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By Kelsey Halling

A couple of years ago, a graduate student and I sat down to enjoy a cold beverage in an oppressively hot Haitian bar. The topic? The importance of listening to feedback over prescribing solutions.

“But how do you go about getting that information?” she asked.

“It’s simple,” I responded. “You pick a neighborhood and get an introduction to someone who lives there. Then pay them to join you for a day of walking from house to house, meeting their neighbors, and asking if you can talk to them about garbage. When a neighbor says yes, survey them.”

“But, that would take so much time!” she exclaimed.

It does.

And it’s worth it. And a lot of organizations don’t do it.

Listening

One of the things I am most proud of when it comes to the way that our company, Thread, conducts business, is that we have spent the past five years asking good questions as opposed to prescribing answers. Asking good questions is one of the most important skills a person, or a team, can develop. It’s also a skill attributed to successful high-performers, so it stands to reason that it translates as an indicator of a successful company.

Good questions require listening, synthesizing data, seeing the gaps in your own understanding or planning, and then finding the right information to make the best decision. Questioning, rather than prescribing is what leads to innovative, collaborative, sustainable solutions. I believe that this is why Thread has been successful in Haiti -- an environment where we have watched many organizations fail.

When we fail to listen

It happens often in economic development. People/governments/companies travel to a poor community and tell the people there what they need. Because we know better, right? Often times, they bring them stuff they think is needed. Water filtration systems are put in place, schools are built, and a bunch of kids are given shoes. These are all good things, right?

Except that, the water filtration system is made of expensive parts that need to be imported from far away. After a few months, something breaks and no one can replace it. Then the system sits and rusts. Schools are built and sit empty because there are no teachers to run them. Local shoe makers are put out of business. 

All of this happens because people arrive thinking they are doing a good thing, and no one takes the time to first check their hypothesis with the communities they are trying to help.

First step: Talk to people

Thread was built on the idea that “If Haiti can turn trash into money, that's good.” We spent months testing this theory. We asked more people than I can remember (which is why we keep meticulous records) about jobs and waste, family life and neighborhood resources.

It’s easier to overthink than it is to hit the pavement and start asking things like:

• What do you do with your waste?


• What do you think about plastic bottles?


• Are you interested in collecting these bottles if we pay you for them?


• Would this be a good thing for your neighborhood?


• Is there something else more important for your community?


• What do you need? What do you want? How can we work with you to be useful?

It’s only through asking that we were able to adjust our methods and approach based on constantly gathered feedback. Quickly, we started to learn and adjust.

Listening to improve

We recently hosted our second quarterly meeting of this year with our Haitian suppliers in Port-au-Prince. Historically, these meetings have been led by Thread or a partner organization. This time, we experimented with a supplier-run meeting. We talked to our suppliers and elected two leaders, Manniqe and Equel. Thread’s Haiti Field Manager, Richardson, coached them on how to build an agenda and facilitate a meeting. 

Manique and Equel did a great job. The goal in this new format is to make these meetings a habit that happens whether or not Thread is there. I like problem-solving and sometimes I have good ideas, but I’m not hubristic enough to think that I should be standing in front of more than 40 entrepreneurs telling them how to run their businesses in Haiti.

I’m there to listen, to support, and occasionally bring access to financing. I believe that the answers to all of the challenges these entrepreneurs face are in that room in their collective expertise. If we can facilitate good discussion and ask the right questions, they will learn so much more from one another than I could ever teach them. Again, the solutions are only found through listening.

The impact: It’s about lasting change

We spend a lot of time at Thread talking about the transparency in our supply chain, the impact stats behind our fabric, and the income being generated in poor communities through the recycling of plastic. Sometimes this overshadows what we really consider to be our responsibility to the places and people we work with.

We don’t just know where our raw materials come from and visit once a year to satisfy a compliance requirement. We go beyond auditing to focus on coaching. We prefer lasting development to compliance. We don’t just generate income opportunities, we teach people how to run and grow businesses. That’s how we measure responsibility.

I’ve had the privilege of watching entrepreneurs like Manique and Nadine grow from learning to run a business into successful entrepreneurs. Now, they are becoming leaders in their industry.

This is what we’re talking about when we say things like “where your stuff comes from is just as important as where you take it.” This is what we mean by the phrase "Ground to Good." It’s beyond ensuring that labor laws are met, that minimum wage is being paid, that the material is certified recycled content. It’s the belief that we can leave some part of this world better and help people develop the skills they need to keep improving it.

Follow Thread to learn more about how entrepreneurs in Haiti are growing their businesses and making their communities better places to live and work. T-shirt made from the plastic collected by people like Manique and Nadine are available on the Thread website.

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Images courtesy of Thread

Kelsey Halling is director of impact for Thread. She measures, manages, and improves the impact Thread has on people, planet, and profit along every step of the journey from a plastic bottle to the most responsible fabric on the planet. Follow Thread on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook to learn more.

https://vimeo.com/173816330

By Will Rodbell

How does a company make the shift from a risk-focused sustainability approach to an approach where global citizenship is embedded into its business strategy? That’s the question at the core of the first episode of thinkPARALLAX’s new video series, Think and Drink.

In this first installment, thinkPARALLAX Co-Founder and Chief Creative Strategist Guusje Bendeler sits down with James McDonald, sustainability manager at International Paper, to talk candidly about the evolution of sustainability at International Paper, the world’s largest producer of packaging, pulp and paper.

“We’ve been on a sustainability journey for quite a while — almost two decades now,” McDonald says in the interview. “But about a year ago, we changed the whole paradigm within the company.”

In the video, McDonald talks about:

• The evolution from risk mitigation to value creation


• The shift to talking about global citizenship more inclusively — including not only people and planet, but also how it drives product innovation and business strategy


• Engaging International Paper's diverse 55,000-employee workforce worldwide


• Getting internal buy-in


• Breaking down internal silos to create company-wide alignment with IP's strategy


• The return on investment and measuring tangible vs. intangible


• Figuring where and how to invest capital to address challenges and continue make the greatest impact


• And more…

“At International Paper, we feel like we’ve got a pretty good story to tell,” McDonald says. “We use renewable resources, we use renewable energy in the manufacturing of our products, and the majority of our products are easily recyclable. But the actual sustainability story has been quite a journey.”

Watch the video and stay tuned for further Think and Drink episodes from thinkPARALLAX.

Each installment takes you outside the boardroom and around the world to reveal the successes, failures, and lessons learned from the brands leading organizational and societal change. At each stop you’ll hear insights and experiences from various thought leaders throughout the U.S. and world, on trending topics relating to purpose, sustainability and corporate citizenship communications.

For more info visit http://www.thinkparallax.com/perspectives/ or contact Will Rodbell at Will@thinkparallax.com

Silicon Valley A-lister and Facebook board member Peter Thiel has become infamous for funding the Hulk Hogan "sex tapes" lawsuit that bankrupted his nemesis, Gawker Media. He is also making a name for himself as a prominent supporter of Donald Trump's presidential aspirations. Now he has drawn the two threads together in a newly published op-ed in the New York Times.

If Thiel thought the piece would add to his stature as a thought leader, guess again...

Thiel, Trump and Univision

Before taking a look at Thiel's op-ed, let's pause to note that the law of unintended consequences seems to be at play here.

Thiel has always claimed that his support for the Hogan lawsuit is rooted in a brief (very brief) 2007 Gawker article that outed him as a gay man. The way he tells it, he is a defender of personal privacy and a champion of the little guy against media bullies.

However, Gawker's status as a regular critic of Thiel's business endeavors appears to be the real working factor behind Thiel's desire to run Gawker out of business.

If that's the case, Thiel just pulled the rug out from under himself.

Yesterday, Gawker -- a relatively small online-only outfit -- was sold at bankruptcy auction to the Spanish-language media industry leader Univision.

The deal is awaiting final approval by a bankruptcy court, but for now let's assume it goes through.

If Univision chooses to run stories about Thiel, those stories will go far beyond Gawker's niche audience to reach millions of mainstream viewers and readers.

Coincidentally or not, Univision intersects on a negative plane with the Donald Trump for President campaign. It was one of the first organizations to earned a spot on Trump's media blacklist, and its international audience is hardly appreciative of Trump's appeal to nativism.

As a prominent Trump supporter, Thiel could easily find himself caught in the crosshairs whenever Univision trains its sights on the candidate.

That goes double because Thiel himself has demonstrated a proclivity for white nationalism.

Is personal privacy really the issue?

Aside from a shared affinity with white nationalism, an antipathy to the media is the main trait that Thiel and Trump have in common.

That's where the new op-ed comes in. It appeared on Monday under the title "The Online Privacy Debate Won’t End With Gawker."

The first thing to notice is actually the last line in the column, which provides this brief identifier:

Peter Thiel is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor.

If the issue is privacy and the media -- and it is -- then perhaps the New York Times should have insisted that Thiel's identifier include a few more relevant details, namely, that he is a prominent supporter of the media's self-proclaimed arch-enemy Donald Trump.

How prominent? Thiel emerged as a Trump delegate in California in May, a role that he somehow parlayed into an important speaking slot during the Republican National Convention in July.

Thiel also happens to be a Facebook board member. That high status position has become particularly relevant this year, as Facebook plans to transition from social media to a more inclusive news platform.

The matter of Thiel's role as an "investor" also deserves some explaining. One of his major, longstanding investments is in the data mining company Palantir. Palantir is in the business of connecting the dots to expose corporate fraud, terror plots and domestic crime but it can also dredge up information that ensnares the innocent.

In other words, Palantir is not a good look for someone who insists on the sanctity of personal privacy. It's almost as if Thiel is using the privacy mantra to distract attention from his financial interests.

The Peter Thiel Op-Ed Irritates Rep. Jackie Speier

With all this in mind, let's take a look at that op-ed.

Thiel spends almost the entire first part of the piece -- a hefty 700 words -- on a detailed defense of his involvement in the Gawker case. He avoids the topic of how his actions -- bankrolling a lawsuit to put a media company out of business -- might undermine the ability of the media to serve its role in American democracy.

After those 700 words he leads off with this platitude:

A free press is vital for public debate.

That thought takes up just one paragraph, after which Thiel quickly launches back into self defense mode.

This next part of his argument is even more self serving than the first 700 words. In essence, Thiel claims that the entire U.S. House of Representatives is on his side:

The United States House of Representatives is considering the Intimate Privacy Protection Act, a bipartisan bill that would make it illegal to distribute explicit private images, sometimes called revenge porn, without the consent of the people involved. Nicknamed the Gawker Bill...

(emphasis mine)
Regarding that nickname, apparently Thiel made it up on his own. The op-ed brought a swift rebuttal from the bill's sponsor, U.S. Representative Jackie Speier (D-CA), as reported in The Hill:

The “[Intimate Privacy Protection Act] was not created to address any one case specifically,” she said. “At the core of my legislation is the critical need for the federal government to deter this destructive conduct and to provide victims — no matter who they are — with access to justice.”

And she pushed back against the use of the “Gawker Bill” moniker in Thiel’s piece.

“It is not ‘the Gawker bill’ or the ‘revenge porn bill,’” she said. “It is the Intimate Privacy Protection Act, and it does exactly what its name suggests: protects the intimate privacy of all individuals.”

Ouch!

Peter Thiel really steps in it this time

Thiel's ties to white nationalism, data mining and other quirks, such as his interest in consuming the blood of young people, are still flying under the mainstream radar.

However, the op-ed has lit a fire under organizations that share space in the media landscape with Gawker.

Vice, for example, weighed in with the headline, "Peter Thiel ties his Gawker crusade to a revenge porn bill, but advocates are skeptical."

Buzzfeed was more direct:

[Thiel] also radically downplays his influence in matters of online privacy as a billionaire board member of two companies with vast data-mining operations: Facebook and CIA-backed Palantir.

TechCrunch wasn't buying what Thiel was selling, either:

...Thiel framed his crusade against Gawker as a gay rights issue in an essay that distorts the truth of the situation and fails to address the implications of a billionaire choosing to bankrupt a media company.

Mainstream media is also beginning to weigh in. The Atlantic scored this meaty statement from Rep. Speier's chief of staff regarding the invented "Gawker Bill:"

“That is 100 percent not a thing,” her chief of staff, Josh Connolly, told me. “And it’s really self-serving, I think, on his part, to try to conflate our bill with their very specific case that has all sorts of loaded issues associated with it.”

That's just a sampling. Now that Thiel has got everyone's attention, his next public attempt to explain himself will most likely be examined more closely.

Just as Trump has blown up the current iteration of the Republican Party, Thiel -- a self-identified Libertarian -- is on track to expose present-day Libertarianism as nothing more than a justification for self indulgence.

Photo (cropped): via Sportsfile Web Summit on flickr.com, creative commons license.

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Over a decade ago, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger drove a shiny new Hummer into a fueling station near Los Angeles International Airport to announce his plans for a “hydrogen highway.” One promise Schwarzenegger touted during the previous year’s recall campaign against Gray Davis was to convert one of his energy-hogging Hummers into one that would run on hydrogen.

It made for a great press event, though observers noted that the alternative fuel vehicle at the venue was not one from Schwarzenegger’s collection, but a prototype built by General Motors. Hydrogen as a vehicle fuel offered many promises. Supporters claimed hydrogen could become a potentially limitless source of fuel with no harmful emissions that could help California meet its ambitious climate change and clean energy goals.

Schwarzenegger’s ambition was to oversee the construction of up to 200 hydrogen fueling stations along California’s most important highways by the end of 2010. But several factors eventually led to the demise of Schwarzenegger’s hydrogen highway. The governor’s declining poll numbers, the 2008-2009 fiscal crisis, American automakers’ struggles and the lack of a viable market all contributed to this project fading away by 2010. Although Schwarzenegger said at the sunset of his administration that he would continue to be an advocate for hydrogen as a transport fuel, he, and much of state, had largely stopped promoting it an option.

The hydrogen highway may have fallen far short of fulfilling its goals, but that doesn't mean hydrogen lacks a future, despite the many criticisms of this fuel. “There was a lot of technological development that certainly helps us today,” said Catherine Dunwoody, chief of the Fuel Cell Program at the California Air Resources Board (CARB). “The major challenges were really not technology, but were more from a business perspective.”

But hydrogen is making a comeback, even at a time when electric vehicles keep improving in design, range and performance while oil is still mired in a two-year price slump. Two years ago, the California Energy Commission asked several companies to build new hydrogen fuel stations across the state. And more automakers, including Honda, Hyundai and Toyota, have rolled out hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles for sale within California.

From great idea to business success

History is full of new and innovative technology and business ideas that at first seemed great, but were ahead of their time. Often, the enthusiasm was not enough to overcome market realities. Former President Jimmy Carter’s solar panels on the White House. The Coleco Adam and personal computers. Apple’s handheld Newton. Schwarzenegger’s hydrogen Hummer. Project Better Place’s network of battery-changing stations in Israel.

But hydrogen fuel cells are making a comeback for a bevy of reasons, not just because the old hydrogen highway idea was “ahead of its time.” It takes more than just a great idea, capital and a dynamic leader to turn a concept into a dynamic.

As Dunwoody of CARB told TriplePundit, there has been much technological progress with hydrogen over the past 10 to 15 years. And a good part of that occurred under the stewardship of the Schwarzenegger administration.

One of hydrogen’s largest hurdles was funding. A decade ago, those tasked with expanding California’s hydrogen automobile market were struggling to keep the momentum going. The state legislature looked at those grants year-to-year, which made it easy for politicians to find a reason to cut funding for a program that would not necessarily reap short-term results. Some money came from federal programs, which could always cease to arrive after yet another D.C. budget battle.

The funds for the program were often one-off grant programs, which left professionals at the state’s Air Resources Board and Energy Commission struggling to keep the state’s hydrogen fuel programs viable. Dunwoody noted that for the past three to four years, a steady stream of funding from Sacramento has helped the program thrive and allowed the state to build more stations.

That, in turn, helps gain confidence from automakers that are hesitant to invest in a new line of vehicles if there is no infrastructure. “Not having to go year-to-year at the whim of the legislature helps,” Dunwoody explained.

Don't forget the branding

Branding is another factor that held hydrogen down. Despite the sharp criticisms lobbed at this fuel, hydrogen could have a bright future with abundant feedstock, no noxious emissions and fast refueling. But the “hydrogen highway” moniker did not help its advocates’ cause. Was this a special transport project only for hydrogen cars? Did it really make sense to have a line of hydrogen fuel stations from the border with Mexico to the Oregon state line? Is this a pet project benefiting a few automobile aficionados who are the only one that can afford such a car?

Hence this initiative is now called the California Hydrogen Refueling Network. While the expansion of hydrogen filling stations across California is still the overarching goal, market realities have pushed the concentration of these stations into areas with higher populations.

The bottom line

Hydrogen fuel cells are still a nascent technology. But proponents appear to have solved the “chicken and the egg problem” of whether the infrastructure or the cars need to come first.

California’s commitment to hydrogen as one compelling option for the future of transport has earned the trust of the automakers. Toyota and Hyundai committed to the delivery of a small but steady number of hydrogen-powered cars to the Golden State.

Furthermore, the state’s progress on hydrogen has inspired action across the world, from the Northeastern U.S. to countries such as Germany and Japan.

The hydrogen vehicle market still has a steep mountain to climb here in California. The state has a goal of tens of thousands of such cars on its roads by 2020 (Dunwoody mentioned 44,000 in the interview). So far, about 400 are on the road. The industry is still waiting for the convergence of performance, price and scale if the hydrogen fuel cell car market can even reach that 1 percent threshold claimed by electric vehicles.

Nevertheless, the industry has learned much from its first attempt over a decade ago. “We’re playing a long game and have a clear vision beyond petroleum,” Dunwoody concluded.

Image credit: Hyundai

Last week, a Canadian carbon capture technology firm announced a new project that will trap carbon dioxide emissions from a pulp and paper plant and transfer them to a nearby greenhouse. CO2 Solutions, based in Quebec, says the CAD$7.4 million (US$5.8 million) project will prevent up to 30 tons of carbon emissions from being released into the atmosphere a day. Instead, that carbon dioxide produced at the Resolute Forest Projects mill will be consumed by plants at a greenhouse managed by Serres Toundra.

According to all parties participating in this project, the capture of up to 11,000 tons of CO2 is about more than taking action against climate change. In fact, the recipient of these carbon gases can make the case that this is an economic multiplier. The greenhouses at Serres Toundra, which bills itself as Quebec’s largest grower of cucumbers, says it gained over US$77.8 million in private investment since it launched three years ago. The CO2 emissions from the nearby paper mill will allow this 114-acre greenhouse project to employ up to 400 local residents and reduce Quebec’s dependence on imported fresh food by the time it is fully operational in 2019. Serres Toundra is a partnership between Resolute, the city of Saint-Félicien (a town of 10,000 people 300 miles north of Montreal) and an undisclosed group of private investors.

The project will start with a six-month testing and demonstration period, after which Serres Toundra has agreed to purchase the CO2 emissions from the Resolute mill for 10 years. CO2 Solutions expects to reap at least CAD$400,000 (US$312,000) annually during the course of this project. The company, which uses an enzyme-based technology to capture carbon emissions from industrial projects, also has test carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in the Alberta oil sands region and at pilot-scale power plants and gas liquefying facilities in North America. According to CO2 Solutions, its enzyme technology has the potential for providing CO2 capture at less than US$40 per metric ton, making it far more cost effective than other technologies used in what is still a struggling technology and market.

Energy companies have long touted carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects as a way to mitigate the impact that conventional electricity and carbon-heavy industries have on the environment, but despite the hype, few projects have been constructed worldwide. Most of the current projects underway, such as a massive one in Abu Dhabi, are actually built to enhance oil recovery. Environmental groups, including Greenpeace, insist that the costs, technological projects and the point of using this process to secure even more fossil fuels are among the reasons why CCS is not a viable option.

Nevertheless, carbon capture and reuse, as in this Quebec project, offers a viable alternative to pumping greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. And the reuse of CO2 gases by greenhouses is hardly a novel concept. In the Netherlands, hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide flow from a Shell refinery in Rotterdam to greenhouses across the country.

Image credit: Serres Toundra

Last week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago upheld a Department of Energy rule that incorporated the social cost of carbon in regulations covering commercial refrigeration equipment.

Under the Obama administration, government agencies may incorporate the social cost of carbon (SCC) in order to estimate the climate benefits. Set at $37 a ton by the DOE, the SCC accounts for a wide array of effects from greenhouse emissions, including public health costs, impacts on agricultural activity, and property damage from disasters such as storms or floods.

The decision at first glance seems innocuous. Shortly after the Obama administration implemented the SCC accounting rule in 2014, the trade association Air-Conditioning, Heating & Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) and Wisconsin-based Zero Zone, Inc. petitioned for a court review of how the DOE rules applied to walk-in refrigerators and freezers. Both parties alleged that the new DOE rules were unfair and that the agency had not followed the proper protocols in adopting the SCC.

But in a 68-page decision, the 7th Circuit ruled unanimously that the DOE “acted within its authority and did not violate any regulatory or statutory provisions.” The decision included a copious discussion of precedent and the parsing of what a “clarification” of a rule means as opposed to a “modification.” All three judges were Republican appointees.

Ironically, Judge Kevin Ripple, who wrote last week’s decision, was appointed by Ronald Reagan. And it was the Reagan administration that sparked controversy in 1981 by ordering federal regulators to undertake cost-benefit analyses when considering new regulations. Over three decades later, this decision led the DOE and other government agencies to arrive at a dollar amount for the SCC in order to estimate the financial impact of any new rules.

Furthermore, as environmental writer Ari Phillips points out, this is the first time that a U.S. court has ruled on the legality of carbon accounting in any form. For decades, arguments over the need to enact regulations to address environmental risks had long relied on qualitative reasons such as clean water, land remediation, or to “save the earth for our children and grandchildren.” But the reality is that businesses, and many citizens, can relate better to numbers in order to understand why that dirty power plant needs to transition to a new fuel, or how more efficient vehicles can have be a net positive on our quality of life.

The trick is to find that agreed-upon rate, which is nearly impossible. As John Wihbey for Yale Climate Connections discussed last year, some researchers believe the SCC should be priced as high as $220 a ton. Therefore, the figures used by the EPA and DOE are relatively conservative.

Disagreements on SCC pricing notwithstanding, watch for more regulators to incorporate the SCC when justifying the need for new environmental regulations. Republicans, industry groups and Chambers of Commerce will continue to fight any new carbon accounting rules, saying they are bad for business. But arriving at a dollar figure will actually help businesses plan for the long term. In the end, businesses that are already taking an aggressive stance on climate change risks, whether they are investing in clean energy or more efficient transportation, now have a new way to communicate to their stakeholders how these programs are making a difference. In the near future, this decision coming out of a Chicago courtroom could change how companies disclose their environmental and social performance.

This ruling will also prove to be a shot in the arm for the environmental justice movement, as advocates now can present financial data, making their claims even more credible. Those who say environmental degradation has a disproportionate impact on the poor can now also back up their claims with financial data, statistics that can only help their cause even more.

Image credit: Ken Lund

Iconic sandal label Birkenstock is fed up with Amazon. The German shoe company, founded over 240 years ago, is sick of fake versions of its shoes being sold on the online retailer’s site.

As of Jan. 1, 2017, Birkenstock USA will no longer sell its products on Amazon. And the company will no longer authorize any third-party sellers to sell its products on Amazon either. The decision to stop selling through the online retailer came after “extensive discussions and years of deliberations,” David Kahn, CEO of Birkenstock Americas, wrote in a memo obtained by CNBC. The company simply concluded the partnership is no longer worth it. Birkenstock is the first major brand to announce it will completely stop selling on the U.S. version of Amazon.

“The Amazon marketplace, which operates as an 'open market,' creates an environment where we experience unacceptable business practices which we believe jeopardize our brand,” Kahn wrote. He went on to describe the problems Birkenstock encountered with Amazon, which include:

• Postings by sellers proven to include counterfeited Birkenstock products.


• A constant stream of unauthorized and unidentifiable sellers that display a “blatant disregard” for Birkenstock’s pricing policies.

It is not a decision the company takes lightly. As Kahn stated in the memo, “By taking this course of action, we are, in effect, leaving the Amazon marketplace to counterfeiters, fake suppliers and unauthorized sellers with whom we have no relationships.” The advice he has for consumers is to only purchase Birkenstocks from authorized retailers. And he gives the age-old advice, “Buyer beware.” It’s a phrase dating back to Roman times.

While Birkenstock is the first company to pull its products from Amazon, it is not the only company to experience problems with the site. “It’s well-documented that Chinese manufacturers have been knocking off popular products and selling them for a fraction of the cost on Amazon,” Vocativ reported. And as CNBC's Ari Levy put it, “It's a problem that's exploded since Chinese merchants started flooding the site in the last couple of years.”

CNBC has published multiple reports on Amazon and counterfeiters. One report, published last month, features the creator of BedBand, a product that keeps fitted bed sheets in place. Jamie Whaley, a licensed nurse, began selling her product on Amazon, and within three years her annual sales reached $700,000. BedBand ended up in the top 200 products in Amazon’s home and kitchen category in 2013. Fast forward to the middle of last year, and revenue fell by half, forcing Whaley to lay off eight of her employees. The reason is that cheaper-priced Chinese knockoffs began to flood the site. Amazon still accounts for 90 percent of Whaley’s profit, but she is making efforts to partner with other retailers and drive traffic to her website. “She's lost all trust in Amazon,” CNBC's Levy wrote.

Amazon's anti-counterfeiting policy claims that customers “can always buy with confidence” on its site. It also states that products sold on Amazon “must be authentic” and the sale of counterfeit products “is strictly prohibited.” However, the responsibility is on the seller to “source and sell only authentic products.” Tell that to the guy in China selling fake versions of BedBand.

Amazon makes a lot of money from its sellers. In a letter to shareholders, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said over 70,000 entrepreneurs with sales of over $100,000 a year sell their products on the site. Amazon is “great for sellers,” Bezos continued. But clearly it's not great for all sellers, as Birkenstock’s recent announcement proves.

Image credit: Flickr/Freedom II Andres

Tying the scale of Big Food’s health impacts to those of cigarettes is based on an analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of our national weight gain. Our national weight crisis is a health epidemic that is literally killing us: 300,000 Americans will die this year from obesity. This is comparable to the death rate tied to smoking cigarettes.

Fingers of blame can be pointed at all of us for sitting too much and exercising too little. But what we eat is the foundation of our weight crisis. We are being sold, and we are buying, the equivalent of obesity cigarettes. Big Food (and sodas) are harming our health, threatening our children’s future and driving us toward medical cost bankruptcy.

The obvious ideal solution is for the Big Food industry to immediately redesign their products around human health. Instead, Big Food is pursuing an incremental “do less harm” strategy that attempts to grow sales while promising improvements like the removal of artificial coloring or flavors. A classic example is how Wendy’s worked to figure out how to include blueberries in a salad while aggressively promoting their Baconator Hamburger. This raises the question of whether Big Food’s lack of meaningful actions (measured by improved human health) will force America to regulate Big Food like it does the cigarette industry?

Historical precedence

We have been here before. One example is the national health crisis tied to lead in gasoline and paints. We passed legislation and rules to remove lead from gasoline and paint to protect our children’s health.

We addressed the auto industry’s resistance to adopting increased safety features by mandating the use of seat belts and air bags. The result has been a meaningful reduction in vehicle accident deaths even as we annually drive millions more miles. Today’s automobile manufacturers promote their vehicle safety to win customers and grow sales.

Most telling in terms of Big Food, our country took steps to curtail the sale of cigarettes. Today we are at record lows in terms of Americans smoking.

A question that should be raised is whether government action is now required if the Big Food industry continues down the path of incremental changes that fail to meaningfully help Americans to lose weight.

Three ways to protect ourselves from unhealthy Big Food

Regulation of the cigarette industry provides a template for how to curtail unhealthy Big Food sales to save America from the cost and pain of its weight crisis. The three key steps are:

1. Hazardous product labels. What mother would allow their children free access to the restaurant soda machine if the oversized cup had a huge stop sign on it with the words, “Consuming soda is known to make children and adults fat, obese and diabetic.” How likely would you be to buy a bag of chips if it had a stop sign on it with the words “This product is high in fat and salt that is known to cause weigh gain, obesity, diabetes and heart disease.” This type of labeling worked to stop cigarettes from being a “cool’ thing to buy. Cigarette package health labels positioned this product as a dumb decision open to peer ridicule. This type of stop-sign food labeling is working in Chile to curtail their country’s obesity crisis.


2. Outlaw unhealthy food advertising. Blocking the cigarette industry from mass advertising curtailed their sales. Imagine no more ads for fat filled and salt laden hamburgers served with a sugar laced bun. No more ads for Coke or Diet Coke that health research links to weight gain, obesity and diabetes. No more unhealthy food ads targeting our kids. Getting Big Food out of TV, social media, radio and print advertising would be a huge step in reducing consumer impulse buying of unhealthy Big Food.


3. Tax unhealthy food. Cigarettes sales fell when they were taxed for the purpose of making them less affordable. Big Food's price promotions are a key reason why people buy unhealthy food. One key reason why unhealthy Big Food is cheap to buy is because our national weight crisis is not reflected in its price. What if the tens of billions of dollars we pay for our weight crisis were collected not through our medical premiums or Medicare payroll taxes? What if our weight crisis costs were collected through a tax on unhealthy Big Food? Big Food would not look so cheap to consumers. Their sales would fall. And Big Food would have a huge economic incentive to offer healthy food that is price competitive.

Big Food please act now

The very outline of a regulatory path for curtailing Big Food sales is of their own making. The ideal solution is for them to act, now! No more lobbying to shape government food label rules to maximize sales at the expense of human health. No more incremental steps toward doing less harm. It is time for Big Food to use its huge talent pool and financial scale to redesign America’s food supply around human health while still supplying taste, price competitiveness and convenience.

Or the industry can continue its course and face a future where their products are increasingly compared to cigarettes and consumers/voters demand their regulation.

Image credit: Pexels

By Lynn Scarlett

With teams representing 206 nations assembled in Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Summer Olympic games, some Americans are watching every second, entranced by the drama of human athletic competition and the venerated “Olympic spirit.” But even those who were not glued to a screen watching everything from fencing to gymnastics to water polo more than likely are stopping to check the front page of their newspaper to see the daily rundown of the medal count, because whatever else is true of Americans, we like being in the lead.

It is no different with international diplomacy and economic policy. The question of U.S. leadership is always at the front of our minds. Americans are proud of their country, believing it to be the best nation on earth. The question is never whether the United States can lead the world in myriad ways, but whether it should. And usually, the American spirit being what it is, anything less than the best is just not good enough.

Last November, 185 nations signed the Paris Agreement, which committed the nations of the world to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The United States committed to reductions by 26 to 28 percent by 2025 over 2005 emission levels. A key component to reaching this goal is the reinvention of the energy sector. The energy sector of our global economy has long been due for an overhaul. We need cleaner sources, an upgraded grid and new options for energy storage and carbon sequestration.

But is the United States a leader in this effort?

Given that the Clean Power Plan is on hold as the Supreme Court reviews it and congressional action is stymied, it would be tempting to believe that the United States is, in fact, lagging when it comes to transitioning to the 21st-century clean energy economy.

After all, Europe is embracing clean energy sources with gusto, and even the Chinese are implementing market-based emission reduction tactics like cap and trade systems. But the picture is more complicated than that.

Take a look at this infographic that shows the percentage of electric production from wind energy in 2014:

Note that the state of Iowa is sporting a higher percentage of electric generation from wind than Portugal, Spain and Ireland. Even without cross-cutting national policies, some state policymakers and legislatures are demonstrating that they can start the wheels of innovation and begin building a path for U.S. leadership in the energy industry of the 21st century.

Tracking that leadership among 50 different states working with differing energy needs and policy ideas is no small feat. The Nature Conservancy recently partnered with former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter’s Center for the New Energy Economy to launch the State Policy Opportunity Tracking (SPOT) tool, which synthesizes existing information from over 17 different sources related to 38 clean energy policies at the state level and provides a means of determining where each state stands with respect to five key policy components.

While it is not intended to be a scorecard, SPOT can provide — at a glance — an insight as to where the future is brightest for clean energy, and where we can get to work today to establish the United States as a leader in the clean energy economy of the 21st century. The Nature Conservancy is already at work in each of its 50 state chapters, marshaling its resources and relationships to make as much progress as we can, even in the absence of a comprehensive federal policy.

The glimpses of possibility shown by what is happening at the state level suggest that if the full economic might of the United States were brought to bear under a cohesive federal policy, our role as a world energy innovation leader is all but assured. New technologies are being brought to bear, new business models are being explored. Investors are adding new capital, and the market is hungry for new opportunities to the tune of over $348 billion invested in clean energy in 2015 alone, a new record. We can lead, follow, or get pushed out of the way by other nations that rise to the challenge faster, with more vigor and more comprehensively. Our energy future is up to us.

Image credit: Richard Hamilton Smith

Infographics credit: The Nature Conservancy

Lynn Scarlett, Global Managing Director for Public Policy at The Nature Conservancy. In this role, she directs policy in the United States and the 35 countries in which the Conservancy operates with a focus on climate and nature- based solutions. Most recently, she was the Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Lynn also served at Interior as the Acting Secretary of the Interior in 2006.