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Recent evidence points to environmental stress having an adverse impact on weak or unstable countries, pointing to a grim future with droughts, floods and other extreme events expected to increase due to climate change.

Right now, the world is looking at Venezuela, which is going through one of the worst economic crises in recent history. Its economy is collapsing before our eyes, and environmental factors aren't helping. Drought is crippling the country's hydro-power potential, devastating crops and causing a breakdown in public services. Massive food shortages are creating a potential humanitarian catastrophe.

For some observers, this is deja-vu. A similar scenario unfolded a few years in Syria, where years of drought led to mass migrations, demand on limited resources, and, eventually, a violent conflict that killed hundreds of thousands and created the largest refugee crisis in recent history.

The common thread between these events? It might be climate change, which is making extreme weather events more likely. In fact, scientists believe human impacts made the drought in Syria twice as severe, and may be playing a role in Venezuela as well.

The fear is this: Climate change would make more countries susceptible to the types of economic destabilization, or conflict, that we're seeing in these two countries. There is, however, serious risk in making quick connections. Connecting drought to a now five-year-long civil war in Syria, and the emergence of Daesh, is tough. A report from the U.K.-based Climate and Migration Coalition, in partnership with Climate Outreach, found that most media outlets did not accurately reference the research when presenting stories about climate change and Syria last year.

“[Some] media reporting fundamentally misunderstood the link between climate change and the early moments of the uprising in Syria,” said lead author Alex Randall in the report summary. “Many media reports argued that climate-driven migration into cities created violence between migrants and existing residents that descended into wider conflict.”

But what they found even more concerning was the extrapolation of the situation in Syria onto other parts of the world without looking at the evidence.

“In response to the situation in Syria many media reports also speculated about future human movement in response to climate change, but many of these predictions fundamentally misunderstood the way climate change could re-shape patterns of migration in the future,” Randall said.

Climate change is complex, as is migration and, even more so, conflict. While there is a real connection to be made between environmental stress and the potential for conflict, conflating these events and extrapolating them to other regions not only spread misinformation, but also makes it harder for us to tackle the real problem. Many analysis never say that climate change is the primary factor -- pointing instead to weak, corrupt and unequal states. Scarcity only reinforces these existing trends.

In an ideal world, we would not only tackle climate change, but also build stronger, more equal and democratic institutions in countries all around the world. Only then we can begin to pave the path toward a more peaceful and prosperous world.

Image credit: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration via Wikimedia Commons

This has been quite an eyebrow-raising couple of months for Facebook board member and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. In May, word slipped out that the tech billionaire secretly funded a crippling lawsuit against the online media network Gawker. That was quickly followed by the disclosure that Thiel is that rarest of Silicon Valley unicorns, a pledged delegate for Donald Trump. Now comes word that his "secretive" data-mining company Palantir is reaching out to former employees with an unusual offer aimed at cutting off their ability to speak with reporters.

All of this activity raises some interesting issues about privacy, national security and freedom of the press. Things get even weirder when you add Thiel's 2009 libertarian manifesto into the mix. It leads off with the the observation: "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible."

And then there's Thiel's association with white nationalist groups...

Thiel's not-so-secret Palantir Technologies

To be clear, Thiel's name has not popped up in any public discussions of the national security team that Trump would assemble as president.

However, given the "quirky mix" of "third-rate people" on Trump's short list, it's quite possible that Thiel's national security connections could be of use in a Trump presidency.

Thiel is a co-founder and investor in the data-mining company Palantir Technologies. The startup launched in 2004 in a cloud of secrecy, but in recent years the strings have loosened quite a bit.

At $20 billion, Palantir is ranked as the third most valuable private company in the U.S.

The company's What We Do page on its website lists "solving problems in the finance sector and the government intelligence community" as its two initial areas of focus. The powerful software platform involves highlighting connections among widespread databases, resulting in a string of spectacular successes for which the company claims credit.

Last year, Tech Crunch shed some further light on the company by disclosing a 2013 prospectus that included a list of Palantir clients:

"As of 2013, Palantir was used by at least 12 groups within the U.S. government including the CIA, DHS, NSA, FBI, the CDC, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, Special Operations Command, West Point, the Joint IED-defeat organization and Allies, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children."

Tech Crunch also noted that Palantir includes the legal research field as a third area of focus along with government and finance. That's an interesting bit of information, considering that Thiel was linked to a whole network of lawsuits against Gawker in addition to the notorious Hulk Hogan case. As of this writing, legal research is not listed on Palantir's What We Do page.

Palantir on the move

Palantir made some huge real estate moves in its home base of Palo Alto as of late. Consistent with its secretive nature, the company has not done any particular horn-tooting over the expansion. Despite some recent stumbles, the company has good reason to be optimistic about its prospects for growth.

Just last month, for example, the company won a $222 million contract to provide its All Source Information Fusion software to the Defense Department's Special Operation Forces Acquisition, Technology and Logistics agency in support of the Special Operations Command.

SOCom employs a force of about 10,000 personnel in 80 countries, tasked with special reconnaissance, foreign internal defense, civil affairs operations, security force assistance and foreign humanitarian assistance.

It assumed new leadership in March, and during the change-of-command ceremony outgoing SOCom commander Army Gen. Joseph Votel articulated the need to ramp up national security capabilities. His laundry list of reasons included:

"...old enemies reasserting themselves in new ways, rising powers challenging our influence and interests, deep sectarian divides that crisscross our national objectives, provocative leaders controlling the most destructive weapons, and humanitarian and social situations that challenge the existing order."

An offer that (former) employees can't resist

While Palantir is looking forward to the future, it is also reaching back to the past. On May 20, BuzzFeed reported that Palantir would buy up to $225 million of its common stock from former staff members as well as current employees.

The inclusion of former staff members in the offer certainly sounds generous, and according to BuzzFeed the offer itself is on the high side. At $7.40 per share, the price is reportedly higher than the valued determined by some of the company's large investors.

That's especially good news for former employees because, until recently, Palantir had a reputation for underpaying its employees relative to Silicon Valley standards.

In another report earlier in May, BuzzFeed noted that the company finally boosted its pay rate by 20 percent as of April. That's too late to be of use to former employees, which makes their inclusion in the stock offer seem even more generous.

However, in the latest development, BuzzFeed reports that Palantir encumbered the offer with significant qualifiers. The company seems particularly interested in controlling any and all communication with the media:

"Former employees can’t make any public statement — 'or statement likely to become public (including without limitation, via online, print, television or radio media or social media or online forums)' — that reveals any confidential information about Palantir or its executives and directors, except with written approval from Palantir’s media relations team, the agreement says.

"And what if a reporter gets in touch to ask a question about Palantir? Former employees must 'immediately notify media@palantir.com via email,' and then 'furnish to media@palantir.com, within three (3) business days of its receipt, a copy of such request or inquiry,'” reported William Alden of BuzzFeed News.

Peter Thiel and Donald Trump

That brings us back around to Thiel's support for Donald Trump. The two men already share an alarming antipathy toward freedom of the press. And the Palantir offer sheds more light on how far Thiel is willing to go.

That's "willing to go" in terms of protecting his own interests. Protecting other peoples' privacy rights is another matter. Thiel's involvement in Palantir could undercut the privacy interests he espouses as a libertarian.

For all of the company's success in helping government nail the bad guys, Palantir has assembled a powerful force that could just as easily be turned on the general public.

Palantir's activities have already raised concerns in the civil rights community. In 2011 Jay Stanley of the American Civil Liberties Union published a warning about Palantir under the heading, "Beware of Data Miners Offering Protection," in which he questioned the effectiveness of the company's data mining platform in preventing terrorism.

In 2014, LA Weekly published a piece on the militarization of civilian law enforcement surveillance tactics, under the incendiary title, "Forget the NSA, the LAPD Spies on Millions of Innocent Folks." The article described a number of tech initiatives undertaken by the Los Angeles Police Department, including an ongoing relationship with Palantir:

"...Peter Bibring, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California, has seen at least one Suspicious Activity Report from LAPD in which investigators used Palantir's intelligence-analysis software to delve into "license plates, leads and suspect profiles," the paper reported.

"(Suspicious Activity Reports, or SARs, are citizen- or police-generated tips about potential terrorist activities; they are controversial because they rely on the 'reasonable indication' standard for investigating, rather than the tougher crime standard of 'reasonable suspicion.')"

Palantir, and companies like it, have also caught the eye of Hollywood screenwriters. If you're a fan of Captain America, go back and take another look at the movie "Captain America: Winter Soldier." The the plot device is a top-secret, data-leveraged program that identifies potential threats to national security. Just watch what happens when the system is hijacked by bad guys masquerading as good guys.

No worries, though. Though Peter Thiel could find himself slotted into a Donald Trump administration, Captain America screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely made it pretty clear that Steve Rogers will not.

Image credit: By Kenneth Yeung at PandoMonthly event via flickr.com, creative commons license.

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When it comes to monitoring carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a key element of any coherent strategy to reduce emissions, there are things we know and things we don’t know. Ground-based monitoring stations in places like Antarctica and Hawaii give a good picture of the overall levels of CO2 in the air.

It’s more difficult, however, to determine precisely where the increasing carbon dioxide levels are coming from. This will become more important in the effort to see if countries are living up to their commitments made at COP21.

At present, the process depends on self-reporting. Each country rolls up their best estimates of how much carbon they emitted, based on how much fuel was sold and presumably burned.  This is difficult to reconcile with the ground-based concentration measurements, because the amount of carbon absorbed by the oceans and forests must be factored in.

This is clearly imperfect considering that, for example, last year China admitted to under-reporting the amount of coal it burned by as much as 17 percent.

Better solutions are on their way. Space-based carbon monitoring satellites are already up and running. One U.S. satellite, OCO-2, already orbits the Earth every 99 minutes, as does a Japanese satellite called GOSAT. These satellites are able to more precisely pinpoint emissions from countries, states and even cities. But each of them will only cover a relatively narrow swath of the Earth’s surface.

China expects to launch two more such satellites in the coming months, which will help fill in the coverage area, though full coverage is still a long way off.

Says John O. Niles, executive director of the Carbon Institute: “Space-based monitoring of CO2 is the most powerful reality check against governments self-reporting their CO2 inventories and fluxes.”

A complete system would require at least three satellites in low-Earth orbit and three in geostationary orbit. The European Union proposed such a system under its Copernicus program. This ambitious program will be expensive and will likely face objections by countries that don’t want satellites snooping on them.

In the meantime, more modest programs are helping to fill in the gaps. NASA recently launched a new aircraft-based carbon monitoring system called ACES, which utilizes LIDAR (light detection and ranging) and operates at night, which is helpful, since the satellite-based system operates only in daylight.

Add to this a set of new ground-based laser technologies. One of these, GreenLite, developed by Harris Corp., can measure sources within a city by mounting lasers and reflectors on the rooftops of skyscrapers. This will allow emission sources to be pinpointed precisely. The system can also provide an overall picture of the city’s emissions, said Eric Webster, Harris’ vice president and director of environmental systems, “As you watch the monitor screen throughout the day, you can actually see the city ‘breathe CO2’ as rush hour comes and goes and power plants respond to peaks in demand.”

Harris demonstrated the system in Paris during the COP21 climate talks.

OCO-2 Image courtesy of NASA

For many women, advertising is still very much a boy’s world, as many consider both print and broadcast ads overladen with stereotypes. Whether they are shown enduring solitary confinement in the kitchen, becoming ecstatic at the sight of a man, or having a body shape only possible thanks to pixelation or airbrushing, many ads for products are still, at a minimum, annoying — or at most, sexist.

To that end, one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies says it will do its part to eliminate gender stereotypes from its advertising. And it's goading competitors and other companies outside its industry to do the same.

According to a recent blog post from one of its global marketing executives, Unilever has both listened to consumers and evaluated how it could revamp its advertising campaigns so that they will resonate better with the public. The company claims it has asked all of its brands to wean themselves away from the typical gender stereotypes, and find new ways to showcase the diversity in people’s appearance, personality and gender roles.

This is a tall order for Unilever, which across its 400 global brands sells billions of products daily. As the BBC reports, the company spends over $8.3 billion annually on advertising. Many of these brands are in countries whose ideas about gender roles vastly differ from the countries lined up on both sides of the North Atlantic Ocean. And this effort will be far more complicated than issuing directives to every one of Unilever’s regional offices.

Yet considering Unilever’s size, this could also lead to a huge disruption within the worldwide advertising industry. Most companies outsource, or at least retain in an advisory role, their advertising and marketing campaigns to external firms — just as they do with other services such as public relations or human resources.

Unilever, however, is already making headway on this front with new advertising campaigns for its Axe brand of deodorants and Lynx body spray; the company claims it has received plaudits for its acceptance of men’s individuality instead of the traditional “macho” portrayal of men in such ads.

Indeed, the media is fragmented in more mature markets such as North America, where both television and print have lost eyeballs to laptops and, even more so, to smartphones. In other markets, such as Korea and India, however, television is still hanging on — which means if Unilever truly commits to how it views, designs and disburses advertising, more women (and men) could actually feel empowered and liberated from conventional norms.

Analysts love to talk about “disruptions” in the marketplace. And at this point, it is too early to gauge whether Unilever’s announcement can genuinely change the advertising industry so that it is more approachable to consumers. But if Unilever’s rethink clicks with consumers — as measured by increased sales figures — watch for its competitors and companies in other sectors to follow. Businesses will find yet another way to remain profitable while becoming even more socially responsible -- and that benefits and frees us all.

Image credit: Cola Cola/WikiCommons

Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) sparked many headlines a few years ago when the $12 billion company announced that it had both launched aggressive forest-restoration programs and adopted a zero-deforestation policy. The turnaround came after a turbulent time during which many NGOs, including Greenpeace, hounded the company over what they insisted were substandard, and even destructive, environmental policies.

Since that declaration in 2013, the company earned begrudging respect from the likes of the Rainforest Alliance and Greenpeace. Nevertheless, occasionally controversy will flare up over what environmentalists maintain are dubious land management programs. Clearcutting and the setting of fires are among the accusations still occasionally hurled at APP.

A visit to some of APP’s facilities in China, however, suggests that the company is keeping that zero-deforestation promise.

Last week, APP led a tour of some of its properties in Hainan province, located on a large subtropical island in the south of China. APP representatives were keen on showing journalists where the company’s complicated paper-making journey begins.

The process involved in making paper, from planting to the finished paper product, takes about six years. It all starts at a rather nondescript laboratory in the middle of the island, located about a 90-minute drive from the provincial capital, Haikou. It was there we met Dr. Wending Huang, one of APP’s senior executives tasked with leading the team of the 1,600 employees in China who comprise APP’s forestry division in that country.

In China, APP’s wood of choice is eucalyptus and to a lesser extent, acacia. Eucalyptus comprises 80 percent of the trees grown in China because, as anyone who has had them on their property can verify, they grow fast and are resilient.

According to Dr. Huang, there are as many as 900 different varietals of eucalyptus. The trees have evolved from what he and his team determined were the best out of the country’s crop of trees. Seeds from these “high-performing trees” are taken to the lab and further analyzed.  Over the years, the company developed many different hybrids of eucalyptus as its scientists and lab workers culled the best attributes of some trees to breed them with other strong performers.

This process is akin to what goes on in the global cattle industry: The trees the company wants to plant and eventually cut are the ones that can grow the highest in a five- to six-year timeframe; offer the optimal amount of fiber when they are harvested; and can grow with minimal inputs such as fertilizer while also resisting pests and other problems such as plant rust. Just to be clear, explained Dr. Huang several times during the tour, these are not GMO trees — they are hybrids.

The magic begins in this lab, where visitors are asked to cover their shoes upon entering to avoid bringing in any chemicals or bacteria. Workers start by pouring what looks like a gel, which is full of nutrients, into what are approximately 6-ounce (180 ml) jars. Another team drops the seeds, which start germinating and splicing within only a few days. Workers nimbly separate the tiny seedlings: Some are separated for further testing, and most are moved to other jars, where they start to resemble broccoli florets. Anywhere from 20 to 25 seedlings can start growing in each jar. And while they do not multiply as fast as bacteria, they can multiply from one to 1 million fairly quickly.

After a few weeks, workers move the seedlings outdoors, where they are placed into small paper planters — which eventually decompose and contribute to these seedlings’ growth. Within three to four months, after they reach a height of 10 to 16 inches (25 to 40 cm), they are ready to be moved to one of APP’s plantations elsewhere on the island. The exact timing of planting depends on how moist the soil is; none of these lands are irrigated as Hainan island receives anywhere from 60 to 80 inches (1,500 to 2,000 ml) of rain annually. Dr. Huang and his staff noted that we were surrounded by about 350,000 trees, which will contribute to the approximate 14 million trees the company expects to plant throughout its lands this year.

Some of the seedlings end up in one of APP’s social enterprise programs. APP does not own all of the land on which it grows its trees — some of it is leased from local communities; other areas are land collectives. APP representatives explained that some seedlings are given away to local residents, who are tasked with growing them — and eventually APP will buy them back and plant them on one of their tree farms. “From the moment this process starts, we want to be known as a company of collaboration and a partner of the communities in which we operate,” said one APP spokesperson as the tour of this laboratory and surrounding lands concluded.

Next: How APP manages its forests responsibly and sustainably.

Image credits: Leon Kaye

Disclosure: APP is funding Leon Kaye’s trip to China. Neither the author nor TriplePundit were required to write about the experience. 

by Bibi Gratzer — Blue has always been my favourite colour. Maybe because I am oceanophile, maybe because blue is a colour that has both, calming and awakening properties. Maybe also because I am a marine ecologist and would change the name of our planet from Earth to Planet Ocean if I could – 73% of our world is covered by water after all. I had a dream career waiting for me, working for a large International NGO in a developing country for a couple of years. But even though I was living in the dream of others, I wasn’t satisfied with the results of the work I did. Even though I had made great efforts to protect some of the most magnificent places in the world and surely did more than most people ever do, I intuitively knew that doing better than the mainstream wasn’t good enough in the face of climate change.

During my research I came across Gunther Pauli, who had developed the idea of a “Blue Economy”. I quickly became affiliated with the concepts and felt thrilled to find such a holistic approach of changing the way we think business and do environmental protection. Even though the UN adopted Pauli’s ideas for their ocean conservation programme, the “Blue Economy” is by far not focusing on marine protection only. It is called Blue simply because it is an alternative to Green. The Green Economy hasn’t done what we have needed it to do: living organic and sustainably has become too expensive and effortful for the vast majority of people. It has not supported what we really need: a systemic change that can happen quickly, within a lifetime if possible.

The beauty of nature developed because of ever-ongoing change. While natural systems are always changing, a capitalistic economic system remains resistant to change. We have created global standards under the pretext that of cost reduction to avoid change to a maximum degree.

Bizarrely, natural ecosystems thrive on local biodiversity; standardization is of little use. This was the inspiration for the entrepreneur Gunther Pauli, who is imitating the idea of biodiversity by bundling portfolios of 200 innovations. They are currently implemented through thousands of entrepreneurs, each of whom will find their niche and their chance. He proposed his concept to the Club of Rome in 2009 and then developed the four principles of Blue Economy, which are innovation and biomimicry, diversity, and open-source.

Like Pauli and his followers, I do believe that the best way to change the world is to create a diversity of business models that are innovative, operate independently of outside funding, imitate nature in terms of eradicating the idea of waste or scarcity, and share their successes. As I am currently working for a social enterprise, where I strongly engage with the concepts of sharing economy and the economy of the commons, I believe that all of these ideas could be interlinked.

The workshop on the 2^nd of July is the first step in this direction. Alexander Prinsen, who is presenting the content, is a Transition Expert, Global Consultant for Circular and Blue Economy Business Model Design, Speaker, and Writer. Since 2013 Alexander Prinsen is traveling the world, to teach the principles of the Blue Economy to universities and to consult entrepreneurs globally on how to apply those innovative ideas to their own business model.

The workshop combines Alexander’s long-term experience in the field of Blue Economy consulting with my understanding of biomimicry and the importance of nature in our society: “Biomimicry means imitating nature. Evolution has already tested over millions of years to figure out what works best. Why wouldn’t we want to use what nature could teach us? We only have to learn to see”.

Since the Blue Economy is fairly new to London, this introductory workshop is a unique opportunity for sustainable businesses throughout all industries (you would be amazed what you can do even if you are not working in sustainability). It fills me with trust and excitement to see so many people being interested in the workshop. I hope plenty of people are coming, and I wish even more that they all leave with the same sparkle that I had in my eyes when I began to see how the future of business and thus the future of economy could look like.

 

by Adam Woodhall — Workplace wellbeing is rapidly moving up the agenda of business, government and civic society.  It is now seen as not only the right thing to do, but it also has a compelling economic imperative.

Wellbeing is a broad concept that includes physical and mental health, and the social/relationship aspects of the work environment. It ranges from dealing with challenging mental health issues to supporting those who are already flourishing to continue that way.

It is clear there are issues with wellbeing in the workplace that need to be addressed. For example, sedentary workplaces are leading to the observation that "sitting is the new smoking," and “presenteeism”—attending work while sick—is decreasing productivity and happiness levels, and creating increasing levels of sick leave, both from mental and physical issues.

There is plenty of proof of the damage to society and business of poor wellbeing. Recent research by PwC demonstrates that UK workers have an average of nine days a year off from their jobs due to sickness (four times more than some other comparable countries), costing businesses £29bn a year. 

Further, there is increasing evidence of the benefits to organisations of good wellbeing. Research by London Business School demonstrates that companies with high levels of wellbeing outperformed the stock market by 2% to 3% per year over a 25-year period. 

Additional evidence comes from the employee research consultancy Great Place to Work who surveyed employees across a range of businesses.  There were many interesting findings; one highlight was that in answer to the question "People look forward to coming to work here", the top 10 'high-trust' employers had 96% of staff agree.  The bottom 10 'low-trust' employers had 32% of staff agree. It doesn't take an expert to understand that this chasm between top and bottom strongly influences why ‘good’ employers outperform on the stock market.

The commitment to improving wellbeing comes from the highest places in the UK government. Prime Minister David Cameron recently launched commitments to put mental and physical health provisions on an equal footing, and investing an extra £1 billion into the National Health Service to support this effort.

Cameron said on the launch of this campaign: "As a country, we need to be far more mature about this [mental health]. Less hushed tones, less whispering, more frank and open discussion."  There is a clear driver behind this initiative with mental illness being the leading cause of sickness absence, registering a dramatic increase from 11.8 million days in 2010 to 15.2 in 2013.

This evidence is not getting through to everybody, though, as demonstrated by a poll of 250 HR Directors in August 2015 which found less than half consider employee wellbeing to be an employer issue.

Pushing Boundaries

When one thinks of facilities management, one doesn't ordinarily consider them to be innovators, pushing the wellbeing boundaries. Enjoy-Work property management, who run the Chiswick Park office estate in west London aren't an ordinary company though. They start with the premise that their role is to serve their 'guests' (as they call the employees who work on the site). 

They passionately believe that if people enjoy work, they will be more productive, thus benefiting the 'guest' companies and community. A small sample of the activities and benefits they offer guests includes guitars available to borrow in every reception, origami evening classes and zip wires between buildings to encourage people to leave their desk at lunchtime!

It is not co-incidental that Enjoy-Work is delivering these excellent employee benefits.  The Chiswick Park concept was initiated by architect Lord Richard Rogers in 2001 to create a physical space which promotes the wellness of employees.  I visited Chiswick Park on an early summer’s day and was highly impressed with how the buildings are arranged around a pedestrianised area, with landscaped gardens, a lake and beautiful waterfall as the centrepiece.  They could have built out more office space but with evidence demonstrating that wellbeing, morale and productivity are improved with access to green space, employees were considered first.

During my visit I experienced the launch of their summertime programme and was greeted by 12-foot-high cricketers, a steel drum band and a lizard petting stand. As Gavin Bain, Head of Brand, said, "The summer events are designed to supercharge the lunch hour and boost employee happiness and productivity. At Enjoy-Work we established a tangible link between a great working environment and commercial success for tenants including Starbucks, PepsiCo, Paramount and Discovery."

Driving Force

One of the new driving forces behind wellbeing in the UK is Minds @ Work. This movement began in August 2015 with a dozen people gathered for a dinner and has now already grown to over 200 members with influence at the highest levels. 

I interviewed the instigator of this movement, Geoff McDonald, an ex-Vice President of HR in Unilever, and he told me, "Our aim is help to create emotionally and mentally healthy workplaces, where people who are suffering from a mental illness can put their hands up and get support.  We also encourage preventative action, where people can thrive." 

The movement is an opportunity for individuals from all areas such as psychiatrists, creatives, senior business leaders and digital experts to learn, network and share, many of who are passionate due to their own personal mental health journey. Minds @ Work is starting to gain traction by, for example, convening meetings with HR directors of large corporates. 

Geoff explained an impressive recent success: "I was at an event where David Cameron was speaking about life chances. At the end of the speech I made a point that there were few business leaders fronting campaigns and asked how could a meeting happen with CEOs?  Cameron replied that he would personally chair the meeting, and less than a month later, there was a meeting with 20 FTSE 100 companies represented including CEOs from Royal Mail, BT and Barclays, where the Prime Minister urged a change of culture regarding mental health in the workplace”.

It’s clear from the evidence and these examples that wellbeing is rightfully climbing the agenda of business and society, with companies and government taking positive action.

NOTE You can see Geoff McDonald in a video with David Cameron and business leaders (McDonald is the guy on the right hand side of the table, opposite Cameron, next to the woman who speaks, with his glasses perched on his head):

 

 

By Megan Wild

In recent history, hotels have been accused of damaging the environment, and sometimes with good reason. The rise of mass tourism and cheap flights in the 1970s prioritized quantity over quality. And many once-pristine beach towns were transformed into polluted concrete jungles almost overnight. However, things are changing fast.

Sustainable eco-tourism is on the rise in many parts of the world, and even large hotel chains are now doing their bit for the environment. It makes sense for them too: Today’s customers care more about their impact on nature than ever before. And many environmentally-friendly policies actually save money for hotel owners. Here are a few ways the hotel industry is catching up when it comes to sustainable environmental practices.

Reducing water use is key

Water is an obvious but essential cost for all hotels and can account for up to 10 percent of a hotel’s total utility bill. It’s no surprise that reducing water use is now in vogue. Ever check into a Comfort Inn and notice a note urging you to reuse your towels and opt out of a fresh pair of sheets every night? The management isn’t just being cheap. Towels and linen reuse programs can save up to 6,000 gallons of water and 40 gallons of detergent every month at a single 150-room hotel.

There are many less obvious ways to save water. Hotels can install low-flow toilets that use around six liters per flush and can improve pool maintenance to make sure there are no leaks. Sprinkling lawns in the evening rather than in the middle of the day also reduces water consumption.

Waste reduction is good for the environment and your bottom line

By their very nature, hotels produce a huge amount of waste. According to one estimate, each guest produces about one kilo of waste per day. This can quickly add up to tons of daily waste for some hotels. Fortunately, hotels can mitigate this problem. Setting up a designated recycling bin in every room is a simple but effective step that an increasing number of hotels are taking up.

It’s also increasingly frowned-upon to use separate plastic shampoo containers for every stay – more hotels are using refillable containers for shampoo and other bathroom necessities. Another creative option to tackle a hotel’s trash problem: The Maho Bay Camp in the U.S. Virgin Islands has a Trash to Treasures recycling program that repurposes some of the hotel’s trash to make beautiful craft items.

Food is another huge part of the waste problem -- in fact, most of the waste in hotels come from food. Luckily, food is one thing that’s easy to reduce or recycle. Food waste can be used as compost and even turned into an energy source, while leftovers are easily donated to local food banks. Even restaurants in hotels are doing their bit by promoting locally-sourced ingredients.

Going solar is effective in sunny areas

Energy is an obvious sustainability problem for hotels and a potentially huge cost saver. Hotels are huge energy consumers: In the U.S., it’s estimated that each hotel room gobbles up over $2,000 a year in energy bills alone. Hotels are therefore primed to benefit from cheap green energy, particularly large hotels with huge power bills.

Using solar power and wind energy is a key way to achieve this. Solar is particularly promising, especially when you consider that so many hotels are located in places with large amounts of sunshine. Powering your hotel will be a lot cheaper than paying local electricity rates or even using generators. Dubai is even set to open its first fully-solar-powered hotel!

Cleaning must be done sustainably

Finally, cleaning is a major source of energy consumption and waste production in the hotel industry. Every room needs to be fresh, clean and nice-smelling, and that doesn’t come easily when hundreds of people use the same room every year. You can fight this by using sustainable materials for cleaning instead of industrial ones. Instead of using air freshener, for example, a few sprigs of lavender will usually do the trick!

One important thing to keep in mind, however, is that hotel equipment such as floor scrubbers need regular maintenance. Old and dirty machinery uses up more power than properly-serviced equipment. Improperly serviced equipment also leaves a hotel looking less-than-sparkling clean, which is something that visitors notice instantly. A few good companies out there can ensure that such equipment operates at optimal efficiency, allowing hotels to stay clean and sustainable in the long-term.

Sustainability is the way to go

In the end, hotels aren’t just businesses. In many tourism-dependent areas, they’re also major stakeholders in their local communities. It’s essential that the hotel industry keeps going down an increasingly environmentally-friendly and sustainable path. Coupled with the fact that the approach often saves money, the green trend taking over the hotel industry is likely here to stay.

Image credit: Pexels

Megan Wild is an advocate of commercial and residential sustainability. She has written for a variety of publications including  Engineering, Construction Equipment Guide, and RISMedia. When she's not tracking the latest energy trends, you can find her outside enjoying the great outdoors. Follow her on Twitter @Megan_Wild.

With a busy week behind you and the weekend within reach, there’s no shame in taking things a bit easy on Friday afternoon. With this in mind, every Friday TriplePundit will give you a fun, easy read on a topic you care about. So, take a break from those endless email threads and spend five minutes catching up on the latest trends in sustainability and business.

American shoppers continue to gravitate toward more healthful foods and natural personal care products. But it may come as a surprise how many of these newly-popular organic, natural and socially-focused companies are owned by larger conglomerates.

In some cases, corporate behemoths come along, gobble up smaller competitors and basically transform them into yet another one of their already-established brands. But when done right, these partnerships can be a boon for social-impact startups, as well as society at large.

In short: Multinational corporations have access to a vast network of packaging and transportation infrastructure, as well as substantially larger market penetration. When given access to these resources while still being able to maintain their missions, social-impact companies can bring their visions to scale -- and their products to more customers.

This week we tip our hats to eight of these David-and-Goliath success stories that prove collaboration yields success.

1. Ben and Jerry's

Consumer packaged goods giant Unilever purchased Ben & Jerry's in 2000. Some in the environmental community were quick to say the ice cream label sold out. But things didn't exactly develop that way. From the start, Unilever seemed resolved to let the new subsidiary do its own thing, despite shelling out a reported $326 million on the acquisition. And now both Ben & Jerry's sales and its social mission are thriving.

The company maintains an independent board that has the authority to support and defend its social mission, explained here by CEO Jostein Solheim. In 2012, it became a certified B Corp. And the company continues to voice its political, social and environmental values loud and clear. It took a cross-country road trip with Tesla to promote climate action; launched flavors to commemorate everything from voting rights to racial equality; and even dipped out free ice cream to attendees at the Paris climate talks. Yep, even in the shadow of a Fortune 500, Ben & Jerry's is still out to save the world with ice cream.

2. Annie's Homegrown

General Mills purchased organic and natural foods label Annie's Homegrown for a staggering $820 million in 2014. The Annie's staff was not prepared for the backlash, 3p editor-in-chief, Jen Boynton, reported last year. “The internet threw up,” explains industry analyst and food advocate Robyn O’Brien. “This big guy has just come and taken our sweet Annie’s.”

Despite customers' initial concerns, this marriage seems to be a happy one. For Annie’s the acquisition meant more product lines, more outlets and more happy customers. The conscious food label has no plans to change. And that's good news for General Mills, as healthy food sales continue to climb. As O’Brien succinctly put it, “Here everyone was saying Annie’s was selling out, but what if General Mills was buying in?” Click here to check out Jen's full 2015 report on Annie's and General Mills, one year on.

3. Plum Organics

Plum Organics is a certified B Corp and benefit corporation. The purveyor of nutritious, organic baby food was purchased by Campbell Soup Co. in 2013. The acquisition made Plum the first U.S. benefit corporation to be wholly-owned by a public company. Some customers were nervous. But the companies emphasized transparency in the move and said it would increase the sustainability of both parties.

Since the acquisition, Campbell's stock price continued to climb. And Plum was able to "reach more families across the country," which was its ultimate goal, said co-founder Neil Grimmer. 3p founder Nick Aster sat down with Grimmer and Dave Stangis, Campbell's VP of CSR and sustainability, to talk about how things are going. Check out the video interview here.

4. Honest Tea

Coca-Cola purchased a 40 percent stake in natural beverage label Honest Tea in 2008. Three years later, it purchased the small beverage brand outright. Honest Tea remains an independent operating unit within the beverage behemoth.

As with all of these partnerships, fans were concerned at first. But founder and "Tea-EO" Seth Goldman insisted the move was necessary to bring Honest Tea’s mission and impact to scale -- and he was right. Honest Tea grew by an enviable 30 percent between 2011 and 2015. It was able to purchase more organic products -- 6.7 million pounds in 2014 -- and vastly increase distribution. The company also used its savings on bottling and logistics to expand its fair trade purchases.

5. Tom's of Maine

Colgate-Palmolive acquired an 84 percent stake in Tom's of Maine for roughly $100 million in 2006. Loyalists to the natural personal care company were wary, and some complained of a sweet flavor in their toothpaste, reports Business Insider. But a stipulation of the deal allowed Tom’s of Maine to continue its business practices without interference from above.

Since the move, the company continued to incrementally improve its operations -- from cutting water use in manufacturing to improving product packaging.

6. Stonyfield Organic

French multinational food corporation Danone has owned an 85 percent stake in Stonyfield Organic since 2004. Two years later, the two companies opened an organic dairy farm in Europe, in hopes of replicating Stonyfield's success in the U.S.

Stonyfield's sales topped $360 million by 2013, co-founder Gary Hirshberg wrote in an op/ed on TriplePundit. After nearly a decade under the Danone umbrella, Hirshberg wrote freely about the need to boost organic sales, both for our health and that of the environment. He touched on controversial topics like GMO labeling, climate change and systemic poverty, all without fear of 'the big guy upstairs.'

For its part, Danone is striving to improve sustainability at Stonyfield, and within its broader operations. In 2013, it commissioned German software producer SAP to calculate the carbon impact of its 30,000+ products. And Stonyfield even made a foray into packaging-free yogurt, proving even the weird is not off-limits in this partnership.

7. Kashi

Kellogg bought natural cereal and snack bar maker Kashi in 2000. Since the move, Kashi continued to operate autonomously under the Kellogg umbrella. Staffers continued to wear flip-flops to work, but Kashi's sales soared by 24 times within eight years, the Wall Street Journal reports. With the options for cereals growing exponentially by the day, the growth-spurt slowly petered out -- and the Journal was quick to say Kashi "fell from grace."

Some in the financial community called on Kellogg to further absorb Kashi's operations to turn sales around. But Kashi, for its part, is returning to its social mission to accomplish the same job. Through a transitional ag protocol launched with nonprofits, the natural label and its parent company hope to boost the supply of organic food -- a boon for their business as well as others. We're not ready to label this union a dud just yet. Let's keep our eyes peeled.

Want to know some of the other large companies behind your favorite organic brands? Check out this interactive graphic from the Washington Post. 

Image courtesy of Ben & Jerry's

Progressive Britons woke up this morning to the devastating news that their countrymen had voted by 52 percent to leave the free trade, travel and economic advantages that come with E.U. membership in favor of closed borders and independence. That this was a terrible economic decision became obvious as the British pound fell overnight to a 31-year low, its biggest fall in history. Why did the people vote for such a bad idea? Fear of immigrants. Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), which had backed a vote to leave, said in a statement recorded by Al Jezeera that E.U. membership had led to "irresponsible, open-door mass-immigration that has damaged the quality of life of ordinary, decent people in this country"

Al Jazeera's Barnaby Phillips said, "There is anger towards the political class. The message on immigration resonated in large parts of the country. People at the poorer end of society feel that the large number of EU migrants, and other migrants, that have come in has been to their disadvantage; that it has hurt access to schools, access to housing, pushed down wages at the bottom end of the wage scale."

Majority votes in favor of leaving the E.U. came from central U.K., a former industrial zone that has fallen on hard times as globalization has weakened local manufacturing. Interestingly, Scotland and Northern Ireland, both uneasy members of the U.K. voted in large numbers to remain; time will tell if these countries will seek to rejoin the E.U. as independent members. 

Suffice to say there is deep uncertainly ahead as the U.K. will need to disentangle workers who have enjoyed free movement, trade with the members of the E.U. and many deeper long lasting economic and trade issues.

Last night on news of Brexit's success, Van Jones took to Facebook live to pull a fire alarm, "No one cares [about Brexit], it's summer, everyone's happy. This is the end of the world. Please take this seriously." 

"Does any of this sound familiar? You've got a movement of crazy people going for power, making lunatic arguments, and then you have good, thoughtful liberal people saying 'That wouldn't be prudent. That wouldn't work out. The policies are irrational. The liberal people come on the air and say, 'oh these foolish people; this will never happen."

It Just Happened. Crazy hard right lunatics just led the U.K. off a cliff into the vast abyss of stupidity and foolishness and soon-to-be economic chaos. Does this sound familiar? The same people in the United States will give you the same argument and tell you it is impossible that Trump can win. 'His arguments don't make any sense, they're irrational; He's so unseemly. Who would ever vote for this guy?' and they point to the polls and say 'Oh look, Hillary Clinton is doing so well,' But look at the polls. Despite his lunacy they are tied right now in Ohio, a major swing state... Look man this is bad. This is horrible. What this means is that there's a current in the U.K. I'm not talking about a crazy country you've never heard of. I'm talking about Britain. I'm talking about London. I'm talking about places where you can go and get off the plane and they speak the same language as you... This is what is happening in the United States. You have some people, and we've got to take this seriously, who are incredibly uncomfortable with multiculturalism, they're incredibly uncomfortable with immigration, they are incredibly uncomfortable with the world changing, and these people will go and vote. In very large numbers...

Jones goes on to analyze what happened and points to the false reassurances that came from political analysts and incomplete polls.

The sane people went to sleep and the crazy people stood up. Everyone that tells you that Trump can't win, you should start screaming at them. Because all they are doing is putting our base to sleep. All they are doing is calming people down when they should be riling people up, and if you want to know if this strategy will work or fail, look at what just happened in the U.K. You have to tell people every day, 'not only CAN Trump win, Trump is probably gonna win, not because he's smart, but because we're so stupid that we keep telling people it can't happen here. It Just Happened.

If you don't want this to happen in the United States, slap your friends upside the head, who are watching NPR, eating their tofu, and telling you how wonderful it is that Trump is horrible. It is not wonderful that he is horrible, it is horrible that he is horrible and we need to get off our butts and start alerting people and getting the country ready for a big fight.

What do you think, is Jones right? If so, he's sounding an alarm progressive voters can't afford to press the snooze button on.

Watch his whole speech rant here. 

Image screenshot from Facebook Live