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For many who are familiar with Bill Niman’s efforts to reform how the country’s beef, pork and poultry industries treat their most prized stock, Thursday may have seemed like a sad day.

But to hear Niman tell it, the sale of BN Ranch  to the blue-ribbon pre-packaged meal service Blue Apron culminates a journey to his life’s dream. As a member of Blue Apron’s staff, he’ll be able to continue influencing the way America raises the animals it counts on for food.

BN Ranch has actually been a part of Blue Apron since February. The company, whose share in the prepared food shipment industry is estimated at $5 million, started buying beef and poultry from BN Ranch a couple of years ago; the ranch's ethical meat offered an added plus to Blue Apron customers who pay about $60 for three pre-packaged, ready-to-make meals on a weekly meal plan. Selling BN Ranch, which included cattle raised in New Zealand, was perhaps a natural progression for the relationship.

But it’s also a step that comes with some unfortunate past lessons. Niman and his then-partner Orville Schell (well known for his books and articles on China), acquired a reputation in the 1970s and '80s for humanely-raised pork, something hard to source for restaurants offering local farm-to-table cuisine in the Northern California area.

Soon Niman’s first venture, Niman Ranch, was getting calls from restauranteurs in California’s exclusive wine country and beyond. Those successes led to bigger commercial breaks and eventually to a contract with Chipotle, which featured Niman Ranch’s logo on its menus.

By the early 2000s, however, things were beginning to change. Niman discovered that the company was hemorrhaging at a clip of about $3 million a year (now believed to be the result of a company executive who reportedly embezzled funds). To stay afloat, Niman allowed Natural Food Holdings (NFH) to invest in the company and in 2006, when NFH took a controlling stake in the operations (and how the animals were raised, according to the ranch’s founder), Niman left.

“I left Niman Ranch because it fell into the hands of conventional meat and marketing guys as opposed to ranching guys," Niman told BusinessInsider in 2014. “You can't really ferret out how [the animals] are being raised.”

NFH flatly denies that it uses conventional feedlots or has changed the way animals are handled. Still, for Niman, the sale represented an unacceptable divergence from where he started.

He returned to his ranch in Bolinas, California, to concentrate on raising cattle and poultry, and it wasn’t long before more opportunities began to emerge. His reputation for pasture-centric animal farming and dedication to ensuring humane treatment “from womb to tomb,” as he phrased it, earned Niman a celebrity status among California wine country’s boutique restaurants, where startup entrepreneurs like Mike Wadiak, founder of Blue Apron, would turn up.

The meeting led to more meetings, trips around North America, Australasia and Oceania and eventually new ventures. It also meant new, expanded opportunities for both entrepreneurs.

For Blue Apron, the purchase of BN Ranch will secure an opportunity to continue its line of grass-fed and grass-finished beef characteristic of the Niman line. For Niman, it means a greater voice in policies and approaches in how cattle, chickens, turkeys and hogs are raised.

It also means more opportunity to teach a new age of consumers that humane animal rearing is possible, profitable and worthwhile. In the early days, chefs swore by Niman’s method of animal rearing, saying they could actually taste the difference in meat that came from humanely-raised animals. And their customers did, too.

Yes, it’s a bit of a shame that Niman is leaving BN Ranch. His work embodies a credo that many (including those who consider themselves vegetarian or vegan) adhere to in this day and age: that the food we buy is only as good as the ethical investment we put into its own welfare. We owe Bill Niman thanks for reinforcing that point.

Image: Wikimedia - Ryan Thompson/USDA

We hear about conflict palm oil and conflict minerals often, but what about conflict cotton?

The world’s most popular textile fiber has been linked to slavery in Uzbekistan and thousands of farmers committing suicide in India. Indeed, programs such as the Better Cotton Initiative and Cotton Connect are doing remarkable work to alleviate cotton’s impact on human rights and the environment. And to their credit, more apparel companies -- from Adidas to C&A -- are incorporating more sustainable sources of cotton into their clothing lines. One company, however, wants to go even further in guaranteeing that its cotton comes from a reliable and responsible source.

PimaCott, owned by a large Indian supplier, says it has a solution. The company partnered with Applied DNA Sciences, an American biotechnology firm, to treat its cotton so that it can be easily scanned and identified. Molecules with DNA tags are added to cotton during the ginning process, so someone on a company’s supply chain team is able to track the authenticity of the cotton from the field to the store.

Applied DNA Sciences says its technology also allows for “fiber typing." This allows supply chain stakeholders to authenticate a bolt of textiles or a garment as a genuine varietal of cotton – which, in PimaCott’s case, is pima: the high-end cotton grown in California’s San Joaquin Valley. (Hence the company's name.)

From a business perspective, this is critical for the Central Valley’s pima cotton farmers, who are subjected to far stricter environmental and labor standards in the Golden State than other countries, or even other U.S. states.

The problem is that consumers who seek textiles made from coveted Californian or Egyptian cotton can be misled by wayward suppliers. Last fall, Walmart and Target were nailed by lawsuits alleging the retailers mislead consumers about a line of “100 percent” Egyptian cotton sheets, made in India.

Walmart in turn offered customer refunds, but the episode raised questions about the authenticity of high-quality products in other stores. And of course, conscious consumers were left wondering if that ethical set of sheets or shirt had fibers that traveled from cotton suppliers with dubious labor or environmental practices. Other controversies, such as the tensions between Monsanto and India that eventually prodded the biotech firm to pull its latest GMO cotton seeds out of the Indian market last summer, raised further questions about the veracity of any company’s claims about their products.

This technology shows promise, and could eventually help other organizations that are trying to scale fair trade or responsibly-sourced cotton. But it will take a while for DNA tagging to score widespread acceptance.

As Fast Company reported, these tagged molecules need to be added to cotton at its point of origin. From the point of view of farmers, many of whom face thin margins and other risks such as bad weather or global slumps in commodity prices, DNA tagging could come across as yet another expense.

But PimaCott says it is helping cotton growers with the upfront costs. And if farmers see the value in having their crops verified and prevented from becoming blended with lower-grade cotton, we could see an industry transformed -- and down the road, witness improved traceability in other agricultural supply chains as well.

Image credit: Ken Lund/Flickr

By Andrew Vitvitsky

Architects, engineers and builders are steadfastly focused on their specialized mission to create a sound built environment. It is thus remarkable to see a leading alliance of the building sector, the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA), refocus its efforts on a new goal: proactive engagement with public policy for efficient energy and carbon reduction.

The Building Energy 2017 Conference, organized by NESEA and held in Boston from March 7 through March 9, became the venue for publicizing a new strategic plan that embraces a commitment to advocacy and the policy process. The typical conference program of design, technical and business solutions integrated content on government policy as a lever for achieving sustainability goals.

With the retreat from environmental policy by the Donald Trump administration, NESEA’s initiative can be applauded as timely effort to address a looming gap. Although it will be several months before the initiative takes full shape, the alliance is well positioned to make an impact.

Since its founding in 1974, NESEA has been a platform for networking and exchange of know-how for the building sector in the six New England states plus New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania. The organization’s annual flagship conferences in Boston and New York feature workshops and presentations by specialists on a range of current topics. The yearly gatherings include exhibitions of products and services, convening thousands of practitioners and companies from the region.  Over the years, NESEA membership has done much to drive energy efficiency and carbon reduction in the Northeastern states

High-performance building systems

Popular workshops at the Boston conference included those devoted to high-performance building systems, reflecting growing interest in robust standards for both new construction and retrofits.

A standing-room-only session on Net Zero Energy (NZE) and Living Building Challenge (LBC), two established models, heard consultants, engineering firms and architects address challenges of overcoming client uncertainty. Case studies highlighted cost-benefit arguments while communication strategies were presented for opening clients to a broader view of project goals. Examples included mainly institutional and public buildings, reflecting slower uptake of ZNE and LBC by commercial construction.

Filling a large auditorium was the session on multi-family passive buildings presented by the Passive House Institute U.S. (PHIUS). The high-performance PHIUS system, adapted from a German model, has gained traction in many U.S. states and cities based on its positive record.

Government agencies adopted this standard for affordable and market housing, often supporting projects with technical assistance and funding. PHIUS officials gave an overview the core design principles, certification process and offered convincing performance data from exemplary buildings.

The leverage of public policy

Making the important case for the leverage of policy were two workshops on March 8. The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) reported on the strong impact of the Stretch Code (higher norms adopted voluntary by cites) and renewable energy provisions in the base state building code.

From the Rhode Island Office of Energy (RIOER) Resources, we learned about accelerating market benefits of the state's building energy-labeling program and integration of clean-energy norms in the state code.

The Building Codes Assistance Project (BCAP) from Washington, D.C. traced the positive trajectory of the national Model Energy Codes from 1975 to 2015, emphasizing the need for Heartland states to achieve parity of standards with of the more progressive coastal states.

The Massachusetts DOER also highlighted its efforts to promote and incentivize high-performance building --including advances in the state solar rebates program, outcomes of a major energy-storage initiative, and a new PACE program for financing energy retrofits.

A progress report on the Pathways to Net Zero programs of grants for pilot projects offered data on technologies and designs impacting efficiency outcomes. An insightful presentation on state rebates and tax credits for installation of efficiency equipment illustrated significant incentives which can drive down the cost of projects.

The challenges

NESEA companies and practitioners continue to explore strategies for achieving sorely-needed impact. According to the Net Zero Energy Coalition there were all of 3,339 NZE buildings in the U.S. as of last year: 219 were in Massachusetts, 212 in Connecticut and 85 in New York.

In 2016, PHIUS reported not more than 1.1 million square feet of certified or pre-certified space distributed across 1,200 residential units nationwide. These outcomes leave little doubt about the need to achieve greater scale in the sustainability of the U.S. built environment. With buildings consuming 39 percent of total energy and accounting for 38 percent of carbon emissions, the scope of the challenge cannot be underrated.

State policy, which enacts measures for upgrading building standards on one hand and incentivizing voluntary high-performance on the other, is increasingly recognized as a key accelerator.

The 2016 State Energy Efficiency Scorecard published by the American Council for and Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) correlates ratings of the top five states (California, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island) with their robust policies, including building codes, building efficiency ratings and state-led financial incentives.

By undermining the Clean Power Plan and CAFE vehicle emissions standards, the Trump administration is set to deplete two mainstays of America's commitment to the Paris climate accord. Experts at research institutions are looking for strategies that allow states to double down on their climate policies and offset withdrawal by Washington.

Image courtesy of the Passive House Institute U.S.

Andrew Vitvitsky is Cambridge (MA, U.S.A.) based environmental journalist and an affiliate of the MIT Climate Colab.

By Harnoor Dhaliwal and Pete Dunn

Corporations are increasingly applying Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) techniques in innovative ways. Once used primarily for internal evaluations of production processes, materials, and packaging, LCA is emerging as a useful tool for strategic assessments of sustainability efforts, risk management, and marketing communication.

This makes it increasingly important for executives to have at least some familiarity with how LCA works, so they can understand its potential and limitations – and for sustainability practitioners to be clear on how essential details impact major decisions. A good place to start is with Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA), the point in the LCA process where potential environmental impacts of a product or service are identified and quantified.

Predicting these types of consequences can be complex, due to the long, interconnected pathways of interaction between environment and human activity, and to an outsider the process can seem mysterious and murky. But decades of development have resulted in a robust LCIA process capable of providing reliable insights into the impacts of materials and manufacturing processes. This article offers a concise overview of the steps and techniques involved, in a format that seeks to be both an accessible introduction for executive readers and a useful refresher for sustainability practitioners.

How LCIA addresses complexity

One of the basic challenges of LCIA is that the interaction pathways between ecosystems and pollutants are typically nonlinear and are affected by multiple variables. For example, the biological response of an organism might not increase in direct proportion to increases in a pollutant’s concentration – in many cases, once an inflection point is reached, the response can increase more rapidly.

Fortunately, we can draw on mathematical models to create a simplified version of reality that enables us to predict, with some amount of acknowledged uncertainty, the possible outcomes of an upstream decision. These models can mimic the natural processes the emission will go through -- and the impact it will have on human health and plant and animal species. Some of the commonly used models in LCA are USEtox for toxicity, the IPCC model for climate change and EUTREND for acidification.

In LCIA, impacts are modeled in three distinct phases: fate, exposure and effect, as shown in Exhibit 1 below.

• Fate modeling accounts for the characteristics of an emission and the environmental concentration it forms once released. This tells us where in the environment the emission ends up and its final concentration.


• Exposure modelling looks at the intake level of the emission by considering various routes and modes of intake. In other words, how much of the emission gets eaten, drunk, inhaled, absorbed, etc. For ecosystems, exposure models consider the amount of the emission that becomes bioavailable (i.e., able to be taken up by organisms).


• Once exposure is assessed, effect models link this information to known toxicity data at those intake levels. This allows us to assess the relative danger of exposure.

With this overview in mind, we can consider each of the three phases.

Using temporal and spatial integration to model fate

To model fate, we begin by calculating a steady-state environmental concentration of the pollutant. Before arriving at this steady-state, the pollutant generally goes through multiple environmental mechanisms, such as transport, degradation, volatilization, sedimentation or immobilization (exhibit 2).

The ultimate concentration is calculated by using steady-state box models where the concentration of the pollutant inside the box does not change, i.e., remains in a steady-state (exhibit 3). This figure shows a simplified version of a fate model; it calculates a steady-state concentration for a given volume, drawing on known pollutant inflow source rates and pollutant residence times.

The advantage of this type of model is that it allows each emission to be related to a single time-integrated fate value instead of multiple values at different points in time.

In addition to this temporal integration, fate models also use spatial integration – in other words, they do not detail where the emissions take place. Typically, the only spatial information included is the type of environmental media, such as air, surface water, sea water, soil, sediment, etc.

These temporal and spatial integrations are the two primary model simplifications that enable us to reduce complexity while still obtaining valid results. Newer models, however, are attempting to include more spatial details to reduce uncertainty levels, which can help make them more broadly applicable. For example, the IMPACT World+ method uses the spatially differentiated USEtox toxicity model that includes 17 sub-continental zones, such as Central America, North America, Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Fate models also consider at least three emission compartments (air, water, and soil) and at least four transport compartments (air, water, soil, and sediment). The transport compartments account for multimedia transport, i.e., transport from one media to another, such as air to water (acid rain is one example). And since an emission can easily be distributed over multiple compartments, most emissions are linked to multiple fate factors.

Modelling Exposure: Intake and Bioavailability

Once fate is calculated, the next step is modeling exposure. An exposure factor for a pollutant links the fate factor to the intake level (for humans) or the amount that becomes bioavailable (for other organisms) via a specific environmental medium (air, water or soil).

Human exposure can occur through various routes, including inhalation, ingestion and absorption through skin (see exhibit 4 below). Modeling of exposure through water and soil can be more complex than exposure through air, simply because of the large variety of food and drink that humans consume. Generally, exposure to pollutants in water occurs through direct consumption of the water, or indirectly through consumption of seafood. For pollutants in soil, exposure can occur through food or direct ingestion or inhalation of dust.

To model exposure pathways as accurately as possible, current toxicity models include a wide range of foods including most grains, fruits, vegetables, dairy products, meat and fish.

The following expressions (Equation 1 and 2) can be used to calculate exposure for humans and ecosystems, and see the relationship between intake and concentration of emissions:

Toxicity data for modeling effects

We can, finally, estimate the relative danger of an emission by linking this exposure factor to adverse effects at a given exposure level, using an effect factor. Effect is often determined with toxicity data, using dose-response curves that represent the toxicological effects of a pollutant on a population at different doses.

For human toxicity, these data could be based on ED50 (the dose at which 50% of the individuals of a population are affected), while ecosystem analyses often use HC50 (the hazardous concentration at which 50% of species are affected). Note that the ED50 data are generally based on tests in rats, mice, hamsters and nonhuman primates. The effect factor for human toxicity is measured as cases per kg intake, while the effect factor for ecosystems is measured as the fraction of species exposed to concentration above their EC50 (Potentially Affected Fraction of Species, PAF per kg/m3).

The following expressions (Equation 3 and 4) can be used for calculating effect on humans and ecosystems:

Tying emission to impact: Characterization factors

We’ll close with a brief look at characterization factors that are used to convert an emission into an environmental impact. A characterization factor can be derived in the following manner:

Characterization factor (Q) = fate (F) x exposure (X) x effect (E)

Not all impact categories use all three factors. Toxicity impact does, but Smog and Particulate Matter impacts, for example, may use only fate and exposure, while Climate Change and Acidification impacts may use only fate. Please note that the characterization factors can also be defined at the damage level which is the endpoint of the cause-effect chain. The calculation of the damage factors generally involves the use of fate, exposure and effect factors.

For more information on impact assessment methods and models, please see the free online course on impact assessment and the free brown bag webinars offered by Earthshift Global.

Image credit: Pexels

Harnoor Dhaliwal is a certified LCA consultant at EarthShift Global. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Botany from University of Delhi, India, and a Master’s degree in Environmental Policy Studies from New Jersey Institute of Technology. She did her graduate research work on sustainable remediation of contaminated sites. At EarthShift Global, Harnoor has carried out ISO-compliant Life Cycle Assessment studies on products including biofuels, packaging materials, food products, medical and pharmaceutical products, and industrial equipment. She has also developed and taught LCA courses. Her current focus is evaluating social Life Cycle Assessment and its application.

Pete Dunn, EarthShift Global’s marketing consultant, is an entrepreneurial marketing and communications strategist and writer, serving clients in academia, technology and B-to-B marketing. His journalism background includes eight years as founder, editor and publisher of WaferNews, the leading news publication for the international semiconductor manufacturing community. He specializes in creative collaboration and translating complex subjects into clear messages that inform and inspire.

To date, U.S. President Donald Trump has signed 38 executive actions, including 17 executive orders. Many of these actions have, arguably, thrown his presidency into one of the shakiest starts of any administration in modern American history. Of all the actions and orders in Trump's 80+ days in office, none may have more far-reaching or long-lasting impact than the proposed 'Energy Independence' executive order.

The crux of the order calls for a "rewrite" of what it refers to as the "so-called" Clean Power Plan, or CPP, the cornerstone of U.S. commitment to climate action. 

Trump may sign the order as early as this week, sources told the World Resources Institute. 

WRI provided TriplePundit with an early draft copy of the order. What casual readers may not catch is that the economic rationale for the rollback is based on research funded by the coal lobby.

The text begins with a stated goal of establishing “a policy directive to reduce U.S. dependence on other countries for energy.” Supporting this benign cover statement is the argument that the CPP will "cost up to $39 billion a year" -- causing "double-digit electricity price increases," and all for "meaningless environmental impacts."

It is an argument Noah Kaufman, a climate economist for WRI, says is based on faulty assumptions.

These assumptions clearly target the EPA generally and, specifically, the Clean Power Plan. The order cites research from NERA Economic Consulting as the basis for its claim that the CPP constitutes such a threat of "irreparable harm" to the American economy. Falling in line with that narrative is Trump’s cabinet: Former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson at State, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry at Energy, and, of course, former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt at EPA.

But Kaufman, a former NERA employee, called the consulting firm's findings into question.

Examining assumptions

As part of a joint project with RTI International, WRI released a working paper called: The Economic Impact of the Clean Power Plan: How Studies of the Same Regulation Can Produce Such Different Results.

Seeking to "add clarity to the debate over the economic effects of regulation like the CPP," Kaufman teamed up with WRI public policy expert Eleanor Krause to look in detail at the four principal studies projecting the economic impact of the CPP.

Kaufman and Krause reviewed one study by the EPA and three by private consulting firms Synapse Energy Economics,  MJ Bradley & Associates and NERA. Results varied.

“Of the four studies, only one study showed electricity bills increasing unequivocally as a result of the CPP," Kaufman wrote in a WRI blog post. "And it was funded by an advocacy group representing American coal producers."

At the heart of this discrepancy lay the assumptions upon which each study used to arrive at its economic forecast, including:

• Future costs of solar and wind electricity


• Future costs of demand-side, energy-efficiency programs


• Future natural gas prices


• Cooperation among states in achieving their emissions targets

Low-balling renewable energy

Kraus and Kaufman found that the NERA study, funded by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an advocacy group for U.S. coal producers, relied on "assumptions at or above the top of the range of expert forecasts or empirical estimates of the costs of clean energy available in late 2015 when the studies were conducted," Kaufman wrote.

"In other words, the study assumed that the rapid advances in clean technologies like solar and wind energy prior to 2015 would not continue into the future, a hypothesis that has already been proven wrong."

Indeed, the Energy Information Agency's Power Monthly reports consistently underestimated the rapid growth of renewable energy. Month after month, year after year, these pessimistic projections proved inaccurate.

In contrast, the two other privately-funded studies Kaufman and Kraus analyzed show that "electricity bills would unequivocally fall on account of the CPP." The EPA study concludes that electricity costs will initially rise, then fall.

So, which is it?

Torture numbers, and they’ll confess to anything

- Gregg Easterbrook

In the paper, Kaufman and Kraus suggest that none of the studies they examined offer "conclusive evidence about the costs of the CPP." They instead call these conclusions "'canaries in the coal mine,' in that the optimism/pessimism with respect to these assumptions is suggestive of the optimism/pessimism regarding the many additional assumptions that are inputs to any CPP study."

"Our findings suggest that modeling can be used to justify forecasts of highly positive or negative economic effects of climate regulations," Kaufman explained, "depending on assumptions made with respect to technological progress, commodity prices, and policy implementation."

In other words: It's possible to model pre-conceived notions of America's energy future into forecasts of CPP's impact, and using such forecasts is anathema for making sound public policy decisions.

"Going forward," Kaufman and Kraus concluded, "policymakers, judges, and the general public should be wary of estimates regarding the effects of regulations like CPP on the economy, because the results of these studies may reflect the optimism or pessimism of the study assumptions as opposed to the inherent attributes of the regulation."

This approach seems especially cogent given the disconnect between claims made by the Trump administration and economic indicators within the U.S. renewable energy sector.  As with most important policy decisions, transparency is essential -- and lacking, WRI concluded.

Covering all the bases

Making sure not to leave any doubt of its intent, the draft order ends by proposing a cursory repeal of four additional Obama-era executive orders:

• EO 13693 - Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade


• EO 13690 - Establishing a Federal Flood Risk Management Standard


• EO 13677 - Climate-Resilient International Development


• EO 13653 - Preparing the United States for the impacts of Climate Change

Last year the Supreme Court issued a stay temporarily halting progress on the Clean Power Plan. The order calls for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to "ask the courts to hold in abeyance [a suspension] or remand litigation regarding the listed rules while these administrative proceedings are underway."

As mentioned at the outset, TriplePundit reviewed an early and "speculative" draft of the proposed Energy Independence executive order. The final wording remains to be seen. We can only guess if the irony of a phrase like “meaningless environmental impacts” is intended or entirely lost on its authors.

What is clear is that the executive order as written makes claims based on faulty, pessimistic assumptions -- putting the nation's credibility, energy future and independence at risk.

You can read the studies the World Resources Institute examined in full here:

• NERA


• Synapse Energy Economics


• MJ Bradley


• EPA

---

Image credit: Emilian Robert Vicol, courtesy Flickr. Graph courtesy of World Resources Institute

The newswires were buzzing last week over the story that pirates hijacked a commercial ship off the shores of Somalia for the first time in five years. The news was a reminder of the constant piracy off the coast of Somalia between 2009 and 2011.

The 2009 hijacking of the Maersk Alabama, which eventually became the subject of a movie starring Tom Hanks, heightened awareness of the ongoing saga, especially here in the U.S. Billions were lost in global trade due to piracy in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. But eventually, the “three-legged stool” approach of new shipping industry best practices, international cooperation on boosting naval patrols, and armed guards on ships sharply reduced such incidents by the end of 2012.

Now, the pirate offensives are festering again, but overlooked are the underlying conditions that drive Somalis to launch these attacks in the first place.

The lack of economic opportunities and the prevalence of illegal fishing are pushing more Somalis to turn to piracy – partly as a form of protest and partly because they see no other options.

The result is an intractable problem that has starts with the illegal fishing rampant off Somalia’s coast. But smuggling, weak governance structures and even deforestation also have links to this ongoing struggle with which Somalis are living day-to-day.

Besides Al Jazeera, however, the global media are doing little more than blast alarm bells when it comes to reporting on this issue.

This week TriplePundit spoke by phone with Ben Lawellin, project manager of the Horn of Africa program at Oceans Beyond Piracy (OBP), from his Colorado office to gain more background about this ongoing crisis.

“In Somalia, piracy started off as a protest against foreign fishing vessels coming in,” Lawellin told 3p. “They were overexploiting fisheries’ resources. At first, this problem started off with fisherman attacking fishing vessels that they could see of the coast. The fishermen would take over a fishing vessel, bring it back to shore, and a ransom would be paid.”

Somalis became incensed at the frequent illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing that grew unabated within their country’s waters. According to a 2015 report from Secure Fisheries, a sister NGO of OBP, trawlers from countries as diverse Iran, Yemen, Spain and Egypt had free reign within Somalia’s maritime zones.

Secure Fisheries estimated that from 1981 to 2013, the amount of fish extracted from the country’s seas totaled three times the size of Somalis’ total catch. That value, suggested the NGO's researchers, amounted to $306 million, dwarfing the $58 million worth of seafood Somali fisherman caught during the same period.

The environmental cost is over 46,000 square miles of damaged marine habitat. And the human cost was devastating in Somalia, where per-capita income is only $270 to $400, depending on the source cited. Lawellin said most people in Somalia who fish are doing so at a subsistence level; the artisan fishing industry itself in Somalia is small.

Furthermore, while institutional structures in Somalia are improving, they are overall still weak. More aggressive licensing and regulatory action by Somalia’s government could boost the country’s revenues from fishing.

“Most of the fishing that continues is unregulated and unreported, from both the international side and also with artisanal fishing," Lawellin told 3p. “There’s no reporting mechanism set up to monitor Somalia’s fishing industry, nor is there any managing framework for the management of fisheries established.”

More people started to realize that there was money to be made in this, he explained. Over the years, the “artisanal piracy” that emerged due outrage over foreign ships impinging on local livelihoods eventually became much more organized and sophisticated in operation.

These fisherman, who then became known as “pirates,” were starting to attract people from as far as Somalia's most populous city, Mogadishu. Local financiers became involved, and some pirates became far more emboldened. It became common to venture out as far as 1,000 miles using dhows, the traditional thin-hulled fishing and cargo ships that make regular trips between the Middle East and India.

Solving this problem will be far from easy, and Lawellin insists that a long-term approach cannot just not focus on piracy. While the international community only has finite resources, intergovernmental organizations and NGOs can work together based on their fields of expertise. Tied into the links between IUU fishing and piracy are the complex smuggling operations that also leave many Somalis on the margins.

Add the fact that much of Somalia, including Puntland and Somaliland, function autonomously from the central government in Mogadishu. And there are few checks and balances to counter the foreign interests that profit off Somalia at the expense of its people. As Al Jazeera reported, locals in Puntland are furious that their government issued licenses to foreign operators seeking to fish within its waters.

“There are other things that have cropped up, as these criminal networks didn’t go away, but instead they began to diversify their portfolio,” Lawellin told us. Trade in weapons, drug trafficking and even charcoal smuggling further complicate the problem.

Militant groups such as al-Shabaab, which is reportedly involved in the illegal charcoal trade that ferrets charcoal used in the hookah lounges of Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Doha, also have ties to piracy on Somalia’s seas. For someone deprived of their source of income and food, groups like al-Shabaab have become a more attractive option, if not the only choice.

In return, much of that charcoal is traded for sugar from Brazil, which has allegedly reaped profits for foreign troops in Kenya – just not for many local Somalis. Meanwhile the charcoal trade, which starts with the felling of trees that in some cases were hundreds of years old, has exacerbated Somalia’s desertification and deforestation, which drives nomadic herders off their lands.

That environmental degradation has been compounded by the ongoing drought in southern Somalia, which drove many citizens to leave the region behind and move to cities such as Mogadishu. The German news agency Deutsch Welle recently estimated that approximately half of Somalia’s population is dependent on foreign aid, which will only drive more citizens to attempt more desperate measures in order to provide for their families.

The tangled web of illegal fishing and how it keeps trapping Somalis into poverty has no simple solution. But Lawellin suggested two recommendations as a start.

First, the global industry needs to improve the traceability of its products. No one really seems to know where this seafood ends up, though the Middle East and Europe are fairly easy assumptions based on Secure Fisheries’ work.

In addition, food companies can do more to raise consumer awareness. “Consumers need to know if they are eating something that came about from an illegal or overfished resource,” he concluded.

Image credit: European Union Naval Force/Flickr

The U.S. Energy Department pushed out a raft of good news for renewable energy fans this past week. Of particular note is an update on the PV System Toolkit supported by the agency's SunShot solar initiative. The toolkit focuses on helping rural communities partake in the surging solar market that cities and suburban communities now enjoy.

Given that the Energy Department promoted renewables with such vigor this week, and that President Donald Trump's recently unveiled budget proposal includes steep cuts for the agency, it's possible that Energy Secretary Rick Perry is deliberately energizing stakeholders -- including voters and legislators -- to step up and voice their support for federal programs that help grow the market for wind and solar.

Many stakeholders in the solar energy game

The new PV System Toolkit demonstrates just how deeply the solar industry is now embedded in the civic infrastructure of the US.

The effort is helmed by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), which won an Energy Department 'Sunrise' award designed to cut costs by developing templates for replicating solar innovations:

"NRECA is partnering with 17 co-ops, Power Secure, the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation (CFC), and Federated Rural Electric Insurance Exchange to develop, test, and deploy the 'PV System Toolkit,'" the co-op association announced.

"This resource is a ready-to-use set of standard engineering designs, financing models, templates, tools, and plans, and its suite of materials offers best practices designed to reduce solar adoption costs and help co-ops across the country navigate the many ways in which they can integrate solar into their asset portfolios."

Spreading the solar word

The PV System Toolkit is a lifeline for electric co-ops that are trying to get a foothold in the solar market. As nonprofits, these agencies are not eligible for the tax breaks that enable other power companies to develop solar.

If a significant number of co-ops can access low-cost solar, the impact on the U.S. energy landscape will be enormous. According to the Energy Department, about 800 co-ops in the U.S. serve more than 12 percent of all electricity customers, covering an area encompassing 70 percent of U.S. territory.

Judging from NRECA's current activities, the interest in solar is intense among rural communities:

"NRECA is engaging hundreds of co-ops and thousands of co-op staffers and representatives as they consider offering solar power as an option for their members. From 2015 to 2016, 3,000 representatives from 347 co-ops — more than a third of all co-ops and more than half of all generation transmission co-ops — participated in NRECA’s PV System Toolkit webinars."

Thousands of co-op board members and employees are also engaging with the PV System Toolkit and solar training sessions for co-ops.

Here is the happy recap from the Energy Department:

"America’s electric cooperatives expect to double their current solar capacity by the end of 2017, adding more than 480 megawatts of solar for a total capacity of 873 MW nationwide."

Next steps for NRECA include engaging on solar with each one of its members.

Walking the solar walk

So far, NRECA provided support for utility-scale solar projects to communities in 15 states, adding up to 23 megawatts.

The Energy Department highlights three such examples:

"Middle Tennessee Electric Membership Corporation installed a community solar system specifically designed to make solar affordable: members pay only $20 each month for the output of 5.5 solar panels.

"The Appalachian Electric Cooperative in Tennessee created an option for co-op members to donate electricity from the solar system to a local non-profit...

"... in North Carolina, distribution co-op Brunswick Electric Membership Corporation is adding storage technology to its 1.2 MW system in 2017 to boost the community’s resiliency."

More and better solar innovations

NRECA won its funding in 2013 as part of an Energy Department grant program for innovative approaches that could be duplicated across the country.

Another award of interest in a round of funding for the Tennessee-based Electric Power Research Institute.

That award aims squarely at modeling "high-penetration solar future scenarios in the southeastern United States," with this result:

"an end-to-end strategy and operations project that leverages prior efforts, including DOE-funded projects, and provides a pathway for successfully integrating large amounts of solar generation," according to the department.

EPRI is a diverse organization that covers the full range of power-generating resources. Its roster of solar programs has expanded in recent years. One noteworthy initiative is a three-year solar collaboration and education program that began in 2016.

Funded by the Energy Department's SunShot Initiative, the effort aims to develop a curriculum to train and educate the future workforce in the electric power sector, with a focus on integrating solar, wind and other renewables into power grids. Micro-grid integration is also included.

The initiative involves Arizona State University, Portland State University, the University of California, Riverside, and other stakeholders in addition to EPRI.

With all this activity going on, even coal-friendly President Trump might be preparing to hop aboard the renewable energy bandwagon.

One hint is an infrastructure report prepared in January on behalf of the president's transition team, which included a healthy dose of renewable energy.

However, so far Trump has been playing his renewable energy cards close to the vest.

In a speech on Monday, for example, the president continued to emphasize his goal of bringing back coal jobs even though facts on the ground strongly indicate that American and global coal markets are facing permanent decline.

Image (screenshot, cropped and color enhanced): via NECRA.

Last week the CEOs and executive directors of several investment organizations urged the White House to support current rules governing shareholder resolutions. The execs voiced their opinion in a letter to Gary Cohn, director of the Donald Trump administration’s National Economic Council.

Of debate is Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) rule 14a-8, which requires companies to include within their annual shareholder meeting materials any shareholder proposals that are up for a vote. Any individual or investment fund that owns equity in a fund can propose a resolution which, if passed, recommends a course of action to a company and its executive team.

And shareholder activism is on the rise. In recent years, activist investors proposed resolutions to make energy companies more transparent about potential climate change risks. Other examples include a proposal urging Yum! Brands, the owner of fast-food brands Taco Bell and KFC, to ditch antibiotics within its supply chain. The Humane Society has also used its stock ownership in Tyson Foods to pressure the company to turn away from gestation crates to house pigs raised for pork production.

But Donald Trump’s administration is mulling a loosening or elimination of rule 14a-8, and it appears the SEC is already moving in that direction.

Earlier this month, the SEC informed several major pharmaceutical companies that they could block shareholder resolutions related to price transparency from their proxy statements. Similar action was also taken by the SEC when it informed the healthcare company Anthem that it could prevent a shareholder resolution from coming to a vote at its annual meeting.

Many shareholder resolutions fail. And by sheer numbers, they often fail overwhelmingly – though that depends on the topic. A Harvard Law School study, for example, found say-on-pay resolutions were a big winner.

Environmental and social proposals face a steeper climb to passage, though 2016 was a relatively banner year for activist investors in this space, with eight of 172 such resolutions passing last year.

Despite the obstacles, activists such as the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia have employed rule 14a-8 for years to raise awareness of a wide range of social, environmental and labor issues. Activist investors make the case that even if a resolution does not pass, they can still have impact by nudging a company to conduct its operations more responsibly and sustainably. And most of these proposals are non-binding – but, of course, they can score a company negative press.

The letter came in response to another penned by Mark Costa, CEO of Eastman Chemical and chair of the Business Roundtable’s Smart Regulation committee. In a February letter to the White House, Costa described rule 14a-8 as burdensome, saying it allows “activist investors with insignificant stakes in public companies make shareholder proposals that pursue social or political agendas unrelated to the interests of shareholders as a whole.”

Costa also complained about SEC rules covering CEO pay rate disclosures and the conflict minerals rule tucked within the Dodd-Frank Act, as well as margin requirements for uncleared swaps. The letter -- which also targeted the Environmental Protection Agency, the Affordable Care Act, the FCC’s open Internet order and overtime rules -- included a laundry list of federal regulations the Business Roundtable and its allies wish to see relaxed or eliminated.

Costa argued that rule 14a-8 allows anyone with shares in a company to proposed rules “unrelated” to a company’s business. This came as news to organizations including Ceres, the Principles for Responsible Investment, the Council of Institutional Investors and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility.

In last week’s letter, these organizations’ leaders said that, if anything, SEC rules related to shareholder proposals actually strengthen corporate governance and can enhance shareholder value in the long run.

The investors also pointed out that shareholder resolutions are only one step in a long dialogue between a company and its stakeholders. As is often the case with litigation, many floated resolutions are pulled after an understanding is reached between a group of shareholders and a firm’s executives and board.

In the end, these activist investor groups -- which together claim to represent $65 trillion in assets -- insist resolutions are just one tool in their kit to find ways to increase transparency, boost economic growth, create jobs, and improve corporate environmental and social performance.

And it's worth mentioning that, in the broad scheme of things, shareholder proposals are hardly running amok during annual shareholder meetings. Proposals related to sustainability are surging at a year-to-year percentage rate, but those 172 resolutions that made proxy ballots last year affected less than 5 percent of the 3,700 or so firms publicly traded on NASDAQ or the New York Stock Exchange.

Image credit: Scott S/Flickr

Earlier this month, outdoor gear giant Timberland announced a partnership that quickly drew attention across the web.

The company collaborated with Thread, a Certified B Corporation based in Pittsburgh, on its latest clothing line. The startup transforms plastic bottles from the streets of Haiti and Honduras into what it calls “the most responsible fabric on the planet.”

Beyond the environmental benefits, Thread creates job opportunities for self-employed refuse collectors. Such a job may sound odd in the developed world. But as Ian Rosenberger, founder and CEO of Thread, told TriplePundit: "The poorest countries in the world tend to be the most vulnerable when it comes to waste infrastructure." Recyclables often lay in the streets or float in canals, representing an environmental blight and a lost economic opportunity.

Margaret Morey-Reuner, director of strategy partnerships for Timberland, knows this all too well. She manages the company's agroforestry project in Haiti. And her personal connection to the island nation is what first drew her to the partnership with Thread.

"We've recycled more than 233 million plastic bottles to date and turned those bottles into our products," she said of Timberland. "But we didn’t have exposure to where those bottles necessarily originated from or who was responsible for picking them up or recycling them."

"By choosing Thread’s fabric ... we can actually give the consumer full visibility not just into the people who pick the bottles up, but also into the economic and social impacts these jobs are having on their lives."

The Timberland X Thread collection features five styles of men’s footwear, two bags and one T-shirt. Half of the shoes and shirt are made from Thread's 'Ground to Good' material, while the bags are made almost exclusively from the fabric. The products are available online and in Timberland stores around the world.

By utilizing Thread's hyper-local supply chain, each bottle that makes up these pieces was collected for this specific purpose. And Thread not only employs local collectors, but also works with locally-owned processing centers to source its raw materials.

"Our material starts in trash heaps on the ground in some of the poorest neighborhoods in the world," Rosenberger told us. "And in the process of being picked up, it creates about 3,000 opportunities for income in Haiti and Honduras."

The initial product offering is sure to excite eco-fashion aficionados. But it's the nuts and bolts of this partnership that will attract attention from the business community -- and it's a case study in how startups and big brands can come together to drive social impact.

"This partnership is different from just another recycled materials announcement," Rosenberger insisted. "The fact that Timberland is connecting people in the first mile of supply chains with the consumer is really unprecedented."

A scalable partnership offers advice

The question of scale looms heavily when a startup partners with a huge brand like Timberland. But Rosenberger is confident in Thread's ability to deliver.

His company spent its first two years auditing waste streams in Haiti to assess how much trash was available to create recycled material. "And unfortunately, there’s way too much," Rosenberger said. "So the downside is there’s too much waste in poor communities. On the upside, I think that represents a renewable resource that has the opportunity to pull thousands and thousands of people out of poverty.

"We have more than enough material to serve not just Timberland but every brand within [parent company VF Corporation's] family of brands," he continued. "We’re confident that we can serve some of the largest apparel brands in the world. It’s a matter of those brands participating."

For its part, Timberland did. And the resulting partnership offers poignant advice to both legacy companies and startups on how they can achieve more through collaboration than they ever could separately.

For big brands

"It’s always worth taking the phone call and having the ability to listen, because you never know what doors are going to open," Morey-Reuner told 3p.

Timberland initially announced its partnership with Thread in June of last year. Bringing it to fruition took longer than both companies expected, Morey-Reuner told us. But it was those extra steps that paved the way for a more successful union.

At the onset, the Thread team flew out to Timberland HQ to meet with key company stakeholders. Some were concerned about the partnership's ability to scale, which Morey-Reuner said stemmed from past experiences with other suppliers.

A simple conversation "went a long way," she told 3p. "Maybe some of those folks might have felt like some of our past initiatives were being shoved down their throats, which isn’t ever how you want to feel. So we tried to work very hard to take a different, more holistic and collaborative approach that will benefit both parties."

The open and honest discourse proved a success. "We were very clear up front: We wanted to be very open and honest with [Thread] about the challenges we faced in the past. And we tried to take on a role of a mentor as well as a brand partner," Morey-Reuner explained.

"As we see it, if we’re going to ask them to explore possibilities on our behalf, that request by its very nature calls us to assume some level of accountability to do anything we can to help them succeed."

"It's a nice check and balance between startup company and big brand," Rosenberger added. "It forces us to act like a mature company. And it forces brands like Timberland to check their own methods when it comes to things like sustainability and responsibility."

For social entrepreneurs

All social entrepreneurs begin with a big idea. They set their sights on a problem, and they begin the long -- and often arduous -- process of developing a realistic solution.

As the social enterprise evolves, a partnership with a well-known company can be the golden ticket to broader recognition and impact at scale. But Rosenberger told us it's only the beginning.

"Don’t stop," he advised social entrepreneurs with a laugh. "Just because you become a partner with a legacy company doesn’t mean that’s the end of the race."

"I started a race that runs across Haiti from north to south. And there are so many metaphors with running a long marathon or hiking a long trail and the work that we do as social entrepreneurs.

"Anybody who’s trying to scale their products to legacy brands — where the real, scaled impact lies — I would just encourage them to keep going."

All of the things you hear about assembling a rough-and-tumble team who care about your cause are true, Rosenberger said. But it's staying on the grind when the going gets tough that really matters. "It’s just about putting one foot in front of the other," he told us. "It looks a lot like work."

And for any social entrepreneurs feeling blue about your future prospects, consider this: The Thread email that initially crossed Morey-Reuner's desk had been forwarded over a dozen times to brand reps at VF Corp. And it was Rosenberger's sixth time sending the same message.

The bottom line

The result, as it turned out, was a dynamic partnership that Timberland is keen to scale. The company is looking forward to expanding its Thread product line to include apparel beyond T-shirts, as well as women's and children's footwear, Morey-Reuner said.

And while she's not at liberty to elaborate, she told us "some very notable brands" under the VF umbrella are "highly interested in what’s going on with Thread." Not too shabby for a young partnership with eight product offerings at press time.

"We’re lucky that [Timberland is] part of a much larger organization, and they are the standard bearer when it comes to sustainability," Rosenberger said. "So we were really proud to begin there."

Will this mean more impact-driven threads in our future? Only time will tell, but if the early interest in this collab is any indication, Timberland may want to start reserving more shelf space.

TriplePundit is hosting a Twitter chat with Timberland and Thread on Wednesday, March 29, at 9 a.m. PT/Noon ET. We'll discuss this innovative partnership and fashion in the circular economy. Stop by, and bring your questions! 

Images courtesy of Timberland X Thread

While much of the focus in the climate space centers on carbon dioxide emissions, a new study finds that methane – a more potent greenhouse gas – also deserves attention.

The natural gas boom – driven by fracking – is one reason that coal, one of the world's dirtiest fuel sources, has collapsed globally. The rapid fall in wind and solar energy prices didn't help, either.

For many, the decline of coal is a positive development due to the far lower CO2 emissions of gas-burning plants. But critics say that when other environmental concerns are taken into account, natural gas is revealed as nothing more than a short-term bridge fuel, if that.

One of those concerns is methane leakage. Methane – which itself is a form of natural gas - can easily dissolve into the atmosphere if not properly contained. And that's a problem.

"Methane is a 34 times more potent greenhouse gas than is carbon dioxide," Paul Shepson, a professor of analytical and atmospheric chemistry at Purdue University, said in a press statement. "It's a better fuel all around as long as you don't spill it. But it doesn't take much methane leakage to ruin your whole day if you care about climate change."

While many had concerns about methane leakage, it was hard to measure until recently. Part of this was intentional: The natural gas industry, which has been trying to paint itself as “green,” limited the amount of data it released about methane. We knew leakage was a problem at fracking sites. Now, a study from Purdue sheds a light on just how much methane escapes into the atmosphere from gas-fired power plants.

What Shepson and his colleagues found is worrying: They reported methane leakage at rates significantly higher than previously reported – 11 to 90 times higher at refineries, and up to 120 times higher at power plants. But there is some good news: This number can be reduced relatively easily.

“The good news here is that you can take a specialized infrared camera around the plant to find the leaks and then patch the them with a wad of bubblegum,” Shepson explained. “I'm joking about that, of course, but the point is that it's a relatively easy thing to fix.”

Which begs the question: If it is so easy, and natural gas is so “green,” why is there so much leakage happening?

Natural gas, despite its marketing, is also a fossil fuel, one many say should be used in very limited, controlled settings. Fracking, a drilling process now used to extract much of America's natural gas, isn't worth the huge environmental costs.

Moreover, existing plants need to stop leakage quickly. And the energy industry as a whole must pave the way toward greater adoption of renewables to replace all fossil fuels, including natural gas. Because – surprise – there's no methane leakage with a wind turbine or solar panel. Just pure, clean, renewable energy.

Image credit: Bonsker via Geograph