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For coal, the writing is on the wall, but the message hasn't yet reached some investors. This could result in a financial catastrophe, a new report warns, amounting to nearly $1 trillion in losses if current coal development plans go forward globally.

Investments in these coal projects could end up as worthless stranded assets – essentially, coal plants that are not needed or plans for plants and mining operations that never get built or never produce to their capabilities. In a world where nearly 1 billion still lack energy access, and where we need massive investments in renewables to meet global climate goals, spending $1 trillion on an old, dirty fossil fuel that we don't need would be a massive folly.

Yet, right now, around the world, many companies and countries are still stuck, stubbornly, on a coal-dependent and inefficient energy future. According to the new report from the Sierra Club, this could become a financial disaster.

“This report confirms what savvy investors already know -- the coal industry's troubles will continue,” Nicole Ghio with the Sierra Club, one of the report's authors, told TriplePundit. “It is a warning to those who refuse to accept these seismic changes in the market.”

According to the report, the equivalent of 1,500 coal plants are either under construction or in various planning stages around the world, in countries like China, Indonesia, India and Vietnam, where energy demands are rising fast and coal remains cheap. The problem is that all of these countries agreed to drastic climate cuts in Paris last year. And if we are to meet global climate goals, these plants cannot be constructed, nor utilized to their full potential.

In fact, we're already seeing signs of this wasted development. China, which just a few years ago was famous for turning on a new coal plant every few weeks, is now using its existing plants just 50 percent of the time, a number that stands to drop as massive solar, wind and hydro-power plants go online in the world's most populous country.

“The clean energy market is booming, and as prices continue to fall the sector will only see more growth,” Ghio told 3p.

The most dramatic shift is in the country whose economy was built, for decades, on coal energy: America. Despite coal prices at multi-year lows, its usage is still dropping fast in the U.S., resulting in a wave of bankruptcies in the coal industry. Anyone who invested in coal a few years ago is very sorry they did.

“If someone had invested $10,000 in April 2011 in a basket of 13 U.S. coal mining companies, they would have lost $9,200 as of March 2016,” Ted Nace with Coalswarm, a co-author of the report, told TriplePundit. This was during, I might add, a huge market expansion and economic growth across most sectors. Just not coal.

Losing $9,200 is one thing. Losing $1 trillion is a whole different matter. Imagine the potential – both for investors and the environment – if this money were to go into expanding renewables instead, particularly in developing countries where we need to shift to sustainable development fast.

And it is clean energy that is replacing coal. Renewables accounted for the vast majority of new energy last year in the United States, a trend that most expect to continue. And, Nace said, this same transition is starting to happen all around the world.

“Worldwide, additions of wind and photovoltaic capacity exceeded coal in 2015 by a factor of three to two,” Nace told us. “As costs of renewables continues to fall, the move away from coal is likely to accelerate, and both investors and business leaders need to reduce their exposure to coal as quickly as possible.”

We've seen here how renewables have regularly beaten the most optimistic projections, both for their growth and also their cost. This is why renewables can compete with coal even when it's at a multi-year low, and why clean energy is still expanding despite states like Florida doing all they can to restrict it.

“The hundreds of billions ... could help more than a billion people get access to the clean, reliable electricity that fossil fuels have failed to deliver,” Ghio said.

The report should be seen as a warning to investors globally, who are slowly starting to take climate risk into consideration when making investment decisions. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley were among those banks cited by Ghio as understanding the stark reality of coal -- and making moves to limit their investment in that 19th-century energy.

Coincidentally, the report's release came just days before the world's largest private coal company, Peabody, declared bankruptcy. That is just the latest sign that the coal bubble has popped, and putting billions into an energy source that we not only don't need, but increasingly, don't want, is a short-sighted and bad move. It's time the stragglers joined us on the path to a clean-energy future.

Photo Credit: Oatsy via Filckr

It is never easy to be a farmer, with constant threats ranging from bad weather to pests to volatile commodity prices. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has long operated a crop-subsidy program in order to protect farmers from such externalities. But these subsidies do not go to the Hmong strawberry farmers in the San Joaquin Valley or the local peach orchard in Georgia. Instead, U.S. agriculture favors greens for the select few, but we are talking about wads of dollar bills, not romaine or kale.

The overwhelming share of subsidies go to agribusiness firms that produce those once-coveted industrial crops such as soy and corn. There was some taxpayer relief during the global price commodities boom, but since that market has crashed, Uncle Sam had to rush in and pay the difference. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that payments disbursed by the Commodity Credit Corp., the entity that distributes agricultural subsidies, will surge to approximately $10.2 billion this year -- almost $3 billion more than during the 2015-2016 fiscal year.

Farm subsidies have long exasperated Americans of all political stripes, while politicians on both the left and right -- from California to the Midwest -- have long resisted any reform if their constituencies suffer any financial impact. Although farming has long been a small part of the U.S. economy, and farmers are a tiny share of the electorate, their checkbooks have been influential in slowing any reforms that reflect the needs of 21st-century society.

So, while some senators from influential farming states, like Iowa’s Charles Grassley, have incessantly railed against government loans to companies like Solyndra that went awry, they have turned the other way when problems relate to the USDA’s farm subsidy programs. For example, The Economist pointed out that between, 2007 and 2011, $3 million was paid to 2,300 farms where no crops were grown. And during a four-year period ending in 2012, $10.6 million was paid to farmers who had been dead longer than one year.

Farm subsidy programs in total cost American taxpayers about $20 billion a year. When adding programs such as SNAP (food stamps) and subsidized school meals, which arguably benefit big agribusiness firms more than the working poor or students, that total climbs even higher. Some of the largest companies in the U.S. have not only lobbied against cuts to any food subsidy programs, but they have also opposed any changes to these subsidies that could encourage more healthful eating habits.

The result is that while the current presidential administration has made some logical adjustments to the nation’s farming and food policies, it is still akin to hamsters running in circles — the only difference is that those hamsters are able to stay healthy.

While society frets over the increase in the obesity and heart disease rates — and the financial costs in managing those health problems — the U.S. government still favors financial support for crops that, at best, do little for public health. Organizations such as the Union of Concerned Scientists have long advocated for a rethink in what we encourage farmers to grow. Farmers who raise crops such as corn, soy or wheat cannot get any subsidies if they grow fruits or vegetables on that same land. And while subsidizing the cultivation of berries and greens would be a fool’s game, access to crop insurance would help encourage crops far more healthful.

The way such programs are currently designed, however, is now are far too onerous for the average small farmer. In fact, for some farmers, it has become more profitable to install solar panels than grow anything on their land at all.

Image credit: Leon Kaye

One of the main arguments used against strong climate action is that it would have huge, adverse impacts on the economy, far greater than any future climate impacts. But as more and more countries shift to sustainability, we're seeing, for the first time ever, the decoupling of economic growth from carbon emissions.

In fact, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI), 21 countries experienced positive economic growth since 2000 while cutting carbon emissions, some dramatically. This includes several countries in Europe, aided by stronger climate policies such as the European Carbon Trading Scheme, but also, the United States, where emissions fell 6 percent and the economy grew by 28 percent over the past decade and a half.

This was confirmed in a report released last month by the International Energy Agency, which found that we have seen global greenhouse gas emissions fall for two consecutive years, without a corresponding drop in global economic growth. This was driven most by a dip in coal usage in the world's two largest economies, the U.S., and China.

There is no underestimating how big a shift this is. For most of the modern era, economic growth has been directly tied to energy, which, until recently, came mostly from fossil fuels. The more energy an economy consumed, the more goods and services it produced, and the higher its gross domestic product (GDP). Even today, there is a clear connection between per-capita energy consumption and per-capita income.

The problem is that most of the energy we used came from oil, natural gas and coal, and it was emitting huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. That, of course, wasn't clear until the 1960s when the connection was first made. Fifty years later, emissions are still sky-high, and we're only just starting to take necessary actions.

What is changing is that a greater amount of energy is coming from clean renewables, such as wind or solar, and efficiency is improving -- allowing us to get more economic output for each unit of energy.

“The decoupling of GDP growth and carbon emissions indicates that we may be transitioning to cleaner modes of economic growth,” Nate Aden, a research fellow with WRI, told TriplePundit.

Good policies help. In Europe, carbon trading allows for both the public and private sector to better price carbon, leading to greater efficiencies while also allowing for renewable energies to compete in a fairer market.

Certain states here in America, like California, have also led with pro-green growth policies, including carbon trading. And the positive impacts are clear to anyone. The Golden State accounts for more than 50 percent of all U.S. solar installations and is home to the largest solar companies. It also leads the country in innovation, accounting for 40 percent of venture capital investment. California did that while reducing emissions by 23 percent since its 2001 peak – far more than the United States as a whole.

This shift is just the start, and we need to go much, much further. Here in the U.S., President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan would do just that, further reducing emissions by 6 percent while GPD would grow 13 percent between 2020 and 2025. As you well know, this plan is on hold due to unprecedented interference by the Supreme Court.

Globally, more research needs to be done on how growth can continue to allow both developed and developing countries to prosper while meeting necessary emissions-reduction goals. “Additional research is needed to understand emissions leakage, factors that have enabled decoupling, and new opportunities for industrial-sector emissions reductions,” Aden told us.

At the same time, this new research gives hope that we can counter the age-old, right-wing response, one that we've heard in the few times climate has come up in the republican presidential contest. Tackling climate change does not mean sacrificing growth, if done properly.

“Countries are more apt to reduce carbon emissions if they can also continue to provide economic opportunities,” Aden said.

The challenge is how to accelerate this process. Dropping emissions is not enough – we need drastic, immediate cuts in order to meet the goals outlined in the Paris Agreement. Even though we're seeing this shift toward decoupling, it's not enough.

“Decoupling has not happened fast enough to fully address climate challenges. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon continue to rise, and impacts are growing,” Aden said.

It's clear that this group of 21 countries is just a start. We need more and more states, cities, countries and regions to decouple growth from emissions. We need more policies that favor clean energy and more investment in low-carbon technology, particularly in developing countries where emissions are still rising today.

Still, this news gives hope. It is possible. We just need to double-down and push even harder. Only then will we see the first signs of a true revolution, the emergence of true clean-energy economies, and a break from the dirty growth model we've followed since the Industrial Revolution.

Image credit: Unsplash via Pixabay

In the heat of a Democratic presidential debate on March 6, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a rather ambitious pledge to remove lead "from everywhere." Just a few weeks later, Clinton outlined a more detailed plan that falls far short of total elimination. However, the new plan has a much better chance of achieving what should be the ultimate goal: protecting people from the toxic effects of lead exposure.

The first Clinton lead-risk reduction plan

Tech Insider's Julia Calderone gave a good rundown of the original Clinton lead-hazard plan, as she expressed it during the March 6 Democratic presidential debate in Flint, Michigan:

"I want us to have an absolute commitment to getting rid of lead wherever it is, because it's not only in water systems. It's also in soil, and it's in lead paint that is found mostly in older homes," Clinton said.

"We will commit to a priority to change the water systems, and we will commit within five years to remove lead from everywhere."

As Calderone notes, such a plan is prohibitively expensive, costing in the range of trillions of dollars nationally.

That's partly because, before the health hazards of lead were scientifically catalogued, the so-called "father of all metals" was commonly used in household plumbing and water systems all across the country, such as the one in Flint, Michigan.

Additionally, despite a growing body of evidence indicating serious health impacts, lead was also the common denominator in many ubiquitous products including ammunition, ceramics, batteries, cosmetics, house paint and gasoline throughout most of the 20th century.

That's all on top of lead contamination from industrial sources, including lead smelters, mining and refining operations

Leaded gasoline was a particularly invasive product, as it resulted in both soil and air-related exposure. Federal officials pushed for a limit on lead in gasoline beginning early in the 20th century, but industry lobbyists prevailed until the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was created in 1971 and finally gained enough support to begin taking action in 1975.

In other words, lead is everywhere.

The second Clinton lead-reduction plan

As the above history suggests, the EPA has dealt with lead-hazard issues for many years, and the agency developed property owner guidelines for lead-exposure risk reduction that are simple but effective -- assuming that the general public has the resources and information access required to put the guidelines to use.

The basic premise is that a good proportion of lead exposure today comes as the result of materials used in buildings built before 1979, meaning that the property owner is responsible for addressing the problem. Soil contamination on private property is another major issue. Toys, employment and hobbies can also be portals for lead exposure.

Therefore, EPA's guidelines focus on enabling individuals to asses their risk level and take steps to avoid exposure. That includes guidance on finding qualified contractors to do any lead-related work on the property.

The new Clinton lead-hazard plan is not quite as ambitious as the original iteration, but it goes far beyond this basic guidance.

Kevin Drum of Mother Jones covered the new plan, described by Clinton within a broader eight-point speech on environmental justice at the National Action Network Convention in New York City on April 13.

As Drum reports, the new plan sets a five-year timeline for eliminating lead as a "major public health threat." Note that the plan no longer calls for the simplistic but unattainable goal of eliminating lead outright:

Drum wrote: "For every dollar invested in preventing childhood exposure to lead, between $17 and $200 is saved in reduced educational, health, and criminal justice expenses and improved health and economic outcomes — but the few federal programs that exist are inadequate to address the scope of the problem and have seen significant budget cuts and volatility in recent years."

To ensure that lead risk becomes a national priority, Clinton proposed establishing a new Presidential Commission on Childhood Lead Exposure to accomplish this:

"... writing a national plan to eliminate the risk of lead exposure from paint, pipes, and soil within five years; align state, local and philanthropic resources with federal initiatives; implement best prevention practices based on current science; and leverage new financial resources such as lead safe tax credits."

As a national priority initiative under a Clinton presidency, the recommendations of the Commission would be adopted throughout federal agencies. To put some muscle on the bone, Clinton also foresees putting up to $5 billion in federal dollars toward addressing lead in households and lead-contaminated soil in yards, schools and child care facilities.

Beyond the Clinton lead plan

As Drum observed, the plan is a comprehensive one, but it does not address the fullest extent of the problem, and the five-year timeline is almost certainly too short even within its limited scope.

However, it's a good start for a realistic, long-term approach that gets solid results.

In addition, it puts the force of presidential leadership to work on nudging private industry in the direction of a broader goal to find non-toxic substitutes for lead in art supplies, medical equipment and other common products.

Image (screenshot): via U.S. Centers for Disease Control

By Lauren R. Newton

From the birth of the mainstream “athleisure” movement to boundary-pushing icons like Serena Williams, fashion has inspired many of us to suck it up and hit the gym in the style (or at least pretend we went this morning). Professional athletes endorsed by high-performance brands have long capitalized upon the nexus of sport and fashion. Luckily, many of the same athleisure brands that collaborate with athletes are embracing corporate social responsibility (CSR) platforms and offering more sustainable materials.

Athletes expect their clothing to work as hard as they do. This means they do a lot of laundry, which ultimately diminishes the performance of many fibers and sends numerous items to the landfill. Actress Sara Gilbert coined the term “imperfect environmentalist” in her 2013 book by the same title to describe the difficult dichotomy between completing everyday tasks (like hitting the gym and doing laundry) and reducing our impact on the planet.

Provided we take personal responsibility for the quantity and quality of the materials we purchase (and wash in cold water and skip the dryer), however, it is relatively easy to clothe ourselves in eco-friendly performance wear.

Why bother?

Despite industrial improvements and increased consumer awareness, the production of one T-shirt can still create 3.6 kilograms of carbon emissions and consume upwards of 7,900 gallons of water. The high-performance clothing industry would do well to follow the closed-loop model pioneered by carpet and printer companies.

We, as consumers, have the power to demand pragmatic innovation and change our purchasing behavior to support a more sustainable business model.

Jennifer Gilbert, chief marketing officer of closed-loop fashion company I:CO, told TriplePundit that 95 percent of all the materials that make up our favorite garments are reusable or recyclable, provided we have access to the tools and brands that participate in take-back and donation programs. Considering demand for man-made fibers like polyester has doubled since the 1990s (largely to support the growing demand for high-performance athletic clothing), it is time to take sustainability off the bench and move it to the starting lineup.

The solution is not to exercise solely in cotton or other natural fibers.

As the most popular (and water-intensive) fiber used in clothing manufacture, cotton crops account for a quarter of all pesticide use in the U.S., according to the USDA. Moreover, the United States is the largest exporter of cotton in the world, driving the global popularity of “fast fashion” – clothing that is considered out-of-style or worn out within a season. According to Mattias Wallander, CEO of USAgain, a textile-recycling company, the volume of textile trash in the United States rose by 40 percent between 1999 and 2009.

Beyond the issue of end-of-life waste, the manufacture of polyester and other synthetics is also an energy-intensive process. Creating those coveted stretchy yoga pants requires large quantities of crude oil and releases emissions including volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which can cause or aggravate respiratory diseases and cancers.

The EPA labels many textile-manufacturing facilities as generators of hazardous waste. Moreover, the fashion industry has long been plagued by reports of unsustainable manufacturing processes and human rights violations. The clothing we are purchasing to participate in healthy activities may actually cause more harm than good.

What can I buy?

In the same way an athlete carefully reads product labels on food, the easiest way to green your dresser drawers is to read the tags on clothing and look for recycled content and environmentally-friendly fiber inputs.

While brands like Nike and Patagonia belong to trade groups devoted to sustainability like the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and utilize a brand-specific sustainability indices, certain products are greener than others.

When out shopping for athleisure garments, look for the following environmentally-friendly fibers and logos:

1. Recycled PET: If your NFL football jersey or Denali fleece jacket says, “made with recycled materials,” it probably contains Repreve, a brand of recycled PET fibers. The North Carolina-based company Unifi is the leading producer of R-PET and has repurposed over 4 billion plastic bottles since 2009. Unifi is a key partner of performance and athleisure brands like Patagonia, Nike, Roxy, Volcom, Kathmandu, Blue Avocado and Quiksilver, so you may have already purchased American-made recycled fabrics.

2. Organic or 'better' cotton: Look for a 100 percent organic cotton label on retail brands, or seek out brands that belong to a standardized system for production principles and supply chain monitoring, such as the Better Cotton Initiative. Members of BCI include Adidas, The Northface, Reef, Timberland, Vans, H&M, Nike, G-Star Raw, and Kathmandu. True organic cotton is treated with no synthetic pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, or genetically modified organisms (GMOs). It is important for an athlete to keep such toxins away from sweaty skin, and organic growing also protects farmers and countless other species and ecosystems. Unfortunately, less than 1 percent of all cotton grown in the United States is organic. With over 10,000 pesticide-related worker deaths in the U.S. alone, it is past time for a drastic change.

3. Cradle to Cradle Certified Products: Brands carrying this label are members of the Cradle to Cradle Fashion Positive Initiative. The Initiative has partnered with a number of brands, from Stella McCartney to Belk department stores, to employ the Cradle to Cradle framework to “create healthy and safe fashion materials that can be effectively recycled (or upcycled) or re-used.” While large performance athletic companies like Nike have not partnered with the Initiative (yet), a materials library of certified apparel and material inputs is growing daily and can be consulted by consumers.

4. Tencel: Made from natural cellulose wood pulp, this environmentally-friendly fabric is fully biodegradable. It uses Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood pulp and less-toxic chemicals in a closed-loop process, according to Green America. Before you purchase your next hoodie, swap cotton for the more breathable choice.

 While fashion blogs recently heralded luxury brand Chanel for “insinuating wood shavings” into their haute couture winter runway show and Jae Rhim Lee’s “mushroom death suit” has been making headlines, there are simpler, less bizarre, and more affordable ways for the everyday athlete to participate in the eco-athleisure movement.

Image credits: 1) Pixabay 2) Natural Resources Defense Council

Lauren R. Newton is a driven CSR strategist committed to aligning sport and environmental stewardship. Formerly an International Climate Program Associate at Environmental Defense Fund, her expertise in sustainable practice is comprehensive, context-specific and reinforced with the grit of a competitive athlete. She will graduate with a M.A. Sustainability from Wake Forest University in 2016. 

 

By Scott Nichols

What does the future look like for our food-production systems? In short, it can’t look like the present.  Our current agriculture uses 38 percent of the world’s land and 70 percent  of its water.  But experts say we need to double (or nearly so) our food production by mid century.  With our current practices, we aren’t poised to deliver anything near that amount — 70 percent can’t be doubled nor, practically, can 38 percent.

To meet our future food needs, agriculture must be done quite differently.  Discontinuous change is needed as we learn how to do more with less.

In a recent article about changing agriculture practices, Jillian Fry of Johns Hopkins University and her colleagues address changes in farmed fish diets. In their article, titled  Environmental Health Impacts Of Feeding Crops To Farmed Fish, they discuss the increasing use of crop-based ingredients to replace ingredients that come from wild-caught fish. Of the change, they write: “ ... Multidisciplinary research is needed to understand the ecological and environmental health implications.”

Fair enough. As we face crucial choices in meeting future demands for nutritious food, it’s important to examine the possible ramifications of those choices before they are made.

Curiously, however, while the article has a lengthy review and commentary on crop production practices, it doesn’t speak to its title.  We are left to wonder:  Just what are the environmental health impacts of feeding crops to farmed fish? What role should aquaculture play in our food future?  How does fish farming compare with terrestrial animal agriculture in the use of crop-based feeds?

More helpful is an analysis to compare the efficiency with which crops are used by both terrestrial and aquatic farm-raised animals. Here, I compare the crop-based resources needed to raise salmon, beef, pork and chicken.

Agricultural resources: What does it take to feed the Animals we eat?

Salmon. From the aquaculture side, let’s look at salmon farming.  As carnivores, salmon historically were fed diets derived largely from fish meal and fish oil.  With the rapid growth of salmon farming that started in the mid 1980s, it became clear that catching wild fish to feed farmed fish isn’t sustainable from either an environmental or a business perspective.  As a result, salmon diets have changed dramatically over the last decade with fish oil and fish meal being replaced by vegetable oils and proteins, largely canola and soy, respectively.

To raise a pound of a vegetarian salmon, one raised on a diet of canola oil and soy protein, the fish would consume 0.84 pounds of canola seeds and 0.69 pounds of soybeans.  However, most of us eat salmon filets so, actually, we really only eat about 64 percent of the whole salmon. That means it takes about 1.3 pounds of canola seeds and 1.1 pounds of soybeans to put a pound of salmon on the dinner table.

Red meat. Beef and pork have diets that include many cereal crop ingredients.  As a useful simplification, I combine them together as one entity: cereals. With that said, a pound of pork we eat consumes between 2 and 3 pounds of soybeans plus 5 or 6 pounds of cereal.  Beef cattle, raised on feedlots starting at 500 pounds up to their harvest weight of 1,300 pounds, need about 10 pounds of cereal to provide a pound of edible meat.

Poultry.  It takes 2 pounds of feed to raise a pound of chicken. Of that pound of chicken, about 50 percent is meat and skin, so it takes about 4 pounds of total feed to put a pound of chicken on a plate.  However, chickens, as omnivores, have a more complex range of dietary ingredients including other animal byproducts. So, their use of crop plants is certainly less than 4 pounds.

As we consider resource utilization in our future food supply, quite clearly salmon offers the promise of producing a lot more food with a lot less input.  This makes sense.  For a few reasons, fish are the most efficient of farm animals.  They don’t use any energy to maintain their body temperature as land animals must.  Another energy benefit for fish is that they don’t spend calories working against gravity. Furthermore, the freedom from gravity also removes the need to spend energy building a bone structure to support their weight.  So, we eat a much greater fraction of a small-boned fish than we do from large-boned land animals.

Public health: For nutritious food, what should we eat?

Beyond resource efficiency, fish are are nutritionally superb; the FDA and USDA both recommend increasing our fish consumption to improve our health. The favorable health outcomes of eating fish are remarkable. For instance, in a Harvard School of Public Health meta study, scientists found that eating two servings of oily fish per week “reduces the risk of dying from heart disease by 36 percent."

A large part (but certainly not all) of the nutritional benefit of fish comes from the essential omega 3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA, derived from the fish oil included in aquaculture diets.  With aquaculture’s move to lower use of marine ingredients, it’s reasonable to expect omega 3 levels will decrease in fish, as Fry et al point out.

Farmed fish, however, continue to be excellent sources of omega 3s; they are present at levels tens to hundreds of times the levels in beef,  pork, and chicken.  With the inexorable move to vegetarian diets in fish farming, new sources of omega 3s must be found to include in fish diets. It is encouraging to see that some groups are working to develop algae, yeast, and plants as sources of omega 3s.

We need more sustainably-raised and nutritious food.  Aquaculture is certainly poised to contribute meaningfully to our future food needs.  Fish farming makes a much smaller call on resources than other types of animal agriculture, and it provides nutritious food that public health experts say should be a larger part of our diets.  It’s not the sole answer to “What’s for dinner?” in 2040.  But it will be an important part of the answer.

Image credit: Aquaculture Stewardship Council 

Scott Nichols is the founder of Food’s Future, LLC where he advises businesses to help them create economically and environmentally sustainable aquaculture ventures that provide seafood to an expanding world.  He is a speaker on the role of aquaculture in our future food supply and is a member of the board of directors at the Aquaculture Stewardship Council.

By Darryl Lewis

Let's say you were to travel back 10 years in time. Although that may not seem like a long time ago, the technology available was certainly different. For example, most people you would see on their cell phones (if they had a cell phone in the first place) would have flip phones. The iPhone wouldn't be introduced by Steve Jobs for another year. HD televisions were around, but they were significantly steeper in price than they are today. If you waited until the holiday season in 2006, the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii would make their debut in stores. Sony and Nintendo have released next-generation systems since.

The point of this brief look at technology in 2006 is to highlight the fact that technology is perpetually improving and what was best-in-class today is obsolete tomorrow. All businesses, educational institutions and other organizations will eventually need to update their computers, servers and other electronic equipment to comply with any regulatory requirements, as well as to stay competitive with others in their industry.

But what about all of that old computer equipment that once was an important part of operations? Think about your own household. Do you have an old flip phone or game system in your basement or garage just gathering dust? Businesses may have old equipment lying around as well. What they do with it can have not only a major impact on not only their bottom line, but also our planet's future and human health.

The case for recycling your old equipment

In a blog post from Exit Technologies, the author highlighted several statistics that should make anyone concerned. Exit Technologies is one of several electronic waste recycling companies that help organizations recycle their computer equipment for cash. Did you know that only 20 percent of all computer equipment is recycled every year? When 99 percent of the materials found in electronic assets, like computers, are recoverable, this number doesn't seem nearly high enough.

This is especially the case when it is so much less expensive to recycle metals from waste than to use new metals to create these electronic goods.  According to one U.N. study, it takes 530 pounds of fossil fuels, 48 pounds of chemicals and 1.5 tons of water to manufacture one computer.

If we as consumers and businesses are looking to stay on top of the latest technologies, it could have some serious consequences on the environment. Therefore, organizations and consumers must do everything possible to mitigate this impact through active recycling. They must also put special emphasis on finding recycling partners that optimize the benefits of electronics recycling on the environment and human health.

Remember that not every recycling firm is the same

When conducting a search on electronic waste recycling companies, it's important to assess whether the recycling company has the basic certifications as a responsible recycler.

Sustainable Electronics Recycling International (SERI) is a nonprofit responsible for housing the R2 standard, which outlines information related to reusing, repairing and recycling electronic equipment with special attention paid to date destruction, storage and security. It also details best practices for mining and processing materials derived from the equipment with the least impact on the environment and human health.

In addition to R2, e-Stewards is another accredited certification standard businesses should look for when assessing electronics recycling companies' qualifications and experience.

Is e-cycling a financial and moral necessity for today's public-facing businesses?

Ultimately, the benefits of recycling old equipment are numerous. Not only will businesses and organizations be able to recoup some of their losses through recycling and reselling their old computer equipment, but they will also help to lower their own footprint, which is increasingly becoming an issue for consumers.

Individuals want to shop and work for companies that play an active role in sustainability. While it may be impossible to stick with your computer equipment in the face of new technologies, this doesn't mean you have to be wasteful of your old technology. As CTOs, CIOs and other business leadership review their own technology planning, they should also pay attention to what they're going to do with their obsolete equipment in order to have the strongest possible internal and external impact.

Image credit: Pixabay/beear

Darryl Lewis is a digital marketing and a fine/performing arts enthusiast. His concern about social and environmental issues is unwavering, always seeking opportunities to create a positive impact on the people in his community and the world. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Marketing from Stockton University. Follow him on Twitter@dlew4life 

Cotton has long been one of the world’s most valuable commodities. It's one of the 10 largest agricultural products worldwide, and the farming of cotton is a $23 billion global business. The 105.5 million bales (or 1.8 billion cubic feet) of cotton expected to be harvested this year employs millions of farmers across the world, supporting families from the U.S. to Africa and across India and Pakistan.

The industry says cotton is the fabric of our lives, but a variety of factors -- from climate change to abusive governments -- are tearing the fabric of the lives who toil to grow, process and eventually weave this crop. In an era where we're inundated with constant messaging, it is up to brands to relay the story of their cotton — and in the case of bad stories, strive to end them.

Cotton has a massive environmental impact across the world. The crop has a huge water footprint: WWF estimates that about 1,380 gallons of water is required to produce a pound of cotton. It takes about 2.2 pounds (or one kilo) to produce a pair of jeans. Even if that figure is exaggerated, nearly 75 percent of all cotton is grown on irrigated land around the world, from California's San Joaquin Valley, to the Nile River basin to Gujarat State in India. Add the amount of pesticides often used in the cultivation of cotton (20 to 25 percent of the world’s agricultural chemicals, depending on the source), and the year-to-year increase in the demand for cotton is not sustainable. Figure in the human rights violations related to cotton production that are ongoing on some countries, with Uzbekistan being one of the worst offenders, and this is one crop that foments many environmental and social crises.

But cotton is also the livelihood for an estimated 250 million people — saying no to cotton is hardly the solution. Saying yes to more responsible cotton, however, can help mitigate this crop’s impact on people and the environment -- and even improve living standards worldwide.

More brands have become aware of the challenges cotton poses to the planet and to the long-term prospects within their supply chains. H&M, a company often derided for the world’s growing obsession with fast fashion, says it will source all of its cotton from sustainable sources by 2020. Levi Strauss has long strived to reduce its water footprint and experimented with using recycled fibers within its product lines of denim jeans. The sports apparel giant Adidas is also working closer with its suppliers to ensure that its cotton comes from responsible companies.

This shift toward ensuring that sustainable cotton becomes the rule, not the exception, is largely due to the work of the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI). Just as there are widely accepted standards for corporate reporting, palm oil production and organic certification, a widely accepted standard for cotton cultivation and production -- from farm to mill to store shelves -- has emerged. BCI has been developing such guidelines for over a decade and, most importantly, has developed a system of traceability so companies can be confident in the fact that their cotton is produced ethically and responsibly.

To learn what the textile and apparel industries can do to ensure cotton’s long-term sustainability, and these companies’ viability, TriplePundit interviewed Ruchira Joshi, one of BCI’s program directors, who spoke with us from her office in London.

It's all about traceability

In the apparel industry, traceability is the catchword. Ms. Joshi, whose career path has taken her on a journey with NGOs and the auditor PwC while working with commodities including cocoa, sugar and now cotton, explained why traceability is so critical to cotton suppliers, brands and consumers.

“Understanding where your ‘stuff’ comes from is the first step in changing the way in which these garments are produced,” Ms. Joshi said as we started our conversation. “That’s what traceability is about—the jeans, towels and bed sheets we use are linked somewhere to a farming family that had to work a piece of land to grow the cotton required for those goods.”

In other words, knowing the origin of our products can help arm consumers with the knowledge necessary to make the best informed purchasing decision.

Traceability is crucial, Ms. Joshi said, as it is that important nugget of information that can help us as consumers change our behavior for the better. Just as more consumers would avoid a restaurant that serves notoriously-overfished seafood or chicken injected with hormones, if we know that cotton shirt was made by children who were expelled from school to pick cotton during harvest season, or chemicals that pollute drinking water, we would be less inclined to select that garment -- and vice-versa.

The change BCI enacted has been impressive, and in fact, it has been exponential when one looks at the raw numbers. From 28,000 farmers growing 35,000 megatons of cotton in 2010, BCI’s impact surged to over 1.2 million farmers producing 2.3 million megatons, according to its 2014 annual report. That figure should continue to increase, and BCI is so confident that it is documenting the 2015 harvest live as the numbers come in. As far as documentation, BCI’s reach has also widened, as it documents production from farm to cotton gin, to mills, spinners and retailers.

This growth, Ms. Joshi said, is because of BCI’s measured approach to stakeholder outreach across the entire cotton apparel supply chain. And rather than lecture consumers, BCI’s staff devotes its energy to working with companies, including the likes of Adidas, Tesco, Marks and Spencer, H&M and C&A.

It's about more than 'green' consumers

This is not about reaching out to the “green” shopper — BCI has taken the long view, works on the world’s largest textile companies, and is therefore making sustainable cotton mainstream. “If we think about all the levers we can pull, we thought about what’s the biggest one, which one we could pull with biggest impact,” Ms. Joshi recalled. “Better cotton shouldn’t be about only green consumers -- it should be about anyone, even if they don’t care about cotton’s impact. Our goal is for all consumers to pick up any product and be confident.”

And even if a consumer absolutely does not care about sustainable cotton, BCI works to bypass the consumer by working directly with companies. And its directives are not just for consumers in the West. “In markets like India and Korea, the majority of consumers are not green consumers,” Ms. Joshi explained. “The best way to get them is to convince the company, not the consumer, about better cotton, and then set ambitious targets. Then the consumer doesn’t have the choice, but ultimately everyone will have access to a better cotton product.”

It’s important to remember that this “better” cotton is eventually blended with conventional cotton to make the clothes for some of the world’s most prolific brands. There is no 'Better Cotton' label on the shirt you’re buying. Instead of going after the consumers seeking a special label of approval, BCI skips all of them entirely. “I would not spend time and effort trying to convince a consumer what’s in it for him or her,” Ms. Joshi insisted. “I’d tell consumers, 'If you don’t want to change your shopping habits, shop at these companies because they use BCI cotton.'”

It sure would not hurt, however, if BCI’s partners shared some of the organization's success stories. BCI has done a fine job archiving the difference it has made in some of the world’s largest cotton markets, including Brazil, China and India.

In one cotton-growing region of India, BCI worked with local partners to increase school attendance. For years, the norm was for children to help their parents in the cotton fields, with the result that classrooms were almost empty during harvest season. An education program launched that included plays and debates focusing on the negative impacts of child labor. The upshot was to impart upon parents the importance of having kids in schools, not in fields, in order to build a better long-term future for these families.

That is just one of dozens of stories brands can leverage to educate their consumers about the advantages of buying better cotton — a choice, in fact, that was already made for them.

Image credit: Better Cotton Initiative

By Perry Goldschein and Kathy Hipple

Materiality is murky – especially when it comes to sustainability. Reporting on material issues in the financial context has been legally required for decades and is widely understood. It is less widely understood – and not yet well applied – in non-financial contexts.

This clearly has to change – and quickly. Various stakeholders, including shareholders, are increasingly demanding greater identification and disclosure of material sustainability issues. They have become ever more aware of the opportunities, as well as the risks, of these matters.

Beyond reporting, corporate sustainability efforts depend on identifying and executing on material issues. Selecting the right sustainability metrics is vital. It can, and does, lead to outperformance. For example, Harvard Business School’s 2015 study, Corporate Sustainability: First Evidence on Materiality, demonstrated the significant, positive correlation between sustainability and financial performance when differentiating between material and immaterial sustainability issues.

In the U.S., the SEC requires and the Supreme Court defines the reporting of what is material in traditional, financial contexts for publicly traded companies. With the exception of some mandates on climate change and conflict minerals, SEC regulation and guidance are largely absent of sustainability disclosures. This has been the case in other countries, as well, but has begun changing – with some countries even mandating sustainability reporting.

For now, in the U.S., the reporting on sustainability measures remains largely voluntary, for public and private companies alike. Reporting has, however, become increasingly critical for satisfying stakeholders, managing risk, and identifying opportunity. Companies that get it right and focus their operations on what matters – surely the essence of materiality – have a competitive advantage. By contrast, companies that fail to adequately identify important, non-financial issues as material face mounting risks.

Coal companies are veritable poster children to illustrate materiality gone wrong. They rarely -- and only grudgingly -- described risks to their business model as material. Their failure to report material non-financial issues, and to execute on those risks, has led to a rash of bankruptcies, and an epic loss of value for many stakeholders. This cautionary tale has lessons for other industries as well. For example, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently ruled that ExxonMobil must allow its shareholders to vote on a climate risk resolution. The SEC is signaling that business risks due to climate change must be considered material risk for the oil industry.

The materiality frameworks

How should companies navigate the materiality of sustainability issues? What should companies make of, and how should they respond, to the differing materiality frameworks set forth by those organizations that take sustainability into account? The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), and CDP provide sometimes conflicting materiality principles. This conflict includes, importantly, from whose perspective materiality should be considered – shareholders versus various other stakeholders.

In an attempt to add clarity on the different interpretations of materiality, eight leaders in corporate reporting, including those above, and the Financial Accounting Standards Board, recently published a brief comparison of materiality definitions and approaches. While the emphases differ, all “share a mutual interest in clarifying reporting concepts,” according to their statement.

However, it remains complicated when multiple stakeholders with differing agendas, timeframes, and concerns are layered in. No wonder companies look for guidance in addressing the major initiatives:

• GRI: The GRI is the longest-running authority for sustainability reporters, having an extensive knowledge base and experience with how sustainability reports are created and used. It provides a roughly equal say on materiality between shareholders, on one hand, and all other stakeholders on the other, especially because reports are used by multiple audiences. It has evolved since its inception, with sector-specific metrics, more robust reporting, and encourages third-party audits. In 2015, 7,500 organizations worldwide used the GRI framework to issue sustainability reports.


• IIRC: The IIRC, in which GRI was an original co-convener in 2010, frames materiality in a positive sense, urging companies to issue “concise” integrated reports that detail “how an organization’s strategy, governance, performance and prospects, in the context of its external environment, lead to the creation of value in the short, medium, and long term.” Investors are the primary audience for these reports. Materiality is framed from their perspective.


• SASB: The SASB, launched in 2011, places its work within the system of financial regulation in the U.S., which requires companies to report financial metrics, and file them with the SEC. The focus of SASB is to add non-financial sustainability metrics to the traditional 10-K and 20-F forms that public companies must file quarterly. SASB has created more than 80 industry-specific reporting standards.


• CDP: The CDP, formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project, provides the “only global environmental disclosure system for corporations and cities.” CDP requests information from on the risks and opportunities of climate, water, and forests from the world's largest companies on behalf of over 820 institutional investors with a combined $95 trillion in assets.

Which of the frameworks is material for your business?

Each of the frameworks contains valuable tools for U.S. companies that fully understand the value of sustainability to their business. They each evolved at different times, to address different needs. Each can be used to address risk and maximize opportunities.

A full evaluation of the different frameworks and their application to different types of organizations could fill a book. Importantly, the distinction made by some between financial and nonfinancial use of materiality in reporting may not be a useful dichotomy. Rather, as the IIRC elaborates, the spectrum of creating “value in the short, medium or long term” may be the better perspective. This perspective more clearly aligns what is otherwise labeled financial and nonfinancial materiality – the longer the term considered, the more fully aligned it becomes.

For large, publicly traded companies, it makes sense to map the different indicators from across these frameworks – especially for the sectors in which they operate. This process could be done in a way similar to that demonstrated on the SDG Compass website. Mapping can help companies maximize the benefit of materiality analyses, and position themselves for future regulatory and policy changes. This may help set context and scope for engaging stakeholders. An earlier, yet still useful suggested approach, the “spider’s web,” is also provided on Greenbiz. A more recent, common-sense reminder can be found here on Environmental Leader.

Conclusion

All publicly traded U.S. companies should move toward integrated disclosure, even if continuing to communicate sustainability information separately (report or otherwise). Advocacy efforts may lead to clearer interpretation of existing SEC rules, including greater application of materiality specifically to sustainability issues. Integrated disclosure will reduce the risk that companies will be found in violation of SEC rules and/or be required to scramble more quickly at greater expense later to comply with new rules or clarifications.

All companies, including privately owned, should also use materiality to focus their strategy and efforts to greater effect, not just to check reporting boxes. Such value is clear in many ways, including:

• Focusing limited resources and management time on the most important areas;


• Identifying leverage and multipliers, where modest investments can create impacts orders of magnitude larger (in both cost efficiencies and revenue); and


• Creating platforms for sustainability innovation to not only identify issues, but to create solutions to these issues – again in ways that reduce costs and generate revenue.

Image courtesy of the authors

Perry Goldschein is a corporate sustainability consultant, and former environmental and regulatory lawyer, with 15 years of experience helping organizations create value through sustainability.  Perry has served such world-class clients as GE, Goldman Sachs, the International Monetary Fund, Johnson & Johnson, National Geographic, PepsiCo, Walmart, and Yale University.  He has been quoted and published widely in academic journals, industry press, and the general media.  He has also taught at the State University of New York, New Paltz, and presented at American Strategic Management Institute, Cornell University, Sustainable Brands, and Net Impact.  Perry holds a J.D. from the University of California, Davis, and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Kathy Hipple, a graduate of Marlboro’s Sustainability MBA, is a founding partner of Noosphere Marketing, and an adjunct professor at Bard’s MBA for Sustainability, where she teaches Finance through a sustainability lens. At Noosphere, she works with mission-driven organizations, financial services and tech firms to advance – and communicate -- their ESG initiatives. Prior to launching her firm, Kathy had an extensive background on Wall Street, working with international institutional clients at Merrill Lynch, and in local search, where she ran a NYC-based media company with nearly 200 employees and $35 million in revenues, and served on the national board of the Local Search Association.

It often seems that the more cable channels and online content that are available to us, the fewer palatable options there are to watch. But for those who want a break from reality TV and the binge-watching that today’s series often encourage, a new show airing on Flipboard, YouTube, Facebook and USA Network as a time buy could pique interest among those of us who want meaningful content and seek inspiration by people and ideas that make a difference.

That calling has inspired several veterans of the entertainment industry to launch ASPIREist, a feature news show that wants viewers to feel empowered to take action based on its showcasing of issues that matter to today’s generation. Neal Weinberg, a New York-based online advertising executive, and Los Angeles-based screenwriter Michal Zebede conceived the idea of ASPIREist and worked with former 60 Minutes producers Shawn Efran and Solly Granatstein to make the show happen. Produced out of New York, the first season is composed of four episodes with another 12 episodes slated for production.

ASPIREist features six co-hosts who offer various experiences, from social enterprise to environmental activism. Philippe Cousteau, Jr., a CNN special correspondent; Seth Maxwell, founder of the Thirst Project; Debi Nova, a singer-songwriter who has long spoken out on domestic violence; Geena Rocero, a transgender rights activist; Shiza Shahid, co-founder of the Malala Fund; and Harvard University poet and professor Clint Smith all hold discussions and investigate various stories portrayed on the 30-minute show.

“We have to start making better choices about what we watch,” Shahid told TriplePundit during a telephone conversation. “Some of the recent trends -- such as the rise of certain political candidates and their hateful ideologies, to the rise of terrorist groups and ISIS -- is because, in part, they have grasped the attention of young people based on their response to media that they found, for whatever reason, is appealing.

“Meanwhile, you have these vacuous media types, such as Kim Kardashian, that have the highest Twitter followings. All this signals a trend that is sad for the world and sad for us as young people. But it gives us the opportunity to make better choices on what we watch and how we act. That doesn’t mean staying away from entertainment. But we can use this medium, TV, so that it can make us smarter and kinder as a people.”

The show’s pilot episode, along with others scheduled for this spring, comprise three main segments. That includes one the show’s creators called a “celebrity passion project,” with subjects like Ian Somerhalder of "The Vampire Diaries" and basketball icon LeBron James. The stories cut across issues ranging from the impact of America’s mass incarceration on communities and families, to eco-entrepreneur Graham Hill’s transformation into a minimalist and sustainable-living leader. Additionally, ASPIREist features one-minute segments that highlight the work of social entrepreneurs. For example, Gavin Armstrong, founder and CEO of Lucky Iron Fish, gives his spiel about how his one-for-one business model helps to reduce iron deficiency and anemia in developing countries.

The fast-paced show’s episodes are also available for viewing on YouTube and Flipboard. Due in part to the background of some of its creators, the show has a similar format to such TV exposé shows as "60 Minutes" or "20/20," but the focus is not on busting corrupt politicians or revealing corporate scandals.

“What makes the show different from the typical news shows is that millennials are hungry for meaningful content and are eager to take action," co-founder Michal Zebede  told TriplePundit by telephone. “We’re so overwhelmed by what’s bombarding us in the media. We wanted to produce a show that is about the issues that will inspire a viewer to think, ‘This is what I’m about, what I’m moved by, and what I’m compelled to take action on,’ and therefore inspiring action by these viewers.”

As with the case of any show driven by feature stories, some of ASPIREist’s segments will resonate differently with viewers depending on one’s interests and passions. But what makes ASPIREist stand out is not necessarily the stories (after all, even "60 Minutes" can crank out an inspiring story on youth and hope), but its advertisers. Indeed, the show’s corporate sponsors. One of ASPIREist’s advertisers is Colgate, but the messages shown during the show’s pilot are hardly the run of the mill “brush twice a day” and “removes more plaque than the leading brand” variety.

Colgate chose to feature its Bright Smiles, Bright Futures program on ASPIREist. The company has retrofitted eight vans into fully-equipped mobile dental offices that travel around the country, mostly to inner cities and rural areas. These vans are not only fully functional, enabling dentists and hygienists to do their work, but they are also designed to make children feel comfortable during their visit. Each van has two dental chairs and a waiting area where children can learn about developing healthy habits.

As the segment during the ASPIREist pilot shows, the vast majority students at Public School 19 in the Bronx, one of the nation’s largest elementary schools, had never even seen a dentist — and were naturally apprehensive about visiting one. What is striking about the ad is that at first it appears to be just another ASPIREist segment — it was woven into the episode without interrupting the flow of the show and lacked the schmaltz typical of many advertisements.

(Watch the segment here.)

And that was the point, co-founder Neal Weinberg told TriplePundit from his New York office by telephone. “Colgate wanted an authentic story done in a way that was a part of the show, instead of being separate from it,” he explained. “Now Colgate can use that segment on their website, and they can link it to their annual report and social media feeds. This helps us to share the mission of this show, while giving companies a platform in which to communicate the good work that they can do."

ASPIREist offers the entertainment industry and the corporate world some solid lessons. First, viewers have a thirst to learn about inspiring people and ideas that have a positive impact on people and the planet. In addition, there is no harm in companies sharing stories about the work they do on the sustainability and corporate responsibility fronts; a forum like that of ASPIREist could be well worth the time and investment in delivering such a narrative to consumers, stakeholders and, yes, television and online viewers.

Videos like the Colgate spot for ASPIREist prove that companies can leverage their resources and people for the common good, while ensuring the triple bottom line that is even more critical at a time when far too many still suffer from social injustice and environmental degradation.

Take a peek at the latest episode right here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEBdwLLlLdc

The next episode of ASPIREist will be broadcast on USA Network Sunday, April 17, at 8:00 a.m. nationally.

Image credit: ASPIREist

Editorial disclosure - ASPIREist is a TriplePundit advertiser.