What’s the payoff from taking a high-rise from green to greener? More than you might think.
When the 111 South Wacker building in downtown Chicago opened in 2005, it was one of the world’s greenest high-rise office buildings, earning LEED Gold certification for its core and shell, followed by LEED Gold certification for its operations and maintenance. But as the building approached its 10th year in business, its owners invested in upgrades needed to achieve LEED Platinum certification — the highest level available under the LEED system.
This investment begs the question: What is the ROI achieved?
Here are a few reasons to advance from LEED Gold certification to LEED Platinum:
Differentiate the property to potential tenants. So many Class A high-rise office buildings have Gold certification today that the designation doesn’t really stand out in tenants’ minds anymore. For example, there are only a handful of LEED Platinum office buildings in downtown Chicago.
Elevate the building’s prestige. 111 South Wacker is arguably the most desirable office destination in Chicago, given its “corner-of-Main-and-Main” location, striking façade and range of amenities. Anything less than the highest level of green certification would fail to capture the same essence.
Save energy. According to a study sponsored by the U.S. Green Building Council, LEED Platinum buildings use 40 percent less energy per square foot than the base building code requirement, while the average reduction for LEED Gold buildings is closer to 30 percent. Since energy costs are typically passed on to tenants, efficiency improvement translates into lower occupancy costs.
Recognize continuous improvement. LEED certification works on a point system for a range of environmentally-friendly features and management practices. When 111 South Wacker was certified in 2010, the achievable points fell into the 60 to 79 range of Gold. By continuing to identify ways to operate more sustainably over the past five years, the building’s owners raised the achievable point score to more than 80 points, the range for Platinum certification.
Contribute to corporate social responsibility commitments. Many tenants seeking trophy building space are the same corporations that have set ambitious environmental sustainability goals for achievement by the year 2020. By locating in a green building with LEED Platinum certification, tenants can make a stronger statement on their commitment to sustainability to their investors, employees and other key stakeholders.
It may be possible to earn LEED Platinum certification by simply checking the right boxes, without any underlying commitment to doing the right thing. But like anything, success is much easier when you believe in what you’re doing. The oft-cited financial gains of higher rent, occupancy and lease renewal rates are good reasons to operate a property at the highest green standards. But results will always be better with ownership and tenant alignment on the intrinsic value in reducing environmental impacts and fostering the well-being of the people with offices within it.
Social enterprises, for-benefit companies, benefit corporations, hybrid companies and not-only-for-profits are all new terms describing a type of for-profit company that has the goal of improving a social concern. Many people don’t understand what these entities actually do or even what they are. Let's change that.
Let’s start by picking a term we can use while discussing these entities. The term I’ve chosen is social enterprise. Social enterprises are companies that aim to make a profit and solve a human or environmental problem at the same time. They combine goodwill and profit to solve the world's most important problems. They often combine the best parts of what nonprofits and regular companies have to offer.
The fourth sector
Just like nonprofits, social enterprises have a clear mission of doing something good in the world. And just like regular companies, they are also looking to make a profit and grow -- which ultimately serves to enhance the effect of their social impact. Unlike most nonprofits, however, these companies are proving to be more agile, nimble, and untethered to the heavy paperwork and reliance on donors that nonprofits often face.
Unlike regular companies, social enterprises serve their mission first, not their shareholders. The products or services they sell are only a means to an end to achieve their mission of making the world a better place. The social enterprise is the end product of the public, private and social sectors meshing into each other; they are the new “fourth sector” of the economy.
The triple bottom line
Social enterprises have different goals and missions than regular companies. Because they exist to affect positive social and environmental change, social enterprises do not only care about the financial bottom line but work on being profitable on the triple bottom line (money, environment and social impact). People that support as a customer and/or work as an employee for social enterprises enjoy a shared belief in the company's mission and are able to play an active role in the solution offered.
People want to know about the products they use, the food they eat, the services they purchase. Awareness of what is purchased and how it fits into the consumers’ personal mission is now more than a trend.
The new normal
The social enterprise movement has passed beyond being a trend and is a mainstay of business, which is good news for the world. It is the new normal and is only getting bigger and attracting satellite industries. Now, top-level universities offer programs and classes dedicated to social enterprise companies and how to run one. Attorneys have gotten in the mix and are specializing in providing legal advice and representation to social entrepreneurs. Towns like Encinitas in California have created initiatives to become the Silicon Valley of social enterprises. And last but definitely not least, the American government has decided it was time for social enterprises to get their own tax code.
All this is to say that the social enterprise is the future of commerce. At their core, these companies are created to care about the products they sell, the customers the serve and the world they are a part of. That’s why we have created Vavavida -- a company that aims to sell beautiful, handmade jewelry and empower women to realize their full potential. Because we care and saw an opportunity to create change. It's a wonderful time to be part of this swelling, lasting movement.
Image credit: Vavavida
Antoine Didienne is the founder of Vavavida, a fair trade and ecofriendly accessories company.
Harvesting seaweed is a unique and invigorating experience. I’ve experienced early mornings on the overcast California coastline with nothing but my dry suit and harvesting bag, gathering thick ropes of kelp in the cold, shallow waves. Seaweed is harvested during the lowest tide of the month when these ‘sea vegetables’ are most easily accessible. It grows in both saltwater and freshwater, and requires only sunlight to flourish. Once harvested, it dries naturally in the sun. What I’ve learned is simple: Seaweed is sustainability gold.
My interest in seaweed and expertise in ocean advocacy has given rise to Samudra Skin & Sea, a social enterprise that lies at the intersection of personal wellness, ecological sustainability and social consciousness. Samudra, the Indian word for ocean, is an organic skincare line featuring wild-harvested seaweed sourced in a socially- and eco-conscious manner. Our goal is to inspire protection of the global ocean and to empower rural women in India through seaweed harvesting opportunities. Genuine sustainability efforts based in science and implemented in conjunction with local ecological knowledge are key to our method and mission.
Our partner Larry Knowles, owner of Rising Tide Sea Vegetables and Mendocino’s resident seaweed expert, has been harvesting seaweed off the coasts of Northern California since 1995. He firmly believes that any sustainable use of ecological services requires bigger-picture systems thinking. At Samudra Skin & Sea, we are asking ourselves how other ocean functions are potentially impacted through harvesting actions. To avoid the ecological domino effects of mass wild gathering, Knowles monitors seaweed growth rates and densities through the year and tailors harvest size and methods to each location.
Harvesting seaweed, or “wildcrafting,” means never uprooting the plants -- ensuring that the seaweed, which dies off in the winter, grows back the following year. This process, which involves cutting back half to three quarters of the seaweed blade, is akin to trimming hair. Knowles’ team does not harvest from an area more than once a year, ensuring protection for the innumerable marine creatures that rely on seaweed for shelter and food. The amount of produce he takes is determined by what and how much can be harvested at the forefront of his mind.
Knowles was a key stakeholder in the development of California’s monumental Marine Life Protection Act in 1999, which requires California to reevaluate all existing marine protected areas (MPAs) and potentially design new MPAs. This experience taught him how multiple stakeholder perspectives help achieve balanced policy, ultimately resulting in successful management efforts. He’s also seen an upsurge of research in the last decade, which has led to important environmental policy measures and an increase in awareness of the importance of ecological services.
I asked Knowles about the coolest thing he’s seen while harvesting in the last 20 years. He described a brief encounter with a curious harbor seal that nudged his leg in three feet of water while he gathered seaweed. His story is testament to why we must maintain the vibrant oceanic ecosystems that sustain marine life and the human populations fundamentally connected to them. I await my next visit to the ocean’s gardens to help gather our next batch of wildcrafted seaweed for Samudra Skin & Sea.
Image credits: 1) 4) and 5) Rising Tide Sea Vegetables 2) Shilpi Chhotray 3) Dave Gertler
Shilpi Chhotray is the Founder of Samudra Skin & Sea, an organic seaweed-enriched skincare line inspired by her love for the oceans. She is also a Senior Manager at Future 500, a global nonprofit specializing in stakeholder engagement.
Follow Samudra Skin and Sea on Twitter, @SamudraSkinSea and Shilpi Chhotray @ShilpiChhotray.
Virtually unspoken in the business world two decades ago, these words appear with increasing frequency in corporate reports and business press. Can you imagine the CEO of a Fortune 500 business admitting that practicing meditation helps with the job? Well, 14 of them just did in an article for BusinessInsider. Even the Harvard Business Review regularly publishes articles supporting the benefits to businesses who truly address sustainability issues. What’s happening? What’s driving this change from a myopic focus on ‘the bottom line’ to a more balanced, values-driven culture? Is it just a flash in the pan?
The simple answer is people; all of these words relate to people, not profits. A more precise answer is responsibility toward people. Large corporations wield great power and with this power comes responsibility.
In recent years, businesses – particularly multinationals – have incorporated technology into the very fabric of the business and, in doing so, replaced functions formerly carried out by human beings. Technological advances enabled increased efficiencies with benefits accruing directly to the bottom line. Many roles are now automated, and even customer service and human resources functions succumbed to automation. Only a business’s shareholders are well served by ever-increasing profits.
But what about the customers? Employees? Suppliers? The environment? For the past few decades, these stakeholders have been virtually ignored.
Ironically, the same technology that enabled this problem for the stakeholders has empowered them. There is now more transparency about the impact business is having overall. For example, an organization might produce big profits but use suppliers in developing countries with very poor working conditions. However, it’s not just customers who consider the values of a potential supplier; what’s new and exciting is that employees are also looking on and voting with their feet.
In recent years, many employees started to leave the corporate world entirely. This exodus includes some of the ‘best and brightest’ who would traditionally have been future corporate leaders. Many are giving up high-paying jobs to work in socially-focused businesses or charities, and many look for businesses that take a more balanced view of all a company’s stakeholders.
But leaving the corporate world is not the only answer. Some individuals have managed to drive change within their organizations, and have managed give their jobs more social meaning. However, those with the greatest impact sit at the top of the organization. Whole Foods is an often cited as an example of a successful and profitable business which embodies ‘balanced’ social values. However, until recently such examples were few and far between.
Today, there is a dawning realization within companies that their business has become ‘unbalanced,' but business leaders face a challenge: Where to start? With themselves? With employees? Corporate responsibility? Sustainability? For large, multinational businesses with tens or hundreds of thousands of employees, driven by quarterly reporting, it’s hard to know where to begin. But more and more businesses are trying, and there are now many companies who can help them.
With many entry points to solving this problem, most efforts begin with employees. If a business and its employees live the right values, then the rest of the stakeholders benefit. Activities like mindfulness training, employee social responsibility programs, and community and environmental activities are now part of most business’s agendas. The good news is that recent studies show that by making employees a top priority, profits follow. Careful rebalancing of business priorities can be good business too.
So this trend is no flash in the pan – it is the future.
Tamara Howard is a management consultant who, over the past decades, has worked in and consulted to large multinationals. In recent years she has spotted a trend amongst employees of these large business and, so has expanded her consulting role to include social enterprises and not-for-profits. She also tries to help large organisations and the individuals within them, adjust to a new, business zeitgeist. In her capacity as a Board Member of the Harvard Club of the United Kingdom, she co-hosts an event – Putting the Soul Back into Business – which brings together individuals who seek purpose in their jobs with other who have found ‘a solution’. Tamara is based near Oxford, in the United Kingdom.
The next time you drive by a corn field, you may not be thinking about solutions for climate change. But one of the answers to this global challenge is right there in front of you.
Climate change is already impacting crop production. Farmers are already confronted with extreme weather challenges like droughts and floods, which make bringing in a good harvest more challenging. And warming temperatures let insects, weeds and other pests migrate into or multiply in regions that previously were too cold for them.
But the connection between crops and climate change goes in the other direction, too: The production of crops produces greenhouse gasses. You might guess that’s because tractors and other farm equipment run on fossil fuels – and that’s part of it. But it’s also because disturbing the soil, through plowing, tilling or erosion, releases some of the carbon trapped there.
Believe it or not, there is more carbon held in the soil under our feet than in almost any other place on Earth. Whenever we break the surface of the soil, some of that carbon escapes. When you dig up your garden, it releases a tiny bit of carbon to the atmosphere. When farmland is tilled, a lot of carbon is released.
Years ago, we challenged ourselves: Does it have to be that way? Feeding a world population expected to rise to 9.6 billion by 2050 is going to require growing a lot more crops than farmers grow today. Unless we do something differently, that increase in food production will inevitably lead to more and more greenhouse gas emissions -- accelerating climate change and making it harder and harder to grow crops, contributing to a vicious cycle.
Simply put: How can we mitigate climate change and grow enough food for a skyrocketing population?
That’s the question we asked as we worked with third-party partners to see if there’s a way to reduce – or even eliminate – the carbon footprint of growing crops. Together, we looked at a very broad data set, including things like weather, crop yield, crop rotations, tillage, cover crops and soil types. And we learned something pretty interesting.
People have known for a while now that planting cover crops (like clover) over the winter, and leaving the soil intact instead of tilling during the planting season, helps farmers reduce their carbon footprint. That’s nothing new. But after spending time crunching data and consulting with partners, we realized something pretty exciting. By utilizing these practices in the right way – especially reduced till farming – it’s possible to not only reduce the carbon footprint of crop production, but also to potentially eliminate it. And to do so without any sacrifice in the amount of food grown.
Just think about that for a second. Today, agriculture accounts for approximately 13 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Working together, implementing just a handful of measures, those of us who grow crops can drive that number down substantially. For example, carbon-neutral corn and soybean production in the U.S. corn belt alone has the potential to eliminate crop-production emissions equivalent to 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is equal to reducing 233 million barrels of oil consumption. That’s a pretty big deal.
Making crop production carbon-neutral isn’t enough to solve the problem of climate change, but it’s a pretty good start. And we’re going to pursue it. We’ve just made a commitment to make our entire operation carbon-neutral by 2021. This is challenging, but it’s doable. Here’s how we’ll do it.
At Monsanto, we grow crops to provide seeds to farmers. We also have scientific labs, factories and offices. To help zero out the carbon footprint of our seed production, we’ll expand the use of carbon-neutral farming approaches in the way our seeds are produced. Beyond that, to help offset the carbon footprint of other parts of our business such as crop-protection product manufacturing, we’re working to develop a program to provide incentives to other farmers to help them adopt or expand their use of these methods – in exchange for part of their carbon-reduction value.
This is similar to how some companies plant trees for offsets. These offsets will be in addition to strides we’re already undertaking to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions intensity of our crop-protection product manufacturing. By 2021, we’ll collaborate with enough farmers, on enough acres, to offset our operational carbon emissions completely.
When we put these methods into practice on our seed-production operations, we’ll learn a lot about what does and doesn’t work best. Within our operations and among the broader farming community, data and modeling is helping farmers to make more precise decisions about when and where to apply climate-smart agriculture best practices. As we fine-tune the overall approach, we’ll share the lessons we learn about how to reduce a farm’s carbon footprint with anyone who wants them, including our competitors. It’s in all of our interests to spread this knowledge far and wide.
When it comes to carbon, we want to get our own house in order first. But we don’t want this effort to end with us. Making Monsanto carbon-neutral will mean a reduction of approximately 3.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, which is equal to reducing approximately 7.7 million barrels of oil consumption. That’s not bad. But think about the incredible impact we can have when more companies, farmers and others work together to be part of the solution.
So, when you see that field of corn, think about the work farmers are doing to help address climate change.
If you’re hanging out in Brooklyn one night and you run into a massive craft fair with over a thousand sellers, you probably just stumbled upon the monthly craft night at the Etsy headquarters.
Not only does Etsy sell crafts that would look great on your living room wall and offer one of the only legit “you can work from home” job opportunities on the Internet, but it’s also doing amazing social impact work.
Katie Hunt-Morr, the phenomenal senior manager of values and impact at Etsy, recently spoke at The Heart Series conference, a new conference in Los Angeles where conscientious companies come together to discuss bettering the world. She also shared a wealth of insight during an interview with TriplePundit and through Etsy's progress report. Here are 10 nuggets of wisdom that can hopefully help you enhance your company’s social impact.
1. Ask employees if they're happy
Etsy’s culture and engagement team did a lot of research to create the perfect employee happiness survey. Every year it measures its employee well-being in a way that shows it cares about each person and is not just trying to improve their performance for the company’s benefit.
Once the data is collected, the information is shared with all employees. Hunt-Morr says the best practice is to “share with everybody so that everybody takes ownership."
She continued: “Executives and HR don’t comprise culture; they’re leaders, but every single person that comes into the office is bringing culture with them every day. Everyone is equally responsible and accountable.” This is different than traditional corporate engagement surveys which are analyzed by human-resources departments, read over by executives, then sometimes emails are sent to employees with the highlights.
The survey results are broken down and distributed to each team so they know what to work on. Each department may have vastly different results than the company as a whole, so it’s important for each department to see their results. Then adjustments are made to make employees happier.
2. Focus on employee philanthropy
“Supporting individual employees in the pursuit of their passions is the most important thing we can do. Because they will leave Etsy; they will go on and grow and do other things and be their own philanthropist.” Each year employees are granted 40 hours a week of paid time off to volunteer with any nonprofit. Etsy also matches employee donations up to $500.
Hunt-Morr says being a philanthropist isn’t really about giving money; it’s about sharing the mixture of your incredible skill-set, experiences, perspective and time. Etsy helps employees cultivate a deep connection to philanthropy and fully understands what it means to be a philanthropist.
3. Select sustainable vendors
“We want our money to reinforce the change we want to see in the world,” Hunt-Morr says. “If we’re going to buy food, let’s buy the right food that’s sending the right message, that’s creating change and emphasizes our mission.” To do that, Etsy created a survey for vendors to assess sustainability.
Not every purchase is from a sustainable vendor; it depends on the size of the engagement. “We don’t want to get in the way of people buying a box of pencils. A company still has to function. With larger contracts, we will assess them for values based on the survey, do an interview, and then also do our own independent research,” Hunt-Morr says.
“We look at the assessment as an opportunity to start a conversation. We’re not trying to say, ‘We only work with companies that meet this score, have certain criteria, or do really well on our assessment.' If we can find companies that are interested and not active, that’s the sweet spot. That’s where we reinvent commerce,” Hunt-Morr says. “That aptitude for moving along the path is what we’re most interested in.” Then Etsy can provide companies with tools and have a deeper conversation about how to create more sustainable practices.
Survey points are tallied up, a score is given and an analysis is written. Then the decision to purchase from that vendor is up to the department spending the money. “It’s not to say that’s how we make our purchase decisions exclusively, because we also look at all the things one would normally look at when selecting a vendor. But this piece is a critical component.”
4. Donate more than money: Share your skills and time
It makes sense to share the things we know, says Hunt-Morr. For example, if Etsy has a group that specializes in helping sellers with social-media marketing for their online businesses, then that group can help a nonprofit partner that works with low-income entrepreneurs with their own social-media marketing efforts.
If Etsy can bring that amazing skill-set to those people, not only does it help them far much more than cleaning up a local park, but it also helps Etsy employees because it shows them what incredible experts they are and gives them a much deeper sense of fulfillment, Hunt-Morr says. The ability to share a skill with another human being is transformational.
That's not to say that Etsy doesn't donate. It does, and in very cool ways. For example, according to its most recent progress report, Etsy contributed $210,000 to Hacker School grants for women in tech and minorities that are underrepresented in software engineering.
5. Be a good neighbor: Integrate into the community
Etsy’s core social impact is focused on helping entrepreneurs develop businesses because that’s what Etsy knows best. However, in addition to that, “There are cases where we just have to show up; we have to be a good neighbor,” Hunt-Morr says.
So, each office is given a discretionary budget: the Good Neighbor Fund. This allows the office to connect with its community by donating to the local Halloween festival, Gay Pride event, or whatever is important to its neighbors.
6. Reduce waste: Take bicycle rides to the compost pile
Each week, Etsy’s Office Ecologist and admin volunteers step into jumpsuits, strap on helmets, throw compost into a bicycle box and pedal over 100 pounds of organic waste to a community farm.
The farm uses the compost to help grow 14,000 pounds of vegetables for local restaurants, residents and food pantries. Etsy also donates leftover food to food banks and shelters.
This isn’t the only way in which employees take trash seriously. They’ve also conducted dumpster-dives at offices in which a group of employees sorted through compost, recycling and landfill waste. They spread it across tarps, sorted and labeled items so they could see what people were bringing into the office and how they were discarding it. To their surprise, they discovered that a lot of the landfill trash was actually recyclable or compostable, so they upgraded their waste-disposal signage.
Etsy also refurbishes used laptops and donates them to nonprofits creating educational opportunities for disadvantaged students.
7. Share social impact knowledge: Help other companies
One of the mandates of Etsy's values and impact team is to help other companies figure out how to improve their social impact. Not only does the team share the happiness survey, vendor assessment survey and handbook on nonprofit partnerships, but it also goes a step further and engages companies in conversation about the tools and how to use them.
Each company is different and needs to create tools specific to them. The knowledge Etsy shares is just to give companies an idea of what they can create for themselves, and Etsy by no means thinks any company should use these tools without serious modification.
Etsy's willingness to share is admirable. In the company's annual progress report, Hunt-Morr even boldly includes her email address. If you want more information on something in the report, you can email her directly. Such openness and transparency is truly impressive.
8. Empower your community: Buyers or sellers
More than 1.4 million people (mostly women) have small businesses on Etsy. For 30 percent of the entrepreneurs, this is their only occupation. Etsy helps them scale their businesses by partnering them with manufacturers and providing educational resources to teach them about each other.
Etsy also teaches sellers wholesale-industry lingo, tips on branding, pricing, policies and etiquette. It then helps sellers grow into a wholesale business and connects them with values-aligned retail partners. The retailers may be small boutiques or large chains such as Nordstrom. It’s an amazing opportunity for growth. A seller might start by sewing a few baby bibs and, the next thing you know, their products are in Nordstom. That’s a cool opportunity and empowers many sellers.
To help educate sellers, Etsy also sends out a success newsletter with tips and inspiration, online webinars, a Seller Handbook and guidance about how to handle the Christmas season's onslaught of orders. Sometimes Etsy also conducts in-person workshops.
9. Love dogs
Okay, okay, this list of Etsy amazingness is getting long, so here's something short: The employees love dogs at the office so much they made an adorable video about it!
10. Create a fun progress report
The report is written in a simple and engaging way. It gives high-fives and hugs to sellers and even includes a note to Martians regarding planet Earth. When legal jargon is included, it’s listed under a section entitled, “Stuff our lawyers make us say.” This is great because reading most companies' social impact reports is about as exciting as doing laundry.
The report also includes special thanks to 69 people for helping create it, which shows how supportive Etsy employees are about creating social impact.
Conclusion
Every company is a work in progress, but Etsy's passion, achievement and transparency make it noteworthy. The next time you need a unique artisan gift, shop on Etsy and know you're supporting a company that is making values-based decisions and re-inventing commerce to make the world a better place.
Among the reasons to visit Las Vegas is that southern Nevada benefits from copious amounts of sunlight year-round and has easy access to abundant natural beauty, from nearby Red Rock Canyon to southern Utah and, of course, the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Most Sin City visitors don't see anything natural in Vegas: Most people who escape there are holed up in the Strip’s massive hotels, restaurants and resorts, are viewing a show, or are sequestered in one of the city’s casinos. Of course, the artificial nature of Vegas is one if its greatest attractions, as one can saunter fake versions of New York, Venice, Egypt and Paris by walking within an hour.
But not everyone in Vegas is a fan of the artificial. Some of the city’s schools, for example, are now scoring a daylighting makeover. SerraLux, a United Kingdom-based window-glazing and daylighting technology company, has reached an agreement to install its daylight-redirecting window film at six charter schools across Las Vegas.
The product is an acrylic film that contains microscopic particles that increase the amount of natural light that can come into a room while allowing views outside the window to still appear normal. SerraLux claims its technology reduces glare while extending daylight deeper into a space, such as a classroom. Most standard windows allow light in to the point at which there is 50 times more natural light near a window than 30 feet (9.14 meters) away. SerraLux, however, insists its window glazing film redistributes its light while lowering that 50:1 light level anywhere from 10:1 to 7:1.
Anyone who has endured years of attendance at public schools, especially within the many West Coast schools that resemble prisons more than places to learn, can see the benefit of technologies such as those of SerraLux or other companies that pitch similar products on the market. For builders tasked with constructing or renovating a facility of any kind seeking LEED certification, the installation of more efficient windows is one way to secure more points within the popular U.S. green building rating system. And for a school system seeking to reduce their long-term energy costs, better windows are a start. In fact, the Clark County School District, which administers public schools in Las Vegas, has pledged to build new schools to LEED Gold Certified standards.
The greatest benefit from the use of more light and energy efficient windows, however, is increased academic performance and an enhanced quality of life for both students and teachers. Anyone who studied in a west coast school, which was typically built in a hurry from the post-World War II era through the 1970s, will remember rooms with small windows and fluorescent lighting. But over the years, plenty of studies have suggested that daylight can have a positive impact on students’ performance, from preschool to advanced studies. Such metrics are difficult to measure, but are easy to justify. When school administrators consider what is best for kids, they have to go beyond curricula and ensure that the built environment is suitable for learning in the first place.
As the world’s population surges to more than 9 billion by 2050 and the middle-class expands in more developing countries, the growing demand for protein will continue to place further strain on the planet’s land and seas. Estimates of what that means are all over the map, but the World Health Organization has suggested that meat production alone could reach 376 million tons by 2030; in the late 1990s, that amount was approximately 218 million tons.
Oddly enough, the global demand for fat, according to Bloomberg, will have an impact on the growth for protein, as eating trends such as the Paleo diet and consumers' eschewing of carbohydrate-laden foods will also increase the production of red meat and dairy products.
The amount of land needed to produce all that meat, dairy, fish and even vegetable-based sources such as soy has lead to increased pollution and, according to some analysts, a “global land grab.”
The world’s oceans and seas have also suffered as fishing has continued at a rapidly unsustainable rate, leading to many environmental challenges and human rights violations. Yet while many citizens in developed countries are consuming more protein than necessary, as many as 2 billion people worldwide may not be getting enough of it, with the results having an adverse affect on their health.
To than end, the United Kingdom-based NGO Forum for the Future recently launched the Protein Challenge 2040, a coalition that aims to bring together the global food industry, environmental groups and health organizations to ensure that both the production and consumption of protein worldwide will shift toward a more sustainable path.
After a year-long series of workshops, interviews and research that took place on both sides of the pond with over 250 experts, a team at Forum for the Future came up with six high-level priorities:
Increasing the amount of plant-based proteins in diets worldwide is this organization’s biggest challenge -- yet it's the one that can pay the most dividends.
Developing more sustainable animal feed “innovation,” in order to meet the global demand for animal protein. This is a massive hill to climb, as the global meat industry’s attempts on this front have been feeble at best.
With as much as 30 percent of food worldwide wasted, researchers say it is critical to map how nutrients are lost across the global protein supply chain and then find ways to tighten what Forum for the Future calls the “nutrient loop.”
Developing more indigenous plants as forms of protein in local economies, a tall order considering that corn, wheat and rice comprise about half of the world’s consumption of calories. The experience of Bolivian and Peruvian farmers and consumers with quinoa is one example of how shifts in demands for protein can go haywire.
Scaling-up sustainable aquaculture, which already provides over half the world’s demand for fish eaten worldwide.
Restoring soil health, which will involve smarter application of fertilizer worldwide while requiring new materials to ensure the world’s farms can continue to grow crops
Considering the complicated nature of food and global politics, Forum for the Future has tackled a tall mountain to climb. But this drumbeat to address the problems for supplying the world with healthful and sustainable protein has attracted more business partners.
Recently the retailing giant Target, candy manufacturer Hershey, the U.K. grocer Waitrose and the meat-alternative manufacturer Quorn have pledged to support this effort. Transforming companies’ supply chains and convincing consumers to change their eating habits will not be easy, but this is the new reality if all countries will be able to feed their people in the coming decades.
Global oil prices are hovering around $35 a barrel, which many consumers view as pocketbook relief when they fill up that gasoline tank in their cars. But whatever one may think about the oil and gas industry, at a macroeconomic level low prices have meant layoffs in the U.S. and worldwide. For clean-energy advocates, the increased efficiency and lower prices of renewables have been outpaced by the rapid fall in fossil fuel prices, causing plenty of hand wringing.
The Saudis, however, are not having it. At a recent meeting of the global energy community in Houston, Ali Al-Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s minster of petroleum and mineral resources, insisted that current oil prices are low because of a glut spurred by exploration when oil was priced at $100 a barrel. “That price ... unleashed a wave of investment around the world into what had been previously uneconomical oil fields,” Al-Naimi said.
Al-Naimi, who has worked within Saudi Arabia’s oil industry since 1947, with the exception of completing university, also confronted the growing trend of divestment from oil and gas companies. Most recently highlighted by a Rockefeller heir who relinquished her shares so that her family’s philanthropic fund had more cash to fight climate change, the divestment bandwagon has moved trillions of dollars in assets away from conventional companies in recent years.
To that end, Al-Naimi warned the energy company executives gathered in Houston that they are dismissing the fossil fuels divestment wave at their own peril, and exhorted them to remember that while the oil industry has long been besmirched as the “Dark Side,” it is, in fact, a “force for good.”
Of course, many citizens of the world’s largest oil and natural gas producers would take issue with that description, considering the lingering curses it has left on many countries, including Saudi Arabia.
Thanks to generous oil prices, the kingdom has long spent generously on social welfare programs, in part to stifle dissent that has long festered against the country’s ruling family and its historic embrace of the Wahhabi wing of Sunni Islam. The low price of oil, however, has blown up Saudi Arabia’s budget, although some observers say an opportunity to diversify the country’s economy could prove to be beneficial for the Saudi women who in general have long been excluded from participating in the country’s economy and political system.
Other oil-producing states have not been so fortunate. Nigeria has massive oil reserves, but over 40 percent of its citizens have no access to electricity. Venezuela’s economy has become so mismanaged that at one point the country had a shortage of toilet paper. Iranians and Iraqis also have plenty to say about the impacts an oil-based economy has had on their way of life.
“The problem is not fossil fuels themselves. The problem is the harmful emissions we get from burning coal, oil and gas. The answer is not to leave the world’s greatest, most plentiful and economic, energy resource in the ground,” Al-Naimi said.
If the above were true, asks Al-Naimi, then what is the solution to avoid divestment and ensure oil continues to be a force for good? His response is carbon capture and storage (CCS), a technology that is very expensive and unproven — often hyped and frequently canceled. Al-Naimi may have found a receptive audience in Texas, but the reality is that research and investment in renewables keep surging, no matter how low oil prices are and how much effort the energy industry exerts to prevent more innovation.
Is Canada ahead in the turtle race to energy efficiency in North America? The always-witty Phillipe Dunsky, president of Dunsky Energy Consulting, thinks that while Canada’s past on that front might have been humdrum, it’s a whole new era now.
For that, credit Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, contended Dunsky at the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance’s 2016 Midwest Energy Solutions Conference. He noted that until three months ago, the two countries possessed very similar energy-efficiency perspectives:
Energy standards vary greatly across the provinces as they do across the states; just look at the vast difference between West Virginia and California.
A mix of design options exist, including integrated resource plan-driven, target-driven and shareholder incentives.
Both face the utility market “death spiral “of growing efficiencies slowing demand for energy, which increases energy’s costs that further the drivers of energy efficiency.
What spells the difference now? Dunsky maintains that after a lost decade, Canada has adopted a carbon consensus that turns its conservation future from boring to bold. This new harmony is about all carbon – not just regulated utilities. Transport, refrigerants, everything is on the table as Canada works toward an 85 percent reduction in carbon by 2050, even with a growing economy.
What does the neighboring giant do?
Where does that leave the neighboring Goliath? Absent a similar consensus, what does the United States do? Dunsky offers a market-based answer that just might pass muster regardless of our country’s inability to reach consensus on much of anything. He suggests using a net present value model in crafting market projects – one that would focus on energy service companies (ESCOs) and a 25-year market payback on energy efficiency.
Here’s a brief primer on NPV from Joe Knight, partner with the Business Literacy Institute and co-author of Financial Intelligence: "Net present value is the present value of the cash flows at the required rate of return of your project compared to your initial investment. In practical terms, it’s a method of calculating your return on investment for a project or expenditure. By looking at all of the money you expect to make from the investment and translating those returns into today’s dollars, you can decide whether the project is worthwhile."
What the NPV model delivers
As Dunsky sees it on the energy-efficiency front, while the first cost-and-debt ratio barriers are the same, the longer-term NPV model nudges the energy-efficiency valuation from the early part of the investment cycle and amortizes it over a longer project investment cycle. This creates information, incentives and financing that spurs deeper, bolder energy efficiency across industries and building types.
Dunsky emphasizes one other key point: Energy efficiency, based on a cost-per-kilowatt saved, can be cheap. He says most people underinvest because they worry about the upfront investment.
So, there we have it. On its face, a rather boring Canadian lesson about a market switch gets flipped and delivers a way for us to be bold ourselves in employing market drivers for energy efficiency.
Joyce Coffee is managing director of the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index which exists to increase the world's awareness of the need to adapt to climate change.
