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Despite the almost two-year slump in oil prices, sales of electric vehicles (EVs) are still on the increase — just not at the rate the automakers would like. Nevertheless, companies including General Motors and Nissan are still investing in electric cars, as batteries keep improving and more consumers enjoy their benefits, ranging from awesome torque to breaking free of the gas station. And overall trends are favorable to electric cars: Austria, in fact, is even mulling a ban on the sale of new gas and diesel engine cars by 2020.

As interest rises, companies are doing what they can to make sure these EVs are rolling off their inventories and into garages. Witness Nissan’s drive to push its flagship EV, the Leaf. Yes, there is still a federal tax credit, but Nissan is also offering a $4,000 cash rebate and zero percent financing. Depending on the model, the sale price can dip as low as $17,510.

Last week, Nissan raised a few eyebrows with a snarky new advertising campaign that pokes fun at Tesla Motors -- and the fact that it has 400,000 people waiting for the much-hyped Model 3, a car that likely won't ship until late next year. If you’re No. 399,999 on that waiting list, count on getting that car in 2020 -- maybe.

But Nissan’s sales have been on the decline since its first model arrived on the scene, with much hype, back in late 2010. And even though it technically leads in global EV sales, that number, just over 200,000, is only half of the Model 3 fans on Tesla’s waiting list.

“No one should have any reservations about getting an electric car today,” said the ad, which appeared in some of the largest newspapers in the U.S. last Friday. Nissan’s ad campaign then touts the automaker’s leadership in the EV market, in addition to the fact that instead of plunking down $1,000 for a car that will not appear until late 2017, new owners can get a $4,000 check from Nissan if they drive a new Leaf home. Plus, the newer Leafs have improved on range, getting up to 107 miles on a fully-charged battery.

The problem Nissan is facing, however, is that new EV models are emerging. After several years of development, GM plans to roll out its all-electric Chevy Bolt by the end of this year. And while its estimated $30,000 price tag is higher than that of the Leaf, it promises a range of approximately 200 miles on a full battery charge. Once the Model 3 is released, Tesla is offering a range of 215 miles.

Both the Bolt and the Model 3 make huge strides to overcome “range anxiety,” a huge issue for those potential buyers, who, in fact, are less price sensitive than the typical buyer of a new car. If Nissan cannot improve the Leaf’s range soon, its competitors could make that car irrelevant — and this new ad campaign will be remembered not as witty, but as a desperate ploy.

Image credit: Nissan

Editor's note: This is the first post in a two-part story on Shell's Eco-marathon Americas event and Powering Progress Together roundtable. You can read part two here.

Last week at Shell’s Eco-marathon Americas, the winning team from Quebec’s Université Laval achieved the equivalent of 2,584 miles per gallon with a car students designed and built themselves. The event has been held annually since 1985. As of last year, Shell moved it from Houston to Detroit, in order to elicit more participation from the automobile industry.

This year, the company added a side event to the regular competition -- a symposium entitled Powering Progress Together, which featured a number of prominent thinkers in fields related to motor transportation who came to share their views on the future of this critical sector.

Among the speakers were Shell Chairman Charles Holliday; Mark Barteau, director of the Energy Institute at the University of Michigan; Dr. Michael Tamor, a Henry Ford Technical Fellow at Ford Motor Co.; Jean Redfield, CEO of NextEnergy; Jules Kortenhorst, CEO of RMI; Shelly Poticha, director of Urban Solutions NRDC; Wolfgang Warnecke, chief scientist of mobility for Shell; Kristin Schondorf, who heads up mobility for ErnstYoung (EY); and Roger Penske, chairman of Penske Corp. -- just to name a few.

Shell chairman: Energy efficiency is the new fracking

Among Holliday’s opening remarks was the question of whether it was policy or innovation that was most critical in meeting the desired objective of a low-carbon future. It was a question that came up often throughout the day, with most agreeing that some combination of the two is required.

Shell's board chairman went on to suggest that energy efficiency is the new fracking, in that it will be the next big source of cheap energy -- adding quickly that we'll need natural gas for decades to come, regardless of energy-efficiency gains.

Trendspotting: Industry leaders discuss the future of transportation

Global energy consumption has increased five-fold in the past 60 years, said Mark Barteau of the University of Michigan. While much progress has been made in renewables, most of it has been in electric power generation, much less on transport.

According to the Energy Information Administration, more than 65 percent of vehicles will still be powered by conventional engines in 2035. An informal survey of those attending the Shell event, taken later, put the number closer to 50 percent. The big question, Barteau said, is: “WWPD, what will people do?”

Our national energy consumption is the result of literally billions of individual decisions made every day. Survey data indicates that purchasing a smaller, more efficient vehicle will not be the primary response to rising fuel costs. Many did say, however, that they would seek alternative means of transportation -- another hot topic of the day. (Rail transport, however, was not mentioned once the whole day.)

Multi-modal transport: There was also a lot of discussion around autonomous vehicles. While it’s true that they will be more efficient, will the convenience encourage people to travel further and faster, negating some of the efficiency gains?

According to Ted Serbinski of Techstars, most of the action in the venture cap world centers around ride-sharing. All agreed that electric vehicles are for real, and the action around Tesla’s Model 3 shows that consumers are ready, now, to purchase an EV. Why has Tesla outpaced legacy companies in EV sales? Serbinski says people are buying the experience as much as the car. What is the vision 25 years out? Harmonization between transportation modes, he concluded.

The rise of biofuels: Tamor of Ford Motor Co., one of the few to mention biofuels all day, cited electro-catalysis (also known as electrofuels) as a trend to watch. Producing liquid fuels directly from microorganisms could be ten times as efficient as the photosynthetic biofuels being produced today.

Systems-level thinking: Jean Redfield and Linda Capuano, of Rice University Center for Energy Studies, spoke on the question of moving to a low-carbon economy. Redfield said that “what we think of as a car,” is going to change. How are we going to knit together a coherent system out of all these disparate players? Embrace the chaos, a systems-level approach is essential.

Integrating transportation and utilities

Capuano spoke of the tremendous changes in the utility sector, the need for an integrated national grid, and how can the rate structure drive action (e.g. demand charges). In an EV-dominated world, how will power outages impact transportation?

Detroit, which has the lowest car ownership of any city in the U.S., is a great campus for mobility experiments. What’s happening with research funding? More funding is going on outside the U.S. now. What will that mean in the future? Well-intentioned government policies create barriers. Just look at the energy-water nexus: We waste at least a third of all the energy, water and food we produce in this country. In one state, 30 percent of all electricity used is for pumping water.

Energy-efficiency makes great sense. What about capital efficiency? In some places 40 percent of assets (for peaker plants) are only utilized 80 hours a year -- the opposite of a smart grid. Cisco bought a startup that monitors every outlet and manages demand in ways that are invisible to the user, but help shave those peaks down.

Innovations continue in cleantech

Finally, the morning ended with the selection of the Great Lakes Innovation Award winner. The award went to Accio Energy, which makes a novel type of offshore wind generators based on electro-hydrodynamics (EHD). Instead of spinning blades, these generators are screens that charge particles of ocean spray that pass through them. The charged particles create a current as they pass through the screen. The systems have 50 percent lower cost and a 40 percent higher capacity factor.

For more trends cited by industry leaders at Shell's event, keep an eye out for part two of this article. 

Photo by RP Siegel

We are in a national weight crisis. Big Food's answer is to sell you smaller portions. But research points to less-is-not-more in terms of achieving sustained weight loss. We get hungry when we eat less food. Hunger is not sustainable because our bodies are built to satisfy hunger. That is why denial-based dieting fails.

The fallacy that eating less will promote weight loss is at the heart of the Big Food industry’s marketing strategy. Examples of their new wave of “eat/drink less” products include 8-ounce Coke cans, McDonald’s testing a Big Mac Jr. and those sinfully wonderful “thin” Oreos.

Big Food is embracing eating less because they know our bodies better than we do. Not unlike tobacco companies knowing that nicotine was addictive, Big Food knows that if they can keep us eating their food, then we will continue to make their products the central part of our diet. While they say helping customers maintain a healthy weight is one of their central focuses, what they really want is to sell more. If that was sustainable, then all of us would be fashion-model thin.

Four ways eating Big Food adds weight

There are four reasons why including Big Food in your daily diet will cause weight gain, even if you buy smaller portion sizes. They are:

1. Smaller portion size does not mean you will eat less. Do a test. Try watching TV and eating those “thin” Oreos. After you see how many you have eaten, you will understand that smaller portion sizes do not translate into eating less!


2. Big Food is addicting. We continue to eat Big Macs, fries and soda even when we know they cause weight gain. We do so because these foods are filled with addictive chemicals including sugar (or artificial sweeteners), fats, salt and preservatives. Sustained weight loss is achieved by approaching Big Food as an addiction. The first step is admitting you are addicted. You do not kick an addiction by taking less of the addicting substance. The path to sustained weight loss is to admit an addiction to Big Food and to stop eating/drinking their products. Eating smaller proportions of Big Food is like cutting down to a pack a day of cigarettes.


3. Eating less food is not sustainable. Eating less food will make you hungry. For most of us, eating less will boomerang us back into binge-eating Big Food to satisfy our hunger. Do not confuse eating a smaller hamburger or soft drink with shrinking your stomach size. Smaller stomachs can reduce the feeling of being hungry. Eating a smaller Big Mac will just make you hungry sooner for another Big Mac.


4. Eating less is not the same as cheating. "Cheating" is part of many diets, including my own, featured in my new book "The Boomer Generation Diet." Cheating means consuming fattening foods in moderation or drinks that have honest ingredients. Cheating is fun. It reduces stress. Reducing stress reduces weight. Cheating is a key best practice in my losing 30 pounds. Eating Big Food is not cheating. It is just fattening.

Lose weight eating good-for-you food that tastes good

There is an obvious path to sustained weight loss. It is to eat good-for-you food that tastes good to you. Here are three keys for figuring out how to make this work:

1. Stop buying Big Food. Big Food’s current efforts are focused on taking harmful things out of their products. They issue national press releases proudly announcing the removal of artificial colors or that they are reducing the amount of sugar in their products. Good for them. But it's still not good enough for achieving sustained weight loss. A major weight loss step is to stop eating Big Food.


2. Stop going to grocery stores. Wow, that appears extreme. But here is why avoiding grocery stores enables sustained weight loss. These stores are designed around impulse or “feel good” marketing. We are preconditioned through mass advertising to impulsively respond to a grocery superstore’s huge displays of sodas, potato chips and cookies. Sure, we are smarter now. We do try to buy more fresh produce. But it is almost impossible to not walk out with at least one Big Food product. The ultimate solution is to avoid grocery stores. Shop at stores and markets that sell good-for-you food. That way, when you get the munchies you will not reach for the chips you knew you should not have bought but you did because that super-sized bag was on sale and you were impulsively attracted to the remembered taste of salt. We have all done it. But we all have to stop shopping at grocery stores to achieve sustained weight loss.


3. Figure out what is good-for-you food that you like to eat. I love my diet. I eat food that tastes good to me. Because the food is good for me, I eat all I want. No hunger! Most of what I eat I did not eat before figuring out "The Boomer Generation Diet." I built my diet by going online and finding foods that research said was good for me. Then I tried eating them. Most I didn’t like to eat. But there were enough of them that did taste good where I could build a daily diet. I still add and subtract as I test new foods. I enjoy eating … a lot! Dieting is not a sacrifice. It is fun and satisfying.

The second of this two-part article shares weight loss secrets from I Love Lucy!

Image credits: 1) Flickr/theimpulsivebuy 2) Bill Roth

In early 2016, the city-state of Hamburg, Germany, as part of its sustainable purchasing program, banned the purchase of products that are hard to recycle or create unnecessary pollution, including coffee capsules. This has stimulated a lively discussion around the costs and benefits to society of the consumption of these capsules, in particular those of Nespresso.

We analyze this issue in light of the controversy between the creating shared value (CSV) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies to guide company action.

CSV and CSR: What's the difference?

Since the publication of the controversial article, Creating Shared Value: How to reinvent capitalism and unleash a wave of innovation and growth, by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer in the Jan-Feb. 2010 issue of the Harvard Business Review, there has been considerable discussion about the benefit of a creating shared value, CSV, approach over that of traditional corporate social responsibility (CSR).

 

In the article, Porter and Kramer decried CSR as an obsolete concept by equating it with philanthropy, social investments and in general as greenwashing tool.

The main counter argument espoused  by academics and managers of CSR was that Porter and Kramer used an outdated and incomplete interpretation of the current understanding of CSR, which is now understood as the assumption of responsibilities toward society (and the environment) for the impacts that a company had, has and wants to have in order to contribute to its development.

Creating shared value was described as a strategy through which the activities of the company had to create value for the company and for society, at the same time.  Many authors, myself included, consider CSV as a subset of CSR, as it looks only at specific activities, creating value simultaneously for the company and society.  CSR, on the other hand, looks at the impact on the company and society for all its activities -- in the past, in the present, and those expected or desired in the future. In its narrow definition, CSV ignores issues like pollution, climate change, product responsibility, labor practices, human rights, corruption, transparency, reporting and governance, among others, which are part of corporate responsibility toward society.

This was basically the conclusion drawn at a recent forum -- entitled Is CSR dead? -- which discussed the merits of either strategy, with of John Elkington advocating for CSR and Mark Kramer advocating for CSV, in spite of the poor defense by Elkington (who happens to be a member of the advisory board of Nestle, creators of CSV).

The case of Nespresso

Nespresso, part of Nestle, produces coffee capsules to be used in its specialized machines (some readers may recall the ads featuring George Clooney).  Taking this product as an opportunity to create shared value, the company makes sure the coffee is produced under sustainable conditions, pays fair prices and provides technical assistance to farmers.

 

This is a typical case of CSV: It creates value for the company and creates value for society, in this case represented by the farmers.  But to understand the implications of value-creation and sharing for society, the whole lifecycle of this product and its context must be analyzed.

The Nespresso value chain involves the mining of bauxite, the energy-intensive production of aluminum, the extraction and refining of oil for the production of plastics, the planting and farming of coffee (where the value is shared), the assembly into capsules, the consumption by the consumer via expensive machines, and the ultimate disposal of the capsules as waste. As the spent capsules contain metal, plastics and coffee residue (an organic material), it cannot be directly disposed.  Some countries require the separation and disposal of the three components in three separate bins.  If disposed whole in the “undifferentiated” bins, it requires the recovery of the capsules and the deconstruction in its components to be recycled separately.

Nespresso Spain, conscious of this problem of recycling and wanting to create more shared value, recovers some of the capsules in its stores (a small percentage) and in municipal collection points. It then deconstructs the capsules for recycling and uses the coffee residue as a component in fertilizing rice fields that donate food to food banks.  It converts a recycling problem into a value-add of rice for the hungry -- and a philanthropic donation of about US$70,000 a year.  But does this deconstruction process really add value?

Looking at only a part of this cycle, it may appear that value is shared in the consumption of coffee capsules, with coffee producers and the food banks.  But if the process is examined in its entirety, it's revealed to be a highly resource-intensive operation (extraction, mining, farming, manufacturing, deconstruction and disposal). The capsule has to be constructed to be deconstructed at considerable expense, which presumably is paid by the consumer, as Nestle does not lose money on this product.

Some people may derive value, but society as a whole is worse off.  Worse off than what?  Consider the alternative used by some of Nespresso's competitors, which produce the capsules or pods with fully biodegradable materials and sell them in regular stores with the corresponding economies of scale -- avoiding significant costs to society and the environment in general and to consumers in particular.

If Nestle had a comprehensive and updated view of CSR, it would have analyzed the integral impacts that its products have on society and the environment, and most likely it would have designed them differently, as some competitors do.  Instead, it designed a product for maximum commercial impact and then went to look for some opportunities to share value.  It did what Porter and Kramer accused the “old” CSR of doing: mitigating some of the impacts to look good.

If Nestle had a comprehensive CSR strategy instead of a collection of partial CSVs for its different activities, it would not have created an irresponsible product.  CSV is the old CSR.

Concluding comment: This discussion does not mean that Nestle is not a responsible company.  Nestle does create and share significant value for society through the production and marketing of products that society needs, of high quality and nutritional content, using responsible practices in most of its phases. This article refers to one case where a CSV strategy can lead to value destruction and as such it is inferior to a comprehensive CSR strategy.

Note: This post originally appeared in Spanish as an extensive comparison of the concepts and implementation of CSR and CSV was published  as Compartir el Valor Creado versus Crear Valor Compartido: diferentes estrategias, diferentes implementaciones, diferentes resultados in issue No. 10, Jan.-Apr. 2012, of Revista RSE Fundación Luis Vives (no relation to the author).

Image courtesy of Nespresso

Antonio Vives is Principal Associate at Cumpetere, a CSR consulting firm.  He is also Consulting Professor at Stanford University and a member of the Sustainability Advisory Panel at several multinationals.  Was the Sustainable Development Manager at the Inter-American Development Bank. Has published seven books, dozens of academic papers and more that 300 blog articles on CSR (www.cumpetere.blogsport.com) and is a frequent speaker at conferences and universities. Holds a Ph.D. in Corporate Finance from Carnegie Mellon University. Follow him on twitter @tonyvives

by Sangeeta Haindle - A new study by the London School of Economics (LSE), published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change, says climate change could cut the value of the world’s financial assets by $2.5tn (£1.7tn). This research used economic modelling to estimate the impact of unchecked climate change and found that losses would be caused by the direct destruction of assets by increasingly extreme weather events, and also by a reduction in earnings for those affected by high temperatures, drought and other climate change impacts. It states that if action is taken to tackle climate change, then financial losses would be reduced, though other assets such as fossil fuel companies would lose value. 

The global climate summit in Paris last December set a goal of limiting global warming to “well below” 2°C above pre-industrial times, while leaving open how this would be achieved. If the global temperature rise were limited to 2°C by 2100, the study’s central scenario put the total of current financial assets’ damages at $1,7 trillion. However, if the temperature rose a further 0.5°C by the end of the century, $2.5 trillion would probably be at risk. While at the extremes of the study’s thousands of scenarios based on a 2.5°C rise, the value at risk ranges from 0. 5 percent of total financial assets up to a worst case of 17 percent, or $24 trillion.

The study did not identify which sectors were most at risk from the damage that climate change can wreck, ranging from the destruction of buildings, bridges or roads by storms or floods to losses of agricultural productivity and enforced movement of populations.

Coincidentally, at the same time that the LSE study was published, the White House also released its final report on climate change, The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment.

A statement from the White House about this study warns, “From children to the elderly, every American is vulnerable to the health impacts associated with climate change, now and in the future.” A few examples of the increased health risks found in this report include: increase in air pollution and airborne allergens, making allergy and asthma conditions worse, where it is projected to lead to hundreds to thousands of premature deaths, hospital admissions, and cases of acute respiratory illnesses each year in the U.S. by 2030; while warmer winter and spring temperatures are set to lead to earlier annual onset of Lyme disease cases in eastern America; and extreme heat is to be expected to cause an increase in the number of premature deaths.

Both of these studies come at a pivotal time, where the consequences of climate change are being felt around the world. The urgency of these warnings reflects the growing understanding among scientists of the widespread impacts of climate change, and that climate change is already underway. No matter what we do, it can’t be stopped, but cutting carbon emissions can reduce the impact.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia
 

- See more at: http://www.justmeans.com/blogs/us-and-uk-studies-issue-warnings-about-financial-and-health-impacts-of-climate-change#sthash.swfDMmtG.dpuf

 

These days we don’t worry about the dependability and safety of our interstate highways before embarking on a road trip. And we generally don’t wonder about whether our children’s schools are built soundly enough, or if the bridges we take to work each day are in need of critical upkeep.

But maybe we should. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers' (ASCE) 2013 infrastructure assessment, our roads, bridges, levees, dams, schools and transit systems are in deep need of improvement. Just about every major infrastructure we depend upon – including drinking water systems – are below the standard necessary to sustain our population growth and demands, the ASCE found. The group's research is backed up by TRIP, a national transportation group which found that congested highways and deficient upkeep are costing local drivers anywhere between $1 billion and $4.9 billion annually.

Stories like those of Flint, Michican, where the municipal drinking water system is facing comprehensive replacement because of its antiquated lead structures, have galvanized media attention. But what major media outlets haven't focused on, says the ASCE, is the general disrepair of the nation's water infrastructure.

"There are an estimated 240,000 water-main breaks per year in the United States," says the ASCE, referencing a report by the American Water Works Association (AWWA). While the quality of drinking water in major U.S. metropolitan centers has in general remained high, says the ASCE, the lack of upgrades to our drinking water infrastructure that would have removed the threat of lead poisoning in places like Jersey City, New Jersey, is leaving behind a huge price tag. The AWWA estimates that if all aging pipes in the U.S. were to be replaced, it could cost the nation more than $1 trillion in infrastructure upgrades.

And even if there isn't a major need for infrastructure replacement, the costs continue to mount up. The ASCE estimates that by 2020, unexpected breaks in our aging drinking water and wastewater systems (much of which is already a century old) will cost:

• $59 billion to consumers in the form of increased water rates


• $147 billion to businesses for spiraling water rates


• $416 billion in resulting impacts to the nation's GDP

The answer, say both the ASCE and the AWWA, is timely upgrades.

"[A] modest increase in investment in drinking water, wastewater and wet-weather water quality measures can prevent future economic losses," the ASCE says in its summary of the report.

But the deficit between what we need to invest and what national, state, municipal and county agencies are allocating grows each year. By 2020, the gap between what we are investing in our water infrastructure and what is needed to bring the structures up to necessary standards will be $84.4 billion. By 2040, that deficit jumps to $143.7 billion.

Presidential prerogatives?

But of course, water and waste treatment systems aren't the only types of infrastructure that are demanding attention. Levees, once built to support agricultural development, now hem in major metropolitan areas. The problem isn't that they exist, says the National Committee on Levee Safety (NCLS), but that there is no national program to ensure their upgrade.

"In the United States there is significant uncertainty about the location, performance and condition of levees that millions rely upon to reduce their risks of flooding," says the NCLS. Problems such as what occurred during Hurricane Katrina in 2003 -- in which a natural disaster, prompted by unusual climate conditions, destroyed levees outside of New Orleans -- point to the need for a nationalized management system.

That clarion call has been heard loud and clear by candidates vying for a place in the 2016 presidential race. All of the major Democratic and Republican contenders except for Ted Cruz have put forth infrastructure improvement plans (Ted Cruz actually voted against a much scaled-down bill that allocated $305 billion to roads, bridges and rail lines). True to this year's presidential race, each of the plans put forth has its own flavor and outlooks on funding priorities.

• Sen. Bernie Sanders advocates a "highly detailed" $1 trillion, five-year plan that reflects his understanding that our infrastructure demands are vast and exceeding their current capacity.  It includes $6 billion per year to help states protect drinking water systems and $125 billion to "leverage private capital and finance new projects," as well as a host of other smaller allocations.


• Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would plan to invest $50 billion per year to fund infrastructure projects. A one-time $25 billion payment would be set aside to start a national infrastructure bank. Waterways, ports, a smart electrical grid and "safe, reliable sources of water" are also targeted, although Clinton is less specific on how much those would cost and how they would be accomplished.


• Businessman and Republican front-runner Donald Trump is much less specific on how he would fix infrastructure woes, except to say he's the man to do it and that private, not public, funding should lead the way. He doesn't say how much he would allocate to repair the airports he concedes are "a disgrace," or the potholes that he encounters when he is driving, but he agrees that U.S. infrastructure is "terrible" and given Trump ingenuity and prowess, he attests, a much smaller government can command a greater private business enterprise to put the country's supporting networks back together again.

None of the candidates has been able to offer plans that will specifically address the $3.6 trillion the ASCE says will be necessary to bring all of the nation's infrastructure out of the danger zone.

Infrastructure upgrades: What works and whose headache is it anyway?

Obviously, there are lots of views on what it will take to address the nation's under-managed transportation networks that include roads, waterways, wastewater systems, airports and energy systems. But few experts have been able to comprehensively address the deficiencies from a national perspective. State governments seem to have varying problems addressing the issue as well.

Oregon and Idaho, which both often face severe winter conditions that have been known to take out roads and hamper commerce, received a C- grade on infrastructure from the ASCE in 2013, while Washington, which often deals with similar weather conditions, received a C. Arkansas on the other hand, says the ASCE, has been making progress in updating its system of bridges, although its levees and dams are below the national average and are in severe need of upgrade. Counting on state governments to find the money to ensure all infrastructure systems are maintained is a challenge in just about every state.

One system that has already received some attention in other parts of the world, says Parag Khanna, a senior fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, is what he calls as the "mega-regional" management system, in which metropolises join together as networks to address infrastructure demands. The Eastern seaboard, with its interconnected cities and freeways, as well the Los Angeles and San Diego municipal areas with dozens of small communities that rely on the same resources, are in an ideal situation to rethink the way they address infrastructure costs and manpower.

The problem, Khanna points out in his book, "Connectography: Mapping the Future Global Civilization," isn't resources or bylaws, but mindset.

"Unfortunately, American policy-making remains wedded to an antiquated political structure of 50 distinct states" in which 50 different entities have say over which interconnecting roads receive upgrades, how rivers are used and managed, and how transportation networks are addressed, Khanna wrote.

And it's not like it hasn't been done before, Khanna points out. The Tennessee Valley Authority oversaw infrastructure projects across six states following the Great Depression.

"What is needed, in some ways, is a return to this more flexible, broader way of thinking," he says. Projects that unify rather than distinguish states and metropolitan areas offer not just a way to solve the challenges of growing regional populations, but also a new way to foster interconnectivity in the global community.

Image: Flickr/NCDOTcommunications

There just aren’t many women at the top of companies. In 2015, the share of incoming female CEOs fell to 2.8 percent, the lowest since 2011. When women are hired as CEOs, they are more often hired from outside the company compared to male CEOs, a recent study found. Thirty-two percent of all incoming and outgoing female CEOs from 2004 to 2015 were outsiders, while only 23 percent of male chief executives came from outside the company.

The 2015 CEO Success Study by Strategy&, a global team of practical strategists from PwC, looks at chief executive changes at the world’s 2,500 largest public companies. Among other things, the team found that hiring an outsider to serve as CEO is becoming more common. From 2012 to 2015, boards chose outsiders in 22 percent of planned turnovers. That is up from 14 percent between 2004 to 2007.

Unfortunately, the trend to hire outsider CEOs is not translating to more women being hired to lead companies. Only 10 of 359 incoming CEOs in 2015 were women.

In North America, the news is even worse news. Incoming women CEOs in the U.S. and Canada decreased for the third year in a row to the lowest rate in the study’s history. There was only one woman out of 87 incoming CEOs in the U.S. and Canada in 2015. That means the rate of incoming female CEOs in both countries was 1 percent last year, compared to 4 percent in 2014 and over 7 percent in 2012.

The good news is that the trend to hire more CEOs from the outside could eventually translate to more women in the big chair. As DeAnne Aquirre, advisor to executives on talent and culture with Strategy& and a principal with PwC, said in a statement: “The fact that more companies are considering outsiders might improve the chances for women CEOs in the future.”

Other studies found similar results. Catalyst, a nonprofit focused on gender inclusion in the workplace, analyzed the CEO positions at S&P 500 companies and found that only 20, or 4 percent, of CEO positions are held by women. CNNMoney extended its study of S&P 500 companies to look at leadership positions in general. What the outlet found is that only 14.2 percent of the top five leadership spots at S&P 500 companies are held by women.

Company boards don't have enough women

It isn’t any better when you consider the amount of women on company boards. In 2014, only 19.2 percent of the board seats of S&P companies were held by women, according to an analysis by Catalyst. The 2020 Gender Diversity Index found that women held 17.9 percent of the board seats at Fortune 1000 companies in 2015, 19.7 percent at Fortune 500 companies, and 22.3 at Fortune 100 companies.

Yet, companies with more women board directors perform better, as a 2011 Catalyst analysis of Fortune 500 companies found. Companies with the most women board directors outperformed in return on equity (ROE) by 16 percent compared to those without women on the board. Here are some other results of the analysis:

• Companies with the most women on their boards outperformed those without female board members in return on invested capital (ROIC) by 26 percent.


• Companies who had three or more women board directors for at least four of five years outperformed those without by 84 percent in return on sales (ROS), by 60 percent on ROIC, and by 46 percent on ROE.

There are signs that companies are finally starting to get it about the lack of diversity. Twitter announced two board members earlier this month, and one of them is a woman. Twitter now has a board made up of two women, eight men and one person of color, Fast Company reported earlier this month. And there may be a bit more diversity added to Twitter’s board as CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted that more board members would soon be added: “ones that will bring diversity.”

Twitter has a severe lack of diversity in its leadership, as its latest diversity report, released last August, indicated. Less than 30 percent of its leadership are people of color, with only 2 percent being African-American. In the report, Twitter stated its representation goals across the company for 2016, which includes increasing underrepresented minorities overall to 11 percent, underrepresented minorities in leadership roles to 6 percent, women overall to 35 percent, and women in leadership to 25 percent.

The headline of Twitter’s diversity report proclaimed, “We’re committing to a more diverse Twitter.” That is good. And if the company pulls it off, it will hopefully influence others to do the same. It's high time that women, who are half of the population, are represented in leadership roles at companies.

Image credit: Flickr/Erik (HASH) Hersman

Atlanta is arguably the Southeast’s fastest-growing tech hub and a worthy locale for launching and growing a startup. Despite its formidable reputation for spindling talent and multimillion-dollar tech companies, much of its inner-city community is stricken by startling statistics related to the education challenges and unemployment realities of Atlanta's young black residents. For this particular group, systemic barriers have limited their ascent into the growing tech ecosystem, thwarting their potential to participate in what is now the global innovation economy.

Enter, CodeStart — a highly innovative bootcamp designed to move beyond coding fundamentals and equip young people of color, between the ages of 18 to 24 without a college degree, with a desire for lifelong learning, critical-thinking skills, and pathways to personal and professional development.

CodeStart is a collaborative project spearheaded by TechSquare Labs, an incubator, seed fund, and 25,000-square-foot co-working and corporate innovation space; The Iron Yard, a national intensive code school and startup accelerator; and the Atlanta Workforce Development Agency (AWDA).

Rodney Sampson, investor, serial entrepreneur and recently-named partner and head of diversity and inclusion initiatives at TechSquare Labs, cites the public-private partnership as a response to the need to grow diverse talent in the tech space.  

“We asked ourselves: How can we take a group of disconnected youth and test their aptitude, lifelong learning, and bring to them an ability for software development? The thesis is to increase the pipeline of minority technical talent and source that talent to solve real addressable problems,” Sampson explained.

Conducted in a 13-month interval, the program leads students through hard coding skills and provides housing, laptops, and access to personal coaches and mentors.

Students are well-positioned to participate frequently with Atlanta’s bustling technology community. Campus classes are located in the heart of Atlanta’s most innovation district: an encampment of co-working spaces, the TechSquare Labs studio and the Georgia Institute of Technology’s campus.

In their inaugural year, students are required to stay “on campus” in a selection of apartments in Atlanta’s metropolitan Midtown neighborhood. Students partake in daily coding classes and ultimately become 100 percent immersed in the language and culture of computer programming and computational thinking. By hosting students in a college-like environment, Sampson believes the design of the program helps to stave off distractions for students returning to homes that may be unstable, unsupportive or simply not helpful to their goals.

What’s most significant about this particular program is that it is not wrapped in a charity case, underprivileged jargon. CodeStart strategically vets a team of eager young people that are passionate about the opportunity to join the tech ecosystem and are committed to moving the work forward.

“There is so much more in terms of soft skills that are important for these new developers. We assume that colleges teach [these skills]. They may teach the hard skills, but they don't teach the value of a dollar, building relationships [or] navigating pain-points ... This is important in the evolution of education. Period,” Sampson explained.

Though in its infancy, the program is positioned for continued success. CodeStart has raised nearly $30,000 for scholarships through its current GoFundMe campaign. It costs an average of $50,000 per student to run the program. 

Partial funding for the program is provided by the AWDA to the tune of $250,000. Sampson and his partners are now raising an additional $500,000 to support programming costs from donors and corporate partners.

The experiment, if proven successful, could serve as a potential model for other cities developing incubators to meet the unique needs of youth in communities of color that are traditionally academically and economically underserved. Wrapping coding skills within the context of life skills inevitably beckons forth a generation of well-rounded software developers.

The male-to-female ratio in this year’s CodeStart cohort is still quite low, with only three of the 15 young people in the program being young women — a ratio Sampson mentioned he’d like to see shift as the organization continues to grow and vet candidates for ongoing cohorts.

CodeStart aims to produce 450 new software engineers over a four-year period. It also has plans to dole out scholarships to the Iron Yard’s independent coding programs for ongoing study and mentorship.

No doubt Sampson and his partners have developed a standout framework for preparing not just another cohort of die-hard coders, but perhaps something more important: Prepared citizens that are being groomed to introduce themselves in a way that proffers their skills and aptitude first, and allows their backgrounds and ethnicity to simply be part of their identity which adds additional value to the environments in which they work and serve.

Ed note: For more information or to support CodeStart, visit their GoFundMe campaign. 

Images courtesy of Rodney Sampson, CodeStart

Timberland is a longstanding sustainability leader within the apparel industry. The New Hampshire-based company is a favorite of the outdoorsy crowd, and its shoes are popular not only for their reputation as being sturdy and rugged, but for their enduring status as a fashion statement as well. As the company learned that more of its stakeholders wanted these products to be manufactured sustainability, Timberland shifted its business practices in kind, and meanwhile started to issue audited sustainability reports well before they became the norm for large corporations.

The company sets long-term goals every five years, and it's now announcing its agenda leading to 2020. Explained in greater detail on Timberland’s new corporate responsibility website, the company's updated goals include:

• All Timberland footwear will include at least one component that is recycled, organic or made from renewable materials.


• All cotton used in apparel will come from U.S.-origin, organically-grown or sourced by Better Cotton Initiative growers.


• All footwear and outerwear leather will come from tanneries certified as Gold or Silver by the Leather Working Group.


• All footwear will be free of PVCs.

In addition, Timberland promises to boost its volunteer program, which already has a reputation in the industry for being robust. On a broader environmental front, the company says it will plant 10 million trees, create and restore outdoor spaces in urban areas, and get 50 percent of its facilities’ energy either directly from clean-energy sources or the purchase of renewable energy certificates (RECs).

To learn a little more about the company’s challenges and vision for the next several years, I spoke with Colleen Vien, Timberland’s director of sustainability, by telephone while she was at her office at Timberland’s headquarters.

Trying to make a supply chain more sustainable is far more difficult than it sounds, especially to us consumers who simply see a product on a shelf and think, 'Come on, surely this can be made with organic or recycled materials.' But as Vien explained, transforming a company’s supplier base is a massive challenge, especially when the farms and factories providing your materials are thousands of miles away. Nevertheless, Vien is bullish on what she thinks Timberland can achieve.

“We remain committed to what we can accomplish, and we’re reiterating these commitments and adding even more to show what we can do as company,” Colleen Vien, Timberland’s director of sustainability, told TriplePundit. “Take leather, where have expanded our focus from shoes to now, apparel.”

Revamping entire supply chains

It is typical for Timberland to not only take the lead, but also execute on its responsible-sourcing commitments. Even Greenpeace, which is notoriously skeptical of companies’ rhetoric on sustainability, has praised Timberland for taking action when it comes to leather, as the company enacted policies to ensure any of that material going into its boots, belts or jackets does not contribute to the deforestation of the Amazon.

But as is the case with many of its peer companies, Timberland is struggling to make its supply chain less dependent on chemicals. Take PVC (polyvinyl chloride), which is often used because of its strength, durability and flexibility. This component is found in many of the company’s popular work shoes, largely becaus designers have not been able to find an alternative material that can match the ruggedness of PVC. “How do we guarantee the performance that is needed in the way that the shoe’s upper is attached to the outsole? We don’t know; we haven’t been able to find a way to meet that strength test yet,” Vien told us.

In many ways, cleansing that supply chain is akin to a runner finishing the last segment of a marathon — the final steps are often the most difficult. The company says it is already mostly PVC-free, but because of those pesky uppers, for now Timberland describes its product lines as 98 percent free from PVCs. Vien hopes the company can reach the 100 percent mark by 2020.

Targeting sustainable materials in all products

So, as is the case with like-minded companies, Timberland does not seek perfection, but it does covet the best possible outcome. Hence the company’s drive to ensure that at least one component in all of its shoes comes from a more responsible material within five years. And to answer my jaded question: No, we are not talking about shoelaces.

Timberland is redesigning uppers, outsoles, midsoles and linings. Its shoes now contain anywhere from 34 percent to 42 percent recycled content; the company seeks an across-the-board ratio of 50 percent. That may be far from perfection for the sustainability purist, but considering how many components are in one shoe, Timberland has already reached some impressive metrics. Sure, a totally closed-loop system, or “cradle-to-cradle,” would be ideal; but on that front, the company hopes more consumers will consider Timberland-branded tires to make such a vision more of a reality.

Cotton in the supply chain: Challenges and solutions

In its 2015 sustainability report, which is tucked into the company’s revamped website, Timberland said the ratio of cotton used in its apparel dipped by 1 percentage point, down to 18 percent last year.

As Vien explained, organic cotton would be ideal, but as any department head would know, there is that question of stretching the budget. Organic cotton was simply too expensive to meet her department’s financial constraints. So, in the coming years, if the supply of organic cotton cannot meet demand, Timberland will turn to cotton of U.S. origin or producers aligned with the Better Cotton Initiative, Vien said.

“What it all comes down to,” she said as we wrapped up our conversation, “is to making things better in terms of our products.”

Making things better takes up a lot of sweat equity, but the quality of Timberland’s products -- and its reputation -- show that all that sweat, late nights and travels to remote factories to ensure everyone is on the same page with the company’s mission are well worth the effort.

Image credits: Timberland

By Edward Quevedo and Shaina Kandel  

“Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar. The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it.” -- Edward R. Murrow, 1957

We listen to political podcasts on our commute, check Facebook, re-share posts while walking into the office, Tweet on our lunch break, and maybe even respond to comments between meetings. Sometimes we are aware (but most often not) that all of these acts are part of consuming and creating public discourse.  With our ability to create content daily, we can easily lose awareness that our every word matters and that our comments contribute to something much more powerful than we realize – the public discourse of our nation.

This public discourse becomes our shared set of principles and values, the underpinnings of our culture, the intangible thing that makes America ‘American.’ Put another way, language creates reality. If our language as expressed in our public discourse is uncivil, it can breed degradation, disrespect and destruction, and permanently damage our ability as a society to evolve toward a shared destiny of justice and well-being.

We find ourselves today awash in public discourse that is deeply and hauntingly uncivil.  One striking dimension of this degraded tenor of public discourse can be found in the national “conversation” swirling around the 2016 presidential campaign.  It would be too glib and trite to blame this condition entirely on the current Republican party front-runner.  But his rhetoric exemplifies this pathology in a unique way.

At its worst, what President Barack Obama recently called “the coarsening of our debate” can actually incite violence.  This, at a time when healing our divisions and finding creative, inspiring solutions to the challenges of our time calls for us to bring the best, not the lowest, of ourselves to public discourse.

By “public discourse,” we mean the robust, honest, frank and constructive dialogue and deliberation that seeks to advance the public interest.  By “civility,” we refer the exercise of patience, integrity, humility and mutual respect in conversation, even (or especially) with those with whom we disagree.

Just as we apply ourselves to being stewards and cultivators of eco-systems, communities, and social justice, we can become active stewards of a more civil public discourse.  How we express ourselves on important issues of the day to our networks, loved ones, colleagues, and leaders determines, to a great extent, the quality of the society we are creating.

We have the opportunity in the coming months and weeks, when we enter the public arena, at city council meetings and hearings, when we comment on candidates’ debates and discussions in the run up to our primary and general elections, to be more informed, balanced, and simply polite in our expression.  We can not only lead by example but also make clear that we expect the same from our future political leaders.

Regardless of who we support for office as citizens, we can contribute, and expect of those who would hold elective office that they represent, through words and behavior, a civil tone in public discourse. In our daily writing and speaking, from the formal to the spontaneous, we can strive for more clarity, authenticity, and respect.  Individually, this may seem like a small set of actions but the consequences of failing in this civic duty are large.

What hangs in the balance is the intricate web of institutions necessary for a thriving democracy: individuals capable of governing themselves, a state that abides by the rule of law, a justice system fueled by truth, and a vast network of intermediary institutions serving as a buffer between the individual and the state -- businesses, unions, nonprofits, places of worship, lobbying and activist groups, political parties, journalistic outlets and so on.

We put ourselves and our institutions in a high state of risk if we do not more actively steward and cultivate the civility of our public discourse.  Our ability to productively engage on issues that compel our attention, to make positive change in the representativeness of our democracy, and to effectively address the complexity of the social challenges that confront us; these all depend on a civil public discourse that is inviting, vibrant and mature.

What we can do is be more self-aware with our words. While by no means a complete list, below are a few thoughts on how we can make our public commentary, posts, and discussions more civil:

1. Humility: A spirit of shared responsibility for good ideas (none of us are single-handed inventors of the new or the useful – we stand on the shoulders of those who came before and influenced our thinking)..


2. Tolerance: Encounter ideas with openness and curiosity, grounded in the determination that our point of view is never settled, always evolving, and deserves to be influenced or even changed by new and better thinking.


3. Reverence: More than mere respect, reverence is the awareness that our children, future generations, our mentors, and our loved ones are party to our civic discourse. Perhaps if we keep in mind all of the hearts, minds, and souls, from the past, present, and future, who have a stake in our public discourse, we may temper, strengthen, and deepen the quality and timbre of our words.

Public discourse, as we have learned recently (and in the past) to our great cost, can tarnish, belittle, and shame a person, community, and a nation.  It can leave us hollowed out, groundless, and slipping into a darker form of society.  But properly crafted, humanely voiced, and virtuously expressed, a civil public discourse can (and ought to) ennoble us.  May we find the courage and discipline to more frequently elevate our voices and ideas along this latter path.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

Shaina Kandel works to create a more just and sustainable global food system at Fair Trade.

Ed Quevedo is an educator and writer, and directs programs in Peace & Social Justice and Future Economies as a Research Affiliate at the Institute for the Future.