more engagement.

In the growing field of sustainability communications, where getting it right can yield improved reputation and market share, those working for film studios and television networks are eager to mentor those outside the entertainment sector to think bigger.

“Anytime you can have Meryl Streep answer a question for you, I recommend it,” quipped Sam Read, executive director of the Sustainable Entertainment Alliance, during a Climate Week event on storytelling hosted by Futerra.

After screening “Want to Tell a Great Story?,” a sizzle reel narrated by Streep featuring TV and film clips referencing the climate crisis, Read and business leaders from Paramount Global and NBCUniversal spoke about how they tap into actors and less obvious tactics to weave climate into content that’s consumed across the globe in theaters, TV and mobile devices.

At Paramount Global — whose properties include CBS, Showtime Networks, Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, BET, Paramount+, Pluto TV and Simon & Schuster, among others — considerations around climate messaging range from explicit plot lines to less obvious imagery.

“Passive content can be flying over a neighborhood and there are solar panels. They’re not discussed, they’re not part of the plot line, they are just part of the reality,” said Jessica Thurston, vice president of ESG strategy at Paramount Global. Environmental posters lining the halls at North Shore High School in the movie "Mean Girls" is another example of a subtle nod.

Topics championed by Paramount include warming oceans, diversity, climate justice, and access to energy and water. Opportunities for storytelling differ depending on what the medium and the brand is, said Thurston, who acknowledged her position does not give her the power to force a producer to turn an entertainment project into a documentary.

 “It is important to be realistic,” she said. “What I never want to do is kind of walk into these spaces and be like, 'I’m here from corporate and I’m here to help.'”

Nickelodeon leveraged SpongeBob’s 25th anniversary this year in a campaign dubbed “Reverse Littering,” which aims to remove 5,000 tons of ocean-bound plastic and debris from waterways by 2027. 

Similar efforts are under way at Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, the unit of NBCUniversal encompassing Universal Studios and Dreamworks, where the GreenerLight Program looks to embed sustainability into the filmmaking process from script to screen and throughout development, production and distribution.

“We’ve had such freedom to meet with our filmmakers and talent to look for opportunities within our stories to have them use their voices to talk about sustainability,” said Kimberly Burnick, director of sustainable content and partnerships for NBCUniversal.

In Universal’s 2024 environmental blockbuster film "Twisters," the cast and crew were counseled by the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to bring accurate science to the film, Burnick said.

“We wanted to also engage audiences within the marketing of the film, so we were excited to have an in-theater [public service announcement], which we did with the director. That’s a way to reach millions,” she said.

Actress Lupita Nyong’o created a similar PSA to accompany the new DreamWorks film "The Wild Robot." "In the segment, Nyong’o tells audiences what they can do to protect the environment like her character does within the story,” Burnick said.