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It's second nature: Most North Americans don't think twice when it comes to recycling old clothes they no longer use. According to a report published by thrift retailer Savers, more than 70 percent of consumers polled said they often donated their usable, resellable clothing to thrift stores. A quarter or more of those polled said they made sure family members or friends received those reusable shirts, jeans or kids clothing that their family had outgrown.

And those habits are no coincidence. For our grandparents and great-grandparents, passing our clothing, shoes and baby blankets to the next generation wasn't just a personal choice. It was an ingrained habit that helped ensure those just starting out would have the clothing and bedding they needed in harder times.

Today, our recycle and reuse habits are often motivated by environmental concerns. Half of those surveyed said the environmental impact of the new-clothing industry mattered to them and was a great motivator toward recycling and buying used clothing. The amount of water lost in making new clothes, for example, had an influence on where consumers bought that next outfit.

But those same conscientious choices aren't always as evident when it comes to textiles we don't think can be reused. An old sock with a heel missing, for example, is less likely to be donated to a charity for recycling. So is a soiled, torn shirt or place mats that have seen one too many dinner parties. Textiles deemed to be unworthy of reuse are often a large part of the 250 million tons of waste U.S. residents send to the landfill.

In the province of Nova Scotia, Canada, nonprofits are working to turn that statistic around. Six organizations, Value Village (a subsidiary of Savers) the Canadian Diabetes Association Clothesline, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Salvation Army Thrift Store, Canadian Red Cross and Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation have joined forces to promote AFTeRwear. The recycling program is a province-wide network of collection points and donation drives run by the participating sponsors (The Canadian Red Cross and the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation work with local recycling organizations, LML Trading and Eastern Recyclers, that help them collect and distribute donated goods.)

The organizations collect and bring bulk donations to Value Village, where they are sorted according to potential use. Those items that can be resold in the thrift store are prepared for resale. Textiles that aren't eligible for the sales floor don't get tossed out; they are sold to other companies that repurpose them into wiping cloths and other secondary products.

The program not only helps divert textiles from the landfill, but also raises money for some of Nova Scotia's most important nonprofits, said Tony Shumpert, vice president of reuse and recycling operations for Savers. Organizations are paid for the bulk poundage they bring into the store, providing another revenue stream for things like youth-mentoring programs through Big Brothers Big Sisters.

"Donation bins [are] located all across Nova Scotia," Shumpert told TriplePundit. The drop-off points are located in high-traffic areas -- like malls, grocery stores and gas stations, Value Village and Salvation Army stores -- so residents don't have to go far to drop off their donations. Nonprofits like the Canadian Diabetes Association and the Canadian Red Cross manage bins and receptacles as well. This multi-prong approach helped spread the word not only about the social benefits of donating textiles, but the environmental benefits as well.

"There are a lot of misconceptions about what can be done with textiles," Shumpert said. Savers' research shows that consumers often think that if a product can't be cleaned up and resold in the thrift store, it isn't worth donating. But many types of textiles are incredibly versatile.

Items that can't be sold on Value Village's sales floor are directed toward alternative sales streams. Some are sold overseas to markets that may still be able to use, say, a shirt with a small stain on it. Others are sold to be repurposed as industrial wiping rags. Still others end up as "shoddy," or yarn that has been broken down and woven into newer products. These tertiary markets not only help keep textiles out of the landfill, but also support a growing demand for recycled fabric.

The AFTeRwear program also complements Nova Scotia's own mandate to reduce landfill waste. The province's support for comprehensive textile recycling and reuse fits in line with its other innovative approaches toward waste diversion, Shumpert said.

"My experience in Nova Scotia is it appears to be a very collaborative environment," he told us. The province's mercury collection program points toward that innovative spirit where public-private partnership fill an important role in community-wide programs. "We recently discovered that used textiles here in Nova Scotia make up at least 10 percent of [the province's] waste stream. That number is a fairly high number compared to other areas." That realization, Shumpert said, has helped bring the public and private sectors together in search for an answer. The result was AFTeRwear.

The program is now in its third year and, according to Shumpert, its success is already being measured. In 2015, 11 million pounds of textiles were redirected in Nova Scotia alone. Value Village's two stores, in Halifax and Dartmouth, handled the bulk of the donations. Half of the donations were either sold in the stores or sold to overseas marketers. The majority of those products that wouldn't have stood up to the discerning eye of the consumer were repurposed as wiping rags or shoddy for alternative products. Only about 5 percent of that 11 million pounds ended up as waste.

"It is a pretty efficient process," Shumpert explained. "We keep working on ways to get that 5 percent even lower."

And the program is growing, with a new store in New Minas Nova Scotia expected to open soon.

"The topic of textiles recycling and reuse is getting a lot of traction," Shumpert said. He noted a "growing awareness" in many cities in Canada, as well as the United States, of the need for a circular economy that addresses not just how we deal with paper, plastics and those things we commonly associate with carbon emissions, but our clothes and housing materials  as well.

"Mitigating textile waste has recently become one of the areas that [cities now] focus on," when it comes to mapping successful recycle and reuse policies and bylaws, he told 3p. "It continues to get more and more attention, and I think we'll see more [programs] like this in the future."

More information about Savers and its research into consumer recycling and reuse habits can be found in a summary of the study online, or you can download the complete report in PDF format.

Images: 1) Flickr/ Chip Griffin; 2) Commodore Gandalf Cunningham; 3) storebukkebruse

“Wall Street hates,” said CNN Money. “Fraught with danger,” scolded Computerworld. Those headlines were the typical reaction when Elon Musk -- or, technically, Tesla’s board of directors -- made an offer last month to purchase all the outstanding shares of SolarCity’s stock for an estimated $2.5 billion.

Considering that Musk is co-founder and CEO of Tesla and is also chair of the SolarCity board, it is obvious this merger is solely his brainchild, an assumption Musk is hardly trying to disprove.

On paper, this is a merger that is easy for Wall Street analysts and business school students to pick apart. And not just because of what appears to be the blatant conflict of interest on Musk’s behalf. SolarCity’s position as the largest solar installer in the U.S. has not yet prevented the company from stanching its financial losses. Furthermore, missed projections have contributed to the company’s stock to trade at a current price at less than half of the $57 per share price it had reached late last year.

Meanwhile, Tesla has taken its share of lumps, too. The electric automaker’s stock had been on an upward trajectory earlier this year, but has since been in a slump, and problems from selling less cars than expected (despite overall rising sales figures) to the optics problem resulting from a driver losing his life in an autonomous car driving test have contributed to shareholders’ unease.

Nevertheless, the merger makes sense for a lot of reasons, and not just because of Musk’s pie-in-the-sky vision of a post-carbon society. The reality is, Musk’s pie is closer to earth than many analysts currently realize. Both companies have plenty of what the business world likes to call “synergies,” and not just because Musk has his hands all over both companies. Both SolarCity and Tesla share an integrated business model, in which the firms own the means of production, from the solar panels of SolarCity to the various parts that comprise a Tesla car.

Hence, the combined Tesla-SolarCity entity can benefit from both organizations’ greatest strengths. If Tesla ever becomes profitable, it most likely will not be because of the much-anticipated affordable Model 3. In fact, it could be because more Tesla’s batteries could end up serving as energy storage units for homes than being plunked into its cars, a point Musk made at the company’s most recent shareholders’ meeting.

And those batteries could be sold with a residential or commercial solar installation, a proposition that only a “Tesla Solar” or “Tesla Power” could pull off. The current state of affairs for the residential solar industry is that it largely lacks street cred with consumers, many of whom view this companies with contempt for their hyper-aggressive telemarketing and sales tactics. When one goes to a city’s summer street festival and sees more solar hucksters than corn dog vendors, the gut reaction is usually contempt and distrust—especially upon the return home only to hear the phone ringing due to yet another solar salesperson. The stubborn fact is that the industry suffers from this disarray because there is no strong player in the industry—and SunEdison, the one company that had some heft, is currently in bankruptcy protection.

But the Tesla brand carries not only a strong reputation, but it is backed up by a strong portfolio of products—and that includes the company’s energy storage systems, which will only improve in performance and drop in price as the company continues to scale their production.

Furthermore, in an era where more consumers are getting tired of funding utilities’ nineteenth-century business models, a one-two punch of a solar installation and a battery that can store that energy for after sunset could be a winner with homeowners and businesses. Tom Randall of Bloomberg insists that Tesla wants to be the “Apple Store” for electricity; Tim Fernholz of Quartz says this move is all about net metering, the fledgling practice of utilities purchasing excess solar power when such systems are generating excess electricity.

Motives and long term strategies aside, the truth is that even if politicians and regulators keep siding with utilities, solar power and energy storage keep getting cheaper. In a few years, the purchase of such a system will make even more financial sense and become far more affordable. The results will be the continued clean energy revolution in how we power our homes and offices in addition to changing how we fuel our transportation; and yes, and even more smug Elon Musk, which will drive even more of his critics insane—while they purchase these power systems, along with the rest of us, later this decade.

Image credit: Steve Jurvetson/Flickr

In its latest sustainability report, the global electronics and consulting company HP made several strong public goals to improve sourcing of paper and shift toward greater use of clean energy. If implemented, this will keep HP among the sustainability leaders in the technology sector.

The reason for the move? Climate change, of course, which the company acknowledges as a big deal.

"Climate change is the most challenging environmental issue of our lifetime," said Nate Hurst, Hewlett Packard's chief sustainability and social impact officer, in a press statement. "HP is committed to being an environmental steward; therefore, we continue to measure and reduce the impact of our products, operations and supply chain activities.

HP does not plan to accomplish this alone. It enlisted the support of the Forest Stewardship Council, the foremost global system for ensuring wood and paper comes from sustainable sources. It will also link up with the world's largest environmental nonprofit, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), showing a commitment to transparency.

"HP's efforts to lead the way on eliminating deforestation from its paper products and packaging are commendable," said Linda Walker, WWF's director of responsible forestry and trade, in a press statement. "This is a leadership-level goal within HP's broader sustainability commitments."

HP has actually been a leader on sustainability in the electronics sector for some time, far ahead of its late-to-the-show competitors Apple and Samsung. The influential environmental nonprofit Greenpeace ranked HP second in the industry in its latest electronics report card. HP scored of 5.7 out of a possible 10, only behind the small Indian electronics company WiPro. Moreover, the company has shown steady improvement, and was, in fact, leading in many previous versions of the report.

According to Greenpeace, HP “scored most of its points, and is the leader, on the Sustainable Operations criteria, which includes the management of its supply chain. It scores maximum points for its thorough paper procurement policy, which bans suppliers linked to illegal logging.”

Greenpeace's assessment makes it clear that this latest news does not mean HP is jumping on the bandwagon. But rather it's a sign that the company is merely formalizing and strengthening changes that it has been making for years in its supply chain and corporate practices. It is welcome news, as we've seen far too often, many companies' commitments tend to be little more than just paper.

But that does not mean HP can't improve. Greenpeace cited challenges in improving the use of recycled plastic in products, and promoting both clean energy and energy efficiency. Notably, both are key points in HP's latest move -- which goes far beyond deforestation in its details, with a commitment to go 100 percent renewable in just four years.

This alludes to a larger point: Sustainability is not something a company declares, but is a constant effort to always improve, test new practices and become better. HP will have to make stronger commitments every year to continue setting a standard in the industry. If the past is any indication, this move is a sign of better things to come from the electronics giant.

Image credit: LPS via Wikimedia Commons

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Buzzfeed has few pals in the YouTube community.

Founded almost a decade ago, the social news and entertainment company Buzzfeed has scored millions in venture capital and equity investments. And along the way, it stole millions of eyeballs away from conventional media companies to both its site and channels on platforms such as YouTube. As it grew, Buzzfeed scored a copious amount of news scoops, including exclusives with President Barack Obama that many news channels can only dream about. Meanwhile the site became link-bait gold. While Buzzfeed hardly invented the “top 17,” “21 ingenious ideas” and “7 things I learned” lists, the site’s writers certainly perfected the art of turning them into online bankability.

But while it stole eyeballs, Buzzfeed also built a reputation as a group of writers and content creators that does not think twice about stealing ideas. Reddit became so tired of Buzzfeed’s alleged pilfering of its content that it launched another site with curated content (though, some would reply that Reddit is built on user-generated content as well). One writer on Gawker went so far as to define Buzzfeed by its “plagiarism problem,” and the criticism continued to snowball. Buzzfeed eventually fired one of its news writers, and even apologized to its readers for the snafu.

Of course, its reputation as a nest for plagiarized content didn't keep Buzzfeed from reporting on . . . others who were accused of plagiarism. And Buzzfeed also drew a line in the sand as it accused other sites of ripping off its content.

Meanwhile, the lists of “hilarious tweets” are still coming out, and videos such as the “Louisiana Literacy Test” keep streaming. But writers and videographers continue to protest what they say are Buzzfeed’s dubious “idea theft” tactics, and they are hitting back hard.

One of them is Akilah Hughes, a producer and writer based in New York who has her own popular YouTube channel.

In a recent op-ed, Hughes called for advertisers to stop sponsoring Buzzfeed’s YouTube channel. Dismissing the site’s writers as a bunch of “BuzzThieves,” Hughes lists several examples of articles and YouTube videos that were repackaged as Buzzfeed videos. Two of the examples, Hughes said, were ideas stolen from her, and she is not having it:

“This isn’t parody. This isn’t homage. This isn’t a coincidence. This is a deliberate initiative on BuzzFeed’s behalf to undermine the hard work of independent comedians, creators and innovators in the online space,” Akilah Hughes wrote on Medium.

Even more egregious, Hughes implied, is that Buzzfeed generates profits on the backs of content creators who do not see a dime for their efforts. And many of those include people who are from racial and ethnic minorities, along with those who are part of the LGBT community. One example Hughes brings up is the YouTuber Kat Blaque, who slammed Buzzfeed for asking her and other transgender content creators to work for free in exchange for what many in the online content space like to describe as “exposure.”

The solution, Hughes wrote, is relatively simple. And for companies that want to show they are socially responsible, she has a point. Instead of funneling money to Buzzfeed, why don't companies hire some of these content creators, comedians and vloggers for a fraction of their online advertising budgets? Such arrangements would engender loyalty, inspire more creativity and send a signal that the days of relying on lifting the content from uncompensated talent are over.

Image credit: Buzzfeed/Instagram

Many of the biggest polluters and greenhouse gas emitters on the planet are transnational companies. A new report from Thomson-Reuters looks at the world's 500 largest companies and examines if they are making the emissions cuts necessary to meet science-based climate goals.

These companies are responsible for a massive 10 percent of global emissions – about the same as the entire European Union, Thomson-Reuters found. And worryingly, their emissions actually increased by 1 percent from 2010 to 2015 – a period in which we needed a 6 percent drop. In contrast, many countries, including the United States, did see a drop during that time, despite economic growth. It is this kind of decoupling of revenue growth and emissions we need to see in the corporate world as well.

“Many of the largest emitters have yet to show this kind of decoupling,” said John Moorhead, head of the climate change practice at BSD Consulting and one of the authors of the report, in a press statement. “Although the gap with a 2-degree pathway for the Global 500 has decreased to 6.6 percent of total emissions, the gap still remains significant."

Many of the worst offenders are – surprise, surprise -- energy companies, particularly those in developing countries where energy usage is growing fast. The largest increase of any company in the world was Coal India, which is working to build numerous new power plants in the world's second largest country. Here in the United States, the largest emitters were Duke Energy, which operates several coal-fired power plants, followed closely by America Electric Power Co. and, not surprisingly, the climate-denier's best friend, gas giant Exxon-Mobil.

On the flip side, European utility companies – which reap the benefits of the continent's massive wind and solar investments -- were among the leaders in reducing emissions. There were two American companies among the top three leaders – Valero Energy and Dominion Resources. Valero's drop is likely due to low oil prices and not any corporate leadership. But Dominion has shifted away from coal and slowly into renewables. Nonetheless, being slightly less bad does not deserve much accolades.

The conclusion? We have a lot of work to do. Companies must be aware of their impacts globally, and work to reduce emissions in-line with scientific standards, such as those set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). On that note, the authors see positive momentum in light of last year's Paris Agreement.

“Following COP21 last year, sustainable business growth has become a top priority and focal point for many organizations,” said Tim Nixon, a co-author for the report with Thomson Reuters, in a press statement. “Organizations recognize sustainable business growth is central to mitigating risk and driving top and bottom line performance.”

Whether this turns into real change is yet to be seen. Large corporations have a key role, due to their size and scope, in creating a solution to climate change by reducing emissions globally. Let's hope this change comes sooner rather than later.

Image credit: Mohri via Flickr

By Daniel Matthews

As America continues to loosen its strict stance on marijuana laws, hemp is making a comeback. You’ve probably seen hemp products at any of the various hippie-friendly shops and bazaars. But the plant’s usefulness extends beyond crafts, jewelry and stoner supplies.

West Virginia is investigating hemp for agricultural sustainability, including its potential as a soil-cleaning agent and its commercial benefits. West Virginia University will conduct the study after 70 years of prohibition. In 1957, the U.S. government banned the production of hemp, in large part because it’s similar to marijuana. But hemp contains far less of the psychoactive compound, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), found in marijuana.

In 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama signed the Farm Bill, which made it legal for state departments of agriculture and universities to grow industrial hemp for research purposes or pilot programs. At least 28 states now allow cultivation of hemp, with caveats.

Agri Carb Electric Corp. will head up the study for West Virginia University. Agri Carb is an energy company seeking to “create better infrastructure for farmers who produce sustainable agricultural materials like hemp."

Says the company’s CEO Don Smith II:

“There are a lot of contaminated brownfields throughout West Virginia that people find too expensive to clean up. We can be a complement to the state’s coal and gas industries by using a hemp cash-crop to revitalize spoiled lands. This research should interest every post-industrial community in West Virginia to invest (with grants) and monetize what is now considered worthless.”

Can hemp really clean up contaminated fields? The Industrial Hemp Farming Act would make it legal for farmers to cultivate industrial hemp. This could see hemp becoming a major American agricultural product again. This prompts the bigger question: Will hemp’s sustainability disrupt industries that thrive on things like plastics and construction materials for their survival?

Hemp and sustainability

Hemp can do a lot across a variety of industries. Paper, food, fuel, textiles and fabrics, bioplastics, construction materials — its potential prompted Huffington Post editor Chloe Fox to call hemp “The Sustainable Wonder Crop."

Through phytoremediation, hemp can basically leach pollutants from the soil and concentrate the toxins in plant cells. The plant goes unharmed, and the soil is cleaned. This is the process by which West Virginia seeks to rehabilitate “brownfields” and put them to some agricultural use.

But would phytoremediation simply give coal and gas industries a license to continue polluting, because hemp can come in and clean up after them? If the Industrial Hemp Farming Act passes, it may actually spell trouble for these industries. That’s because of hemp’s potential as a fuel source.

You can make hemp seed oil into biodiesel, and you can use fermented hemp stalks to make ethanol and methanol. Biodiesel has passed EPA tests as clean-burning fuel. It’s 11 percent oxygen by weight, contains no sulfur, and extends the life of diesel engines because it acts as a lubricant. Biodiesel can run in regular diesel engines -- which would save fleets money, since they wouldn’t have to replace existing trucks.

Unfortunately, biodiesel isn’t compatible with most new diesel engines due to manufacturers’ response to standards set by the EPA and the California Air Resources Board. But hemp diesel could be used in the old engines. And it wouldn’t take a lot to mandate new production of compatible engines that could replace gas engines. And hemp can replace coal.

Of course this would shift the balance of capital away from entrenched traditional fuel interests. Already, the coal industry is collapsing.  The largest private coal company, Peabody Energy, declared bankruptcy in April, and Obama halted coal mining on federal lands at the start of this year. In terms of producing electricity, wind and solar are two of the most popular clean-energy sources on the table. Hemp could step in as a reliable source. It grows like a weed, and there’s plenty of land for it.

Furthermore, hemp’s versatility could disrupt the timber industry: No more logging in fragile ecosystems, such as rainforests.

Hemp could disrupt the myriad industries that produce and use plastics. You can make a car out of hemp. Imagine a hemp car with an engine running on clean-burning biofuel.

As far as the paper industry goes, hemp could create a durable and recyclable paper that requires less bleach and chemicals, because hemp’s coloring is naturally lighter.

Hemp also contains CBD (cannabidiol), which has a wide variety of medical applications, including treating Dravet syndrome and epilepsy.

Hemp may have been made illegal in the first place because of capitalism and industry. One thing is clear: in the years leading up to the hemp ban, we viewed hemp as a threat, instead of integrating the plant with the number of industries where we can use it. Now, as climate change bears down, industrial hemp could rise up as a sustainability superstar.

Daniel Matthews is a widely published freelance writer from Boise, ID with a focus on sustainability, business, and technology. You can find him on Twitter.

Image credits: 1) Wikimedia Commons; 2) National Conference of State Legislatures 

by Roger Aitken — Europe’s answer to speeding up the decontamination of old industrial sites—revamping and greening them into sound places to live and work—took a further step forward as investment vehicle Ginkgo announced the first closing and launch of its second fund, Ginkgo 2, which targets the sustainable remediation of brownfield sites in urban areas.

The Ginkgo Fund 2, which had already raised €60 million from a group of large institutional investors towards a target of €140m by the end of this year, aims to facilitate the sustainable redevelopment of substantially polluted sites, meeting the environmental, economic and social challenges of remediating brownfields in urban areas.

The first generation Ginkgo Fund 1, which was instigated by the Edmond de Rothschild Group back in 2010, is being used to clean up seven contaminated brownfield sites in France and Belgium. These projects are in the process of creating more than 200,000m² of building rights in the centre of major cities, over 3,000 housing units and some 5,000 jobs.

It is projected that Ginkgo Fund 2 will enable the creation of 350,000m² of new building rights, which encompass around 5,000 housing units and the equivalent of 8,500 full-time jobs.

Bruno Farber, CEO of Ginkgo, commenting at a signing ceremony for the new fund at the Gerland site in Lyon, which itself is in the process of remediation under Gingko 1,said: “The successful launch of Ginkgo 2 was made possible by the very strong loyalty of our original investors, virtually all of which have doubled their commitment by reinvesting in Ginkgo 2”.

After what was described as a “highly detailed examination” of the first fund’s activities and of Ginkgo Fund 2’s planned management teams and governance structures, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and Caisse des Dépôts—among the fund’s principal investors—resolved to demonstrate their “continued confidence” in Ginkgo by committing up to €30 million (c.$33.45m/£22.75m) each in the fund.

Meanwhile, the Edmond de Rothschild Group and Société Fédérale de Participations et d’Investissement (SFPI) each invested nearly €10m (c.$11.15m/£7.583m). New investors also participated in the fund.

With a dual role as an environmental remediation specialist and land developer, Ginkgo seeks to be a key investor in the redevelopment of significantly polluted sites in urban areas. As with its predecessor, Ginkgo 2 will continue to operate mainly in France and Belgium on cleaning up contaminated brownfield sites. It will work with the owners of the polluted land, local and regional authorities, builders, developers and the final end users.

 

What is a thought leader?

If you’re not careful, you’ll find yourself going down a rabbit hole searching for the definitive answer. There is no shortage of opinion on what it means to be a thought leader. And still, we are suspicious, rightfully so, when someone calls themselves a “thought leader.” Used as self-description, the moniker evokes haughtiness and hubris. 

I suggest that the more interesting question is: What is thought leadership?  We get to the heart of the matter when we change the noun to a verb and consider not what a thought leader is, but what thought leadership does.

As Dr. Steve Nguyn wrote in Workplace Psychology, a self-focused ambition to “be” a thought leader often results in little more than putting “old wine into new bottles” and claiming it is new wine.

“For these individuals,” Nguyn said, “their notion of thought leadership is pouring old wine into a new bottle and calling it new wine. Giving themselves the label of being a thought leader and selling this idea to others adds to their pseudo-credibility.”

If anyone is a thought leader, then everyone is, or at least can be. Within anyone is the potential to "act with thought leadership" and in so doing, even in the smallest way, influence the world and make it better. These acts of influence percolate through families, generations, societies, businesses and economies. It shapes our view of the world, how we respond to the vagaries of life and the impact of “disruption” all around us.

In an increasingly uncertain world, it is as important as ever for both individuals and organizations to nurture these acts of thought leadership.

The circular economy of thought leadership

Las Vegas, the town where whatever goes on there stays there, is home of MGM Resorts International. Vegas may not bring to mind a hub of thought leadership or sustainability. But any town built in the middle of the desert on the hopes and dreams of chance and entertainment for a global clientele can actually serve as a proving ground for ideas and new ways of doing business.

Prior to the 2009 financial crisis, MGM Resorts had grown to a billion-dollar company through mergers and acquisitions, employing 62,000 people throughout its global operation. As the financial meltdown spread through 2009, however, the company was in a bad way, and one of the largest resort and gaming companies in the world was within hours of bankruptcy.

Late in 2008 Jim Murren took the reins of the company. It fell to him to shepherd the organization back to financial health. For Murren, managing a triple bottom line was a matter of survival for a corporation splintered into too many separate parts without a unifying mission.

Bringing the company back from its "near-death experience" required conventional business savvy. But MGM's recovery is also because Murren doubled-down on its commitment to its employees and community.

In 2000, the company became the first in its industry to declare a formal, voluntary diversity initiative. Clearly, Murren understood how to create value for all stakeholders through the service profit chain.

In 2013, Corporate Responsibility Magazine named Murren as 2013 Responsible CEO of the Year. That same year, Ondra Berry came on board as senior vice president of talent and performance. Berry served nearly 25 years on the Reno police force, working his way to Assistant Chief of Police. He is also a Brigadier General with the Nevada Air National Guard and is owner and co-founder of Guardian Quest, an organization devoted to personal and organizational development.

"Everything rises or falls on good or bad leadership," Berry told TriplePundit.

If leaders of any organization don't "eat, breathe and sleep thinking about what's best for their people, it will show up," he continued. It was Murren's leadership that drew Berry to MGM.

Good leadership begets good leadership, he added: "It's not only who [a leader] is, but what [a leader] expects out of his executive team, and that permeates down to the organization."

"If you take care of your employees, develop them, give them opportunities and purpose, that helps with customer service experience, which leads to better outcomes for your organization and shareholder value."

In a "circular economy" of thought leadership, we lead by example, allow others to do the same, and all share the results.

Corporations are people, my friend

Not to trot out a stale, well-hashed debate, but no corporation exists outside a human mental construct. It’s all our collective and marginally agreed upon imagination. A corporation may claim a notion of legal status as a “person.” But obviously, a “corporation” isn’t a person. People are. And as such there is an inevitable human element to any corporation.

Individual corporate leaders may choose pursuit of short-term self-interest above all else, ignoring the human reality behind a veil of corporate identity. But it is not the only choice, nor the best choice. The former approach is manipulative; the latter is influential.

"When employees have an emotional attachment to an organization, why it exists and what's relevant and important to it, then they're much more engaged. They're much more willing to be involved, give you their best ideas, give you their best effort and be relevant to what your mission is."

Under Murren's leadership, the culture of influence suggests that what is good for people is, in the end, good for corporations. Allow people to be their best, and they just might.

Make history or make sense

When Ondra Berry graduated from college, his grandmother told him: 

“You've graduated, but if life isn’t better as a result of you getting this education. You’ve just made history by being the first person in our family to go to college. But you have not made sense if the world is not better as a result of what you have learned.”

It was the same lesson she had driven home throughout Berry’s formative years: “It’s one thing to make history; it’s another thing to make sense.”

Berry holds onto his grandmother’s wisdom. It has, from our perspective, inspired his sense of service and personal growth.

Berry’s career echoes another abiding moral lesson learned from his grandmother: To whom much is given, much is required.

“A big influence on me was my grandmother,” Berry said.

The lesson for us is to recognize "thought leadership" in places we may not typically expect to find it. The influence of a grandmother, the guidance of a teacher, the purposefully nurtured culture of an organization.

“I believe a leader’s responsibility is to have an influence on a person’s purpose and behaviors that drive them to the greater good, or influence them to the greater good, in society or in life,” Berry told us.

I’d guess that Ondra Berry’s grandmother never thought of herself as a thought leader, but certainly, she was. Her influence is felt today through her grandson and beyond, one part of a collective voice of human imagination and discovery of the world we inhabit.

“I really believe that once a person discovers their purpose, they then unleash the best of who they are,” Berry continued.

“We are all on a path to discovery of that. And the sooner [people] find that and come to the recognition that they have so much untapped potential inside of them, that’s when they ... get laser-focused on making a contribution to the greater good.”

That is what thought leadership does.

Image credit: GuruinaBottle.com, used under creative commons license 

People are literally losing their lives to supply the world with fast fashion.

In 2013, a fire broke out at in a Bangladesh garment factory, causing the building to collapse and inevitably killing over 1,000 workers. It wouldn’t be the last time where fashion factory conditions and lax safety regulations would undergo massive scrutiny in the public eye.

Promises abound with retail behemoths like H&M and Gap, Inc. — which use multiple factories to source apparel supplied to their hundreds of global retail locations — vowing to clean up their act without much evidence of doing so.  

Despite the severe tragedies and reality of present-day retail behavior which has direct impact on both the global labor force and the planet, consumers are turning toward a sundry of new companies that promise transparency from the ground up — skipping those that they can no longer trust to deliver on their promises to be ethical citizens.

To help add fuel to the fire for transparency within the industry, Natalie Grillon co-founded Project Just with Shahd AlShehail three years ago when they met as global Acumen fellows.

Driven as a movement to provide education in the form of a social networking tool, Project Just is an online platform that reviews brands for their supply chain ethics and sustainability. Adding in a gamification element, users can 'upvote' or 'downvote' brands based on their sustainability practices. The group also publishes shopping guides of the best brands under its 'Just Approved' seal.

We spoke with Grillon to further discuss the transparency challenges fashion brands face, and why storytelling by way of gamifying the shopping experience is changing the way consumers think about their favorite brands.

TriplePundit: Why is transparency important to both consumers and brands?

Natalie Grillon: For consumers, it's all about expecting experience with brands beyond just a purchase; they want to know the story behind the brand, relate to the brand on a personal level and a values level. Transparency is a part of all of these emotional and social behaviors.

Millennials and Generation Z also don't trust brands. You have to win their trust and prove [your ethics]. Post-recession insights on sustainability issues [within the fashion industry] have left people skeptical. It all ties into trust. With the prevalence of information about brand practices, people want proof that brands are truly doing what they say they are doing from beginning to end.

3p: Which brands do you feel are leading the way?

NG: There are a lot of small, interesting brands doing really interesting work while pushing the industry to innovate. I love Reformation for their Ref Scale; Duka Scarves for upcycling; Beru Kids for LA manufacturing and their use of dead stock; and Mudd Jeans for their leasing program. I was also excited about Levi's recycled jeans initiative. Across the board as a big company, Adidas is really doing an incredible job working toward greater sustainability.

In terms of setting a standard for luxury in sustainability, the Kering Group — Stella McCartney, Balenciaga, etc. — is sharing a lot of their internal knowledge.  

3p: Do you believe this shift in the fashion industry is here to stay?

NG: Definitely. You can see the outcomes from this line of thinking around transparency and innovation across the board in the exciting new brands that are getting attention. Companies like Everlane, Eckhaus Latta and others come to mind.

You also see on the supply side the shift in the number of brands that are producing ethically and integrating this behavior into their manufacturing model from day one. With that said, there is still a lot to do and a long way to go.  

3p: What do you find surprising about how your users are interacting with and telling stories about the brands they love?

NG: It's been interesting to see a lot of the votes on our platform: How many people upvote or downvote one of our brands based on their practices. Sometimes, their responses don’t align with what we would expect based on the brand’s transparency or practices. I think a lot of shoppers are still pretty naive on a lot of these issues around company ethics. However, they're also as eager to learn.  

It's also interesting to see how passionate some people are about getting it right by really trying to change their shopping behavior to have a positive impact with everyday choices.

3p: Why does Project Just exist? What's the future of the platform, and how do you see it playing a critical role in the consumer/brand/impact relationship?

NG: We exist to change the way we shop. We want to increase transparency and accountability in the fashion industry through consumer demand. Consumer demand is the most powerful lever to shift a part of the industry that's currently ignored. Government intervention and company-based self-regulation haven’t worked. We know that demand and sales data can shift practices.

Images via Project Just Facebook and Instagram

Google, which describes itself as the world’s largest buyer of clean energy, announced another investment in renewables last week. Its parent company, Alphabet Inc., entered into an agreement to purchase at least 236 megawatts of wind power with BlackRock and the Norwegian clean power companies Zephyr and Norsk Vind Energi. Upon their completion, the wind farms in Norway and Sweden will power Google’s data centers within the European Union.

The jewel of Google’s latest renewables investment is the 160 MW Tellenes wind farm, located south of Norway’s North Sea oil boom town, Stavenger. Siemens will supply, install and operate 50 wind turbines for the project, which will start this month and is slated to be fully commissioned by late 2017. Each of the turbines has a rotor diameter of 113 meters (371 feet) and can individually generate 3.2 MW of power. According to Siemens, the Tellenes facility will produce enough power to electrify 30,000 Norwegian homes. The project is yet another significant development in Norway's energy strategy. (Despite its oil wealth, the country has an ambitious low-carbon agenda.)

The other wind farm from which Google will procure clean electricity, with a targeted capacity of 76 MW, is located near Toreboda, Sweden. The joint venture between Rabbalshede Kraft, a Swedish renewable power producer, and Ardian, a private investment company, is also expected to be up and running during the last quarter of 2017.

The moves increase Google’s total renewable power deals to 18 worldwide and seven in Europe, said Marc Oman, the company’s EU energy lead. With a total of 2.5 gigawatts of renewable power stretched across four continents, Google says its clean energy purchases are the equivalent of taking 1 million cars off of the road. The company has long claimed it is an energy-efficiency leader, stating that its 15 data centers consume 50 percent less energy than those operated by other companies.

These new wind power agreements extend what Google says is its leadership on environmental sustainability. The company says it has been carbon neutral since 2007, and long touted its innovation on developing new sources of clean energy, with an old gas field turned solar plant in California's San Joaquin Valley just one example. In addition to clean energy investments, Google leveraged its technology to produce a variety of tools, from mapping tools that track deforestation and air pollution to investing in electric cars.

With more consumers wanting assurance that the apps and online tools they use have a minimal effect on the environment, Google is showing its competitors that they have a long way to go if they are ever going to catch up with the world’s search giant.

Image credit: Statkraft/Flickr