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Brazil’s economic and global leadership prospects seemed boundless a decade ago, as more citizens were lifted out of poverty and the nation of 200 million people transformed from a debtor nation to a creditor nation.

Over the last few years, however, several crises roiled Latin America’s most populous nation. Bloated World Cup and Olympics budgets, the Zika crisis, last year’s presidential impeachment, and its worst recession in almost a century have shaken the country’s confidence.

The political and economic chaos has been so discombobulating that it threatens much of the progress made in the country since the turn of the century, including reforms that fought the indignities of human slavery in any form, as in forced and bonded labor.

To gain some perspective on how Brazil’s struggles have affected workers’ and human rights, TriplePundit spoke with Mércia Silva, executive director of the NGO InPacto (Nation Pact Against Slavery), while she was attending meetings in Amsterdam.

Background on forced labor in Brazil

Brazil was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery in 1888. But the practice never completely disappeared and can be found in farms and mines across the country – especially in remote regions such as the Amazon.

As Al Jazeera profiled in 2015, workers desperate for any kind of work would be recruited only to find themselves in the most nightmarish scenarios. “People will work for any reason because they need food on the table,” sighed Silva.

In 1995, the Brazilian government officially recognized the existence of forced labor in Brazil; two years later, the country’s Ministry of Labor and Employment launched “mobile inspection groups” to monitor and stop the spread of forced labor.

Those steps were a start, as raids across Brazil resulted at first a few and eventually several thousand slaves rescued annually. Nevertheless, the exploitation has continued as slavery in industries as diverse as coffee, coal, construction and apparel still posed stubborn problems.

Brazil also amended its constitution in order to redefine modern slavery and defined the practice within the federal government’s civil code. As the federal code’s Article 149 states, slavery is defined by four pillars: subjecting a person to arduous working days; forcing that person to work in degrading conditions; isolating or restricting that person’s movement; and entrapping people to work in order to pay off debts, as in payments promised to a job broker.

Eventually, as former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took power in 2003, Brazil’s federal government took an even more aggressive approach with a national registry of employers that were fined and blacklisted for exploiting slave labor, commonly known as the “dirty list.”

Companies that were exposed and proven to have used any form of bonded or forced labor were publicly disclosed on this list. The results were that large companies in sectors such as retail, energy and meatpacking refused to sign contracts with these business. Banks also refrained from issuing loans to these companies, many of which had profited by being within larger corporations’ supply chains. Once on this list, companies had two years to pay all of their fines and prove to authorities that they improved their operations’ working conditions.

The “dirty list” under attack

To assume Brazil’s forced labor problem is tied to corporate greed is a far too simplistic view. “Companies such as Carrefour, Walmart, JBS and Cargill are actually doing very well” when it comes to rooting out labor abuses in their supply chains, Silva said. After all, no international brand wants to be associated with forced labor of any nature, especially during this age of social media.

Silva recounted a time when one of the world’s largest multinational food companies was accused by several NGOs of having products with ties to slave labor. “I could call retailers, such as Walmart and Carrefour, explain that we have a problem with that food company, ask them to take those products off of their shelves, and action would follow,” Silva recalled. For once, with the "dirty list," the Brazilian government had an initiative that actually was transparent and had impact.

But in late 2014, the Supreme Court of Brazil ordered the nation’s Ministry of Labor to suspend any disclosure of the dirty list. One of Brazil’s leading construction industry associations filed a lawsuit in order stop the practice of revealing the hundreds of companies and individual employers inspectors proved were profiting from forced labor.

In response, the labor rights advocacy group Reporter Brasil and its president, Leonardo Sakamoto, pressured the federal government to continue to make this list public -- arguing that it is in the public’s best interest to know who has profited off slave labor.

The Supreme Court reversed that suspension in March 2016. But activists including Sakamoto say the Labor Ministry has not updated the list since the suspension was put in place. And what Reporter Brasil and other organizations have been able to extract from freedom of information requests shows that the list is far less comprehensive than what has been released in the past.

Meanwhile, the quest to stop slavery in any form across Brazil has plenty of opponents, such as several of the country’s leading business organizations and most powerful politicians – and include interests that were also in alignment to impeach former President Dilma Rousseff.

Now politicians are chipping away at labor laws

As Silva explained, politicians in Brasília are also scheming to work around federal labor laws by introducing new sets of laws that would make the burden of proof in cases involving slave labor much more difficult. Business owners and managers accused of using forced labor would have to be caught literally having employees in chains or locked in rooms. “They want to remove stipulations including degrading conditions and exhausting work hours,” Silva explained.

Rousseff’s impeachment last summer emboldened the nation’s senate, itself notorious for rife corruption, to weaken Brazil’s labor laws, Silva said. “Dilma was the goalkeeper who could prevent any changes to our laws, including those related to civil society, education and labor,” mused Silva. “Her removal from office was a coup against the population.” And, apparently, a blow to laborers.

The tragedy is that Brazil’s labor laws were largely successful in fighting back against slavery, which had emerged in more industries during the late 20th century. Brazil’s government, to its credit, for once had actually responded relatively quickly; and Brazil’s success on this front was a model for other nations as slavery in industries as diverse as seafood and apparel have been exposed in recent months. Now, the country is going backward.

“We had been the best in the world at showing how we can fight slavery,” Silva told 3p. “The dirty list allowed businesses, and organizations like ours, to smell the smoke before there was a fire. Now transparency is gone, and there you have the threats to too many workers.”

Image credit: André Campos/Reporter Brasil

Editor's Note: A version of this post originally appeared on the IEEFA blog.

By Tom Sanzillo

If the U.S. turns away from the rise of renewable energy, it will be fighting a tide on which others will ride high.

Leading the surge will be China, which already has a huge advantage in its current position at the front of the pack, as IEEFA chronicled last week in a report by Tim Buckley, our director of energy finance studies, and Simon Nichols, an IEEFA energy finance analyst. That report (China’s Global Renewable Energy Expansion: How the World’s Second-Biggest Economy Is Positioned to Lead the World in Clean-Power Investment) is a doozy in its detail on where the energy-transition action is -- and who’s leading the charge.

China has not only vastly expanded its domestic investment in renewable energy, but it is also plowing record sums into renewables markets overseas. As our report noted, China put $32 billion into foreign renewables projects in 2016 alone. And last week China said it would increase its bets on renewables by tenfold around the world before the end of 2020.

That increased bet is likely to expand China’s renewable-energy employment base beyond its current 3.5 million level. Of note on this point: Employment growth in renewables is in sharp contrast to massive worldwide layoffs in the oil, gas and coal industries (more on all that here, here and here).

Its domestic renewables push gave China priceless experience ahead of other nations; allowed it to develop leading-edge technology; educated a large, supporting labor force; and created financial mechanisms to pay for the expansion.

Now China is exporting its renewables juggernaut, taking stakes in projects of note elsewhere in Asia and in Africa, Europe, India, North America and South America. (The map to the right includes a few of the many examples of Chinese investments in renewables.)

We think the global boom in renewables will last for decades, driven not just by Chinese investment, but also by other emerging economies — and by industrialized ones as well.

Growth in solar, wind and energy-efficiency initiatives are steadily reducing the costs of production and making renewable energy cheaper than traditional sources. Public pressure to combat pollution and build collective action on global climate change is growing. These are huge combined market forces that as we speak are shaping how electricity production, especially, is being reimagined.

In the fast-moving renewables revolution, economies as diverse as those of Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Indonesia, Kosovo, Mexico, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and South Africa now have the means to foster prosperity without imposing harsh consequences on public health and the environment.

Meanwhile in the U.S., national energy-policy discussions are drifting the other way as an evidently over-the-hill gang takes power in Washington with hopes of going back in time to when companies like Exxon mattered more than they do now and when economic growth was driven by fossil fuel consumption.

Those days are done, though, and so are the days when solar- and wind-powered energy were dismissed by skeptics as sci-fi experiments or “alternative” sources to traditional fossil-fuel generation.

There’s no turning the clock back. Clean energy has gone mainstream.

Image credits: 1) Pixabay; 2) Courtesy of IEEFA

Tom Sanzillo is IEEFA’s director of finance.

By Shannon Houde

Every January, millions of people lay out goals and resolutions for the new year. But by February or March, they’ve almost always forgotten them. Resolutions to lose 10 pounds or call your parents more often are good ones, but I wonder if they are so easily breakable because of how rooted they are in routine. If you are unhappy with your day-to-day routine, sometimes you need to make a much bigger change to shake things up.

So this year, why not set a goal to make a change in the way you think about your day-to-day life, the way you think about your career? Make a 2017 resolution to find a job that will empower you to do the work you really want to do – to have an impact!

You may already have a sense of what that is, but to make this resolution one that you are going to keep, you need to get specific. Here are some tips on how to make a new year’s resolution that inspires you to get a truly fresh start in 2017.

Listen to your inner voice to be true to your purpose

I want you to ask yourself two questions:

How is success (or making a difference) defined for you? What does it look like?

• Draw a picture if you are a visual person. Or write down one word or a short sentence (mantra).  You can always change it later, but the first thing that comes to mind is probably the most authentic.

You have a distinctive set of strengths that make you unique.  Do you know what these are?

• Write down three words that define you, make you unique, are core to your true self.

These reflections are meant to help you build your personal mission statement, a universal statement about who you are and what you are on this planet to do. If these questions are hard to answer, don’t worry. You are not alone. Research has found that fewer than 20 percent of leaders have a strong sense of their own individual purpose. And even fewer still can distill their purpose into a concrete statement.

Take some time to listen to your inner voice and clearly define your mission. Remember, don’t define your purpose by what you think it should be. Frame it around the “who” you can’t help being.

Be honest with yourself about what you love doing and the potential you offer commercially

Once you have a strong sense of your purpose, it’s time to start thinking about how you can harness that passion and bring it to the real world. How can you use your personal mission to affect change? How can you find a job to help foster that purpose and grow your potential?

Start off by clearly identifying the things you are good at. Look back on your career and think about your skills and the times you have excelled. These skills or tasks should meet three criteria. Write about things you:

• Are great at doing
• Love doing
• Can get paid to do (the market wants these skills)

Sheryl Sandberg once said, “Being confident and believing in your own self-worth is necessary to achieving your potential.”  Once you define greatest capabilities and feel confident about what you have to offer, you can start to make moves toward leveraging your skills to further your purpose.

Naturally position yourself for success by reaching out through your personal network

We all have access, in one way or another, to people who can help us succeed. Making a career change means you have to be creative, hungry and determined. You never know who in your network may know someone who is hiring – just one other person they can put you in touch with. Eighty percent of job-seekers now find positions through networking. And with social media and LinkedIn, networking is now easier than ever. There is no excuse not to do it.

So, as I always say: Now is the time to call everyone you know. Share your personal mission. Share your skills. You never know who may be able make an introduction or help you make your career move.  And hey, maybe you’ll get that call in to your mom as a part of this resolution after all.

The new year is always a good time to think about ways we can improve and live happier and healthier lives. If you would like some more help defining your mission, targeting your dream job, or putting together your elevator pitch – please reach out.  My personal mission is to help people realize their potential to convert their passion into purpose and pay while having a positive impact on the environment and community. I want to hear from you.

Shannon Houde is founder of Walk of Life Consulting, the first international career coaching business focused solely on the environmental, sustainability and corporate responsibility fields.

Image credit: mstevencox via Pixabay

Republican members of the newly sworn-in Congress wasted no time in fulfilling a long-awaited vow: initiating the repeal of Obamacare. On Jan. 3, House Speaker Paul Ryan's office announced a Senate resolution to repeal the healthcare system otherwise known as the Affordable Care Act.

“This resolution sets the stage for repeal followed by a stable transition to a better healthcare system,” Ryan said in a press statement. “Our goal is to ensure that patients will be in control of their health care and have greater access to quality, affordable coverage. Today we begin to deliver on our promise to the American people.”

Just what that “better healthcare system” will look like, however, has yet to be announced. And whether it could actually improve affordability for the some-20 million Americans enrolled under ACA is just as unclear.

A number of advocates for the Affordable Care Act have weighed in since Ryan’s announcement, to explain just what the Republicans will be up against as they work toward formulating another healthcare plan.

In a Sunday blog post on RealClearPolitics, Robert Reich, former secretary of labor for the Bill Clinton administration and well known for his support of the Affordable Care Act, pointed out that the ACA’s fiercest critics will have to go a distance to develop a model that is “market-based.”

“Obamacare is already market based – relying on private, for profit health insurers,” Reich wrote. And that concept isn’t exactly working, he continued, because it allows the country’s largest insurance companies to have a disproportionate say in what consumers pay, “by threatening to drop out of any insurance system.”

Some providers have already dropped out of the ACA, or imposed limitations on their participation that weren’t part of the original discussions.

And then there’s the politics – the lack of consensus on just what repealing Obamacare really means. At one time, it meant stripping away all government involvement in healthcare coverage. This week, however, discussions heated up about just how devastating a repeal could be to the nation’s economy if it isn’t replaced with a sound, well-crafted healthcare program that addresses constituents’ demand for low-cost, comprehensive insurance options.

There’s also the fact that the ACA isn’t a puzzle of distinctly crafted provisions that can just be pulled apart and retooled upon preference, Reich insisted.

“[Every] part of Obamacare depends on every other part," he wrote. "The provision that guards against insurers denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions works because of the comprehensive nature of the ACA: Healthy people who haven’t faced that risk are the golden egg so to speak when it comes to covering the tab for a national healthcare plan. Repealing the requirement for Americans to have health insurance may sound sexy to those who oppose mandatory coverage, but it would make it much harder to ensure coverage for those who really need it, and many Republicans in Congress know that."

The ACA is complex, say RealClearPolitics writers Alexis Simendinger and James Arkin, and took years to construct. It may not be perfect, but any constructive alternative won’t be crafted in the first 100 days of the Donald Trump administration, or likely this year, they argued on Monday.

But the real challenge the ACA’s opponents will face in the Republican-controlled Congress is securing enough votes to push a repeal through. Consensus, or lack thereof, about what should take its place and what riders should be attached could have a decisive impact on the outcome. And Ryan’s stated plan to also defund Planned Parenthood is making some Republicans nervous, knowing that such efforts are largely unpopular with voters.

That brings us to the real stumbling block: Voters may want improvements when it comes to their healthcare options, according to a recent Gallup poll, but they don’t want their protections repealed.

According to a poll published last November, 43 percent of those surveyed said they favored changes to the law, but they didn’t want it scrapped. On the other hand, 37 percent said they would like to see the ACA replaced with something else.

The message for Republicans bent on repealing the ACA, say analysts, is to tread carefully and come armed with a suitable replacement that meets consumers’ expectations before pushing to repeal the country’s first comprehensive healthcare act. And given the fact that the ACA already utilizes a market-based format that, to some degree, ensures access to healthcare coverage for the country’s citizens, that challenge may not be so easy to meet.

Image credit: Flickr/Rob Crawley

We hear it all the time: Knowing your credit score and credit history is critical to maintaining your financial fitness.

Want to refinance? Getting a peek at your credit score is considered prudent before sitting down with a banker. Looking at renting a new apartment? Many landlords consider credit reports the tell-tale sign of whether you will be a good tenant. We're told having an up-to-date view of not only credit history, but also how it's tabulated numerically is a strength when dickering for that must-have home, car or lifestyle purchase.

Until recently, most of us figured the easiest way to get a snapshot of what bankers, lenders and other creditors see would be by ordering a copy of our credit score through a credit reporting agency.

While credit reporting agencies are required by law to supply consumers with a free credit report once a year, that summary doesn’t include your credit score – the actual number that suggests to lenders just how financially fit you really are. In most cases, that inside intel must be purchased from a credit agency. And not surprisingly, it often isn’t cheap.

But according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the guys that oversee and enforce regulations regarding credit reporting, getting an accurate picture of what lenders see is actually harder than it would seem.

Last week, the CFPB levied fines against two of the country’s three largest credit reporting agencies for, among other things, “deceiving consumers in marketing credit scores and credit products.” Put in layman’s terms, the CFPB asserts that TransUnion and Equifax sold products they knew might not provide the information consumers thought they were getting.

“TransUnion and Equifax deceived consumers about the usefulness of the credit scores they marketed, and lured consumers into expensive recurring payments with false promises,” CFPB Director Richard Cordray said in a statement released last week by the bureau.

Both companies base their credit assessments on specially-patented scoring models. The scores that TransUnion sells to consumers, for example, reflect credit assessments compiled by VantageScore Solutions LLC. And they are wholly different from the formula developed by its competitor, Equifax Credit Score.

What is interesting is that neither of these proprietary credit score systems is used by lenders to make credit decisions. The VantageScore Solutions model, the CFPB asserts, may have been marketed to lenders, but it isn’t necessarily the “gold standard” by banks and other lenders for determining that ever-critical lending decision.

Similarly, Equifax’s model, says CFPB, is an “educational model” and often has no bearing on decisions made by financial lenders.

Both companies, asserts the agency, misled consumers on the value of their product -- namely the ability of their patented credit-scoring system to match the assessment that lenders applied to potential customers.

“TransUnion and Equifax falsely represented that the credit scores they marketed and provided to consumers were the same scores lenders typically use to make credit decisions.” the CFPB concluded.

The bureau also took the companies to task for advertising schemes that misled consumers on the cost of their services. The companies “falsely claimed that their credit scores and credit-related products were free or, in the case of TransUnion, cost only “$1. In reality, consumers who signed up received a free trial of seven or 30 days, after which they were automatically enrolled in a subscription program.”

Some consumers also complained that it was hard to cancel subscription programs and said they kept receiving demands for payment after they canceled the service.

CFPB also accused Equifax of illegally advertising its services to consumers when they logged on to AnnualCreditReport.com, the federally-mandated site that is designed to ensure that consumers can see a free copy of their credit reports once a year. Equifax operates the free site.

“Until January 2014, consumers getting their report through Equifax first had to view Equifax advertisements. This violates the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which prohibits such advertising until after consumers receive their report,” the CFPB determined.

To address the infractions, the bureau imposed a number of fines and requirements that are directed at reimbursing affected consumers and setting stricter controls over how reporting agencies can operate:

• TransUnion received the bulk of the fines and restitution costs. The company is expected to pay “more than $13.9 million in restitution to harmed customers." It was also ordered to pay $3 million in fines to the bureau.


• Equifax’s share of restitution costs was lower at just under $3.8 million. The bureau did not indicate why Equifax’s share was lower, but it is also expected to pay $2.5 million in fines.


• Both companies must change the way they sell credit scores and “truthfully represent the usefulness of the credit scores it sells,” the bureau said.


• The companies must obtain the expressed consent of potential enrollees and must make it easy for consumers to cancel a product or service. The companies are also required to make sure consumers aren’t pursued for additional payments after they cancel a service.

Last week’s announcement comes on the heels of more than four years of investigations by the CFPB. In September 2012, the bureau published an analysis of consumer- and lender-purchased credit scores. It found that in as much as a quarter of the instances they looked at, the score that consumers received placed the applicant in a different scoring category than the one the lender’s score had designated. Consumers were therefore unable to use the scores to predict what lenders would actually see when reviewing the credit application.

The upshot, said the CFPB, is that “consumers should avoid relying on scores they purchase as the sole basis for assessing their creditworthiness when making important decisions about obtaining credit.”

Although the study acknowledged that there were as many as five different types of scoring systems that lenders could use to evaluate consumer credit-worthiness, there was no suggestion that lenders should be required to disclose the scoring system they use.

Instead, said the CFPB, consumers should check their credit reports and be vigilant in disputing errors. “Credit scores are calculated based on information in a consumer’s credit file,” the bureau concluded.

Image credit: Flickr/Miran Rijavec

By Jamie Serino

According to Giving USA, 2016 was America’s most generous year ever. Total giving grew 4.1 percent last year, according to a report prepared for the nonprofit consultancy Marts & Lundy. They expect giving will grow by 4.3 percent in 2017, with foundation giving poised for the most robust growth -- predicted to increase by 6.4 percent.

What else will 2017 bring?  Here are our predictions for the coming year:

Donor-advised funds

We heard a lot about donor-advised funds (DAFs) in 2016, and we’ll likely hear more about them this year.

DAFs are becoming an increasingly popular option for making charitable donations, particularly for wealthy individuals and families.  Assets in DAFs have grown every year since 2009, reaching a record high in 2015 of $78.64 billion. Giving to DAFs is far outpacing overall charitable giving.

Per the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual ranking of the 400 U.S. charities that raise the most in private support, 4 of the top 10 charities named run donor-advised funds. And for the first time the sponsor of a donor-advised fund (Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund) was ranked No. 1.

As the popularity of donor-advised funds continues to grow, the push to demonstrate impact will begin to mirror the increasing expectations for traditional foundations and nonprofits – and much of that demand will come from the donors themselves.

Additionally, the ongoing debate surrounding DAFS, which includes issues around the potentially unchecked power of DAFs to influence philanthropic initiatives, will lead to external pressures for institutions running DAFs to demonstrate impact. The growing emphasis across the industry on measurement and reporting will hasten the pace at which DAFs are expected to show the results they are having on improving society.

Community foundations expanding beyond local geography

Community foundations have traditionally catered to, well, their communities. However, our world grows increasingly inter-connected, thanks to the immediate availability of information. As more communities recognize that certain issues are larger than their localities and as we continue to challenge the traditional definition of “community,” community foundations will respond by looking outside the boundary lines of their towns, cities, counties, and even our country.

Examples of community foundations expanding giving and problem-solving beyond their local communities include the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and the Community Foundation of Boone County. These community foundations are recognizing that certain issues cross local community borders and may benefit from collaboration with other community foundations, nonprofit organizations, the private sector, and other members of the social good space.

The key here is collaboration across the entire philanthropic ecosystem. And in 2017, we will certainly see a continued push for community foundations to connect and share best practices, learn from each other, and bring those lessons back to their home communities.

Measurement

The importance of measurement will continue to grow in the coming year. Donors, stakeholders, government, media, and other forces both internal and external are pushing the need for demonstrable giving results to the forefront. Reporting that goes beyond simple outputs to measuring actual outcomes will become a must in 2017, particularly with the availability of technology that enables such measurement and reporting.

Another factor to consider over the coming year is measurement against the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These 17 Goals and 169 targets set forth by the United Nations seek to end poverty and hunger, achieve gender equality, and provide quality education for all, amongst other goals addressing the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development by the year 2030.

Whilst the predecessor to the SDGs, the Millennium Development Goals, focused on developing countries, the SDGs apply to and have been adopted by both developed and developing countries around the globe, including the United States. Therefore, funders will be encouraged to increasingly connect their efforts to the SDGs, both within domestic grant-making and globally.

Changing tides in government

With any change in administration, the priorities for government funding also change -- which trickles down to the foundation level as they adjust their giving to meet what they see as gaps for social, economic and environmental initiatives.

Conversations are already happening around likely changes to funding for public health, refugees, climate change and more. And with the incoming administration’s platform built on shaking things up, the philanthropic sector will be ready to act.

Technology

In 2016, we saw an increased demand for outcomes and impact measurement, and the adoption of technology began to be an imperative for foundations hoping to meet this demand and continue to drive the sector forward. In 2017, we expect to see this demand only accelerate.

Traditionally, the philanthropic sector has experienced a “technology lag." But foundations are increasingly finding that inclusive, cloud-based configurable platforms are streamlining and enhancing their collaboration and work with grantee partners. In addition, as more philanthropic organizations seek to become more data-driven, results-based and impact focused, they will increasingly eschew legacy customized products and turn to configurable, cloud-based technology platforms to facilitate grants management and outcomes measurement.

While 2017 will certainly be a challenging year for the philanthropic sector, there are also some exciting opportunities ahead.  The sector has an opportunity to work together to propel philanthropy more fully into the digital age as technology continues to play a bigger role in donor/foundation/grantee relationships. In addition, there is an opportunity for organizations to be more data-driven, to measure more and to be more outcomes and impact-focused.

Ideally, these efforts, combined with increased collaboration and partnership, will lead the entire social good sector to more effective campaigns that have greater impact.

Image credit: Flickr/asenat29

Jamie Serino is Director of Marketing at MicroEdge + Blackbaud.

By Dave Gorham

Emergency weather planning is important for business. No matter how tight of a ship you run, Mother Nature remains unpredictable and one never knows when a disaster may hit.

That’s why savvy, forward-thinking executives create risk management and business continuity plans to ensure businesses continue operating in the event of an emergency. Without these protocols, chaos could ensue and the business may shut down for good.

We’re constantly protecting business processes during emergencies. But supporting employees during these occurrences may be the most important business continuity decision we make.

Put employee safety first during emergencies

In 2011, multiple natural disasters hit the state of Missouri. Long-traveled tornadoes ravaged the state and dominated the evening news for weeks. Although the destruction was unflinchingly devastating, the tornadoes did more than just destroy buildings and take lives — they wreaked havoc on the support systems that are the network of a thriving community.

As tragic as a lost home is to a family, a lost support system to a community is more so. Even those who are unaffected are unable to assist those friends, neighbors, family members and co-workers who are in tremendous need.

This makes it even more imperative for members of a community to embrace a culture of preparedness, yet so few do. Businesses large and small rely on their employees to run them. But without a level of preparedness at home, the survivability of these businesses will be tested in the wake of a disaster.

Here are some basic steps management can adopt to help employees help themselves and help the company:

1. Spread the word

Communications are often at least disrupted during weather emergencies. It’s important to have multiple ways of reaching your entire staff, including landline phones, voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP), cell phones, texting and mass-messaging systems.

A centralized list of current employee contact information is vital for communications. Apps like GroupMe and even Twitter also allow for mass messaging in emergency situations. (Keep in mind that some apps, like Twitter, are public, and that may not be appropriate for your business.) Always make sure multiple key employees know how to initiate disaster preparedness protocols to keep critical systems and staff running, no matter the time of day.

During emergency situations, texting is typically easier and faster than calling, as phone lines can be jammed and text data travels more easily than voice data. And most cell phones have texting abilities, not just the expensive smartphones. Be sure employees (and their family members) are well-versed in the texting capabilities of their phones.

2. Prepare employees at home

Employees who are unprepared for a disaster will take longer to return to work and will have difficulty maintaining productivity when they eventually return. It's understandable, but their attention will be diverted by the crisis at home and professional responsibilities will suffer, which can cripple operations. By encouraging employees to take even basic preparedness steps at home, positive results in the workplace in the wake of a disaster will materialize.

Facility managers should understand the repercussions of all decisions being made regarding work schedules, production timelines, overtime, HR capabilities and more. The ability to split time between work and home needs to be considered, discussed and — if possible — encouraged.

The ability for employees to continue to be paid and seek ongoing medical attention needs to be absolute. Communicate regularly, and be fully transparent with everyone on the team. Help employees understand the risks, and provide support for their families and homes because they’re experiencing the disaster alongside everyone else.

3. Confirm your protocol

Having emergency methods in place doesn’t help when the team isn’t aware of them. Alerting employees and activating a backup supply chain isn’t a simple, on-the-fly decision that can be executed without advanced planning. It takes practice and buy-in across the organization, as well as from vendors who very well may also be in crisis.

Always be sure you’re basing decisions on solid information and don’t be afraid to get advice from experts. Obviously, there's no need to shut down operations or enact emergency procedures unless there’s an actual emergency. However, when one hits, you’ll be glad procedures and support systems are already in place and that everyone’s trained on how to react before, during, and after the emergency. Properly prepared, you'll have confidence the decisions you make are the right ones.

The bottom line

We all strive to run our businesses like well-oiled machines, but when disaster occurs, it can easily shut down operations for those that aren’t prepared. A little proactive planning today goes a long way in preserving your business when disaster strikes tomorrow. Don’t let all the hard work you put into your business go to waste.

Image credit: Pixabay

StormGeo senior meteorologist Dave Gorham is a former U.S. Air Force meteorologist with expertise in aviation meteorology and severe weather. Dave is one of the few servicemen to directly support both Air Force One and Marine One, stationed at Andrews Air Force Base and Camp David, respectively. After the Air Force, Dave worked as an on-camera meteorologist for an NBC affiliate in North Texas and as an on-air meteorologist at Houston’s KUHF-FM radio station before returning to his aviation roots with Universal Weather and Aviation.

It seems President Barack Obama aims to cement his environmental legacy during his final weeks in office, and the latest move is a big one. On Friday, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management formally denied permits for oil and gas seismic testing along the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf, from Delaware down to Florida.

Oil and gas activities have not been conducted anywhere along the Atlantic Coast since the 1980s, and it looks like the industry will be in a state of suspended animation for at least a few years more.

A huge win for Atlantic Coast businesses

The environmental organization Oceana is among those following the seismic testing issue. And it was out with a press release practically before the ink dried on the Obama administration's announcement.

As described by Oceana, the type of proposed testing -- seismic airgun blasting -- is a lengthy, invasive procedure that puts marine mammals at risk, disrupts fisheries (both directly and by altering migration patterns), and can kill fish eggs and larvae.

After praising BOEM's decision to deny the permits, Oceana toted up some relevant numbers:

"As of today, more than 120 East Coast municipalities, over 1,200 elected officials, and an alliance representing over 35,000 businesses and 500,000 fishing families have publicly opposed offshore drilling and/or seismic airgun blasting. These individuals and groups understand that nearly 1.4 million jobs and more than $95 billion in gross domestic product are at risk if dangerous oil activities occur in the Atlantic Ocean."

One indicator of the intense opposition to the permits was demonstrated by the first meeting of the newly formed Business Alliance for Protecting the Atlantic Coast last September. The meeting drew attendees representing more than 7,000 businesses from New Jersey to Georgia.

The driving force behind the Alliance is the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce. Its President and CEO Fred Knapp had this to say about seismic testing:

“Seismic testing is not a high-profile issue like offshore drilling ... But it is the destructive demon seed that grows up into the deservedly-feared offshore drilling. Atlantic Coast businesses will not let that seed be planted just so seismic testing companies can reap millions in profits from the oil industry.”

Why seismic testing?

According to BOEM, oil and gas activity along the Atlantic Coast has historically been negligible, so it's fair to ask why there was any recent interest in seismic testing to begin with.

Starting in 1976, the agency (a division of the Department of the Interior) held ten oil and gas lease sales. Approximately 100 wells of various types were drilled in the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf. But within a just few years, it became apparent that the area was not commercially viable. All of the wells were abandoned by 1984.

A lot has changed since then.

The American Petroleum Institute, which is naturally interested in Atlantic oil and gas activity, has promoted seismic testing as a relatively safe, low-risk method for exploration. API offers this explainer for the renewed interest in Atlantic waters:

"... The last surveys of the Atlantic OCS took place about 30 years ago. Since that time, technological advances have dramatically improved our ability to pinpoint likely reservoirs, which makes existing resource estimates in that area out of date. New surveys using state-of-the-art techniques and technology would provide a better understanding of the oil and natural gas resource potential in the Atlantic OCS."

The latest BOEM update on oil and gas reserves in the Outer Continental Shelf indicates the Atlantic waters could be ripe for the picking under current exploration and drilling technology. While not as vast as those in the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic reserves are significant.

BOEM to Atlantic drillers: No testing, for now

Despite the huge potential at hand, BOEM exercised its environmental stewardship role to deny permission for testing. The agency explained its reasoning in a brief but firm press release.

First and foremost, the entire Atlantic Program Area under the agency's jurisdiction will be off the list for oil and gas leasing until 2022. That includes the two areas where the seismic testing was proposed, the Mid-Atlantic (Delaware, Virginia and North Carolina) and South Atlantic (South Carolina, Georgia and the northeastern coast of Florida).

In other words, BOEM argues, there is no immediate need to conduct tests because companies can't obtain leases for at least five years.

The industry could counter-argue that tests are needed now for long-term planning purposes, but it appears that BOEM does not ascribe to API's views on the potential for harm:

"... Guided by an abundance of caution, we believe that the value of obtaining the geophysical and geological information from new airgun seismic surveys in the Atlantic does not outweigh the potential risks of those surveys’ acoustic pulse impacts on marine life ..."

BOEM also drew a distinction between deep penetration seismic surveys and those in shallower waters:

"... Seismic airguns can penetrate several thousand meters beneath the seafloor. Surveys for other, shallow depth purposes typically do not use airguns. While surveys may have some impacts to marine life, airgun seismic surveys have the potential for greater impacts."

Another key point has to do with the potential for exploration technology to develop along more precise and less risky lines. In that case, information gathered now through seismic airgun testing would be outdated by the time the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf is under consideration for oil and gas leasing again.

The prospects for that never happening look good, given the opposition to seismic testing by both environmental and business stakeholders in Atlantic Coast states.

On the other hand, President-elect Donald Trump's choice of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State offers a glimmer of hope to oil and gas stakeholders, so stay tuned.

Image via U.S. BOEM

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California is in the midst of its sixth straight year of drought, so conserving water must become a daily practice for Golden State residents. Enter the state’s draft plan to make water conservation a "way of life." Put forth at the behest of Gov. Jerry Brown, the plan aims to achieve long-term efficient water use and meet drought preparedness goals.

The plan builds on the executive order Gov. Brown issued last May that requires the state to do several key things, including use water more wisely. It “represents a shift from statewide mandates to a set of conservation standards applied based on local circumstances, including population, temperature, leaks, and types of commercial and industrial use,” wrote the state agencies behind the framework. 

The Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the State Water Board will now require urban water suppliers to report monthly on water use, conservation and enforcement. Both the DWR and State Water Board will develop new water-efficiency targets as a framework for urban water agencies. The targets will be customized to fit the conditions of each urban water supplier.

The executive order also required the following:

Eliminate water waste. Wasteful practices like hosing off sidewalks and driveways, washing cars with hoses lacking a shut-off nozzle, and watering lawns in a way that causes run-off will be permanently prohibited. Those practices have been temporarily prohibited since emergency water conservation efforts began in July 2014.

For its part, the State Water Board and the DWR will take actions to minimize water system leaks across the state which continue to waste large amounts of water. Over 700,000 acre-feet of water a year are estimated to be lost due to leaks. That is enough water to supply 1.4 million homes for a year.

Strengthen local drought resilience. The DWR will strengthen the standards for local water shortage contingency plans, which are part of the management plans that water districts are required to submit every five years. Districts will plan for droughts lasting at least five years, plus more frequent and severe periods of drought under the new, strengthened standards.

Improve agricultural water efficiency and drought planning. The existing requirements for agricultural water management plans will be updated so irrigation districts are able to quantify their customers’ water use and plan for water supply shortages. Under current law, agricultural water districts serving 25,000 acres or more are required to file water management plans, but the executive order requires irrigation districts serving 10,000 acres or more to file plans as well.

The water reductions Californians achieved during drought must continue

Californians have greatly reduced water use since Gov. Brown issued mandatory statewide water restrictions in April 2015.

The state cumulatively cut water use by 22.6 percent from June 2015 to November of last year, compared with the same months in 2013. That totals 2.35 million acre-feet of water, enough to supply over 11 million people -- or over a quarter of the state’s population -- for a year. Despite the lifting of the mandatory water restrictions last May, some water suppliers actually saw increased conservation levels.

Although California received more rainfall last year, snowpack levels are still low. The DWR’s snow survey at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada range found a snow-water equivalence of six inches, which is 5.3 inches less than the average for early January. Electronic readings from 105 stations throughout the Sierra Nevada found that the water content of the northern Sierra snowpack is 7.2 inches, which is only 68 percent of the multi-decade average for this time of the year. The readings for central and southern Sierra are 65 percent and 73 percent of average, respectively. Statewide snowpack was 30 percent below average as of Jan. 3.

The current snowpack conditions might just become routine because of climate change, a new study by UCLA researchers found. The study predicted that during April snow-covered areas could be reduced by 48 percent by the end of the century, making the state’s plans to make water conservation a way of life that much more important.

Image credit: Flickr/Eric Norris

With power shifts in Washington and misinformation spreading around climate change, it is gut-check time for corporate social responsibility and sustainability professionals. So, what goals should we set in Earth 2017?

Sustainability is a war for consumer market share

From an economics perspective, sustainability has always been a battle for the consumer. Sustainability is a question of human consumption. It is in a marketshare battle for consumers’ hearts and pocketbooks.

The great news is that consumers are aligning with their role in generating positive change. The 2017 Ford Future Trends report found that 47 percent of global adults agreed that individual consumers have the most power to affect positive change.

But here is the economic reality that every CSR and sustainability professional should write down and post on their bathroom mirror:

Sustainability will only win marketshare leadership if it wins on price.

Research points to 20 percent of consumers paying more for products with higher values. But for the other 80 percent of their procurement decisions begin with price. Adding convenience, authenticity, superior product attributes and values to a competitive price is the recipe for marketshare leadership.

CSR’s expanded role

Winning market share is the path for winning influence in any business. Growing revenues remains the No. 1 focus of American CEOs. Here are three steps CSR and sustainability professionals must take to win the type of organizational influence now held by marketing and sales:

1. A singular focus on price competitiveness. Our profession should take great pride in its success at reducing costs by reducing environmental impacts. Now it is time to place the weight of our focus on winning price competitiveness. The great news is that the smart/clean technologies enabling sustainability's price competitiveness are growing their manufacturing economies of scale. Winning on price is now possible. Doing so must be our profession's performance goal.


2. Drive authenticity to win customers. Isn’t it time, especially with Election 2016, to take the gloves off on the advertising of more sustainable goods and services? Think Pepsi versus Coke taste-test advertising. These ads were historic in proving the power of comparative advertising. They significantly moved Pepsi’s market share. Our profession must fight for, win funding of, and help implement this type of advertising for sustainable goods and services.


3. Win millennials. Millennials are now the foundation for business success. In 2016, millennials displaced the baby boomers as the most employed generation in America. In 2017, they will assume earned income purchasing leadership. Urban millennials are the consumer force driving connectivity, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, smart cities, healthy lifestyles, diversity and renewable energy. They buy based on a product being cool with a purpose. They choose to work for companies that have sustainability and values incorporated in their jobs. CSR and sustainability professionals will win organizational influence if they enable their businesses to win millennials as customers and work associates.

CSR’s disruptive tension

This approach may sound like, or could be, career suicide. Most CSR departments are made up mostly of staff jobs with limited resources. They often are not included in marketing, sales, finance and operations meetings.

Destructive change is the process that can open organizational doors for CSR and sustainability professionals. Destructive change is revenue cannibalization of exiting products to win breakout revenue success for a superior product. It is being used by companies from Apple to Walmart. To win organizational influence, CSR professionals must become destructive change-agents and align with the other destructive change-agents in the organization.

If you are in an organization that appreciates the need to cannibalize an existing product to win market share, then step into this culture. If you are in an organization focused on protecting existing product market share, then acquire the knowledge and evidence to fight for revenue cannibalization as the 21st-century's path for winning customers and growing sales. The great news is that there are marketing professionals who get it. There are senior officers who see the future and will take the risks necessary to win market share.

Earth 2017 has thrust an expanded mission on CSR professionals. It is to become their organization's change agents and build the organizational network that will win market share through sustainability.

Image credit: Pexels