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By Chris Busch and CC Huang

California’s economy is hot, but its traffic congestion is not. Since the end of the recession, the number of jobs statewide has increased 15 percent, compared to 10 percent for the nation as a whole. However, California also suffers from the worst traffic in the nation, threatening the Golden State’s quality of life and continued economic growth.

Fortunately, the recent research report, Moving California Forward, offers an essential solution with enticing benefits: Apply smart growth principles to California’s growing population to build up walkable and transit-oriented neighborhoods.

This is the only way to solve the state’s transportation woes. Los Angeles and San Francisco metro-area residents endure the worst and second worst traffic delays in the nation, respectively, and San Jose has the sixth worst traffic in the country. Peak traffic delays increase commute times by 60 to 70 percent, wasting 87 to 95 hours in a year for a person with a 30-minute commute. This equals more than two work weeks of lost productivity or irreplaceable time with family. If left unsolved, transportation woes will become a bottleneck stalling economic growth.

The solution to traffic congestion is not adding more roads. In fact, congestion is the main factor deterring people from driving, so building more roads actually entices new drivers to clog them. This counterintuitive fact is now well understood by urban planners with the evidence well-summarized by Professor Susan Handy, former director of the National Center for Sustainable Transportation, in a recent policy brief.

Demographers predict that California will add 6 million residents by 2030, and this growth presents a natural opening to create more spatially-focused urban areas and repair the legacy of California’s suburban sprawl.

Moving California Forward highlights compelling economic and environmental benefits for California to follow the smart growth path, starting with saving $18.5 billion in infrastructure costs through more focused urban growth. Sprawling development makes providing public infrastructure and services more challenging and costly for the government. Further, cars are expensive, making transportation the second largest household expense on average. More focused growth — enabling more use of public transit, some trips by foot and shorter car rides for remaining trips — would save the average household $2,000 per year on transportation costs by 2030 (all values as current dollars).

Smart urban development also creates health benefits, starting with reduced vehicle emissions saving $1 billion through lower health costs by 2030, due to the avoided emission of 60,000 tons of criteria air pollutants. This estimate does not even account for the public health improvements from fewer motor vehicle accidents or more active commutes (e.g. walking or biking), nor the increased economic productivity from better health.

Walkable, transit-oriented communities are in high demand, and companies are relocating to them to attract the best talent, as evidenced by the move to San Francisco for many Silicon Valley companies. San Francisco now attracts 74 percent more venture capital investment than the San Jose metro area, which includes the heart of Silicon Valley — from San Jose to Palo Alto -- in part by offering pedestrian-friendly and mixed-use neighborhoods brimming with vibrant cultural and shopping amenities.

Silicon Valley is just a few miles south of San Francisco in one sense, but it could be on a different planet from an urban planner’s perspective. No wonder venture capitalist and essayist Paul Graham describes Silicon Valley now as being “one big parking lot.”

Traffic jams lead to wasted and uncertain travel time, missed meetings and hot tempers, and is tarnishing quality of life across California. If left unsolved, transportation woes are certain to drag down growth. California has no choice but to build walkable and transit-oriented neighborhoods, breaking the link between economic expansion and greater traffic congestion while enabling new economic growth.

Setting stronger regional targets for reduced vehicle miles traveled under California’s Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act is an important next step to help steer development in the right direction, and should be part of the 2030 Scoping Plan the California Air Resources Board will develop in 2016.

These stronger targets should be paired with even greater support for public transit investments from the state’s cap-and-trade auction revenue. State policymakers should also explore ways auction revenue can provide even stronger incentives to local officials to overcome the NIMBY forces that too often slow development in urban areas, possibly by awarding local funds on the condition they achieve targets to expand housing supply.

The Golden State is at a development crossroads. Down one path is a traffic-choked future with higher transportation costs, longer commutes, and more wasted time. Down the other lies a sustainable outcome with walkable, locally oriented, and healthier communities. Let’s make sure smart growth becomes a smart choice for California policymakers.

Image credit: Flickr/Michael R Perry

Chris Busch is the Director of Research at Energy Innovation, where he leads the company’s work on Urban Sustainability. Prior to joining Energy Innovation, Chris served as a Climate Economist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, Policy Director for the Center for Resource Solutions, Policy Director for the BlueGreen Alliance, and Senior Research Associate at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His work in California has helped shape the design of the state’s cap-and-trade program. In 2009, the California Air Resources Board appointed him to the AB 32 Economic and Technology Advancement Advisory Committee. Chris holds a Ph.D. in environmental economics and a master’s degree in public policy, both from the University of California, Berkeley. He received a B.A. in economics and history with honors from the University of Pennsylvania.

CC Huang is a Policy Analyst for Energy Innovation's Urban Sustainability program area. Prior to joining Energy Innovation, she worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on international best practices of energy governance. She has also worked with the Natural Resources Defense Council in their Beijing office. CC received an MPA in Economics and Public Policy from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University with a certificate in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy. She also graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in International Affairs from George Washington University. CC is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, having studied international affairs and philosophy at Peking University and was a recipient of the U.S. State Department's Critical Language Scholarship.

By David Connor

In 1845, London solicitor Charles Pearson suggested the creation of an underground ‘atmospheric railway’ system that involved pushing trains through tunnels using compressed air. It is an idea not radically different to a modern concept unveiled by a certain lauded Mr. Musk. Pearson's original plans did not exactly take off as expected, but 170 years later the U.K.’s capital now sees over 1 billion journeys per year across its underground rail network.

Innovation is often avoided when the perception of value is diluted across multiple themes, communities and remits. Today’s volatile, uncertain and complex world increasingly demands aspirations and time-scales that we will all feel uncomfortable with. It takes pioneering, tenacious souls to begin to break away at the walls of inertia of any embedded position. As foreboding climate necessity in particular reinforces itself as the mother of innovation, we need many more and much bolder ideas being fed into the top of the solutions funnel.

With many cities now gridlocked, polluted and unsafe during working hours thanks to the domination of internal combustion propelled traffic, and traditional public transport systems creaking, plans B, C, D and all the way to Z are hitting the headlines. The glare of attention toward smarter, more sustainable cities is creating a ferociously fertile environment for exploring beyond the typical planning and technological parameters of yesterday.

Maybe the future of transport and urban centers will see variations on Elon Musk’s Hyperloop, drone deliveries, driverless electric cars / taxis, cycle superhighways, maglev and hopefully even the occasional hoverboard become commonplace. Maybe a real flexible working culture may actually kick into mainstream one day and we all really can work from home. We wish.

One visionary solution explorer is Anna Hill, co-founder and the socially entrepreneurially force of nature pushing the Thames Deckway concept, and also as CEO of Synapse Space Systems. With her background in design and space technology, Hill nurtured the Thames Deckway idea along with co-founder David Nixon back in 2005, and further developed it with support from Arup and Hugh Broughton Architects.

A mere 10 years later and Hill is still forcing the debate, with a constantly refined proposal, countless hundreds of hours of focused stakeholder engagement and a reassuringly consistent growing community of supporters.

Hill suggested a wider perspective is required to understand the true possibilities beyond those currently caught up in the battleground-like attention focusing conditions on many of today’s roads. It is not just about cycling, or pedestrians, or cars, but includes bigger environmental and social impact implications. It is a given that the Thames Deckway has to be a robust and steady floating cycle and pedestrian pathway but less obvious is the integration of renewable energy harnessing, multiple sensor platforms and communications technology.

“Many current cycling improvement solutions, whilst wonderful and heading in the right direction, are painfully incremental and reliant solely on public funding. We see the Thames Deckway as an additional and complementary solution that we envisage being paid for by those who use it, and those who want this tomorrow, not 20 years away.”

Hill’s concept appears far more technically realistic on first take than Charles Pearson’s proposal, but the level of technology integration, sustainability and innovation within the Deckway are hidden from most people’s cursory glance, yet essential to making the project a reality away from the usual routes to infrastructure finance.

“First and foremost it has to work to enhance existing transport connectivity, but the added environmental and social value beyond quicker and less polluted journeys could be truly incredible. We believe the opportunity to harness and promote clean energy and improve road safety whilst enhancing access to certain areas of such an iconic river has a moral duty to be investigated thoroughly.” Hill said.

It is not difficult to foresee more than a little reluctance from financial district incumbents in their corporate temples to move away from their luxury cars, even if potentially driven by Google’s artificial intelligence chauffeurs or powered by Tesla’s batteries currently creeping into the picture. Cars will persist for some time yet. Transport for London itself unleashed its latest cycle superhighway recently, with at least one unimpressed single-fingered saluting cyclist, according to related images of Boris Johnson on the day.

Hill’s current thinking suggests a journey that circumnavigates the current traffic mayhem using the Deckway, across London, along a potential 12-kilometer length, could be as quick as 30 minutes and cost a very affordable 1.50 British pounds (around US$2.24). That is, not free nor the most direct, but it would be another commuting option, attract additional infrastructure investment, and most definitely be much better for the soul than the claustrophobic less safe roads.

Without the bold we will never achieve the great. We need tenacious sustainability aware individuals like Hill with big ideas to continue to not except the status quo and disrupt our perception of the achievable or what we can wish for. Smaller successes are absolutely necessary parts of progress, but so is exploring bigger concepts that could create step change improvements in parallel to public projects that usually arrive accompanied by increased inertia and compromise that public money bring.

Like countless other social entrepreneurs, the daily battles Hill faces thrust every ounce of personal effort available every single day into consistent incremental progress as new acquaintances are educated and won over, often one by one. Social media may have brought similar soldiers for social good together like never before but the important battles are won face to face.

"There are so many egotistical and territorial hurdles to overcome with an infrastructure project such as this, especially when we are aiming for a practical business model away from pure public funding, but we take them on one by one.

The Thames Deckway is about an innovative and independent but complimentary social and environmental solution that actually attracts additional investment, not steal it away from other infrastructure project budgets. That's why we tried to crowdfund the next stage. We don't profess to have all the answers, yet, but we do have a credible concept that ticks many priority boxes in today's urban setting.

Our team is small with much to do so we need to pick our battles and use of resources wisely. Not everybody understands our offer and proposal yet as they see only a small fraction of the picture we see as we improve our communication.

Our plans are continually evolving and our supporters continue to fuel our enthusiasm. We would love to get a prototype section up and running as soon as possible to show more people how this all works together," Hill said.

The question may not be when will London see its own Deckway opening, but more which smart city will build theirs first?

Image credit: Thames Deckway Project

David Connor is consultant and advocate for a stronger role for business in social good. He is often found sharing the best in progress on his travels via @davidcoethica.

For disclosure: David is also an advisor to the River Cycleway Consortium Ltd behind the Thames Deckway project.

By Zach Robbins

One needs only to go to the mall to witness how a greater customer demand for transparency is affecting industries. Trailblazers such as Patagonia and Chipotle continue to conquer the once-unthinkable by giving consumers detailed looks into their supply chains. This perceived risk has paid off — not only in consumer loyalty, but also in the priceless marketing value these companies have created through their roles as trendsetters.

The lead-generation market is in the midst of its own battle with transparency. Those companies that embrace, rather than fear, transparency will lead an industrywide revolution.

Turning problems into profit

What can the lead-generation industry learn from purveyors of tents and tacos? Quite a lot. Patagonia and Chipotle both identified an unmet need for consumers to know where the products they buy come from. That transparency helps consumers determine product quality and impact for a more informed purchasing decision. Lead generators are dealing with these same issues, and how they respond today will determine tomorrow’s industry leaders.

Every year, advertisers spend millions of dollars on leads that have little chance of converting into customers. In many instances, they acquire those leads via an application program interface, which (unless they are leveraging a third-party authentication service) offers no guarantee about the origin or intent of the lead. In addition, advertisers have to beware of deceptive companies that manipulate self-reported data.

The result of this subpar lead generation is a system in which advertisers are forced to be okay with undercut lead values and diminished conversion rates, making it difficult to garner any sort of return on investment. Through transparency, however, the industry can significantly increase conversion and profitability.

To demonstrate that they’re willing to be honest with their advertisers, lead generators need to reveal what they’re most afraid of sharing: the full lifecycle of a lead. But it doesn’t stop there. Advertisers need to do their parts by offering deeper intelligence on the last steps of the lead’s journey, to which only they have access.

The language of the lifecycle

Patagonia shows customers the full lifecycle of its garments — from the wool, down, and cotton sourcing to the textile mill and sewing factory. Chipotle offers in-depth information about the lifecycle of animals and other ingredients used in its food — even going so far as to publicly pull products when suppliers don’t meet its standards. In lead generation, transparency means providing deeper insight into each stage a lead passes through during its lifetime — from where it originates to what happens after it’s sold.

This information gives both the lead generator and the advertiser the data needed to improve practices and to help find and acquire leads. The more transparency, the stronger and more profitable lead generation relationships will be.

Transparency through technology

In the past, even reputable companies may not have had the proper resources to provide meaningful transparency in lead generation. But today’s technology is ready to bridge the gap.

Intelligence platforms exist that provide data — from origin to final conversion to customer profile — for a more detailed look into customer intent. At my company, we found the best route for turning the transparency challenges we face into opportunities for improvement was to build our own platform for evaluating web traffic.

It’s this sort of information-rich technology that will enable lead generation companies to educate first themselves, and then their advertisers, about their supply chain. The more transparency in the quality of the lead, the easier it becomes for the advertiser to differentiate between reputable companies and scams.

For now, increased transparency will give lead generators an upper hand in the marketplace — just as telling consumers where those carnitas came from has done for Chipotle. And in the future, lead transparency will be much more than just an attractive selling point — it will be an expected component of any reputable firm’s strategy.

Image credit: Jimmy Chin via Peter Stevens

Zach Robbins is the co-founder of Leadnomics, a Philadelphia-based digital marketing company that believes in the power of technology to transform lives and communities. Zach also recently founded Margo, an inventive insurance agency that promises to revolutionize the way people shop for insurance. Zach is an expert in performance marketing, website optimization, lead generation, and marketing technology. 

By Meghna Tare

While 195 countries and nearly 150 world leaders are gathered in Paris for the COP21 U.N. climate change conference, the capital of India, New Delhi, is fighting a battle to combat air pollution after its high court finally acknowledged that living in the city was like "living in a gas chamber."

New Delhi, the sixth-most populated metropolis in the world, is one of the most heavily polluted cities in India having one of the country's highest volumes of particulate matter pollution. In May 2014 the World Health Organization (WHO) announced New Delhi as the most polluted city in the world. The city suffers from air pollution caused emissions and exhaust from motor vehicles, power plants, and other heavy industries, as well as agricultural and biomass waste burning.

A 2012-2013 Government of India Economic Survey of Delhi reported that the city has more than 7.4 million vehicles on its roads, with 1,200 more added each day. The air is already having long-term effects on children in the Indian capital, 4.4 million of whom already have irreversible lung damage. There is evidence of a spectrum of health problems, ranging from allergies and respiratory conditions, malformations, growth restrictions and even an increasing incidence of cancer.

Delhi did get their act together and managed to clean up its air. At the turn of the century, the local government moved polluting industries out of the city, shut down coal-burning power plants and forced public transport vehicles to move from diesel and petrol to cleaner gas alternatives. Delhi Metro, an intra-city electric rail system is the world's 12th largest metro system in terms of both length and number of stations and became operational since December 2002.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corp. has been certified by the United Nations as the first metro rail and rail-based system in the world to get "carbon credits for reducing greenhouse gas emissions" and helping in reducing pollution levels in the city by 630,000 tons every year. A key motivation behind building a mass transit system in Delhi was to ease traffic congestion, and to have a considerable impact on air quality. A recent assessment by Beijing-based Greenpeace East Asia shows that between August 2014 and August 2015, Delhi's levels of particulate matter PM2.5 (fine, respirable pollution particles) were far higher than those in Beijing.

As a result of all these efforts, the air quality improved steadily until 2007. A World Bank case study that monitored the impact of the Delhi Metro (DM) on pollution in Delhi between 2004 and 2006 found that there was a significant reduction in carbon monoxide nitrogen dioxide at a major traffic intersection in central Delhi. But 2009 onwards, levels have been going up again.

In a desperate attempt, the Delhi high court recently decided to allow private vehicles with even and odd registration numbers on alternate days from January 1 next year. This effectively means vehicles ending with an even number are allowed on a certain day, while those with odd number plates can be driven the next day. The rule does not apply to public vehicles. Earlier this year the city also ordered all private cars older than 10 years to be taken off the roads, becoming the second major city in the world to do so after Beijing. The government also announced a slew of other measures that could help curb air pollution, including stopping roadside parking to battle congestion. The city also plans to shut down one of its oldest and least efficient thermal power plants, the Badarpur plant, commissioned in the early 1970s.

This method, more commonly known as road space rationing, is followed in various forms across the world and was successfully implemented in Beijing in 2008 ahead of the Olympics. The initiative will apply to a large bulk of nearly nine million vehicles registered in Delhi, which adds about 1,500 new vehicles to its roads every day and will present challenges, especially in a city where the citizens fail to comply even with the basic traffic laws. The city’s vehicular population is about 2.7 million cars.

While I applaud the intention behind this program, even if the Delhi government successfully implements the odd-even formula, the question still arises as to how people will commute when there has been no significant improvement in the condition or frequency of public transport. This initiative lacks some serious long term thinking and the anticipation of resources needed to enforce the rule. Delhi Police does not have the kind of manpower required to implement this decision. How will they monitor the entry of vehicles on the road?

A recent report published by The Hindu citing the national census (India walks to work: Census) stated that 26 percent people in Delhi walk to work. Eleven percent bike to work; 26 percent use public transportation like buses; 3 percent use trains; and another 3 percent use taxis. Seventeen percent of the people use two-wheeler private vehicles, and 13 percent go to office in their four-wheelers.

The data is representative of inequality. At present, only 30 percent are are going to their offices in private vehicles. So, there is basic flaw in the assumption and implementation of the program. What Delhi needs is to have the ambition to be a smart city with good infrastructure, access to public transportation, cleaner/alternative fuels for all modes of transportation, and strict enforcement of Clean Air Standards. Delhi needs Blue Zones Projects -- a community well-being improvement initiative designed to make healthy choices easier through permanent changes to environment, policy, and social networks. The Blue Zones Project is a systems approach in which citizens, schools, employers, restaurants, grocery stores and community leaders collaborate on policies and programs that supports sustainable communities. Policy formulation has got to have a long-term vision if Delhi wants to be successful in the fight against air pollution.

Image credit: Flickr/Jean-Etienne Minh-Duy Poirrier

Meghna is the Executive Director, Institute for Sustainability and Global Impact at the University of Texas at Arlington where she works collaboratively with faculty, staff, the student body, and community members to address opportunities to promote sustainability in greening facility operations, promoting innovative research, and supporting and encouraging student initiatives. She recommends policies and strategies to advance the university’s commitment to sustainability. She is a TEDx UTA speaker, graduated with an MBA in Sustainable Management, was featured as Women in CSR by TriplePundit,, and is an active blogger. She has a sunny and positive attitude about life and all of its adventures, and is a relentless optimist who enjoys building strong relationships and partnerships. You can connect with her on LinkedIn, follow her on Twitter @meghnatare or visit her website.

By Greg Doyle

“Why don’t more companies invest in CSR?”

I had a friend ask me this exact question. The question led me to reflect on the many different arguments companies make against investing in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Although the arguments vary based on the individual company and its leadership, some broad themes resonated in my response.

Over the past two years, I have worked in the CSR departments of both ESPN and Constant Contact. What makes me qualified to address this question? Both companies weren’t born with a commitment to operating responsibly. Rather it took individual change-makers, or disruptors, to convince each company’s management to formally invest in sustainable business practices. I worked alongside these change-makers and probed them on the arguments they encountered along their journey to creating positive change in the workplace.

Below are the three common arguments companies make against investing in CSR:

Wall Street incentivizes short-term profits as opposed to long-term sustainability

Publicly-traded companies often judge themselves on one number: their stock price. How did this become the norm? Wall Street analysts follow certain publicly-traded companies and base their buy-or-sell decisions on models that solely consider a company’s immediate financial performance. Their models fail to consider a company’s record on key environmental, social or community issues, factors that ultimately affect their long-term financial performance.

Additionally, analysts base their models on the assumption that an investor’s only concern is a prospective company’s financial performance. This is clearly not the case. Socially responsible investing (SRI) has increased in popularity in recent years with no signs of slowing down. However, the average holding period for a stock continues to decrease, as the majority of investors try to turn a quick profit.

Until all investors and analysts begin to consider the breadth of contributing factors to a company’s long-term performance, management of publicly-traded companies will continue to use it as an excuse to pursue profits at all costs. This is especially the case when management’s compensation is directly aligned with the company’s financial performance.

The financial benefits of CSR are hard to measure

Upon being convinced of the financial benefits of acting responsibly, companies often use the “measurability” question to stop change-makers in their tracks. Companies expect a certain level of return on each of their investments, regardless of whether the investment is building a new manufacturing facility or designing a signature cause program that involves reinvesting back into their local community. Although these two sample investments can’t produce the same financial metrics, they each have real business results.

How did the change-makers I talked to address this question? They stressed the common-sense business benefits that stem from reinvesting back into the community. For example, as a technology company, Constant Contact will only be as successful as their employees’ capabilities. By supporting their nonprofit partners in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) space, Constant Contact is investing in its future human resources, one of the key critical successful factors (CSFs) of their entire business.

“We already give back to the community”

Companies often claim that they already “give back to the community.” They support this claim by citing the amount of money donated by their employees, the number of hours their employees volunteer on their own time, and the number of board seats management holds with different nonprofits. While this is certainly better than doing nothing at all, or acting irresponsibly, these companies have the ability to make an even greater impact.

Management often uses this case to avoid further investment into the communities where they have a footprint.

The three arguments against CSR outlined here are avoidable. By proposing a CSR strategy that aligns with the revenue streams of the individual company, changemakers can ensure that both societal and business benefits are realized.

Image Credit: Flickr/Images Money

Greg Doyle is a Business Development Associate at Good Sports, a nonprofit that helps to lay the foundation for healthy, active lifestyles by providing athletic equipment, footwear, and apparel to disadvantaged young people nationwide. He can be reached at gregory.doyle@uconn.edu. 

By Daphne Stanford

Considering the obscenely large amount of plastic floating in our oceans, we entrepreneurs should all consider starting a business that provides a service or works with people’s existing possessions, rather than creating more waste that will eventually be dumped into our landfills and oceans — thus further perpetuating the problem.  According to the World Economic Forum, “Organizations that set public energy or carbon reduction goals were twice as likely to have invested in energy efficiency or renewable energy in the past year and were three times more likely to increase investment in clean energy technologies in the next year.”

In other words, it’s not enough to merely use LED lights and implement a company recycling policy.  It’s also necessary to invest in clean energy technologies and specifically refuse to invest in fossil fuels — despite its lucrative financial returns. This can mean, for example, investing in carbon-offset programs as well as in companies that are on the cutting edge of solar and other renewable types of technology.  For example, Google derives a great deal of its energy needs from renewable sources; in addition, the tech giant recently purchased 842 megawatts of renewable energy to power its data centers, bringing its reliance on renewable sources for energy to 37 percent.

Ellen Weinreb of Green Biz predicts that new jobs will be created to make true on the commitments put forth during COP21.  Among the new positions created will be people in charge of reporting and dashboards, climate policy, energy procurement, stakeholder engagement and research.  Ultimately, the most sustainable businesses will deal with services and ‘products’ rooted in action, rather than material goods.  The end goal, in this highly volatile global climate, is to produce no more ‘stuff,’ but, rather, to find solutions to our culture of mass consumption and materialism.  There are glimmers of hope amid the seemingly constant race toward excess.

For example, the University of Cambridge is home to one of the many sustainability programs springing up internationally.  Cambridge’s 10-year plan, for example, is entitled Rewiring the Economy, and it is made up of ten tasks designed “to create an economy that encourages sustainable business practices and delivers positive outcomes for people and societies.”  The 10 interconnected tasks include actions such as “measure the right things, set the right targets” and “drive socially useful innovation.”  These diverse goals demonstrate the complexity of making business into a truly sustainable enterprise: Not only should businesses be environmentally sustainable, but they should also be cognizant of and have their ears to the ground regarding socially aware practices and company policies.

One major factor that’s changed is the profile of the typical customer in 2016.  That’s a large subset of customers that favor access over ownership and are, for all intents and purposes, nomads.  Fleura Bardhi of Northeastern University argues that “global nomads” offer a new model of cosmopolitanism: “Our relationships to place and people are becoming more ‘liquid.’ They’re changing constantly.”  Really, though, what could be more sustainable than foregoing an energy-draining house and choosing, instead, to make the world your home?

One of the crucial skill sets of the newly self-employed, however, is definitely the ability to be tech-savvy: Although you don’t need a CPA or an engineering degree to launch your own business, self-employed individuals with financial and technical expertise definitely have an advantage over the competition, since small business owners work on tight budgets and usually can’t afford to hire a team of financial experts.  It’s beneficial, therefore, to have a basic understanding of cash flow, profit margins, return on investment, and other vital metrics.

As David Levine argued in a recent article on TriplePundit: “The old arguments that clean energy is too expensive, or that the creaky electrical grid can’t support it, are simply the desperate rhetoric of industrialists trying to wring every last cent out of their infrastructure for the benefit of shareholders, at the expense of the economy, the people, and the planet.”  It seems that climate change has become so noticeable that it’s impossible to ignore, anymore, and even climate change deniers have begun to acknowledge that something seems amiss.

The real question is: Why not practice business in a way that is truly sustainable?  There is simply no good reason not to, any longer.  This is especially true considering the economic opportunities opening up because of the need for clean energy, thus hopefully continuing to inspire a number of luminaries, problem solvers, and inventors in creating solutions to the problems at hand.

The potential to reap great rewards from this gap in services is enormous; it is up to us all as to whether we will meet the challenge with new solutions or old, environmentally-damaging standbys.  If we choose the former, we stand to be pleasantly surprised.  If we choose the latter, we will continue to run into the same environmental conundrums as before.  The choice is ours.

Image Source: Flickr/Nishanth Jols

Daphne Stanford has lived in four states and six cities, and she plans to visit the Basque country sooner rather than later. She puts her three degrees to good use through nonfiction and poetry writing, as well as through her weekly poetry show on Radio Boise. Find her on Twitter at @daphne_stanford or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ThePoetryShow.​

By Matt Peterson

Attempting to boost your company’s sustainability efforts by limiting paper use can seem intimidating, particularly if your organization has been paper-based for years. Ditching all of your file cabinets and desk drawers may seem like an impossible dream.

It’s true that there’s no magic wand you can use to make your documents disappear while simultaneously digitizing them. But like most things in business, going paperless is possible — and easier than you think — with a phased approach.

No paper, no excuses

By going paperless in a few specific departments, you’ll enjoy human, real estate, supply, and hardware savings. After all, one four-drawer file cabinet costs $25,000 to fill up and $2,000 to maintain every year. The U.S. even spends an annual $460 billion in salaries just to manage data overload from paper-driven processes.

The intangible value of getting rid of these costs is important, too: You’ll increase your speed and quality of service. You’ll serve more customers with fewer resources. The perception of quality goes up as customers get their answers quickly and accurately every time.

The two most paper-heavy departments, finance and HR, should be your first targets to digitize. Neither department has a serious need to print (unlike marketing, for instance, which will occasionally need to vet the final appearance of printed materials).

Accounts payable, within finance, makes the need for a paperless system especially obvious. In one study, AP professionals cited manual data entry as their No. 1 operational challenge. In another, 28.6 percent of respondents admitted that it costs $2 to process each invoice. Another 19 percent reported that each invoice costs up to $5, and 15.9 percent said it costs up to $10. Those numbers add up when you consider that a quarter of AP organizations receive 90 percent of their invoices in paper form.

As an added benefit, once paperless, those departments will see improved workflow and efficiency. Totally digital HR companies are, on average, 70 percent confident that they have the necessary documents for audits and compliance (versus 50 percent for those that still use paper records). Accounting companies tend to see an average of two saved hours each day, which equates to more than $19,000 in annual savings, according to the experiential observations of James Blaylock, founder of eFileCabinet.

Make green happen

Like most major company initiatives, going green starts at the top. With the right top-down communications (think town hall mentions and manager tool kits), your employees will understand that you’re serious about the transition to paperless.

Here’s how to make that transition:

1. Get your hands dirty. Before you can digitize, you must first organize. Develop a system, and make sure everyone understands and follows it. Make sure each department understands that it’s responsible for scanning its own files and must follow the organizational guidelines you’ve set out to ensure everything remains standardized.

2. Choose a document management system (DMS) that meets your company’s needs. There are plenty of options, but it’s important to determine which system is best for your company. Your system should:

• Store data in a central repository.


• Give secure access to multiple users simultaneously.


• Include document indexing and full-text search.


• Allow for systematic file versioning and organization templates.


• Import files from any program source and store them in their native formats.


• Meet regulatory requirements regarding role-based permission groups and audit tracking.


• Allow for digital signatures via mouse, finger, or webcam.


• Contain role-based permissions and audit logs.


• Be fully compliant with all FINRA, HIPAA, and SEC regulations.


• Integrate seamlessly with Microsoft Office and other popular products such as Salesforce, QuickBooks, and Simplifile.

Request as many trials and demos as you can to make sure your product meets those standards and the needs of each individual department. Then, think about who should be able to access the systems. Only leaders? All employees? The desired level of access might vary based on department, so look for a DMS with permission control capabilities.

3. Work backward. After you have your system set up, you can worry about the old backlog of documents later. As soon as you scan your first document, all incoming documents should be handled digitally. No backtracking allowed. If it’s too hard for either department to handle digitizing both incoming and old documents, consider hiring an intern or temp to lighten the load. For example, if HR is in heavy hiring mode, it might benefit from an hourly person coming in a few times a week to scan past documents.

4. Tell your clients. Clearly communicate with customers so everyone understands the changes you’re making. It’s a good idea to make an announcement to your clients, as they will ultimately benefit the most from the change due to improved customer service. Explain the shift you’ve made to paperless, highlight the benefits of the new system, and offer to answer any questions they have.

Going paperless can seem impossible, but a smart approach makes it feasible. The saved money, time, and human capital make it well worth the effort.

Image credit: Flickr/John Lambert Pearson

Matt Peterson has been with eFileCabinet since 2007 and directs all areas of the corporation, including sales and marketing, finance, product development, and operations. He has successfully reorganized eFileCabinet’s business objectives, raised both Series A and Series B venture capital, and implemented turnaround strategies, transforming eFileCabinet from a small startup to a successful, profitable company in high-growth mode. Under Matt’s tenure, the company has been recognized on the Inc. 500/5000 as a two-year winner and as one of MWCN’s Utah 100 fastest-growing companies in 2013 and 2014.

Greg Valerio, jeweller, activist and Fairtrade campaigner has been awarded an MBE (Member of the British Empire) in the Queen’s New Years’ Honour list 2016 for his work in Fairtrade Gold and with gold mining communities in South America and Africa.

A jeweller since 1996, Valerio recalls he first saw the exploitation of the jewellery supply chain in India – slavery, child labour and people working in terrible conditions. This experience motivated him to become an activist in the jewellery industry and by 2004 he had managed to deliver the world’s first traceable gold, from mine to wedding ring.

In 2011 Valerio worked with the Fairtrade Foundation to launch the world’s first Fairtrade gold from artisanal and small-scale miners in Peru, Colombia and Bolivia (90% of the labour force involved in gold mining is made up of artisanal and small-scale miners who produce just tiny volumes, between 200-300 tonnes of gold each year). 

Valerio commented: “This award belongs to all of us and I hope that it will embolden us all to keep fighting for fairness in the jewellery trade. Jewellery and justice are not incompatible and lost to each other.

"The great challenge we now face is to forge a new luxury jewellery narrative that connects the aspirational emotion of the purchase with the dignity of the source. This is true luxury jewellery, a legacy of peace, justice and prosperity for the communities at the source and a continued celebration of design, creativity and love in the gift that is given.” 

Costa, the UK’s favourite coffee shop, has recently received three awards for its outstanding work in energy management and sustainable building. At the 2016 Energy Awards, Costa, in partnership with Hammersons, received the Energy Partnership Award.

Costa was also awarded the Supreme Judges Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Energy Industry. The Sustainability award was received at the British Council of Shopping Centres Awards ceremony in recognition of the EcoPod store.

Costa received the awards for its development of the ‘zero energy’ EcoPod store and commitment to energy management. The building, which opened in Telford earlier this year, includes innovative energy saving technologies and is the first ‘zero energy’ coffee shop building in the UK.

Oliver Rosevear, Costa Coffee Energy and Environment Manager, said: “We’re honoured to have received these three awards. They are a testament to our work in sustainable building design and acknowledge our positive collaboration with Hammerson in order to make this happen.

“This is an exciting first for coffee shop and retail design here in the UK and has the potential to transform not just how we build new stores at Costa but the industry far more widely. We wanted to explore new ways to serve quality coffee to our customers while managing our environmental footprint as responsibly as we can and we are thrilled that this has been recognised.”
 

Japan’s Epson has developed a paper recycling machine for office use, the PaperLab. You feed waste paper in, and new, bright white printer paper comes out. Epson says this process is more efficient than sending paper to an off-site recycling plant, and is also more secure. The PaperLab, which breaks paper down into its constituent fibres before building them back up into new sheets, is also one of the most secure paper shredders available.

Within three minutes of adding waste paper to the PaperLab, it starts pumping out sheets of new white paper. The system can produce around 14 A4 sheets of paper per minute, or 6,720 sheets in an eight-hour workday. The PaperLab can also produce A3 paper. You can tweak the thickness and density of the paper to produce really thin white paper as well as thicker paper for business cards, etc.

Epson says that the PaperLab is the world’s first paper production system to use a “dry process.” Paper-making usually require a lot of water, but the PaperLab requires only a tiny amount of water to maintain humidity inside the system and does not need to be plumbed into the mains.

Epson have provided only scant details for how the PaperLab works. Using new patented technologies, the PaperLab first turns waste paper back into its constituent long, thin fibres – a process that completely destroys any data on the paper.

The second process is binding, where the fibres are stitched back together again. Epson says that different binders can be added to the machine, to create a variety of different papers: coloured papers, flame resistant papers, bright-white papers, or even fragrant paper.

Finally, during a pressure forming stage, the paper’s thickness, density, and size are decided.

Epson have not released a price for the PaperLab, nor details of its running costs or energy consumption. It is thought that overall system costs will compare very favourably with the costs of buying new paper and recycling old using current methods.
For some users, the secure destruction of information will also be an important benefit.

The PaperLab will go on sale in Japan in 2016, sales in other countries will follow at an unspecified later date. PaperLab is likely to follow the normal pathway for innovative Japanese electronic products and move through a rapid cycle of improvements that will bring costs down and make the machine more compact.