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Can scribbling orders on a sticky note help fight air pollution? Two entrepreneurs believe so.

Anirudh Sharma and Nikhil Kaushik co-founded Graviky Labs, a startup that claims responsibility for cleaning at least 1.6 trillion liters (422 billion gallons) of air so far.

Sharma and Kaushik say they have perfected a device that captures soot from cars and diesel generators. Gasses pass through the small unit, while other byproducts of fuel combustion -- including those noxious particles that cause respiratory diseases -- are trapped.

In an interview with Wired, Sharma said his inspiration for the device came from his upbringing in Delhi, when his clothes would become dirty after only one day of wear due to pollution.

While he was studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sharma started experimenting with devices that would trap soot from candles. He found over time that he could create ink that was similar in quality to commercial inks for computer printers or pens. And Air-Ink, which became a project of MIT Media Labs, was born.

As Graviky Labs collects the soot traps from drivers and generator owners, the exhaust particulates are stripped of contaminants such as heavy metals, and the sooty powder is then mixed with oils and solvents.

The ink is now the base of five products, including pens that perform similarly to Sharpie markers, a wide pen that works well for murals and large art installations, and spray paint. Each product showcases the amount of air pollution that it contains: a 0.7-millimeter, round-tip pen is made from about 40 minutes of diesel car pollution, while the 600 milliliter spray can holds the equivalent of 2,000 hours of the same pollution.

For now, Graviky Labs has a partnership with the Singaporean beer brand Tiger, and both companies work together to distribute the ink products to artists in cities like Hong Kong.

Graviky Labs says its products are ready for market, but it launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign in order to scale their manufacture. To date, the campaign has surpassed its relatively modest goal of raising $10,000. The company says it will also use the funds to develop inks that can be used for fabric as well as outdoor installations.

In interviews with multiple outlets, Sharma acknowledged that Air-Ink is hardly a panacea for the world’s air pollution problems, especially in crowded Indian cities such as Mumbai and Delhi. Nevertheless, if the company can scale, Air-Ink can become an effective case study of social enterprise and environmental stewardship.

Furthermore, Sharma and Kaushik will have no shortage of raw materials and feedstock. As recently profiled in Fortune, many cars continue to move about India's city roads with little or zero emissions controls. The result is that India may spend up to 3 percent of its total GDP on healthcare costs related to respiratory diseases, reports the Economic Times, one of India’s largest daily newspapers.

Image credit: Graviky Labs/Kickstarter

By Sally J. Ehrenfried 

When your country is 240 years old, using July 4, 1776 as its birthdate, 100 years makes up almost 42 percent of its lifetime. A lot can happen in 100 years.

Since 1917, women have earned the right to vote. Prohibition was instituted and repealed. And the country experienced the Great Depression and the Great Recession. We saw the creation of programs like Social Security and Medicare, put a man on the moon, lauded the passage of the Civil Rights Act, held multiple local, state and federal elections, and much more.

But what is the significance of 100 years in 2017? 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the charitable tax deduction for individuals.

How did it come to be? The individual income tax was made permanent in 1913, and taxes were raised in 1917 to assist the United States in paying for its involvement in World War I. The charitable tax deduction was created to alleviate concerns that the higher tax rate would discourage private charity.

By instituting this new approach, Congress intended to encourage private philanthropy of individuals, and it has done just that for the past 100 years.

Fast forward to the present day, and the United States has a robust nonprofit and foundation sector working day-in and day-out to provide basic human needs, strengthen communities through the arts, fund research to alleviate and cure disease, care for abandoned and neglected animals, provide education, and more.

Individual charitable donations provide nonprofit organizations and foundations with the funding they need to achieve their missions and be agents for good. For the past 60+ years, Giving USA’s Annual Report on Philanthropy in America has tracked and reported trends in charitable giving. In June 2016, Giving USA reported that charitable giving in 2015 once again reached record levels. Individual giving alone totaled $264.58 billion, an increase of 3.8 percent, which makes up 71 percent of total giving in the United States.

A side note: While I’m focusing mainly on charitable giving of individuals in this blog, I don’t want us to lose sight that businesses became eligible for the charitable tax deduction in 1935, in part to reduce the burden of tax increases put in place to provide services for those impacted the by the Great Depression. Last year, Giving USA reported that business gave $18.45 billion in 2015, an increase of 3.9 percent, making up 5 percent of total giving in the United States.

Although we all know there are many reasons why individuals give to organizations and causes, we can’t overlook the impact that the charitable tax deduction has had on the nonprofit and foundation sector.

However, over the past eight years, the charitable tax deduction has seen its share of challenges as cash strapped governments have taken a look at all potential sources of revenue. Various federal proposals have called for instituting caps or floors on what individuals could deduct, and states have reviewed and revised their tax codes.

It is important that the charitable tax deduction be preserved and that charitable giving, in general, be encouraged. It is a way for our nation to support and encourage the generous spirit of its people and ensure that funding continues to flow to organizations that offer a tremendous return on this charitable investment.

The Charitable Giving Coalition has organized a fly-in this week in Washington, D.C. to meet with members of Congress and their teams to educate and advocate for strong charitable giving incentives, including the charitable tax deduction.

As Congress and the president take action on tax reform, please stay up to date and informed on the impact their work will have on the sector and our communities.

Image credit: Pixabay

Sally J. Ehrenfried leads Philanthropy and Volunteer Engagement at Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ: BLKB), headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina, and is responsible for the company’s global community relations, corporate giving, and volunteerism portfolios. She also manages the company’s public policy efforts by working with local, state and federal groups to advocate for policies that benefit the nonprofit community. Sally spent 13 years in the United States Senate as an aide to Senators George J. Mitchell (D-Maine), William S. Cohen (R-Maine) and Ronald L. Wyden (D-Oregon), serving in a variety of committee and leadership staff roles.

Currently, Sally is Co-Chair of Giving Institute’s Public Policy Committee and is a member of the Leadership Faculty for the Corporate Institute, a Points of Light enterprise. She is a member of AFP’s SC Lowcountry Chapter where she served in a variety of committee and board roles to include National Philanthropy Day, Programs, Awards, Scholarships, and Governance. Sally served AFP International as a member of its PAC Board and Chair of its US Government Relations Committee, playing a key role in developing its government relations strategy. As immediate Past Chair of the US Government Relations committee, she remains an active member.

Sally is a graduate of Bates College in Lewiston, ME, and received a master’s degree in Business Administration from the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina.

By Daphne Stanford

You know the climate crisis is bad when over 600 businesses and investors are more concerned about fighting climate change than their relationship with America's president. This would seem to be the case by the look of the recent letter written to President Donald Trump urging him to fight climate change.  It’s not encouraging that the person nominated to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, is a climate change denier.  

The businesses behind said letter aren’t not-for-profit lightweights, either: The list of companies includes Levi Strauss, Monsanto and Staples.  And the plea isn’t simply for additional carbon taxes, but rather for investment in low-carbon energy sources like solar and wind power, which could provide a potential boost for the economy.  

Not only would investment in renewable energy provide new jobs, but there is also evidence that the companies that manage and plan for climate change receive an 18 percent higher return on investment than companies that don’t disclose their carbon emissions, according to a 2014 study by CDP.  This may be due to the value that consumers and investors now assign to transparency and a strong corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy.  

Enter the need for environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs).  Their work toward supporting and preserving wildlife and the environment directly supports businesses and helps them become more environmentally sustainable.  

Let’s take one NGO as an example: Rare works with local individuals and organizations to effect change. The group trains individuals in those organizations to run marketing campaigns to educate and inspire the local community to act in the interest of their own natural resources — often promoting biodiversity in local species that make up part of the native diet or lifestyle.  

Because Rare recruits local community members to get involved in the effort themselves, the education is more effective and long-lasting.  For example, in Brazil, Rare is working with government entities and organizations to reach out to local fishing communities to curb overfishing and preserve biodiversity in Brazil’s oceans.  

Because of CSR’s new desirability, NGOs now have an even greater chance of attracting new talent to their ranks.  While it used to be the case that working to save the environment was exclusively the work of NGOs and not-for-profit organizations, large corporations now regularly seek out sustainability managers, due in no small part to consumer concern and existing environmental regulations.  

Moreover, large corporations are beginning to implement policies like paid time off for community volunteering and field work in conjunction with social enterprises and nonprofits.  In this way, they are supporting the efforts of nonprofits and NGOs — albeit indirectly.

Although NGOs perform quite a bit of hands-on work to help businesses develop sustainable practices, their work needs to be optimized for life in the year 2017.  

Part of this optimization includes being aware of current Internet marketing trends.  Whether or not they adopt the best practices for organizations could make the difference between being seen and noticed and not even making it onto the proverbial radar: These best practices include mobile optimization, social conversion, automation, new payment methods and content marketing.  

Take marketing automation, for example: Ideally, the information that is automatically sent out, email-wise, is also strategic.  Rather than blasting an anonymous list of sales leads with your company’s latest promotion, be strategic about what you choose to send as well as the recipient list — which may grow smaller the farther you get down the sales funnel.  

For example, rather than simply linking to product pages on your site, send recipients a white paper with a download that is trackable, in terms of the number of times it gets downloaded.  That way, your follow-up emails only go out to those on your list who decided to download the resource, and your outreach becomes more targeted — hence more likely to help your company’s bottom line.

In addition to ensuring that information is adequately shared with investors and customers, NGOs should share their assets with other NGOs -- enhancing collaboration across systems and scales.  In this way, organizations will work smarter, rather than harder.  

Because of this focus on engagement, there has been an increasing need for knowledge brokering and intermediary roles.  Part of the content that is marketed on NGO sites, therefore, should ideally tie in to improving education and raising awareness of the issues at hand.  Because of this, the target audience is likely to be like-minded—so think of your content as preaching to the choir, so to speak.  

That being said, Forbes recommends anticipating four different types of ‘moments’ that an online audience is likely to experience: I-want-to-know moments; I-want-to-go moments; I-want-to-do moments; and I-want-to-buy moments.  Though the audience to a nonprofit organization’s website is less likely to be interested in the fourth type of moment, literally-speaking, there’s still something they are likely to want to ‘buy,’ in terms of a long-term objective or goal.  As Forbes’ Jayson Demers writes, “That content then needs to be available instantly, in bite-sized pieces—so users can easily find and use it while on the go.”  

This goal is mostly likely to feel palpable if the website presents an ideal situation in the form of images and descriptions of said situation — so as to illustrate the dream scenario for the online audience.  

Of course, there will likely be an easy way to support the effort via a “Donate Now” button or some other method of helping to ‘buy’ the organization one step closer to the dream.  In this case, graphic design and content marketing can go a long way in helping an audience feel transported to an oasis of hope that allows them to more easily imagine a more idyllic future.

So there you have it: a few pointers, both general and specific, about how NGOs can best communicate their missions and be successful in their objectives, in 2017.  If you’re involved with an NGO, share a few tips or issues of concern in the comments section, below.

Image Source: Paulisson Miura

Daphne Stanford hosts “The Poetry Show!” on KRBX, her local community radio station, every Sunday at 5 p.m. A writer of poetry, nonfiction, and lyric essays, her favorite pastimes include hiking, bicycling, and good conversation with friends and family.  Follow her on Twitter @TPS_on_KRBX.

Today GreenBiz released the results of its 2017 Green Economy survey. Over 400 large companies from a cross-section of industries answered the question, “What impact will the changes in the U.S. presidency and Congress have on your company’s sustainability strategy?”

You can breathe a sigh of relief. Despite having a president who says climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese and House Republicans who voted to dump coal waste into rivers, 60 percent of companies with revenues greater than $1 billion said the current administration will have “no impact” on their sustainability strategy and they will move “full speed ahead.” That response is music to the ears.

Thirty-four percent said, “It will slow us down but not stop us.”

Larger companies were more likely to project no impact. Companies with revenues less than $1 billion were more likely to indicate that their progress would be slowed but not stopped by the Donald Trump administration.

Essentially, companies are saying Trump can’t build a wall around corporate sustainability.

The survey also asked, “How will your investment in renewable energy change?”

Once again, companies with over $1 billion in revenue seemed to have more robust long-term sustainability plans and were more likely to project growth in their renewable energy investments. Half of such firms said it would increase.

Sadly, 47 percent of company respondents said renewable investments would remain the same, while declining to say why. Only 3 percent of companies expected their investment in renewable energy to decrease.

Overall, this is still good news. If you want to know which companies are leading the way in clean energy and support them, you can check out Greenpeace’s Energy Report Card. Facebook, Apple and Google earned an A grade. Microsoft and Salesforce achieved a mediocre B. And Amazon Web Services received the lowest grades including an F for lack of energy transparency.

The 2017 Green Economy survey also polled companies on “What is the No. 1 environmental initiative for your company in 2017?”

The majority of companies said their top three environmental initiatives were to reduce energy use through efficiency, make sure green stays on the agenda, and engage with stakeholders.

Only 6 percent of polled business leaders said what impacted their company’s environmental decisions the most was uncertainty at the federal government level. This further shows how little an impact the current administration is likely to have on companies. Most companies ranked company leadership as having the biggest impact, followed by customer requirements and energy prices.

Green Biz discussed the survey results with over 60 sustainability leaders from Fortune 500 companies in its Executive Network, and the results will be announced on stage today at the Green Biz conference kicking off in Phoenix, Arizona. If you want to know more about the latest trends in sustainability, you can watch a live-stream of the mainstage sessions for free.

Overall, the results of this survey are encouraging and reinforce what many sustainability experts were already thinking: The sustainability train has already left the station. Nothing can stop it. The ultimate destination is 100 percent renewable energy.

What remains to be seen is what cities intend to do under the administration. The Seattle City Council made waves last week when it voted 9-0 to divest billions from Wells Fargo because it funded the Dakota Access Pipeline. Other cities such as Minneapolis; Boulder, Colorado; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Portland have also shown interest in switching to financial institutions that have social and environmental principles. Maybe in the future a company will conduct a survey of cities and the administration’s impact on them.

Image credits: 1) Ales Krivec via Unsplash, 2) and 3) charts courtesy of GreenBiz

Last weekend TriplePundit turned its attention to the plethora of boycotts that erupted during last year's presidential campaign. The number of companies under boycott has grown since Election Day, and it seems that American consumers are more willing than ever to express their political views in the shopping aisles. However, a central question remains: Just how effective are boycotts?

For an answer, it's instructive to look at the recent history of the iconic U.S. food company Kellogg.

Some say the boycott worked . . .

Last year Kellogg got into hot water with Breitbart News, an organization linked to the white nationalist movement and to President Donald Trump. (Former Breitbart chairman Steve Bannon became a key Trump campaign official last year and he is now a top advisor, credited with developing Trump's "Muslim ban" executive order among other policies.)

The flashpoint occurred in November, when Kellogg decided to pull its advertising from the Breitbart website, citing a conflict with the company's values. Associated Press reported this explanation from Kellogg spokesperson Kris Charles:

“We regularly work with our media buying partners to ensure our ads do not appear on sites that aren’t aligned with our values as a company,” Charles said. “This involves reviewing websites where ads could potentially be placed using filtering technology to assess site content. As you can imagine, there is a very large volume of websites, so occasionally something is inadvertently missed.”

Breitbart promptly called for a boycott against Kellogg. At first glance, it would seem the call-to-action was a success, because Kellogg popped into the news recently for several rounds of layoffs affecting hundreds of workers.

In an interview last Friday during the Breitbart News Daily show on SiriusXM radio, Breitbart economics and finance editor John Carney credited the boycott with depressing Kellogg's bottom line:

"... It’s the guys who decided to put their businesses on the line by challenging the values of the millions and millions of Americans who both listen to Breitbart or who voted for Donald Trump...”

“It’s not exactly clear what they meant when they said that they don’t share our values, but why they did that, it’s not exactly clear to me. But I think you’re right: they share the globalist mentality..."

. . . and some say it didn't

If you step back and look at the big picture, though, it's not obvious that Breitbart can take any credit for sparking the layoffs.

In 2013, Kellogg embarked on a four-year "efficiency and effectiveness" initiative called Project K. Among other elements, Project K involves a fair degree of downsizing as well as restructuring.

The layoffs began piling up long before Breitbart called for a boycott. Earlier this month, USA Today noted that Kellogg eliminated 600 jobs at three sites in 2014 and 2015.

The latest round of layoffs results partly from the expansion of Project K to include a "transformational" switch in the way Kellogg delivers products to stores. Rather than operating its own distribution centers, Kellogg will deliver products directly to retailers' warehouses.

It's also not clear that the boycott had any effect on the pace of sales for Kellogg. Sales were flattening out across the cereal sector of the food industry before the boycott.

Kellogg felt the heat along with other top cereal makers. Last summer, Forbes included the company in a list of other leading brands that are experiencing a falloff in consumer interest.

Unless Breitbart has some hard numbers to offer, it seems Kellogg's recent state of affairs is more likely attributed to the kind of long-term planning that would enable a legacy food company to remain competitive as consumer tastes change.

More to the point, if Breitbart meant to injure Kellogg's profitability, that hasn't happened. The company's stock has been trending upward over the past several several years, and that trend has continued into 2017.

What makes a boycott successful?

So, why was the Breitbart boycott not a clear-cut success?

Professor Braydon King of the coincidentally-named firm Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University has studied successful and unsuccessful boycotts. His research indicates that boycotts are most effective when they have a demonstrable impact on a company's reputation.

The best targets for boycotts, King says, are "companies with good reputations that are on the decline."

It's not immediately obvious that the Kellogg brand has lost its sheen, so choosing an elusive target was probably Breitbart's first mistake.

Another mistake would be targeting the wrong consumers. A breakdown of consumer behavior by InfoScout indicates that Kellogg sales are strongest in one of the bluest regions of the U.S., the Northeast. InfoScout's data suggests that the typical Kellogg consumer is not inclined to log onto Breitbart News, let alone follow the organization's call to boycott a favorite product:

"A Kellogg's consumer is generally higher income, African American, and lower middle age," InfoScout found.

A third mistake could be targeting the wrong kind of product. Food habits are notoriously difficult to break compared to other aspects of American life.

And, finally, boycotts should have a goal worth cheering. Certainly Breitbart did not intend for hundreds of workers to lose their livelihoods, but the news organization is now in the awkward position of claiming success on that basis.

When boycotts backfire

Ironically, Breitbart itself has been the subject of a business-to-business boycott that may turn out to be more effective than its anti-Kellogg messaging.

Around the time that Kellogg pulled its advertising from Breitbart, other companies also began opting out. And publicity over Breitbart's call for a boycott against Kellogg may have helped turn that trickle into a flood.

Last week, CBS News reported that the number of companies refusing to place ads on Breitbart topped 800, according to the organization Sleeping Giants.

Adding to the irony, some companies are even using publicity over their Breitbart boycotts to boost their reputations and cement a progressive public image.

Here's a representative sample from Lyft spokesperson Adrian Durbin, cited by CBS:

“One of Lyft’s core values is to uplift and support one another in all that we do ... We strive to ensure that our advertisements appear only on sites that share this value.”

The jury is still out on whether or not Breitbart is experiencing any significant loss of revenue from the B2B boycott.

At least one remaining source of revenue for the news organization comes through the Canadian e-commerce company Shopify, which as of last week was still selling Breitbart merchandise online. (To be clear, the company does not advertise on Breitbart -- it carries Breitbart merchandise.)

That could change soon, though. As reported by Recode and elsewhere, Shopify has become the subject of a social media campaign urging it to drop Breitbart, and employees are questioning the company's policy on client relations.

Image (screenshot): via @BreitbartNews,Twitter.

Citing “targeted attacks” on environmental NGOs under former CEO Rex Tillerson’s leadership, a research scholar on business and human rights says she will no longer serve as an advisor with ExxonMobil.

Sarah Labowitz, who co-founded the New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights with Michael Posner in 2013, told the Huffington Post that the company’s response to public criticism pushed her cut to any ties with ExxonMobil.

In a letter sent to Ben Soraci, president of the Exxon Foundation, Labowitz said ExxonMobil’s litigation strategy “undermines the democratic principles of our society and the vital role that civil society plays in it.”

The highly public spat comes at a time when Exxon is responding to accusations that it covered up the work of some of its own scientists, who concluded over 30 years ago that the company’s operations were contributing to climate change risks. The controversy prompted some state attorneys general to launch investigations into the company, most notably the state justice departments of New York and Massachusetts.

The energy giant in turn responded with its own litigation, which ironically accuses the New York and Massachusetts attorneys general of leading “improper and politically motivated investigations of ExxonMobil in a coordinated effort to silence and intimidate one side of the public policy debate on how to address climate change.”

The company’s aggressive lawsuits have in part motivated one if its financial beneficiaries in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Last year Lamar Smith, chair of the House science committee, launched what NGOs described as a climate science “witch hunt.” And last week Smith held a hearing to discuss how to “make the EPA great again” as the Texas Republican continues to attack the work of environmental organizations and government scientists. Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) started its own investigation of ExxonMobil over accusations the company withheld material information from its shareholders.

In interviews with both the Huffington Post and Motherboard, Labowitz accused ExxonMobil’s executives and attorneys of engaging in behavior that “is what you see in countries where the government tries to suppress human rights.” She told Ben Adler of Motherboard in a phone call that the company “defines conspiracy as routine advocacy, like holding meetings with government officials.”

ExxonMobil maintains that attorneys general are conspiring with NGOs to restrict debate when it comes to climate change. In an amended court filing the company submitted to a federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, last November, ExxonMobil’s attorneys said public officials such as New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman “advocated for restrictions on speech and debate to accomplish that political agenda.”

From her perspective, Labowitz insisted ExxonMobil executives were once open-minded whenever she had the opportunity to discuss human rights issues with them. But over the past year, Labowitz claimed such discourse became less and less the case. While she said many at ExxonMobil have integrity and are respectful of science, she expressed disappointment in her letter to Soraci, writing that “instead of examining its own record and seeking to restore a respected place for itself in the public debate, Exxon has chosen to turn up the temperature on civil society groups.”

Meanwhile, Tillerson, who is now U.S. Secretary of State, has appeared to wash his hands of the matter. During his confirmation hearings, when he was asked about how much ExxonMobil knew about climate change, Tillerson responded: “Since I’m no longer with ExxonMobil, I can’t speak on their behalf. The question would have to be put to ExxonMobil.”

And while Tillerson and the company indicated in the past that they are open to a carbon tax and acknowledge the science behind manmade climate change, the company has been accused of spending millions to fund climate denier groups.

For now, the oil and gas giant offers a veneer that business is going on as usual. And Labowitz, who was affiliated with ExxonMobil since 2014, is still listed as a member of the company’s External Citizenship Advisory Panel as of press time.

Image credit: Minale Tattersfield

Three weeks into his presidency, Donald Trump has seemingly gone out of his way to alienate everyone who opposed him -- or perhaps just about everyone, period. Levels of dissatisfaction have reached the point that many would be unlikely to acknowledge Trump even if he did something truly beneficial for society. But then some might ask, what good could he possibly do?

Trump came in on a wave of domestic insurgency. If any mandate can be construed from his messy, purely technical win, it was to shake things up in Washington. And while he clearly does not have the interest of progressives at heart, Trump could end up inadvertently supporting a few progressive causes.

Much has already been written about the compelling business case for renewable energy. While Trump clearly prefers his energy dirty -- and made no mention of renewables in his so-called energy plan -- it would not be surprising to see some level of support for renewables emerge, if today’s reality is given a chance to sink in (always a question with this crew).

On a related note, a number of prominent Republicans came forward last week in support of a carbon tax. None of these men, led by former Secretary of State James Baker, are in the current administration. But they have reportedly spoken with administration officials about their plan. Current Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has supported similar plans in the past.

The carbon tax plan, which would likely result in a quarterly check for most Americans, would presumably take the place of current carbon regulations. A similar measure recently failed in Washington state, defeated primarily by liberals who wanted the revenues to be used for energy efficiency, rather than being returned directly to taxpayers.

Finally, perhaps the most radical proposal of all is the idea of a universal basic income for every American.

The idea has been around for a while. Economist Milton Friedman proposed a universal basic income just after World War II. And the idea goes back historically to the writings of Thomas Moore and John Stuart Mill.

Perhaps its time has come.

Finland is trying the idea with 2,000 adults to see how it works. Ontario, Canada, is also starting up a pilot. Switzerland put the idea up for a vote last summer, but it was soundly defeated. Yet the idea has a surprising amount of support in the U.S., not only among progressives, but also among conservatives who see it as a preferable to the “welfare state.”

Is it time for a universal basic income in the U.S.?

You would think this kind of talk would be limited to socialist blogs. However, as the libertarian Charles Murray wrote in the Wall Street Journal: “I think that a [universal basic income] is our only hope to deal with a coming labor market unlike any in human history and that it represents our best hope to revitalize American civil society.”

Indeed, the forces of a world economy in transition -- causing a split between old and new orders, with workers caught in the middle -- was the impetus that propelled Donald Trump to the White House. The answer is clearly not as simple as talking tough, building walls or restricting immigration.

However, even on the left, some faint cries can be heard for some reasonable level of protectionism in light of these changes. Check out Colin Hines’s thinking on the subject. A contributor to the Guardian newspaper, Hines believes that some level of restriction on immigration will be necessary to promote the flourishing of local economies.

But it’s not just global trade that has siphoned off American jobs. Everywhere you look, you see technology where workers once stood. Whether it’s ATM machines, automated checkout lines, factory robots or, soon, driver-less taxis and trucks, all those lost wages are going directly into the pockets of business owners.

Is it not the role of government to try and make things more fair?

The pros and cons of a universal basic income

Iain Murray is the Competitive Enterprise Institute's vice president of strategy. He writes in the National Review that he, too, is “leaning” toward supporting a universal basic income (UBI).

Murray argues that libertarians support the idea because they “see it as the least damaging way for the government to transfer wealth from some citizens to others. Either way, the UBI is an idea whose time has finally come, but it has to be done right.”

Michael Strain, who is against it, lays out the following pros for the policy in the Washington Post:

• Far less government bureaucracy


• No stigma for recipients


• Personal responsibility for how the money is spent


• No penalty for supplementing income


• A base of economic security for all (oddly, he makes this point last)

Despite these potential benefits, Strain says he can’t support it because, “In a UBI world, those who choose to work will support those who choose not to – not those who can’t work, but those who won’t. This really would be a world of makers and takers.”

Strain says he simply can’t abide the idea that the wealth of some could bring comfort to the poverty of others -- arguing this is somehow unfair, despite the fact that it's already what happens, albeit quite imperfectly, in our current system.

CEI’s Murray disagrees, taking comfort in the fact that the basic income stipends would be meager enough to dispel the sense of blatant unfairness:  “[The] entitlement would almost certainly not give people enough money to shirk work," he wrote. "It would avoid people starving on the streets, but it wouldn’t enable them to do much more.”

While conservatives seem to be more concerned about the rich feeling put upon, liberal supporters tend to focus more on the benefits to the poor. UBI can help reduce inequality and provide a safety net for all Americans, they argue. Plus, being a fixed amount, it would proportionately help the poorest among us the most.

Another advantage, proponents say, is that since a UBI could mean that no one is starving, our leaders might be less willing to sacrifice everything under the sun in the name of jobs. It would also fit perfectly with today's growing gig economy.

How would a universal basic income work?

Writing in the Huffington Post, UBI advocate Scott Santens says the policy will make the market more efficient by allowing the poor to vote with their dollars, something they could not do before.

The stipend would initially be small: He estimates around $1,000 per adult, per month, which would at least be enough to avoid starvation.

Santens cites a UBI pilot study conducted in Namibia in the wake of the financial crisis. The results after one year were quite remarkable. Child malnutrition dropped from 42 percent to 10 percent. School attendance increased while crime dropped by over 36 percent. Poverty declined from 97 percent to 43 percent. Even unemployment dropped.

Although some conservatives seem to expect that UBI grants would lead to fewer people working, the converse turned out to be true in Namibia. Perhaps the increased amount of money in circulation helped the business climate. It turns out there’s another reason.

Santens cleverly points out that when people choose to work, rather than having to work, they are far more motivated and may well end up more successful. Much has been written about the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, intrinsic being far more powerful.

He makes another great point here:

“In the 21st century, as we continue quickly automating away half our jobs in the next 20 years   — jobs less cognitively-complex and more physically-laborious   — we need to enable ourselves to freely pursue our more creative and complex ventures.

"Some of the best work happening right now, is the stuff being done in our free time  —  that is unpaid  —  like Wikipedia and our many other open-source community creations, not to mention all the care work performed for our young and elderly.

"Basic income is a means of recognizing this unpaid work as having great societal value, and further enabling it.”

The bottom line

Maybe it all comes down to what kind of world to you want to live in. Some Americans remain immersed in the idea that life is hardscrabble and “dog-eat-dog is just the way it is.” This mindset has cost them so much that they can’t help being trapped in it

Perhaps the next generation will be able to see things differently.

This country has tremendous abundance, and it belongs to all of us -- not just the rivers and the forests and the mountains, but the economic abundance as well. That’s because so much of the core technology on which productivity is based was developed and paid for with taxpayer dollars -- not to mention the education system, infrastructure and security on which leading businesses depend. That’s money that we, and our parents and grandparents, contributed off the sweat of our brows. So a piece of all of it belongs to "we the people."

Teddy Roosevelt recognized that truth a hundred years ago, when it came to the nation’s natural treasures. Now, say the UBI supporters, it is time for a new leader to stand up and acknowledge that we are stronger as a nation when the great prosperity that all of us have worked to create is used, in part, to ensure that all of us are strong.

All that being said, is this a policy the Donald Trump administration will support? If Trump is consistently anything, it’s unpredictable.

There are those who think he might back a UBI. It would be one relatively easy way to fulfill his campaign promise to help the middle class recover some of what they lost financially over the past few decades.

If he wants to help the middle class, then many say a UBI is a much better idea than the tax cut he is now proposing. Indeed, it seems to fit many of the points Trump says he is aiming for: ending the status quo, reducing the size of government, cutting taxes and ending corporate welfare.

Trump has yet to connect those dots, but it could happen. If he does, the outcome, as with the healthcare law, will be in the details. But in America, anything is possible.

If it doesn’t happen during Trump’s time, then perhaps it will be one of the many things that happen afterward, as support for these policies seems to be growing steadily.

Image credit: Joe Green: Flickr Creative Commons

At first glance, Tokyo seems like an ideal city for the so-called sharing economy. It is incredibly connected, both digitally and socially; welcomes huge numbers of tourists every year; and has a culture of communitarianism.

Yet when the two giants of the gig economy, Airbnb and Uber, tried to break into this market, both quickly saw themselves at the whims of both residents and regulators in ways they hadn’t encountered anywhere in the world.

TriplePundit has covered both companies extensively -- and it wasn't always good news. Uber faced a class-action suit for mis-classifying drivers, was called out for unethical use of subprime auto-lending, and launched a controversial social media assault on New York City Mayor Bill de Blassio for having the tenacity to stand up to the company. And Airbnb found itself under fire for reducing the number of rooms available for rent in urban areas, a multimillion-dollar ad campaign that successfully overturned regulations in San Francisco, and a reluctance to work with regulators in general.

Uber’s tactics are pretty well-known now. The company enters a city, often without warning, begins offering heavily-subsidized rides to undercut existing taxi competition, offers huge initial bonuses to increase drivers, and then lobbies to have the city’s rules changed in its favor. This model has, initially, worked quite well, allowing the company to gain a stranglehold on several markets – including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and London, among many others.

Airbnb, the other massively valued darling of the sharing economy, is little different. It also ignores regulations – even hiding information from cities – and resisted paying hotel taxes for years.

Yet, when Uber and Airbnb both tried to enter the world’s largest, richest city, this strategy not only failed to succeed, but it also forced both companies to do something they were loath to in the U.S. – follow the letter of the law.

Cultural challenges

Both Uber and Airbnb failed to recognize that their models were ill-fitting in the Japanese context, Tim Romero, founder of the Japanese startup site Disrupting Japan, told TriplePundit.

“Trying to use the U.S. playbook backfires horribly [in Japan]. Taking on regulators ... refusing to turn over information, and launching a publicity campaign to convince the public that the laws are outdated ... won’t work,” Romero explained.

“The Japanese consider regulators to be annoying, but not an enemy ... Loudly declaring your intention to defy them earns you nothing but contempt from the Japanese public.”

Moreover the companies' other main tactic – rally users in their support – did not work once it became clear both were violating Japanese law.

“Both Uber and Airbnb grossly over-estimated the amount of grassroots support and goodwill they would receive when they entered the Japanese market,” Romero told us.

Unexpected opposition

Another issue for Uber was the fierce opposition of the Japanese taxi industry -- which was renowned for being both reliable and safe, something Uber had challenges with in other markets. In the U.S., it was easy to denigrate taxis --however unfairly. In Japan, safety messages resonated most with the public.

“The safety of taxi services could be weakened if rideshare services are introduced in Japan,” said Kazuhiko Kikuchi, chief secretary of the taxi drivers union JIKO-Soren, which opposed Uber’s use of ride-hailing in Japan.

For Airbnb, it was the surprising effectiveness of something as simple as the police showing up and telling people it was illegal to list their homes. No fines; no legal action; yet people began to de-list homes. With new regulations that make home-sharing far more restrictive, Airbnb faces huge challenges to growth in Tokyo.

A growing trend

Tokyo is not alone. Other cities are starting to stand up to Uber, including Austin, San Antonio, Berlin and many more. Airbnb, too, is seeing cities begin to restrict its use.

Disrupting by breaking the law is no longer cool. And these companies' struggles in Tokyo may be the first sign that the gig economy -- built on venture capital valuations, law-breaking and lobbying -- is changing.

At the very least, Uber and Airbnb are seeing some chinks in their once seemingly impenetrable armor. Tokyo might be a sign of things to come as both labor organizers and cities are now better prepared to stand up to rule-breaking giants.

2017 is poised to be an interesting year for the gig economy, to say the least.

Image credit: Nalilord via Wikimedia Commons

Facebook agreed to submit its ad metrics for a third-party audit after several advertisers called on the social media giant to provide more transparency on its reporting methods.

Last Friday, Facebook said it would start working with the Media Rating Council (MRC) "over the course of the year" to put its metrics through third-party scrutiny.

In November the social network admittedly found several errors in its reporting methods and promised the issues would be fixed. As Bloomberg reported, the errors included overstating the amount of time viewers spent on Instant Article stories, how visits were calibrated (repeat visitors were double-counted instead of shown as single new impressions), how video views were calculated, and other complexities that weren't tied to Facebook's calibrations but still affected the data that marketers received.

The company also promised marketers more transparency in coming months as to how the network determines its metrics.

Last week Facebook rolled out the first peek at how it would do that, which includes providing "specific in-view and duration data for display ads" and more third-party accountability.

Part of that increased outside accountability would come from audits by MRC, which Facebook said would be able to "verify the accuracy of the information we deliver to our partners," and extending its use of third-party measurement partners like Nielsen and comScore.

This isn't the first time Facebook has come under criticism about the way it presents or calculates the information viewers and marketers want. Last year it found itself pitted between two seemingly opposing accusations: a "bias" against conservatives and a failure to advise users about censorship policies, and bowing to pressure by law enforcement agencies that allegedly didn't want certain information like videos of specific events aired.

To address the first, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with leading conservatives last May and assured them that Facebook does not use bias in its presentation.

"We've built Facebook to be a platform for all ideas. Our community's success depends on everyone feeling comfortable sharing anything they want," Zuckerberg said in a media announcement. He argued it wouldn't make business sense to suppress "political content" or other material that viewers wanted to see.

"The reality is: Conservatives and Republicans have always been an important part of Facebook," Zuckerberg wrote in his response. He added that Donald Trump's presidential campaign actually had more readers on Facebook than any other political group, with Fox News gaining more impressions than any other media outlet worldwide. "It's not even close," Zuckerberg said flatly.

But a few months later the issue of censorship surfaced again, while several law enforcement agencies were coming to grips with accusations of police violence against African Americans.

This time, criticism came from a coalition of 77 civil rights and consumer NGOs. They took issue with Facebook's reported use of censorship concerning accounts and media related to high-profile incidents such as the death of 23-year-old Korryn Gaines at the hands of police.

In a letter to Zuckerberg, the groups claimed live footage was removed from the Facebook pages of activists participating in or covering civil rights protests in Charlotte, N.C. and at the Dakota Access Pipeline site in Standing Rock, North Dakota. They further allege that Palestinian journalists found their accounts temporarily disabled.

The coalition, which includes SumofUs, Daily Kos, Color of Change and Center for Media Justice, also asked Facebook to share insight into allegations that "sent data to help police track and surveil protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore."

Facebook denied the allegations. Joel Kaplan, Faciebook's vice president of Global Public Policy, reiterated the company's policies in a letter late last year -- drawing attention to its "community standards" page, which outlines expectations for Facebook user conduct and procedures.

Kaplan said Facebook is working with "community and partners" to find ways to ensure users can share content they find interesting and important without jeopardizing the safety of themselves or others, such as through the exposure of information that would jeopardize minors' privacy. Kaplan affirmed that Facebook wanted to "allow content — including photos and videos — that “people find newsworthy, significant, or important to the public interest — even if they might otherwise violate our standards."

The coalition has since responded to Kaplan's letter, outlining a list of suggestions it says would help address accusations of censorship on Facebook pages. In a letter penned last month, the group argued that members of the Movement for Black Lives report images and dialogue relating to complaints of racism have been taken down "with the justification that it violates Community Standards."

"[Your] recent response indicates that you are addressing the problem," the groups wrote. "We disagree."

The coalition says these four steps would strengthen the social network's transparency.

• Create an appeals process that allows users to appeal the takedown of images and partial content. At the present time, it said, Facebook's appeals procedures only relate to the closure of profiles or pages.


• Ensure more transparency through written information as to why a photo or other content is removed.


• Apply standards more consistently.


• Produce a public report "that lays out basic data on user censorship" so users can become more informed and feel reassured that censorship is not being applied arbitrarily.

The groups also say they are expecting to visit the Facebook's Menlo Park headquarters this month. Neither party has announced publicly how the call for more transparency will be addressed in the future. But it does look like the social media company has a bit further to go to close the gap on all of its users' expectations.

Image credit: Flickr/Benstein

California Gov. Jerry Brown and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter are having the last laughs.

Both touted solar power during the 1970s as a tactic needed to wean the U.S. off Middle Eastern oil, combat smog and diversify the economy. As a result, both were widely mocked by their political opponents and in the media.

In addition to his push for solar, Brown also suggested California launch its own space program and eschewed the traditional perks of power during his first governorship in the mid '70s and early '80s. The result was the moniker “Governor Moonbeam,” which in part pushed him into the political wilderness for years. But now, as he pushes 80, Gov. Brown has launched an aggressive renewables program in California and enjoys high approval ratings as voters see him as the anti-Donald Trump.

Carter also faced a long road to redemption. His presidency became buried in high energy prices, the Iran hostage crisis and inflation. After being challenged for re-election in the Democratic primaries by Edward Kennedy and Brown (albeit briefly), Carter was crushed by Ronald Reagan in the November 1980 election. And the famous solar panels Carter installed atop the White House were eventually dismantled during the Reagan administration.

Those panels cost almost $30,000 and generated barely enough power to heat the executive mansion's water – but Carter saw the investment as a symbolic move to address the geopolitical realities of energy. Nevertheless, solar would not make an appearance at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue until the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Now, the 92-year-old former president is paying it forward. Carter is leasing 10 acres of what used to be peanut and soybean fields for a solar array. The field of 3,852 solar panels will provide 1.3 megawatts of power, or about half of the electricity requirements for the Georgian hamlet of Plains, the little town of 700 people that Carter put on the map over 40 years ago.

In an interview with the New York Times, Carter tried to get through to Trump, who has been dismissive of renewables and appears determined to harvest more of North America’s hydrocarbon reserves. “I hope that we’ll see a realization on the part of the new administration,” Carter told Times reporter Alan Blinder, “that one of the best ways to provide new jobs, good-paying and productive and innovative jobs, is through the search for renewable sources of energy.”

Carter, who attended Trump’s inauguration, showed he is willing to be open-minded about Trump’s policies, particularly when it comes to jobs. In an interview with the German news agency Deutsche Welle, Carter was optimistic, even though he noted China is investing in renewables at seven times the rate of the U.S.

“Sometimes, there is a more philosophical objection to this by more right-wing Republicans,” Carter said, “but [Trump] has a high priority on job creation. And if they remember the tremendous potential of creating millions of jobs in America just from renewable energy sources, that will be a very good counter-argument.”

Atlanta-based SolAmerica Energy is paying Carter about $7,000 annually to lease the land. The resulting energy will be fed into Georgia Power’s local grid, and will provide enough power for about 200 of Plains’ 215 homes, reports the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Image credit: SolAmerica Energy