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Normally, a meeting between a sitting American president and a widely-respected Nobel Peace Laureate would be cause for celebration. But last week's meeting between President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, resulted in angry recriminations from China. Here's why the meeting was so controversial -- and how it connects to China's decades-long, growth-at-any-cost policy, which deteriorated Tibet's culture, human rights and fragile environment.

China invaded and annexed Tibet in 1950. Increased militarization led to the Dalai Lama's dramatic flight to India in 1959. It was expected to be a short stay, but, instead, he has been living in exile ever since, as China's control of his country has only become more and more stringent. During that time, however, his dedication to world peace and compassion, and his infectious, joyful spirit, made him a globally-recognized hero. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

Initially, his cause gained considerable world support. But things began to change as China's growth into a major global economy made more and more countries wary of criticizing it for fear of losing out on potential trade deals. That means, today, fewer and fewer countries are willing to sit down with the Dalai Lama. British Prime Minister David Cameron refused to meet with the spiritual leader in 2013. The following year, South Africa refused the Dalai Lama a visa to attend a conference of Nobel Peace Laureates. Many fellow laureates refused to attend as a result, and the conference was ultimately canceled.

To its credit, the United States remains one of the few countries that not only opens its borders to the Dalai Lama, but also allows him to regularly meet with political figures from both parties. This was, in fact, President Obama's third meeting with the exiled spiritual leader, though, notably, it took place mostly behind closed doors.

How did we get here?

The West opened up to China despite its troubling human-rights record based on the idea that liberalized economies created liberalized governments. For the most part, the theory made sense – as countries become more prosperous, they tend to become more democratic. This logic paved the way for China's entrance into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. That same year, the United States granted China most favored nation trade status. More recently, Europe eased visa restrictions for Chinese travelers and their big wallets.

Though human-rights violations continued to take place throughout the country, the West was willing to turn a blind eye, with the idea that, with time, things would get better.

There is a business angle to this as well. China's ascent into the WTO means a flood of foreign investment into the country. Soon Chinese factories were producing huge quantities of the world's goods, from cheap plastic trinkets to the hugely popular Apple iPhone. Many of these products used materials sourced from Tibet, a region Chinese companies have devastated for raw minerals. Far too many companies, to this day, do not monitor their Chinese supply chains, nor ensure that they do not indirectly support the repression of Tibetan human rights.

Human-rights violations continue in Tibet

The cold, hard truth is, international investment did not make China more democratic. While the economists and academics waited for China's booming economy to result in more political freedoms, those of us paying attention to Tibet, East Turkestan and Inner Mongolia saw things differently. We noticed increased migration of Han Chinese (now the majorities in all three regions), growing restrictions on local language and culture, and more surveillance in monasteries and local institutions. The Chinese government seemed less willing to engage with activists or leaders, including the Dalai Lama. Now, the country uses its new economic power to marginalize him even more.

In fact, today, the situation in Tibet today is getting worse. Tibetans are being thrown in jail for fighting for the right to learn their language, possessing a photo of the Dalai Lama, or criticizing Chinese rule in any way.

That is why Freedom House, in its most recent report, cited Tibet as the second least free country in the world, only behind Syria. The space for dissent is so small that Tibetans have begun to self-immolate to protest Chinese rule. An estimated 145 Tibetans have set themselves on fire since 2009, often with messages calling for freedom or the return of the Dalai Lama.

It is time to put human rights above profits. It is time for companies, governments and foreign leaders to stand up not only for Tibetans, but also for the countless activists, minorities and dissidents who face repression across China today. Waiting patiently for change while a once rich, vibrant culture is gutted, and a fragile landscape is destroyed, is no longer an option.

Image credit: Pete Souza via Wikimedia Commons

Over the last four years, TriplePundit has periodically reported on the growth of the San Francisco-based electric-scooter sharing service, Scoot Networks. Since its inception in 2012, with a fledgling service of just 20 scooters located in four locations in the city, the company has grown substantially.

Last week, Scoot announced a partnership with electric scooter manufacturer GenZe, and plans to rapidly expand its operation with a fleet of new American-made machines.

The service, which today remains a San Francisco-only operation, allows members to rent “Vespa-style,” all-electric scooters and ride them anywhere in the city. Because the scooters are classified as mopeds, members only need a regular driver license to join. The service is app-enabled: Members use the Scoot Networks' app to locate, reserve and unlock the machines. Though the company offers different service plans, riders are charged as little as $2 per half hour, and they can keep a scooter overnight for a flat $10 fee.

We visited Scoot Networks' new headquarters in San Francisco last week, where the number of employees has grown to 40 full-time staff. At Scoot HQ, we met with founder and CEO Michael Keating to learn more about the company's expansion.

Hundreds of new scoots hit the streets of San Francisco

Because thousands of people now use the service every month, Keating told us, a notable frustration some members report is an insufficient availability of scooters. So, the growth plan is designed to allay that problem.

Of course, an increase in demand is a good problem to have, and already the company has grown to 50 “powered” locations in 40 San Francisco neighborhoods. The scooter fleet grew too, with over 400 machines now in circulation. But it still falls short of requirements, hence the forthcoming aggressive increase in scale.

Scoot Networks plans to add "at least 100 scoots to the fleet each month for the foreseeable future,” Keating said, and the partnership with GenZe is key to this expansion. The fact that the fleet's new arrivals are built in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is a nice synergy. When we interviewed Keating back in 2012, he said the initial fleet of vehicles had to be sourced from China, because there wasn’t a U.S.-based manufacturer of electric scooters at that time.

Now, happily, that’s changed. “In addition to shorter lead times [for supply], it is easier for us to travel to their factory in Michigan than it was to travel to factories in Europe or Asia," Keating said of the partnership with GenZe in an e-mail after our visit last week. "There are fewer language and time-zone barriers to collaboration between our teams. Also their headquarters is in Fremont [California], so for non-engineering matters, coordination is very easy.”

Hit the road!

We had a chance to ride one of Scoot’s new GenZe scooters, and as well as being smooth to get off the line, it’s quick enough to merge safely into city traffic.

The top speed is 30 miles per hour, which is more than enough for the city, where speed limits top out at 25 in residential areas. In the San Francisco environment, Scoot says a conservative range of 20 miles is to be expected. With reassuringly strong brakes and easy handling, it makes navigating all the intricacies of San Francisco’s urban landscape a piece of cake. And the GenZe scooters appear to be a nice upgrade to Scoot’s existing fleet of smaller-wheeled mopeds.

Beyond the fleet-expansion partnership, both Scoot Networks and GenZe share the same philosophy when it comes to the future of urban transportation, Keating told us. “Both companies see electrification of personal, urban transportation as inevitable," he explained, "and both companies believe that to accelerate that change, electric vehicles need to be made affordable to everyone.”

Scoot’s new bikes are a slightly customized version of the models GenZe makes for the consumer market, and you can read more about them in this extensive test by TriplePundit’s Bill Roth.

Although Scoot Networks operates only in San Francisco, the company is still eying new market opportunities here in the United States and also in Europe. That said, with each incremental increase in scale, the Scoot team finds they learn new things. And as Keating told us, “We are still learning how big the San Francisco market can be, and we want to launch in new cities with that knowledge.”

Scoot members have ridden over 1 million miles to date, according to the company. That’s pretty impressive in San Francisco’s 49-square-mile footprint, on machines with a 20-mile range. And as well as the scooters, the company is also dipping its toe into other electric vehicle options, and recently began offering a small number of two-seater quad vehicles for members who want to take a passenger along for the ride.

Images courtesy of the author 

Apple announced it will not lend funding to the GOP for the 2016 Republican National Convention. It will also pull other technical support, such as doling out complimentary MacBooks, crediting Donald Trump’s misogynistic and racist antics, sources told Politico.

In 2008, Apple gave $140,000 in MacBooks and other tech tools to both the Democratic and Republican conventions, according to campaign finance records. Although the tech giant did not donate money in 2012, it did hand out products to both sides.

Silicon Valley titans like Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Apple have traditionally pledged equal support to both major parties for their conventions, maintaining a nonpartisan stance despite most of the companies’ left-leaning ideals. And while Facebook, Google and Microsoft maintained their commitments to provide service for the GOP convention even with Trump at the forefront, Apple has taken a different approach.

Microsoft said it will provide technology and other services to the four-day event in Cleveland, Ohio, but will not give cash donations as it has for past conventions. While Satya Nadella’s Microsoft will not pull its tech support, it scaled back drastically from the $1.5 million in money and services it contributed to the RNC four years ago.

Microsoft joined the bandwagon a day after Google announced it will support the GOP convention by serving as the official live-stream provider. The world’s largest search engine will offer election trends, convention videos and virtual reality tools, among other services, Politico reports.

Facebook, despite CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s outspoken opposition of Trump’s stance on immigration, will provide “financial and other support” to both the Republican and Democratic conventions, the Guardian reports. The company made it clear that its sponsorship for the Republican Party should not be seen as a presidential endorsement.

Apple higher-ups thought its best course of action would be to avoid the convention altogether. It’s unclear how Apple plans to support the Democratic convention. But after Trump called for an Apple boycott, the company's decision to not pledge money or services should come as no surprise.

Trump’s targeted comments toward the tech company and its CEO, Tim Cook, came following Apple’s controversial refusal to crack an iPhone linked to December’s San Bernardino attacks, which saw 14 people killed and another 22 injured.

“Opposing this order is not something we take lightly," Cook told the Washington Post in February. "We feel we must speak up in the face of what we see as an overreach by the U.S. government.”

Trump, who has yet to choose a running mate, fired back at Apple for protecting their iPhone security technology and not releasing it to the FBI.

“The phone’s owned by the government, okay, it’s not even [the San Bernardino shooter’s] phone,” Trump told CNN. “But Tim Cook is looking to do a big number, probably to show how liberal he is. But Apple should give up; they should get the security or find other people.”

Along with providing his perspective on Apple’s refusal to unlock the phone, Trump passionately called for a boycott both on Twitter and in a town-hall style event in South Carolina following Apple’s resistance.

That wasn’t the first time Trump called on people to boycott a Fortune 500 company. Macy’s dropped Trump’s clothing line in November following his malicious campaign kick-off speech, in which he called Mexicans “rapists.” He fired back saying Macy’s was disloyal because of his strong stance on illegal immigration.

Even though Apple severed ties with the Republican national convention this go-around, Cook isn’t entirely burning bridges with the GOP. The Apple executive plans to host a fundraiser for Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Politico reports. Ryan has pledged his support for Trump.

Apple’s announcement comes as great news to activists from ColorofChange.org, who are adamantly pushing tech companies and other donors to shy away from donating to the Republican convention. The progressive, civil-rights advocacy organization has already convinced powerhouses like HP to steer clear of the convention.

Other supporters also said they would significantly decrease their contributions to the convention. Coca-Cola announced it would cut donations to only $75,000 this election cycle despite giving $660,000 to the convention that selected Mitt Romney in 2012.

Wells Fargo, UPS, Motorola, JPMorgan Chase, Ford and Walgreens will also skip out on this year’s convention.

Image credit: Mike Deerkoski/Flickr

Drew Himel

Although women now fill 53 percent of entry-level positions, only 28 percent of vice presidents and senior managers are women. In terms of salary, women in the U.S. were paid just 79 percent of what men received in 2014.

At a recent entrepreneurial event, I spoke with several female founders who expressed how they’ve had to “be one of the guys” to fit in as entrepreneurs. Gender bias isn’t as outright offensive as being called a name. It’s perpetuated through subtleties that people -- who aren’t necessarily aware that they’re doing anything wrong -- continue to enact.

Unfortunately, these subtleties include how much women are paid, what considerations companies take when hiring them, how they’re managed and their ability to climb the corporate ladder. My company consists primarily of women, but even I’ve made the mistake of assuming a team member couldn’t handle my criticism because of such biases.

Every company is going to have missteps with gender bias. But at the very least, even small businesses can establish a culture within their management teams that demonstrates they’re ready to help, implement strategies to address this bias and cultivate growth and empowerment for all employees. Here are four tools we’ve applied to our organization -- after a lot of trial and error -- to help:

1. Actively recognize gender bias

The first step toward empowering your team is to have an open discussion about diversity. Leaders often avoid talking candidly about bias for fear that acknowledging it will make it real, but the only way to evolve beyond bias is to identify it.

To communicate about diversity, you need a deliberate, focused approach. In Mexico, a gender equity model has been successful in fostering gender equality. Steps within this model include doing a self-assessment of the bias within each participating company, creating action plans to address existing issues and auditing each step in the action plan. The model has led to improved communication between management and workers, increasing the number of women in managerial positions and reducing the salary gap between men and women.

We promote team discussions about diversity, producing an environment where no one is penalized for his or her honesty. We discuss gender bias both where it concerns our internal practices and where our clients come into play -- breaking down any barriers between employees and customers.

2. Establish candor between male managers and female employees

Some managers are afraid to give bad reviews to their female employees because they’re worried about the kind of environment harsh criticism creates. But radical candor drives out uncertainty in the workplace, which brings with it stress, fear and a lack of control.

Drive out that gender bias by creating expectations and goals for both your managers and your employees. Within every new employee’s first week, we sit down with her to map out what she wants to accomplish in her first year at OpenNest. Then, her direct manager can objectively and candidly readdress any hiccups in her goals during check-ins.

Don’t just focus on your team’s goals, either. As a leader, write down your personal goals to break down the gap within your company. Do you want to see a particular amount of diversity? Do you want a certain satisfaction rating from the women in your organization? Turn those expectations into yearly, monthly and weekly goals.

3. Promote confidence and autonomy

In my experience, women suffer the most from overbearing supervision. Help your female employees grow in confidence by replacing micromanaging with a compensation framework and active communication. Your employees will strive without being pressured, and they’ll understand their mistakes rather than feel ashamed of them.

Employees who have experienced micromanaging in previous jobs may arrive at your company with a lack of confidence -- women especially. When women are thought of as “assertive,” their perceived competency drops by 35 percent.

Provide certainty and security to your employees by allowing them the autonomy to make their own decisions and assert their personalities and visions. They will repay you with ambition and productivity. Having the resolve to stick to this belief in both good times and bad can test your resolve as a leader.

One of my employees made a costly mistake with a client’s communication that had a direct negative impact on the client’s business. It would have been easy to call the employee and let her know how much she cost the client and our agency. When I spoke with her, she was already distraught and upset about the incident, so we talked through what happened, why it had happened and how we could prevent similar mistakes from occurring in the future.

We provide an environment where mistakes can be made and learned from. Watching how engaged my employee has become because she knows that I have confidence in her and her development has been amazing.

4. Manage based on personalities

An empowering manager is one who considers individual personalities, strengths, weaknesses, work styles and backgrounds. We use the Craft Personality Questionnaire, which tests eight personality traits and combines the scores to create a profile for each participant.

Personality-based management cultivates social confidence in the workplace because it engenders empowerment and autonomy. Good managers (i.e., those who foster individual engagement and productivity) can significantly affect employee participation in the workplace.

These strategies promote trust and good communication, which will be your tools for bridging that gender divide. Higher employee satisfaction is bound to follow because people will feel more in control and vocal within the company. And client satisfaction isn’t far behind when employees are invested and engaged.

When every member of your team has the room he or she needs to grow, your company will grow, too. And it will be healthy, organic and passion-led growth rather than an expansion that leaves your female employees feeling left out.

Image credit: Pexels

Drew Himel is the founder and CEO of OpenNest, a digital marketing and strategy agency that helps brands make digital experiences more human. He has helped clients implement successful digital marketing campaigns by utilizing their internal data assets to find strategic growth opportunities for more than eight years. Drew’s expertise has led to him speaking at several national conferences such as HubSpot’s INBOUND, WSI’s Excellence and Innovation Conference and Social Media Summit.

The nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists has been a strong-and-steady voice for science in the policy sphere for the past 48 years. At a time when a snowball tossed on the Senate floor is somehow proof that global warming isn't happening, that voice is more important than ever.

UCS got its start as a nuclear watchdog organization back in 1969, decrying the fact that the nation's brightest scientific minds were directed to engineer military technologies rather than solve the world's pressing environmental and social problems. The organization's first big win came in 1972 with the U.S.-Soviet Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty —a landmark in nuclear arms control -- which UCS successfully lobbied in favor of passing.

Since the '70s, the organization's key issues have shifted from nukes to clean energy to climate change. But still, the Global Security Program continues as a keystone, looking critically at the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons and asking if they are really making us safer. While the Cold War ended over 20 years ago, hundreds of thermonuclear warheads sit on a hair trigger -- ready to blast off in minutes at the push of a button. And the risk of an accidental launch -- and Russian response -- is higher now than ever due to outdated technology, faulty computer chips, misinterpreted radar signals, and human and technical mistakes.

Pounding the drum in favor of disarmament are Global Security Program directors Dr. Lisbeth Gronlund and Dr. David Wright, a married couple who joined UCS together in 1992. In the last 25 years, they have seen a sea change in the nuclear industry. Why have they stuck around so long? “There are not very many places for technical experts to work on policy issues in a place that is outside of the government,” Gronlund told TriplePundit. “UCS was one of the few places that hired people like us to do technical analysis.”

Global security is a complex subject, with new challenges emerging nearly daily. In order to co-run the program, Gronlund and Wright rely partly on the fact that they have worked together for decades.

“We started working together on these issues back in '80s, doing writing and research, even when we came to UCS,” Gronlund explained. “We sort of divide and conquer – one of us is focused on one subset of our issues, and the other one on the other subset.”

UCS, despite its name, is not just staffed by scientists. Gronlund and Wright work with a dedicated team of communications experts and lobbyists who collaborate with the technical experts to figure out how to push for policy changes and amplify sound, technical expertise and knowledge.

“We've been at UCS more than 25 years,” Wright told 3p. “It's a great environment to work in, very collaborative and supportive, [and a] great staff working with us.”

The duo has accomplished a lot. One of the milestones that Gronlund sees as a model for how the organization can engage with policymakers is a 2000 report from the Global Security Program on Missile Defense, which, at the time, was a major topic in Washington D.C.

The best part is that the report did not live in isolation, Wright said: A whole team promoted its findings and ensured that it reached the eyes of decision-makers.

“We did a lot of technical research," Wright explained. "But then, a lot of what we did was brief members of Congress, getting it out to reporters, trying to take the work we had done and get it out to the people who were relevant.”

It was a success. The missile defense system did not go forward as planned, and for years thereafter, the UCS report was often cited in media stories about such systems.

Moving forward

Though there has been marked progress over the past few decades in global security, there still is much more that need to be done to achieve the ultimate goal – science-based, technically-sound policymaking.

“One of the things that [we] think a lot about is: How do you make policymaking more evidence-based? How do you make technical evidence more a part of how policy is made?” Wright explained. There's no right answer – it's a constantly evolving process. But one thing they do know is that it's necessary to increase the number of technical experts able to play a role in advocacy, public outreach and policymaking, Wright said.

“There are relatively few technical people working outside of government doing the things we do. We would like to see that increase,” he added.

One of the key tenets of leadership is not just how you yourself manage or lead, but also one's ability to ensure that others are ready, and willing, to take your place so progress continues to be made. On this tenet, Wright and Gronlund shine, as they work to increase the global capacity of science advocacy through an innovative symposium they started even before they joined UCS.

“It's an annual meeting that brings together people from all these different countries to talk about technical work, to talk about how you communicate, to learn skills on how to do this kind of work, with the goal of trying to build an international community,” Wright told us. It is obviously a project that both he and Gronlund are passionate about.

To Gronlund, this is a step toward the ultimate goal – irrelevance, in a better, safer world.

“We're trying to make the [Global Security] Program irrelevant,” Gronlund explained. “Getting rid of all these problems so we don't have to do this work anymore.” That is likely far away, but you can be sure that Gronlund and Wright will be there -- testing new ways to communicate complex, technical content, and building the capacity of future generations to do the same, all with the goal of creating a better, safer, more secure world for everyone.

Image credits: 1) Flickr/National Museum of the United States Navy; 2) U.S. Army via Wikimedia Commons

Today, TriplePundit and experts from Caesars Entertainment, Second Wind Dreams, Meals on Wheels America and Cleveland Clinic came together today at #3pHealthyAging to discuss what it’s like to be a senior, how to keep our brains healthy throughout our lives, and how research is advancing our understanding of the aging process. Is Your Brain Healthy? There’s an app for that!

We are a culture of youth, and yet we all get older. What’s it like to age in America? What’s the best way to take care of our bodies and brains? Alzheimer’s is the sixth leading cause of death in America, taking the lives of more seniors than breast and prostate cancer combined. While the causes of dementia and Alzheimer’s are still not fully understood, we do know that there is preventative care available to everyone, old and young.

Caesars Entertainment and its nonprofit Foundation are dedicated to helping older individuals live independently, maintain optimal health and proper nutrition, avoid social isolation, and enjoy mental and physical vitality through every stage of the aging process. Caesars also brings together stakeholders to conduct research and create broader awareness of social issues through its gifts, grants and donations.

In the #3pHealthyAging Twitter chat, we brought together a panel of experts dedicated to the health and well-being of our aging population. We focused on the following topics, and more:

• Caesars Entertainment's commitment to the aging population as brought to life through long term relationships with partners at the Cleveland Clinic, Second Wind Dreams and Meals on Wheels America.


• Cleveland Clinic’s six pillars of brain health -- and the steps that can be taken at any age to keep the brain healthy.


• The importance of proper nutrition and social interaction for seniors.


• How technology is helping advance our understanding of brain health, for example the Virtual Dementia Tour, the only patented dementia educational program, created by the founder of Second Wind Dreams, P.K. Beville, that is scientifically proven to build sensitivity and awareness in individuals caring for those with dementia.

Here's the full chat synopsis!
 

FEATURED GUESTS:

• Gwen Migita (@CitizenCaesars) - VP Sustainability & Corporate Citizenship, Caesars Entertainment


• PK Beville (@SecondWindDream) - Founder & President, Second Wind Dreams


• Ucheoma Akobundu, PhD, RD (@_mealsonwheels) - Director of Research and Impact, Meals on Wheels America, Meals on Wheels America


• Dr. Kate Zhong (@LouRuvoCenter) - Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health

About Citizenship at Caesars

Caesars Entertainment and its affiliates advance responsible business practices while inspiring employees, guests, partners and communities to share in making a positive impact. Over the last decade Caesars has made significant progress in its top 10 priority Corporate Citizenship areas, which include creating memorable experiences for guests; leading Responsible Gaming practices in the industry; creating a supportive, diverse workplace; advancing environmental stewardship and supporting local communities; and caring for employees. For more information, please visit http://caesarscorporate.com.

About Meals on Wheels America

Meals on Wheels America is the oldest and largest national organization supporting the more than 5,000 community-based programs across the country that are dedicated to addressing senior isolation and hunger. This network exists in virtually every community in America and, along with more than two million staff and volunteers, delivers the nutritious meals, friendly visits and safety checks that enable America’s seniors to live nourished lives with independence and dignity. By providing funding, leadership, education, research and advocacy support, Meals on Wheels America empowers its local member programs to strengthen their communities, one senior at a time. For more information, or to find a Meals on Wheels provider near you, visit www.mealsonwheelsamerica.org.

About Second Wind Dreams

Second Wind Dreams is an international, nonprofit organization committed to changing the perception of aging through the fulfillment of dreams and educational programs that help us understand the challenges facing those with Dementia. Founded in 1997 by geriatric specialist P.K. Beville, M.S., the Atlanta-based organization is recognized as the first in the nation to focus on enhancing the quality of life for elders and changing society’s perception of seniors by making dreams come true. Affiliated with more than 1000 elder care communities in the United States, Second Wind Dreams has made thousands of dreams come true for seniors living in the United States, Canada, India, Israel and other countries around the world. Its educational program, known as the Virtual Dementia Tour, is a scientifically proven method of training designed to build sensitivity and awareness in individuals caring for those with dementia. For more information about Second Wind Dreams visit www.secondwind.org.

About Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health

Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health provides state-of-the-art care for cognitive disorders and for the family members of those who suffer from them. The physicians and staff at the Center for Brain Health continuously work towards the development of early diagnosis and the advancement of knowledge concerning mild cognitive disorders, which could one day delay or prevent their onset.  Patients receive expert diagnosis and treatment at the Center for Brain Health, which offers a multidisciplinary patient-focused approach to diagnosis and treatment, promoting collaboration across all care providers, offering patients a complete continuum of care and infusing education and research into all that it does. The facility, designed by Frank Gehry, houses clinical space, a diagnostic center, neuroimaging rooms, physician offices, laboratories devoted to clinical research and the Keep Memory Alive Event Center. For more information, visit clevelandclinic.org/brainhealth.

Our personal opinions of what makes a high-quality apparel company have changed dramatically in the past few decades. Today, consumers don’t just want high-end fashion products. They want sustainable practices sewn into the clothes they buy.

In fact, the percentage of consumers who consider transparency and good business practices to be essential to a company’s product line is growing. According to a report published by the marketing company Good Must Grow, 60 percent of consumers surveyed in 2013 said they felt it was important to purchase goods from companies that demonstrated social consciousness. By 2015, that number grew to 65 percent, says GMG, demonstrating a slow if not steady increase in consumers' own social consciousness -- and their expectation that the companies they support will mirror those values.

While corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices aren’t limited to supply chain transparency, those statistics highlight a few important questions: Can one have CSR without a transparent supply chain? In other words, can a company be considered to have social consciousness if it isn’t willing to make its supply chain visible to consumers?

Just as important: Can an apparel company call itself a good environmental or community steward if can't demonstrate that the companies it does business with adhere to the same stringent practices?

Recent stories about forced labor practices in Turkmenistan and unsustainable wage conditions have pushed these questions to the fore. Consumers want to know that companies are not only making a commitment against labor and environmental abuses in their facilities, but setting standards that measure the ethical commitment of their business associates as well.

It's an expected transition in today's business arena, says Jorgette Marinez, the associate director of consumer sectors for the San Francisco-based organization Business for Social Responsibility. BSR focuses on sustainable business practices. Through collaboration with other organizations and entities like C&A Foundation, it explores and develops ways to enhance viable business models. One of its latest projects, the result of more than a year's collaboration with C&A Foundation, the United Nations Global Compact and others, has focused on mechanisms that increase transparency in the organic cotton sector.

"Today’s access to information has allowed the social and environmental impacts and challenges of global manufacturing to take center stage," Marinez told TriplePundit. "Manufacturers continue to be challenged by customers, NGOs, rating agencies and investors, retailers, and their own corporate values and colleagues around the sustainability of their products and operations." There is increasing need, Marinez told us, to make sure that both products and the supply chains that support their manufacture match the ethical values of the consumer. Traceability -- the ability to "identify and trace the history, distribution, location, and application of products, parts and materials" -- ensures that transparency.

Boosting transparency in the organic cotton sector

Few apparel industries better illustrate this point than the organic cotton sector, which, despite its popularity, has for years faced challenges when it comes to pay equity and transparent sourcing of materials. More than 100,000 metric tons of organic cotton were sold to manufacturers in the 2013-2014 production year, and yet the industry continues to face challenges.

"Limited technical knowledge, access to organic seeds and inputs, and limited financial resources are all barriers to change," Martinez explained. Farmers are often reluctant to commit to organic cotton farming, where pay incentives are less structured and less transparent. Start-up costs and limited access to education when it comes to cultivation methods add additional hurdles for farmers.

To address these problems, C&A and a broad spectrum of industry stakeholders developed the Organic Cotton Accelerator prototype. It identifies weaknesses, for example, in how and what farmers are paid, as well as inconsistencies in farming practices and production methods, and then develops mechanisms to challenge those weaknesses.

"The opportunity for the Organic Cotton Accelerator is to leverage the industry and stakeholders versus a handful of players that can only have incremental impact with key strategic partners," Marinez told 3p.

Collaboration, and the use of traceability and tracking resources, are at the heart of the OCA's efforts to build better business opportunities and a more robust organic cotton industry.

And as with so many conventional industries these days, improving cotton farming methods benefits another silent stakeholder: Mother Nature. According to OrganicCotton.org, conventional cotton accounts for 16 percent of all pesticides used globally every year. Strengthening the organic cotton market through better supply and incentives for farmers works against the environmental degradation that pesticides, many of which are manufactured from fossil fuel sources, cause. It also reduces blue water consumption by more than 90 percent and helps prevent soil erosion as well as global warming.

And it ensures better biodiversity by providing an environment that is hospitable to other crops. Textile Exchange points out the lack of pesticides means other valuable products can be grown alongside the cotton, increasing the farmer's earning potential as well. Traceability and transparency of an organic supply chain is often valuable in more than one market.

Transparency vs. traceability

Still, traceability shouldn't be confused with transparency, Marinez told us. Not all manufacturing companies and not all industries that endorse transparency trace their source materials or track their supply chains.

"Transparency refers to the will to communicate, whereas traceability refers to will to trace/track," she explained. "Therefore, brands can be transparent without full traceability."

For example, a nonprofit that supports a community-assistance program may offer transparency as part of its business model, while an industry that manufactures products from multiple sources may rely on traceability as one of the steps to providing that transparency. For industries that subcontract in multiple countries, C&A Foundation and its partners note, tracing source materials  can be important.

But that doesn't mean that all tracing mechanisms are the same, or may produce the same results, Marinez continued.

"The 2014 Traceability Guide presents three models of traceability: product segregation, mass/balance, and book and claim. Among these three models, the product segregation model is the only one to offer a full transparency. For the two others, traceability is partial but existing."

If successful, the OCA project, which embarked on its two-year prototyping stage this year, may lead not only to better transparency in the organic cotton sector, but also to insight into a better ways to source raw materials for other products with complex, hard-to-read global supply chains.

For consumers, it means more assurance that the products they buy have been validated as organic. But companies and organizations, Marinez said, should remember that eco-consciousness isn't the sole driving force for consumers' product choices.

"Brands which want to develop products with recycled, [fair trade] or organic fibers, or want to use fibers or materials with sustainability principles in mind, have to remember that rare are the consumers who purchase a garment because the fiber is eco-friendly, or because the workers were treated fairly. It’s a pity, but this is the reality … The two key purchasing drivers are the desirability of the product and the price (and the quality for premium brands)."

Just the same, Marinez continued, "Consumers in general care about social issues and the environment." Designing sustainable products, "where the story behind the project makes it more desirable," is key to encouraging consumers to make good, ecological choices.

Image credit: Flickr/Chris Shervey

Listen carefully to this year's presidential candidates, and you'll hear a redundant thread: They want as many black votes as possible.

That's because, say analysts, the black voting bloc holds tremendous sway in who becomes president. And the previous elections prove it. Barack Obama captured 95 percent of the African American vote in his campaign. George W. Bush was reelected in 2004 in part because he was able to increase his percentage of black votes in key election states.

Plus, most African Americans usually identify with the Democratic Party's ideals: a strong government that isn't afraid to take chances and, at the same time, shows respect for community or cultural identification.

But while presidential candidates may be willing to battle it out for the percentage of black votes, unencumbered access to casting that vote is still in question, says the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). In fact, more than a dozen states have instituted laws or practices that disenfranchise communities of color when it comes to voting in elections.

The report, Democracy Diminished: State and Local Threats to Voting Post-Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, came out on June 9. It takes a deep look at what has taken place since the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that Section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional. And what researchers found, says the NAACP, shows a worrisome trend when it comes to state and local ability -- and in some case willingness -- to protect the rights of people of color when it comes to state, local and federal elections.

A bit of background: The federal Voting Rights Act was created in 1965 at the height of the civil rights movement. Its heart and soul were Section 4 and Section 5, which imposed requirements on nine states and a handful of localities with a history of black voter discrimination. Most of the states were located in the south, where civil rights of minorities were still being forged into law. But by instituting those two sections and the understanding that a state or locality was responsible for protecting the rights of all voters (and could be subject to federal action if they didn't), Congress effectively provided a deterrent to discriminatory laws and redistricting practices in other states as well.

Democracy today: Voting rights diminished

And the proof that the law worked, says the NAACP, lies in what has happened in the last three years, since the Supreme Court ruled that Section 5's oversight was no longer necessary. Abridgment of voters' rights has grown in all of the nine states being monitored by the Act. Race or creed may not be a driving factor to many of those changes. But the NAACP's report illustrates that a state's intent shouldn't be the governing factor in deciding whether a law is fair if it can't protect the universal rights of its constituents. And interestingly, it didn't have to go far in its research to prove that point.

• A day after Shelby Alabama won its challenge to the Voting Rights Act, the state of Alabama instituted a photo ID law. The intent of the law may have been to standardize procedures for identifying voters, but it ignored a list of studies which show that elderly voters who no longer drive or are homebound are shut out by such laws.


• On the heels of implementing its new law, the state also proposed closing drivers license bureaus in key areas of the state's "Black Belt" communities. After local organizations challenged the proposal, saying it would restrict voters' access to drivers licenses and ID cards, the state backed off and instead reduced the DMV offices to one day a month. The federal Department of Transportation is now investigating whether Alabama violated the Civil Rights Act.


• Voter purges are another issue of contention. At least four states have been accused of purging voter rolls. In many cases, those rosters affect the outcome of Democratic votes. In 2015, civil rights organizations sued two counties in Georgia that were purging eligible voters' addresses on the allegation that their addresses had changed. Seventeen percent of eligible voters (53 in total) in Spartan County, Georgia, were struck from the rolls. Almost all of them were African American.


• In 2015, Arizona enacted a law that made it a felony to collect other people's ballots and transport them to a polling place. The NAACP points out that, in this case, it's Arizona's Native American residents who lose their ability to vote as a consequence. Many of Arizona's Native American communities are located in remote areas, and elderly voters and those without dependable transportation would be blocked from casting their ballots. An assortment of groups, including the Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton campaigns, are suing the state -- alleging discrimination against minority voters.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who opposed the Supreme Court's ruling in 2013, published a dissenting opinion, saying that the majority's decision "errs egregiously."

"For a half century a concerted effort has been made to end racial discrimination in voting. Thanks to the Voting Rights Act, once the subject of dream has been made and continues to be achieved," Justice Ginsberg wrote in 2013.

With the NAACP's latest report, however, even that fact may be in question. The organization vowed to continue monitoring state voting laws and practices, laying ground for what may well turn out to be further proof that federal oversight is critical to protecting our basic democratic values. And as is always the case, those values have a way of deciding the outcome at this year's presidential elections.

Image credits: 1) Flickr/Lauren Shiplett; 2) Flickr/Michael Fleshman

The 2016 presidential campaign cycle has been splattered with one bizarre episode after another. Most emanate from the camp of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. In the latest development, Facebook board member and Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel has been revealed to be a designated Trump delegate, a status that provides him with an instrumental role in Trump's path to the presidency.

This rather unexpected alliance brings to mind a billionaire version of "The Odd Couple," with Thiel's ultra-sophisticated public image and cutting-edge investment profile playing off Trump's bombastic personality and glitzy immersion in time-tested business sectors including real estate, hospitality, gaming, merchandising and golf.

So, why would a high-flying Silicon Valley venture capitalist like Peter Thiel support a presidential candidate with a large and growing reputation for racism, sexism and nativism?

Trump, Thiel and Hairgate

Under the category of bizarre, consider that one recently revealed point of media intersection between the two men is Donald Trump's hair.

Earlier this month, the online publication Gawker reported that it received a letter demanding a retraction of -- and an apology for -- an investigative piece about Donald Trump's hair titled "Is Donald Trump's Hair a $60,000 Weave? A Gawker Investigation."

The letter came from Charles J. Harder, an attorney on Thiel's payroll.

But wait, there's more...

Trump and the media

Though both Trump and Thiel depend on the media to craft their public images and advance their ambitions, they also demonstrate a tightly wound desire to control how they are portrayed. It's thoroughly understandable, though not particularly admirable.

As a flamboyant businessman with family roots in the high-stakes New York City real estate sector, Trump was born and raised in one of the most active media capitals of the world. He had a full adulthood in which to craft a pre-Internet public profile that consistently generated headlines for both his professional and personal image. And his transition to new media has been seamless and effective.

The media spotlight supported Trump's numerous marketing and licensing ventures, including real estate properties that bear his personal stamp in large, brassy letters as well. They also gave nod to his successful reality show, "The Apprentice," and various Trump-branded merchandising ventures. The lineup now includes fashion and accessories, fragrances, home goods, and books.

For all his success, though, Trump also carried the weight of four corporate bankruptcies, one notable case being the federal bailout of his Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City in the 1990s.

That and at least a dozen other Trump failures were duly recorded the media over time. However, with the help of his TV career, Trump was successful in diverting the public's attention away from his misadventures.

Trump vs. the media

As the primary campaign season began, Trump did not wait around for the media to begin picking over his past and bringing renewed attention to his business failures. Instead, he engaged in a series of pre-emptive strikes aimed at undermining the media's credibility.

USA Today chronicled examples of Trump attacking the media in campaign appearances during the early months of the primary season, including this gem from October 2015 (emphasis in the original):

"They're scum. They're horrible people. They are so illegitimate. … Some of the people in the press are honorable. But you’ve got 50 percent who are terrible people.’’

USA Today also noted that Trump began barring media from his candidate events as early as July 2015, when he denied press credentials to the Des Moines Register after the publication called for him to drop out of the primary.

Trump ramped up his anti-media language early in 2016, leading CNN to publish an op-ed that questioned his understanding of the First Amendment.

Trump further cemented his position on the First Amendment at a rally in February, during which he promised to "open up" libel laws as president -- enabling public figures to sue and collect damages without having to prove malice. Politico cites this Trump comment from the rally:

" ... I'm going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money ... So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they're totally protected ... "

By June, Trump hit full stride. Shortly after collecting enough delegates to be dubbed the presumptive Republican nominee, he revoked press credentials for The Washington Post, adding the publication to a growing list that already includes BuzzFeed, Politico, The Daily Beast, Univision and The Huffington Post in addition to the Des Moines Register.

Peter Thiel and Donald Trump

This is where one point of intersection between Thiel and Trump begins to emerge in a concrete way.

In his attacks, Trump generally positions himself as a victim of slander, libel and other forms of bullying by the media.

First Amendment lawyer Marc Randazza, who authored the CNN op-ed, pointed out that Trump has a previous history of acting in accordance with his view of himself as a victim of bad behavior:

"Trump has a history of filing SLAPP suits," Randazza wrote. "SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. This describes a lawsuit filed against someone for exercising his or her First Amendment rights -- filed with little chance of success, but with the knowledge that the lawsuit itself is the punishment. After all, if people have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend themselves because they criticized Donald Trump, they might think better of doing so again in the future."

If that deterrence strategy sounds familiar, you are probably thinking about Thiel's defense for his involvement in the Hulk Hogan "sex tapes" lawsuit against Gawker Media.

Last month, Thiel admitted to funding Hogan's lawsuit in secret with a $10 million assist from his own pocket.

It it turned out to be a wise investment, because the lawsuit ended with a stunning $140 million judgement in Hogan's favor. As it turns out, the Hogan case was just one among several Gawker lawsuits funded directly or indirectly by Thiel, and the combined legal battles proved too much for Gawker to support. The company declared bankruptcy earlier this month.

In an echo of Trump's SLAPP activity, Thiel defended his vendetta against Gawker as a deterrence strategy. Thiel further embellished the argument with a veneer of corporate social responsibility, as cited in a recent interview with The New York Times:

“It’s less about revenge and more about specific deterrence," Thiel told the Paper. "... I saw Gawker pioneer a unique and incredibly damaging way of getting attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public interest.”

[snip]

Mr. Thiel added: “I can defend myself. Most of the people they attack are not people in my category. They usually attack less prominent, far less wealthy people that simply can’t defend themselves ... "

That's a rather interesting defense, considering Thiel's possible connection to the threatening letter that Gawker received from Charles J. Harder. Perhaps Thiel considers Donald Trump to be among the "far less wealthy" people who are not in his "category" when it comes to defending themselves against media bullies.

Thiel and the media

Thiel has insisted that his enmity with Gawker is a personal matter that dates back to a 2009 article on the publisher's Valleywag site, which featured references to his sexuality. However, the legal vendetta can also be traced to Valleywag's focus on some less than successful aspects of Thiel's career.

Beyond his years-long battle against Gawker Media, Thiel has also provided evidence that he shares Trump's view of the media as an illegitimate intrusion.

In 2009, Gawker accused Thiel of trying to turn tech blogs like Valleywag into a "rah-rah chorus" by slapping the "terrorist" label on "anyone who questions the publicist-approved message."

In support, Gawker cited the following Thiel quotes from a Q&A session on the private-equity industry website PE Hub:

"I think they should be described as terrorists, not as writers or reporters," Thiel told the site. "I don't understand the psychology of people who would kill themselves and blow up buildings, and I don't understand people who would spend their lives being angry."

'snip'

"It's like terrorism in that you're trying to be gratuitously meaner and more sensational than the next person, like a terrorist who is trying to stand out and shock people."

And you thought Trump's media criticism was over the top!

Thiel and the Bilderberg Group

Thiel has also invoked state-sanctioned terrorism in defense of his involvement with the intensely secretive Bilderberg Group.

If you've never heard of this organization before, join the club. The Bilderberg Group is a private U.S.-E.U. group that connects high-level decision-makers in business and government.

Thiel's position on the Bilderberg steering committee dovetails with his libertarian political activity. Before throwing his weight behind Trump, he was an active force behind Ron Pau's 2021 presidential campaign.

Reporting on the Bilderberg Group is practically nonexistent. But outside of this year's annual conference on June 11, one journalist managed to buttonhole Thiel and tease a statement out of him. It appears to compare media attention to the activities of the Ministry of State Security, aka Stasi, the secret police organization that terrorized the citizens of East Germany during the Cold War:

“ ... We need to find ways to talk to people where not everything is completely transparent," Thiel told the Bloomberg reporter. "Libertarianism is not synonymous with radical transparency. That’s often an argument the Stasi would make, in East Germany, where everything had to be monitored by society. And I think often you have the best conversations in smaller groups, where not everything is being monitored; that’s how you get very honest conversations and how you can think better about the future.”

In a nutshell, Thiel may find in Trump a kindred spirit in terms of perceiving the media as an existential threat to his professional ambitions and public image.

Image credit: Peter Thiel on March 3, 2015 by JD Lasica via flickr.com, creative commons license.

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Indonesia-based Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) does not always score the most favorable press. Many publications, including TriplePundit, have cast everything from a watchful eye to scathing criticism of the company’s alleged environmental practices — or malpractices. Many NGOs, including Greenpeace, have long accused APP of dodgy deforestation throughout its Southeast Asia operations and have described the company’s words of promise as “greenwashing.”

But the evidence suggests that APP, which ranks among the world’s largest pulp and paper companies and one that is important to many companies' supply chains, is beginning to listen after a decade of withering exposes and censure from the international media.

The company’s most recent sustainability report that covered its operations in China claims it has launched a bevy of environmental and social responsibility programs. They include a $140 million investment in environmental protection in 2014, which the company says has boosted its overall spending on such programs to a total of $1.4 billion. Another $5.3 million of the company’s funds have been devoted to education and community development programs.

Those actions have changed some minds. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon invited APP executives to last fall’s Climate Summit in New York. The result was the company inking the U.N.’s New York Declaration of Forests.

To that end, APP invited me to represent TriplePundit in China, where I will see some of the company’s mills. The aim is to show progress on what the company says is its “Vision 2020” agenda, which aims to integrate sustainability into every facet of its operations with forest conservation a focal point of this plan.

The company touts several new achievements and policies made over the past couple of years: the elimination of harvesting from natural rainforests; the use of only managed forests for the sourcing of all raw materials; and collaboration with the NGO The Forest Trust, an alliance that has scored the confidence of its largest critic, Greenpeace. Other initiatives include the promise to protect and restore 1 million hectares (3,860 square meters) of forests and remediation of lands elsewhere that are equivalent to the size of the state of Delaware. More information about the company’s environmental policies is included on APP’s global operations’ website.

Included on this dog-and-pony show is a tour of what the company says is a $1.8 billion cutting-edge paper mill in Ningbo, a city of 8 million approximately a three-hour drive from Shanghai. Another mill on the agenda is on subtropical Hainan Island, where the APP says is the world’s largest paper machine.

“Looking ahead, we are ready to learn from our experience and to further collaborate with other stakeholders in our landscape, in our country and beyond, to try to create a better world for future generations,” wrote the company’s sustainability director, Aida Greenbury, in a report that APP sent to me in advancement of this trip.

Indeed, the fair question to ask is what is going on in the areas an organization not showing you, but compared to the company’s tone a few years ago, APP has been far more conciliatory with both environmental advocates and the media. Whether those words really do translate into action is a fair question, and I plan on asking many this week.

Image credit: APP

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