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Friday was a bad day for Republicans, but President Donald Trump wasn’t having any of it.

As members of his political party awkwardly tried to explain how their signature healthcare plan had failed to get enough votes in a Republican-majority House of Representatives, Trump took other steps to salvage his reputation as the country’s “deal maker.”

He turned his attention to the Keystone XL pipeline, an issue of passionate concern among his most conservative allies, the North American oil lobby. As House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) delivered the heavy news that the healthcare bill was dead, Trump reassured TransCanada CEO Russ Girling that Keystone XL was once again very much alive.

“You’ve been waiting a long, long time,” Trump told Girling as he confirmed the State Department’s permit to proceed. “It’s a great day for American jobs, and a historic moment for North America, and energy independence.”

The announcement was just the kind of thing that Trump's conservative backers would want to hear. Defeats on key issues, including those that Trump was elected to fix, are understandable so long as big-ticket items -- like a dicey $7 billion pipeline expansion that was stymied by his predecessor -- were still being tackled.

Environmental organizations announced immediately that they would fight the pipeline’s go-ahead.

“We’ll use every took in the kit,” vowed Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Greenpeace is confident the project will never move forward. “[Despite] this approval, Keystone XL and the financial institutions that choose to support it will face widespread opposition in Canada and the U.S. to ensure this pipeline doesn’t get built,” Greenpeace Canada Climate Campaigner Mike Hudema said. He noted that the pipeline doesn’t yet have approval through Nebraska, something Girling confirmed to the president.

Trump’s response was vintage: "I’ll call Nebraska,” he said.

But despite the president’s confidence that he can smooth the pipeline’s route past geographic and political obstacles, the project still faces some formidable challenges.

The first is the environmental impact assessment that gave former President Barack Obama the leverage to halt the project. Pipeline opponents would likely argue in court that a new assessment would need to be done before the pipeline could go ahead. Combined with other standard regulatory procedures, the process could take years, especially if it ends up in court.

Then there’s the work that TransCanada must still do to attain access through Nebraska lands. Much of the route cuts across private property, requiring the oil company to negotiate and dialogue with hundreds of landowners who may be affected by the route. Refusal to allow passage may result in eminent domain claims, a move guaranteed to politicize the pipeline debate even further.

State permitting agencies will have a say in the process, too. While Trump is promising faster approval for infrastructure projects like Keystone XL, he may not have direct say in how state agencies operate: State regulatory commissions have their own requirements and schedules, and they may require the pipeline company to meet certain specifications before it can proceed with construction.

On Friday, Trump said the project would not only “lower costs for American families,” but also “reduce our dependence on foreign oil and create thousands of jobs.” The Trump administration said the 830,000 barrel-a-day pipeline would create 28,000 jobs.

But according to a 2014 State Department study, that number is closer to 3,900 temporary construction jobs and just 35 permanent positions.

These lower job figures raise the question of whether the pipeline, which would cross through the country’s fertile breadbasket, is worth the environmental investment. According to data extracted from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the following map, there were just under 9,000 pipeline accidents in the last 30 years across the United States

The Ponca Tribe in Nebraska, which also has tribal territories in South Dakota and Iowa, is among several organizations along the route that is opposing the project. Tribal chairman Larry Wright said the tribe has a say in whether the pipeline crosses its land, and that up to now, “There has been almost no consultation with [the] tribe. “

The tribe filed a petition to intervene in proceedings before the Nebraska Public Service Commission, which is due to review the proposed pipeline route. In a statement released last week, the tribe noted that all of the proposed routes would cross the tribe’s “congressionally-designated territory and jurisdictional area." The tribe says it is concerned about a potential spill and the well-being of its historical sites, which could be damaged or disturbed during construction.

“Our Nation has serious concerns about the safety and environmental impacts of this pipeline,” Wright said.

The Rosebud Sioux Tribe from South Dakota, as well as the Indigenous Environmental Network, also weighed in on the issue. The Rosebud Sioux voiced its opposition to Keystone XL in 2014, calling the proposed pipeline route across its land “an act of war.” In the tribe’s most recent statement released Friday, Tribal Council Member Wayne Frederick said members are “extremely disheartened by the current decision to approve this dead project" and called on President Trump to “[respect] our existence or expect our resistance.”

Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, said indigenous members feel their well being is being threatened. “Indigenous people are rising up and fighting like our lives, sovereignty and climate depend on it – because they do.”

Other national and regional organizations, including the League of Conservation Voters, Oil Change International and the Environmental Advocates of New York also issued strong statements, vowing to fight the federal government’s actions.

“It isn’t game over; it’s game on,” said Stephen Craftsman, executive director of Oil Change International.

“Keystone’s approval is not a one-off. It’s part of a larger scheme the fossil fuel industry hatched to make Americans more dependent on their product. They are cornering consumers into reliance,” Peter Iwanowicz, executive director of Environmental Advocates of New York, a nonprofit based in the Empire State, asserted in a statement released to TriplePundit.

“This pipeline is all risk and no reward, and we will continue to fight it every step of the way,” summarized Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president for the League of Conservation Voters’ governmental affairs.

Environmental and community organizations are urging supporters to stop doing business with the banks funding the project, as they did with the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Unfortunately, the Keystone XL battle doesn’t just promise to ensnare oil companies, advocacy organizations and the Trump administration in what could easily become years of protracted legal fights, but also taxpayers on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border.

The Canadian government is looking to Keystone XL to reboot the Canadian economy, which was hit hard by diminishing oil sands revenue and job losses. It needs a Keystone win if it is going to invest its support in a project that some say will take the country further away from its Paris climate goals.

As with the healthcare rewrite, the Keystone XL resurrection has some formidable challenges to meet before it can proceed – and it’s far from evident at this point that Trump can fulfill his promises any time soon.

Image: Wikimedia/shannonpatrick17

The tally for Secret Service detail for U.S. President Donald Trump and his entourage is already mounting: weekly golfing trips in Air Force One, extended family vacations, and around-the-clock security surveillance for the president, his immediate family and his extended family at multiple residences. According to analysts who crunched the numbers and kept track of President Trump’s frenetic lifestyle, the tab for security alone could easily amount to hundreds of millions of dollars by the end of Trump’s first term.

And that’s bothering supporters of organizations like the Meals on Wheels and the National Endowment for the Arts, which Trump pledged to defund in his first budget proposal.

Trump campaigned on the goal of fiscal responsibility. At the time he made fun of and questioned then-President Barack Obama’s occasional golf trips and vacations to Hawaii or other locations.

But research shows Trump is already on track to accrue his own remarkable list of security costs.

To be fair, security comes with the job of being president. So does security for his family. What doesn’t come with the job are all the expenses of lodging and food, particularly when on vacation. So it’s common for first families to spend their time away at personal residences. And since Trump just happens to have a bevy of golf courses and residences where he can stay, that isn’t really a challenge.

But the costs still add up. And quickly.

First, there’s the cost of guarding Trump on his weekly golfing trips to his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, and other locations. And as Fortune magazine reports, keeping the president safe doesn’t stop with a personalized security detail. There are Coast Guard patrols, police escorts and other time-taxing costs. And yes, those are costs that taxpayers are expected to reimburse to local authorities.

Trump’s Florida trips cost taxpayers roughly $3 million a multi-day trip, the Washington Post reports. The Independent Newspaper reports that Trump has racked up 12 trips in nine weeks. Most of them were to Mar-a-Lago, a flight that takes two hours each way (at $200,000 a flying hour for Air Force One), with back-to-back stays at his Florida hotel. You do the math.

Then there’s the security detail for Melania Trump and her son, Barron, who is still in school in New York. Keeping Melania and Barron safe isn’t cheap, either, at approximately $1 million a day, reports CNN Money. Fortunately for both taxpayers and the city of New York, which had to beef up its police detail, that cost may be coming to an end as the Trumps say Melania and her son will move to Washington later this year.

But there are likely to be other weekly or monthly vacation costs in the summer, as a New York Trump property is slated to become the family’s frequent summer getaway.

And when the secret service isn’t escorting the president to golf courses in Florida, Virginia and “down the street” in D.C., they are off for vacation and private business trips with Trump’s eldest sons and extended families.

A recent trip to Uruguay, where Eric Trump was scheduled to promote a Trump-brand hotel, cost just under $100,000 for Secret Service and White House staff. Even though Eric was handling business for his dad (Donald Trump turned over his business dealings to his kids but didn’t divest from them), because he is the son of the president, he receives security detail.

And of course, the kids’ kids get security as well, even on the slopes. It isn’t clear how many Secret Service actually tagged along on the family ski trip last week, which included all Trumps except Donald, Melania and the two youngest, Barron and Tiffany. But initial figures estimated about 100 Secret Service for Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric, partners and kids. The Aspen Times reports that $12,000 was paid out for skis and apparel for the Secret Service agents.

The escalating price tag of guarding the president and his family during work and play has prompted some to ask whether seemingly insignificant costs like arts funding and a grant to bolster food supplies for shut-in seniors might be more easily paid from the budget if Trump and family were to reduce their extracurricular weekend jaunts.

But with summer coming and a plethora of vacation homes to revisit, it doesn’t seem likely. The perks of being the president are just that.

Image credit: Flickr/Joe Bielawa

Up-and-coming culinary startup Impossible Foods has come a long way since we first tasted its vegan hamburger "meat" two years ago. Now served at eight high-end restaurants in three cities, Impossible is preparing to supply over 1,000 restaurants by the end of the year. That number may or may not include at least one well-known burger chain, but mum's the word on exactly when and where their next announcement might take place.

The ambitious expansion is due to the opening of a full-scale production facility in Oakland, California, which the company says can produce a million pounds of "meat" per month -- that's 4 million quarter-pound burgers.

The expansion is a big deal in the quest to modernize and popularize the veggie burger, a morsel that has its fans, but is still considered by many to be a poor substitute for a greasy, meaty beef burger. In this case, however, Impossible has no intention of pleasing only committed vegetarians. The company says its meat substitute will satisfy and even fool the most die-hard carnivores out there.

The secret ingredient, as we've reported before, is the heme molecule which gives the Impossible Burger an unmistakable meaty flavor and the bloody color of a medium-rare patty fresh off the grill.

For those who are begging for the chance to try the new vegan delicacy, my experience is that it doesn't taste quite like ground beef but is definitely close. It's close enough that with creative preparation the palate can easily be fooled, and more importantly it's unquestionably tasty. Whether it's tasty enough to begin to replace "real meat" on a regular basis for a significant number of burger lovers is exactly what the company is banking on.

A real sustainability mission

Impossible Foods CEO Pat Brown is a microbiologist by training. He set out to create the company with a very specific goal in mind: Turn the world's meat industry on its head and supply a legitimate substitute for meat that could be produced with a radically lower environmental footprint.

The company says its Impossible Burger uses about 75 percent less water, generates about 87 percent fewer greenhouse gases and requires around 95 percent less land than conventional ground beef from cows. Additionally, it's entirely free of hormones, antibiotics, cholesterol and artificial flavors. It may not be as healthy as a kale salad, but it's certainly more healthy than a typical hamburger.

The simple fact that Impossible's "meat" isn't meat is a huge plus by any environmental measurement, though it doesn't mean the production process is without a footprint. The product is made primarily from potatoes and wheat (minus the gluten), bound by Xanthan gum and fattened up with coconut oil, though in theory there are many possible feedstocks available. The full ingredients list is here.

Rebekah Moses, the company's sustainability and agriculture manager, says coconut oil is a far smaller driver of deforestation when compared to palm oil or soy. That said, there is no widely accepted auditing structure for coconut oil. As Impossible scales, however, the company will be closely involved with efforts to ensure its use of oils and other ingredients are well understood from a sustainability perspective and impacts minimized, Moses said.

A Tesla-style evolution

For now, the Impossible Burger, as interpreted by most chefs, will remain a fairly hard-to find item at a fairly steep price. It made its chain restaurant debut earlier this month at Bareburger’s flagship restaurant near New York University in Manhattan. Impossible indicated the burger may soon roll out at Bareburger locations nationwide, but this fast-casual upstart still represents something of a market niche.

Much like any new technology (Tesla comes to mind) the high cost of development and the scarcity of supply means a high price may stick around for a while. But each new restaurant launch is likely to heighten anticipation and enthusiasm among a public that is typically skeptical of vegan foods. With greater scale, the price will inevitably come down to the point where purchasing "impossible meat" at the grocery store becomes commonplace and perhaps even mainstream among fast-food franchises.

Will manufactured "meat" be a turn-off to consumers? Will "red meat America" be too skeptical to give it a try?

The fact is that most meat is essentially manufactured already. Massive industrial cattle ranches, feeding operations and the highly automated processing of meat is hardly a craft industry today -- with the added externalities of poorly treated animals and a tremendous health and environmental cost. Given how processed and flavored inexpensive fast-food beef is, I would bet money that chains like McDonald's could replace their patties with a vegan substitute without anyone even noticing. The environment and human health would will be much better off if that happens.

Sleeping Giants seems to have found the magic key that makes boycotts work. Last week the anti-hate organization announced that more than 1,500 companies have blocked their ads from appearing on Breitbart, a purported news organization that has billed itself as a "platform" for the Alt-right.

Sleeping Giants also supports action against Google and its YouTube video service for failing to police hate speech and other offensive content. In the latest bad news for YouTube, Ad Age reports that Verizon and Johnson & Johnson joined a growing list of brands that have suspended advertising on the site.

When boycotts work: Part I

Boycotts are notoriously fickle and difficult to engineer successfully. The key that Sleeping Giants uncovered is similar to the methodology employed by #GrabYourWallet.

Rather than getting individual consumers to stop buying specific products, Sleeping Giants went after a much bigger target: advertisers. (Similarly, #GrabYourWallet -- which calls for a boycott of products linked to U.S. President Donald Trump and his family members -- aims at retail companies.)

The focus on high-profile companies ensures the boycott effort is regularly in the public spotlight, at least in business media, trade publications and social media.

Johnson & Johnson, for example, made this dynamic clear in a public statement it emailed to Ad Age about its decision to suspend advertising on YouTube:

"The Johnson & Johnson Family of Consumer Companies takes this matter very seriously, and we have made the decision to pause all YouTube digital advertising globally to ensure our product advertising does not appear on channels that promote offensive content. ... We will continue to take every measure to ensure our brand advertising is consistent with our brand values."

As reported in the U.K. publication the Times and elsewhere, advertisers are fleeing Google and YouTube in droves -- and the boycott is rapidly accelerating:

"The decision by major U.S. brands to yank ads, first reported by the Times in the United Kingdom, suggests that an advertiser boycott that began overseas is quickly spreading," USA Today reported last week.

More than 250 organizations -- including the British government, Toyota and McDonald's -- have stopped advertising on YouTube in the U.K., the Times reported.

The blowback grew so hot that Google was forced to respond. In a recent blog post Google's chief business officer, Philip Schindler, reassured advertisers that the company had already begun "ramping up changes" in its ad policies, enforcement systems, and provisions for advertisers to gain more control.

Alphabet catches Google flak

In short, the media attention forces companies defend their corporate social responsibility profiles, and practically the only way they can do that is to join the boycott. And if they're smart, they'll take action before the spotlight turns on them.

Google's action may be too little, too late.

The boycott appears to be having a ripple effect on Alphabet, Google's parent company. Check out this alarming headline that appeared on CNBC.com on March 20: "Google stock is downgraded as advertisers start to worry about where their ads are appearing."

Here's the money quote from CNBC:

"Pivotal Research Group downgraded Alphabet stock from buy to hold on Monday after media buying agency Havas pulled spending from YouTube and Google Display Network in the U.K. last week."

Ouch!

When boycotts work: Part II

Behavior change is the aim of most boycotts, and in that regard the Google/YouTube action is doing quite well.

The Breitbart boycott, which is the main focus of the Sleeping Giants campaign, falls into a different category. It can be illustrated by this famous exchange from the 1964 James Bond movie "Goldfinger":

James Bond: "Do you expect me to talk?"

Auric Goldfinger: "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!"

The ultimate aim of the Sleeping Giants campaign is to put Breitbart out of business, as the potential to force behavior change is extremely low if not impossible.

The classic lightbulb joke is helpful here:

Q: How many Psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Only one, but the bulb has got to really WANT to change.

Corporate social responsibility is an effective lever only against companies that are part of the CSR movement.

With 1,500 advertisers down and still counting, Breitbart must be feeling at least some effect of the Sleeping Giants campaign.

In a report last week, though, Reuters cautioned that advertisers still need to keep their guard up, even after they have taken steps to suspend their ads from Breitbart or other sites.

That's because third-party ad buys can trip up unwary companies. Reuters cites this example involving the popular online platform Disqus:

"Ads from album creation site Mixbook and online invitation company Paperless Post could still be seen on Breitbart's website as recently as last week, according to a review by Reuters, even after they each blocked the site last fall," reported Jessica Toonkel of Reuters.

"... Both Mixbook and New York-based marketing technology company Magnetic, on behalf of a client, said they had discovered ads showing up on Breitbart, which they had blacklisted, through Web addresses owned by Disqus, the company that powers Breitbart's comment section."

Disqus Chief Executive Daniel Ha told Reuters that its relationship with Breitbart allowed for it to sell ads on the site. Once advertisers began complaining, Disqus terminated the practice.

Breitbart forever!

No matter how many companies desert Breitbart, it's possible that the site will continue publishing offensive content as long as it likes.

That's partly because one of Breitbart's owners is the Mercer family, which put millions into the effort to elect Donald Trump. If the family is willing to make up for the loss of ad revenue out of their own pockets, Breitbart could stay alive -- boycott or no boycott.

Perhaps the next target for boycott will be Renaissance Technologies, the investment management company run by Robert Mercer.

By Joe Waters

How would you like to be in PBS’ or Meals on Wheels’ shoes right now?

These two organizations alone stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in funding if U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed budget passes. Many other nonprofits face funding cuts as well. Those not yet affected by cutbacks are scared they’ll be next.

Earlier this month at Georgetown University’s New Strategies Program, a revenue-generation program for nonprofits, attendees shared their biggest fear: a perfect storm of budget cuts and economic bumps that would sink their organizations. In my years teaching in the program, I have never had a group so desperate to explore new and improved ways to raise money.

Many participants viewed businesses as a key area of opportunity. With a record-high stock market and profits booming at many companies, participants were bullish on targeting local and national companies.

New Strategies founder and co-director Curt Weeden was more bearish.

“Traditional ‘checkbook donations’ from companies have dropped dramatically over the past generation from over 2 percent to now just 0.70 percent of pretax earnings,” Weeden told the group.

Still, business support for nonprofits is needed now more than ever. And nonprofits can’t wait another generation for corporate giving to rebound. How can businesses step up right now to support the missions of worthy organizations?

Here are three suggestions.

1. Let employees in on the purpose…

Too often corporate giving is siloed in a particular department or in the C-suite. Business leaders need to share their purpose-related goals with employees to magnify social impact and fundraising.

Aflac, a generous contributor to causes for many years, grew its social impact exponentially by asking agents to join in the company’s fight against pediatric cancer. Today, Aflac agents contribute more than $500,000 each month from their commission checks to the Aflac Cancer Center in Atlanta.

2. ...Customers too

Involving customers in giving programs can dramatically impact fundraising for good causes. This is true for businesses of all types and sizes. Even businesses that are struggling have succeeded wildly in involving customers in giving programs.

Despite closing over 1,000 stores since 2000, retailer Kmart just crossed the $100 million mark in dollars raised for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. In 2015 alone, Kmart raised $17.5 million for the hospital.

The top customer fundraisers have raised hundreds of millions of dollars. Engage for Good identified 77 fundraisers that raised at least $1 million by asking consumers to make a gift, round up their sale, contribute their change or feature their names on “pin-ups” (placards and paper icons put on display). Together, these programs raised nearly $400 million.

Expanding and deepening these consumers fundraisers could ease nonprofit fears and help with shortfalls.

3. Harness corporate dollars for the power of stakeholder giving

Instead of cutting checks to nonprofits from the corporate checkbook, companies should invest the contributions budget in employee and customer fundraisers that can double or even triple fundraising.  

Microsoft employees raised a record $142 million in 2016 thanks to a company culture that encourages employee fundraisers and matches donations up to $15,000. Volunteer time is also rewarded. For every hour employees give to volunteer work, Microsoft donates $25.

Instead of buying ads in last month’s Super Bowl, Southern California Honda Dealers created the Helpful Bowl. The program donated money to Boys and Girls Clubs every time viewers identified a Super Bowl ad with an advertising cliche. In addition to building a stronger connection with car owners, SoCal Honda Dealers raised over $300,000 for charity.

The bottom line

Companies are skilled at making investments that deliver a high ROI. Marketing and philanthropy dollars will deliver a better return and a bigger impact when they’re invested in stakeholder engagement.

Businesses are well positioned to quickly help nonprofits. They have the marketing muscle, the stakeholders and the technology to start a fire that will light the way for causes in what may be their darkest hour.

Photo via SLR Jester on Flickr

Joe Waters shows businesses and nonprofits how to build win-win partnerships that raise money and change the world. Visit him at Selfishgiving.com.

In January, U.S. President Donald Trump introduced a set of travel restrictions that quickly caught attention around the world. The executive order restricted travel from seven majority-Muslim countries and temporarily halted America's Syrian refugee program.

Business leaders quickly spoke out against the ban, which was later suspended by a federal judge in Seattle. The administration released its latest version of the ban earlier this month. And although some language was relaxed, a federal judge in Hawaii blocked enforcement of the new order.

The discussion surrounding Trump's travel ban was something akin to a twisted cost-benefit analysis. Some positioned immigrants and refugees as a drain on the American economy, and wondered why the U.S. should open its borders to those seeking asylum.

Unfortunately, the U.S. is not alone in these sentiments. The U.K.'s Brexit was partially motivated by a desire to close off British borders. And countries across Europe are growing wary of rising refugee and immigrant populations.

In reality, some of the world's most successful companies -- from Google to Tesla -- were founded by immigrants. And refugee-owned small businesses contribute millions to local economies across the United States.

From Fortune 500 companies to trendy startups, these seven corporate stories show what's possible when countries take a chance on people fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries.

1. Soros Fund Management

Billionaire businessman George Soros was born in Budapest in 1930. His family went into hiding when Germany occupied Hungary in the mid-1940s. They assumed false identities to conceal their backgrounds and helped others do the same. Soros ultimately left for London in 1947 as the Communists consolidated power in Hungary after the war.

Nearly three decades -- and a PhD -- later, he established Soros Fund Management in the U.S. and became its chairman. His Quantum Fund, created in 1973, has generated over $40 billion, making it the most successful hedge fund in history, reports Invest Blog.

Soros closed his fund to outside investment in 2011. But he remains one of the business community's most revered philanthropists, having given away over $12 billion to date. Last year, he partnered with MasterCard on a $500 million investment to assist migrants and refugees.

The 86-year-old businessman remains open about his refugee story and regularly calls on governments to open their borders to those fleeing war and persecution.

2. Comcast

Daniel Aaron arrived in the United States in 1937 as a 10-year-old refugee from Nazi Germany. The move and the horrors that preceded it proved too much for the family. His parents both committed suicide mere weeks apart when Aaron was only 13.

In 1944, though not yet a citizen, Aaron was old enough to be drafted. He entered the U.S. Army and returned to Germany, "in time to witness the liberation of slave laborers," reports the New York Times.

After the war, Aaron attended Temple University in Philadelphia and began his career as a business journalist. In 1963, he persuaded Ralph J. Roberts, a Philadelphia businessman, to buy a small cable television system in Tupelo, Mississippi. Aaron agreed to help run the upstart company as part of the deal. And over the next 30 years, the two built or acquired dozens of other cable systems across the country.

The firm eventually became known as Comcast, one of the largest cable and Internet providers in the United States. Aaron retired from the business in 1990 due to Parkinson's disease and later founded the Dan Aaron Parkinson's Rehabilitation Center to provide treatment to those who couldn't afford it.

Aaron passed away in 2003 at the age of 77, leaving behind a loving wife and five children, but not before turning his harrowing tale into his very own version of the American dream.

3. Thermo Fischer Scientific

Billionaire entrepreneur George N. Hatsopoulos grew up in Nazi-occupied Greece. As a child, he admired Thomas Edison and dreamed to one day emulate him as an inventor and entrepreneur. As a teenager, he built and sold radios and transmitters, which were outlawed by the Nazis, reports the Immigrant Learning Center.

As Greece struggled to rebuild after the war, Hatsopoulos made his way to America with a scholarship to study mechanical engineering at MIT. His dissertation focused on an engine that converted heat directly into electricity without any moving parts. He called his invention the “thermionic energy converter.”

He and his brother John founded the Thermo Electron Corp. in 1956 to commercialize the engine. The business started with $50,000 borrowed from a Greek ship owner. Sixty years and a merger later, and the company now known as Thermo Fischer Scientific has revenues north of $17 billion.

4. Westfield Group

Frank Lowy was born in Czechoslovakia and lived in Hungary during World War II. He lost his father in the Holocaust before making his way to Israel and fighting in the Arab-Israeli war in 1948.

Four years later, young Lowy arrived in Australia with his family. He and John Saunders, a fellow immigrant, founded a small delicatessen the following year. The pair soon began construction on their first shopping center.

The company, which later became known as the Westfield Group, built dozens of shopping centers in Australia, went public and then came to the U.S. to start building malls. After Saunders left the business, Lowy continued to expand -- moving his company into New Zealand in the 1990s and the U.K. in the 2000s, reports real estate mogul Craig Turnbull.

The 84-year-old is now one of Australia's richest men.

5. Weidenfeld & Nicolson

George Weidenfeld, co-founder of the U.K. publishing company Weidenfeld & Nicolson, fled the Nazi occupation of Austria in 1938. He arrived in the U.K. and 10 years later co-founded the publishing house with fellow entrepreneur Nigel Nicolson.

Weidenfeld went on to serve as a member of the British parliament. He launched a fund to rescue up to 2,000 families fleeing Syria and Iraq before passing away last year at the age of 96.

6. Eat Offbeat

Subscription and delivery services are one of the hottest food trends of the 21st century. And although dozens of these services have sprung up across the country, many are more or less the same. But New York City delivery service Eat Offbeat does things differently.

Eat Offbeat's menu features authentic ethnic cuisine from around the world -- and it's all cooked by refugees, most of them women. Founded last year by a brother and sister team originally from Lebanon, Eat Offbeat was a fast hit in the already flooded NYC food scene.

The company's team of chefs -- who hail from Nepal, Syria, Iraq, Eritrea and Guinea-Conakry -- treat discriminating city eaters to meals from their home countries. And thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign earlier this month, Eat Offbeat will soon release a cookbook filled with recipes from its refugee chefs.

“The whole idea about Eat Offbeat was to highlight all of the value that these refugees are bringing with them,” cofounder and CEO Manal Kahi told Fast Company. “We are focusing on recipes that we like to say are in their minds. They probably traveled light, but when they came here they had all these traditions and that knowledge that they brought with them.”

7. MigrantHire

Hussein Shaker arrived in Germany from Syria in 2015. He worked as an IT teacher in Aleppo before fleeing the violence. And although he was happy to be in Germany, he wanted to create change for others like him, reports the Equal Times.

After meeting Berlin-based Norwegian entrepreneur Remi Elias Mekki, the two devised the concept for MigrantHire, which aims to connect refugees with tech jobs in Germany.

Unlike other websites that simply list jobs or offer training courses, “MigrantHire accompanies job seekers throughout the whole process," Shaker told the Equal Times. On MigrantHire, refugee job-seekers can obtain software development skills, as well as help with paperwork and interview prep.

Based in Berlin's startup hub, the company is poised to make an impact -- and its reach is already significant: 150 employers and about 10,000 applicants now use the platform, Shaker told NPR in February.

Image credit: Flickr/Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung

Starbucks has a reputation for taking on a wide array of political issues -- from its pledge to hire both veterans and refugees to the uncomfortable broaching of race relations.

That can sometimes make working behind the espresso bar a challenge for baristas, who already cope with the daily deluge of often bizarre drink orders. But for many employees, the company’s benefits make up for the daily slog. Opportunities to attend college online and, of course, Starbucks’ generous health insurance plans are among the perks cited by many employees when asked why they stay on.

But now Starbucks is being challenged by employees who say the company’s much-heralded maternity leave benefits are unfairly applied.

The coffee chain scored props from many working moms and dads earlier this year when it announced an upgrade to what was already a competitive maternity leave package. The highlight: 18 weeks of paid leave at 100 percent of average salary for mothers, spouses and domestic partners, whether by birth, adoption or foster.

A more careful reading, however, told the whole story: That full benefit is only available to the store’s corporate employees, not for those who work within its retail operations.

Starbucks says it stands out within the retail and foodservice sectors for offering six paid weeks of maternity leave to baristas who work an average of 20 hours a week. But this benefit only applies to birth parents, not to foster or adoptive parents and not to spouses or domestic partners. The company justifies the discrepancy by saying its benefits packages cost the company a whopping $558 million on what Forbes has tallied as 238,000 employees worldwide during the 2016 fiscal year.

Nevertheless, some baristas -- or, in Starbucks’ corporate terminology, “store partners” -- say the policy is unfair. Their protest was joined by as many as 80,000 people who signed petitions that were delivered to the company’s Seattle headquarters earlier this week.

For some of Starbucks’ hourly workers, this is question of whether the company is truly treating its employees equally. And a company spokesperson did not help matters when it explained to a local Seattle television station that “all partners (store and corporate) get the same amount of time off – the only difference is the compensation.”

As the Huffington Post has reported, the more generous benefits only apply to about 8,000 out of the company’s 170,000 U.S. employees. The company’s rationale is that it has to work harder to recruit and retain those employees – as in the ones who negotiate leases, determine the company’s strategy, decide what coffee to buy and where, or make sure the company’s labyrinth of information technology systems are always up and running. Or to put it in less delicate language: It is more difficult to find and keep happy the human resources executive who will plan out succession plans, or the marketing vice president whose decisions could make a difference in whether or not the company meets Wall Street’s expectations; the $10-an-hour worker who may not like his or her hours or store’s management, however, is not as central to the company’s long-term performance.

For years, Starbucks said it spend more on health care for its workers than on coffee; recently the company modified its health plans to make them more cost-competitive but also less comprehensive. Extending companywide maternity leave would add even more to the company’s costs.

Baristas can just as easily reply that a move from Starbucks’ retail side to its corporate operations rarely occurs, so reaping those benefits down the road will most likely never happen. Some would go further and say that the baristas and the customer experience they provide are central to the company’s mission.

A decade ago, Starbucks had expanded so quickly that it lost its mojo. Many baristas and managers were disengaged to the point that many stores became an absolute mess – just when competitors such as Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonalds started to serve much better-tasting coffee. The company in turn brought back former CEO Howard Schultz to reverse its plunging fortunes – and one step he took was the much-publicized nationwide three-hour closure to “reeducate” and re-inspire the company’s employees.

Watch for employee benefits, especially paid leave, to emerge as the next battle for hourly employees as they seek fairness in the workplace.

Compared to other companies within its sector, Starbucks is far ahead in the benefits game. But in recent months, some retail companies, including Nordstrom and Levi’s, have redrawn their human resources policies to so all corporate and store employees can enjoy the same benefits. In a tight labor market, more companies may find that makes the most economic sense in the long run.

Image credit: Elvert Barnes/Flickr

Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a key energy advisor to the Donald Trump administration, has some interesting ideas about America's role in the Paris climate agreement.

In a recent letter to the president, Cramer suggested the U.S. “use its seat at the Paris table to defend and promote our commercial interests” -- while simultaneously rolling back commitments to reduce emissions.

Cramer specifically mentioned the Barack Obama administration’s pledge to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 26 to 28 percent by 2025, compared to a 2005 baseline. He said the target “would cause irreparable damage to our economy, particularly our manufacturing and energy sectors, and should be rejected.”

Instead of Obama’s pledge, Cramer proposed that the U.S. “present a new pledge that does no harm to our economy.”

Critics of the administration say Cramer is clearly a shill for the fossil fuel energy, and they have plenty of material to back up their claim. In his letter he states, “We must include plans to drive technology to help ensure a future for fossil fuels within the context of the global climate agenda.” And advocates say there’s a reason Cramer stands up for fossil fuels: He is indebted to the industry. Two of the top five contributors to his 2015-2016 campaign were fossil fuel companies.

But Cramer is not the only Trump advisor to make statements against climate change action. Myron Ebell, who served on Trump’s transition team as the advisor on energy and climate change, called the environmental movement "the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world.” He made the remarks back in January in London during an event by an anti-climate change organization, the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Ebell described the science behind climate change as being “vastly exaggerated.”

The Trump administration seems to be listening to Cramer and other advisors who disparage climate change action and champion fossil fuels. Last week, Trump released his proposed budget, which reduces funding to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by 31 percent and cuts climate change programs. Mick Mulvaney, White House budget director, called climate initiatives “a waste of your money."

But other stakeholders say cutting climate programs and research will hurt the economy and international relations, and slow down global efforts to decrease GHG emissions. Transitioning to clean energy will “fuel economic growth and create new employment opportunities,” according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). It will boost the global GDP by about 0.80 percent in 2050, or $1.6 trillion, and the cumulative gain through increased GDP will be around $19 trillion from now until 2050.

Trump’s proposed budget is causing a stir internationally. Laurence Tubiana, an architect of the Paris climate deal, called the proposed budget “an intention; it is a signal clearly, and it is a pity because the U.S. will not be truthful to its commitments.” That “will certainly create a lot of diplomatic feedback,” he added. 

Climate experts from China and India are also concerned about the proposed budget. Chai Qimin, an international climate cooperation expert with China’s National Development and Reform Commission, said “an ambitious green plan will be more difficult to implement than previously – and may even meet skepticism and opposition, if the U.S. lowers its ambitions in such a way.” India’s former environment minister Jairam Ramesh added: “India will continue with its aggressive solar energy program, but it may have earned a breather to execute its coal expansion plans.”

There’s a reason why the Trump administration doesn’t care if climate inaction hurts the economy or international relations. Many in the administration have deep ties to the fossil fuel industry. Take EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. In 2014, the New York Times reported that Pruitt and other Republican attorneys general had a “secretive alliance ... with some of the nation’s top energy producers to push back against the Obama regulatory agenda.”

The Trump administration is filling positions in the federal government with many who come from the fossil fuel industry, including oil and coal industry employees, according to documents obtained by Propublica. Doug Matheney, who was hired as an assistant U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, is one of them. E&E News reported that Matheney worked as the state coordinator for the Count on Coal Initiative, which promotes coal. He was also a coordinator for Americans for Prosperity, a group funded by Koch Industries.

Pack an administration full of climate change deniers with ties to fossil fuel companies, and this is what you get.

Image credit: Flickr/Gage Skidmore

Uber is a company many love to hate. In many ways, it has become a toxic relationship: Can’t live it; can’t live without it. As younger citizens delay obtaining a driver’s license – if they bother to do so at all – Uber and its competitors have become the commuting method of choice. And many drivers have come to rely on Uber as a supplement to their wages, or even as their only source of income.

That tension between Uber and its drivers reared its ugly head again last month, when Bloomberg posted a video that sums up the on-demand ride service’s reputation. The company’s CEO, Travis Kalanick, is shown in a dashboard video berating one of the company's drivers after an awkward conversation turned confrontational when the six-year Uber veteran accused Kalanick and the company of dropping high-end Uber Black prices.

Shortly after the video was made public, Kalanick apologized to his employees in an email, which was posted publicly soon after. The CEO admitted his behavior was immature, and promised to “grow up” and seek help with his leadership skills.

But he may be running short on options. Many within Uber’s executive leadership have resigned in the past few months, including its president and chief marketing officer last week, news outlets including the Washington Post reported. In February, a senior vice president of engineering was asked to leave the firm after it was revealed he did not disclose a sexual harassment complaint filed against him at his previous employer, Google. This came after another Uber employee's sexual harassment complaints went public.

And it is on the engineering front where Uber confronts what several analysts called an “existential threat” to the company’s existence.

Last month Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, filed a lawsuit against Uber in a Northern California federal court. Alphabet said a former employee stole trade secrets related to self-driving car technology, giving Uber an unfair competitive advantage by several means including patent infringement.

Could this lawsuit -- centered around allegations that a former engineering employee stole secrets, scrubbed a laptop to hide any evidence, and then sold his company to Uber for $680 million -- become the ridesharing service’s death knell?

At first glance, such predictions come across as hyperbolic. After all, Uber has a long history of behaving badly, according to its critics; but in the end the the San Francisco-based company was only showered with more funding from Silicon Valley and Wall Street investors. The company’s current valuation hovers around $70 billion, reports The Economist.

But at the same time, the same Economist article noted that Uber’s American market share is slipping, as competitors such as Lyft capitalized on the company’s recent public-relations fiascos.

Uber’s stratospheric valuation is due largely to its bullish prospects worldwide. But the company finds fierce competition and headwinds almost everywhere, from Didi in China to Gett in Israel. Meanwhile, Lyft limited its reach to within the U.S., but recent launches in dozens of smaller cities and towns across the Midwest and Northeast shows that Uber’s largest competitor is hardly going away.

Nevertheless, the strategic hiccups that Uber now faces pale in comparison to what Kalanick insists is the locus of the company’s survival: self-driving cars. In an interview last year, he told Business Insider that without capitalizing on autonomous vehicles, “The future passes us by.”

Kalanick also admitted that around the time Uber acquired Otto, the startup that is the foundation of Google’s lawsuit, the company was playing “catch-up” in this market. But the company envisioned a future where driverless cars, not oft-disgruntled drivers, pick up passengers and take them to work or to the club.

The same goes for its competitors. Lyft, for example, partnered with GM last year as both companies seek to ensure they are not left behind in the future of mobility. Ford and Google inked a similar arrangement. Uber appears to seek supremacy, or at least its fair share of this market potential, on its own.

If Uber can even get there. The company has long had a reputation playing by its own rules, resulting in bans from cities including Austin,Texas, and protests in other markets such as Portland, Oregon. Despite being told to hold off its testing of self-driving cars in San Francisco until it secured the proper permits, Uber proceeded anyway, until California’s motor vehicles department revoked those automobiles’ registrations.

Meanwhile, the evidence suggests that Uber had its own struggles with its autonomous test fleet. Data from test runs in three cities revealed that humans had to take over the cars' systems about once every mile (more precisely, once every 0.80 mile), the blog Recode reported. Hence Uber’s nine-figure bet on Otto, which is now mired in litigation that seems fit for a future Hollywood movie.

Companies are sued by other companies for patent infringement all the time. But as Maya Kosoff of Vanity Fair reported, many disputes are between a large and small firm. The result is more of an annoyance than a threat to the larger party, as discussed by Todd Hixon of Forbes. The problem for Uber is that it is being taken on by an even larger Goliath, Google.

And if Google wins, whether in court or with a settlement, the result would make Uber more of a risky prospect to investors. Add the company’s loss of leadership, lack of direction, poor brand reputation and constant state of chaos, and Uber faces an uncertain future even it still appears to be on top of the world.

Image credit: Adam Fagan/Flickr