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By Adam Weinger

Workplace giving is good for companies. It is good for communities. It is good for employees. It is good for charities. It is just downright, all around good.

With workplace giving, which is often referred to as corporate philanthropy, companies have an excellent opportunity to increase employee engagement. Unfortunately, many companies drop the ball on this front.

Why does corporate philanthropy increase employee engagement? Well, borrowing from the reasoning of Ockham’s Razor, noting that the simplest answer is often the correct one, workplace giving raises employee engagement for one main reason.

Workplace giving programs show employees that their employers support their interests and charitable endeavors outside the four corners of the office space.

There’s a strongly positive correlation between employee engagement and company performance. In fact, when comparing companies with actively engaged employees to companies without, companies with engaged employees outperform the others by over 200 percent.

Given the general benefits of improved engagement, how then can companies with these philanthropic programs increase employee participation?

There is so much unrealized potential in workplace giving, it is a shame how often it is overlooked or missed entirely. For example, the median employee participation rate in matching gift programs, a subset of workplace giving, is a measly 9 percent. That percentage should be considerably higher.

One solution to this disconnect — the one which this article will be addressing — is working to up Millennial participation in workplace giving programs.

Why do we need to target millennials for workplace giving?

To start, millennials recently surpassed Generation X to take the crown of largest generation in the U.S. labor force. And their numbers are only growing.

In terms of workplace giving, this population dominance indicates where companies should start targeting.

Millennials, who cap out at around age 35 at the moment, are phasing into higher leadership positions and, as such, they can start to set a corporate philanthropy participation precedent for the younger members of their generation.

Millennials also grew up in a different philanthropic world than those before them. Millennials' charitable instincts and those of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers have some inherent dissimilarities. Millennials grew up in the age of the Internet and cell phones and increasingly pervasive technology, and that has shaped the way they think about charity.

Nonprofits are leaning full tilt into securing donations from millennials, and corporations need to follow with their workplace giving programs.

Follow the three tips below to crack the code on attracting millennials to workplace giving.

If you’re looking to increase employee participation in corporate philanthropy programs, you need to be in it for the long haul. That being said, by targeting one employee age group at a time you will see results quicker. It’s a quality over quantity approach. And starting with the youngest generation in the workforce can only help stabilize participation as Generation Z rises behind millennials.

1. Raise awareness

By far, the largest obstacle in the way of employees taking advantage of workplace giving is lack of awareness.

Nonprofits do their best to face the challenge of minimal awareness head on, but if your corporation wants your workplace giving program to succeed, it is going to need to do the same.

The current culture is such that if someone wants to donate to a charity or volunteer, that person can figure out how to do so with a few swipes on a smartphone’s touch screen. If you want employees to think of your programs in that five minute window, your workplace giving opportunities need to be front and center in employees’ minds.

Promote workplace giving during onboarding, on your website, in your company newsletter, through Facebook pages if you have them, and so on.

2. Simplify the process

Life with the internet is easy peasy. Do you want to know who that actor is in that one movie? Look it up online. Wanting to wish a friend a happy birthday? Send an e-card. Everything is unimaginably accessible because of the Internet — we all know this. That luxury reverberates in our daily culture.

We not only crave immediacy, we feel like it is a given. Since that is the case, if the process for any of your workplace giving programs is overly complicated, they’re less likely to be used.

There are great options out there for companies who want assistance managing workplace giving programs. If you’re looking for inspiration, Apple’s and Microsoft’s respective corporate philanthropy programs are good places to begin.

Whether an employee is eligible for a matching gift or a volunteer grant, if the process to receive that funding is arduous and complicated, they’re probably not going to submit a request. At that point your program is being wasted and nonprofits that could have benefited are out of luck.

3. Keep causes at the core

Millennials are strongly cause-focused and less attached to specific nonprofits. As such, your workplace giving program should emphasize causes. Last year, two of the largest charitable subsectors were education and human services. There’s clearly a trend in that direction, so ensure that your workplace giving program addresses causes in those two categories.

If we consider the path of a traditional giving pattern of a millennial, it would look something like this:

Learning About a Cause → Growing Interest in a Cause → Finding a Way to Get Involved → Donating and/or Volunteering with a Nonprofit that Serves that Cause

A workplace giving program’s organic point of inclusion for this millennial behavior pattern is usually going to be one of the last two phases.

Communicate to employees the fact that the causes that they are interested in serving can be helped through the nonprofit organizations that your corporate philanthropy program works with.

According to one study, 87 percent of millennials give money to nonprofits. That’s a high percentage. Workplace giving and nonprofit giving can work in tandem, so participation in corporate philanthropy programs has the chance to rise to levels like that 87 percent.

Workplace giving programs have incredible philanthropic potential, but they need to be handled appropriately to thrive. Start by getting the largest population in the workforce involved, and then expand your aims to more and more employee groups.

Image credit: Pixabay/StartUpStockPhotos

Adam Weinger is the President of Double the Donation, the leading provider of matching gift tools and services to nonprofits. You can connect with Double the Donation on Twitter, LinkedIn, or personally contact Adam.

By Erin Shipley

Some of the most impactful and disruptive companies of the 21st century sprung from the minds of young, first-time entrepreneurs. Creativity, hard work and the Internet have helped turn young people with radical ideas — from Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook to Brian Chesky with Airbnb — into some of the most influential figures in the world.

While this demonstrates to young people that the act of creation isn’t separate from them, it has also changed the way more established companies approach business. They now see how fostering a corporate culture of independent and dynamic employees is a way of harnessing the entrepreneurial drive and creativity necessary to promote business growth.

These are great shifts in mindset on the individual side as well as the corporate, but much more remains to be done. This mindset needs to be cultivated and promoted in schools. Fostering from a young age the skills that help the most successful entrepreneurs triumph creates a virtuous cycle of gritty, creative and motivated young people who can help today’s companies grow and create the companies of tomorrow.

Promoting success

These ideas aren’t theoretical. I recently saw this firsthand as a judge at the Youth BizCamp Entrepreneurship Challenge in Los Angeles, a summer program organized by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship. The NFTE is an international organization that recognizes and promotes the value of an entrepreneurial education in empowering young people.

As part of the competition I judged, young students created business plans and presentations that addressed ideas as complex as order fulfillment, market sizing, and app development. Students were so inspired when developing ideas that they taught themselves techniques like coding, simply to take a purely theoretical project and make it a reality.

This speaks directly to the need for youth entrepreneurship. You want employees motivated by independence, creative thinking, and ownership of their work, so you need candidates who have been taught the importance of these attributes. An economy driven by the creation of new, dynamic companies needs early infrastructure to promote this possibility. One way to instill this is through entrepreneurship programs for young people.

Empowering the future

Working in venture capital, I’ve seen the huge impact that can be made by an individual — be it a startup founder, a lead engineer, or a fantastic content marketer — and how necessary it is to support a corporate culture of driven, independent, and dynamic employees. As companies strive to create working environments and corporate cultures that cultivate this kind of employee, externally promoting these same values is a way to contribute directly to improving their future employee bases. This is why companies should actively participate in a bottom-up approach to entrepreneurship education.

To assist and involve your company with one of these programs, I suggest the following:

1. Make an organizational commitment

Though everyone’s busy juggling a variety of personal and professional responsibilities, just a little bit of time from a company can go a long way toward promoting entrepreneurship among young people. Consider making an organizational commitment to dedicate one or two days a year to youth outreach efforts. Even sponsoring a workshop or seminar can inspire young entrepreneurs to pursue their goals.

But you needn’t be a business to get involved with outreach. Many professionals volunteer their time outside the workplace, such as a 30-minute phone call to talk through a business plan with aspiring entrepreneurs. That advice can be hugely valuable to young entrepreneurs’ futures.

2. Partner with programs that align with your mission

As with any other outreach effort, it often makes the most sense to find programs that fit with your company’s mission and culture. This allows you to draw upon your employees’ strengths to promote youth entrepreneurship.

Technology companies could host an event with an organization that holds hackathons for young entrepreneurs. Manufacturers could volunteer to sit on a panel to talk about manufacturing advancements or hold tours of their plants for young entrepreneur programs. Check out the NFTE, #YesWeCode or the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation for opportunities near you.

3. Build a young entrepreneurship program

If you can’t find a program that directly appeals to your company or fits your needs, build one yourself. Think creatively about how you can contribute to engaging and motivating young people.

That could mean establishing a mini-internship program in which students intern for a day in one of your company’s departments to see how coding can build real products. Or you could institute a mentorship program in which employees work with students in a local science, technology, engineering, and mathematics class. The possibilities are endless.

4. Offer summer job opportunities

It can be incredibly valuable to source the fresh perspective of an ambitious student for a stint of summer work. These opportunities can be massively influential for young people in their future career prospects.

But jobs aren’t beneficial just for youth entrepreneurship. A survey by Ernst & Young found that 86 percent of entrepreneurs found improvements in their businesses from hiring young people. Of those entrepreneurs, 47 percent saw these improvements through innovative ideas that came from young hires, while 40 percent experienced improvements as a result of younger hires introducing smarter ways of working.

Young people today will be the business creators and rock-star employees of tomorrow, so it’s important to encourage youth entrepreneurship. By promoting skill-based education and programs that directly promote entrepreneurship, businesses can help empower the next generation of dynamic business leaders.

Image credit: Pixabay

Erin Shipley is a senior associate at Karlin Ventures, a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm that focuses on early-stage enterprise software and marketplaces. Follow the company on Twitter.

By Jessica Varley

Pets outnumber people in many countries. Despite our own increasing carbon footprint, the paws, wings and claws of our house animals also contribute to the matter.

It’s not as simple as owning a smaller animal, which will demand fewer resources. Pet owners have a responsibility to ensure that they’re minimizing the environmental impact of their animals by undertaking some sustainable measures. In a perfect world, how can we project a sustainable future for the pet industry?

Food matters

Managing the consumption of your pet may not be an obvious element to consider. However, understanding what your pet really eats is key. Historically, the pet industry accrued big profits with the lucrative manufacturing of horse meat, which was tinned and labeled specifically for dogs after World War I.

Typical Western consumption of food is considered unsustainable, specifically with increasing wastage of food. This could be offset with uneaten meat or poultry parts repurposed for our pets. For example, raw bones are a great source of nutrients for cats and dogs, and they cost next to nothing from your local butcher. Also, ensuring that your pets are not ingesting any preservatives and additives will help keep them healthy and may reduce vet visits.

Another matter to be concerned about is the recent surge and demand for ‘human-grade’ pet food. This movement aims to meet nutritional standards for our furry friends, but unfortunately there is a lot of wastage involved. Traditionally we adopted a ‘top to tail’ way of eating, in which people consumed all parts of the animal, a practice that has sadly remained in the past.

If we’re feeding our pets exactly the same cuts we enjoy, we are continuing to steer away from a sustainable consumption of animals.

With more pets than humans on our planet and an increasing awareness for optimal pet nutrition, the demand for ‘human-grade’ pet food has a potential to run into trouble.

Ensuring our pets receive optimal nutrition is key, but this could be achieved with a more sustainable approach such as feeding pets perhaps “unwanted” cuts of animals.

Optimal hygiene

We may be impervious to our own waste, which is efficiently filtered through our toilet systems, but we also have to look after our pets' waste and dispose of it responsibly.

If your pet’s waste is not collected using a biodegradable bag, you can expect it to sit in wasteland for many years without decomposing. Or worse, it could end up in our waterways.

An American study conducted in 2014 found that waterways are subject to many sources of fecal contaminants, which can include those from our beloved pets: Animals can carry antibiotic-resistant strains of E.Coli.

Turning a blind eye on your pet’s businesses is irresponsible on many moral levels, but understanding how it can impact us directly should be even more motivation to pick up after them.

Defying natural habits

Another big issue pet owners must be wary of is the primal nature of their animals. For example, cats will hunt native or wild animals and most likely leave them deceased on your front doorstep as offerings.

Managing the native animal population is crucial for your natural environment. You can mitigate impact by applying a bell to your cat or dog’s collar to warn potential prey. Or us pet accessories like a cat bib, which help to interfere with an attack.

Another issue to be wary of is the rate of feral, abandoned or wild animals and the close contact they may have with your pet. These animals unfortunately can be carriers of disease, ticks and fleas which should be avoided to help protect the health of your pet.

Additionally, it is always wise to de-sex your pet at birth to prevent the potential for any cross-breeding with feral animals, let alone other pets. The rate of pets that are sent to the “farm” because they don’t have a home is an increasing issue that can be mitigated with responsible pet-parenting.

We may be outnumbered by our furry, scaly, feathery friends, but knowing how to manage their carbon footprint and minimize their impact will put household pets on a path to a sustainable future. Change must also come from industry itself with the manufacturing of high-quality pet food without the waste, development of natural products and education for pet owners.

Image via Unsplash

Jessica Varley works in customer service at Pet Circle. 

The Garden Project doesn’t just grow plants; it grows people too. By training and employing ex-offenders and at-risk youth, the project's mission is to use agriculture to transform low-income, urban communities that are disproportionately affected by crime.

At age 17 and pregnant, the founder of the Garden Project, Catherine Sneed, ran away from home, hitchhiking from New York to California, determined to become a lawyer. It was her professional ambition since the age of 9. “I thought if my brothers ever ended up in jail, I could help get them out,” she said. Even back then, Sneed was aware of the significant social dangers that black men faced, including getting caught up in the criminal justice system.

Once in law school, she planned to become a criminal lawyer and worked several felony cases in the public defender’s office. However, after the third loss in one of those cases, her notion of what it meant to be a criminal lawyer changed. “I realized that my dream of being a criminal lawyer wasn’t based on reality but rather on this romantic notion that lawyers had a magic wand to get people out of jail.”

So, she shifted gears in school, studied prison law and landed a job at the sheriff’s office in 1980. Sneed described what she saw there as “horrific.” “The women were unskilled, uneducated, with numerous children. Many of them were addicted to different drugs, mainly heroin in those days. And they were very much like me.”

Then a 23-year-old mother, she recognized what made her different: She was brought up in a household that emphasized the importance of education and working. The troubled men and women she met at the sheriff’s office didn’t have that background and had few resources to boot. One day, her boss gifted her a copy of “The Grapes of Wrath,” and suddenly it all clicked for her. “When people can connect to land, then somehow they have hope.”

Sneed asked the sheriff if she could bring the prisoners to work in the farm outside the jail. He said that she could, and immediately she saw a change in the inmates. “In the jail, they were argumentative; they wanted cigarettes; they were fighting,” she said. But in the fields, they could take the time to look around and learn about the world around them.

So, in 1982, Sneed founded the San Francisco County Jail Horticulture Project for prisoner rehabilitation. But she noticed that even as the inmates became more cooperative, they still had trouble getting jobs after leaving the prison. She also noticed the same inmates, over and over again. Many of them were happy to return to the Horticulture Program, where they felt they had a community, support and a purpose.

Sneed recalls asking one of the prisoners why he kept getting in trouble and coming back to jail – and he simply said that on the outside he had nothing. He was poor, uneducated and he couldn’t find a job. At the farm, he grew beautiful plants and flowers; he cared for the animals; and he could help people though his work.

It became clear to her that she needed to work on the factors that led to incarceration and on to recidivism. This led her to create the Garden Project. From conception, the project employed ex-offenders, who were paid by the city to landscape public-works sites and grow vegetables for the community. The program offered structure and support to former offenders through job training, support for continuing education, and counseling.

The Garden Project became a place where at-risk youth and former criminal offenders could learn horticultural skills and grow organic vegetables that feed seniors and families in their community. It was a community-based response to crime, unemployment and underemployment, that linked the stewardship of the environment to the stewardship of the community.

The Garden Project’s Earth Stewards Program combines life skills, counseling and environmental education with a paid job protecting natural resources, including the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park, which supplies drinking water for 2.5 million people in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Crystal Springs Reservoir in San Mateo County.

The project distributes vegetables grown by stewards to local community agencies, including Project Open Hand, which each serves hundreds of individuals weekly. Rather than purchasing food or relying on local supermarkets, which often donate only their unsalable items, the Garden Project is able to provide local San Francisco agencies with fresh food from the farm.

The United States Department of Agriculture hailed the Garden Project as “one of the most innovative and successful community-based crime prevention programs in the country.” Through meetings, fairs and community projects, the Garden Project works to connect local governments with the communities they serve – improving relationships and bringing more citizens into active civic life.

In addition to gaining a greater appreciation for the natural world, through environmentally-based projects, participants learn discipline, responsibility, communication skills and leadership. Working on long- and short-term projects in a variety of settings, the program challenges participants toward self-growth and provides important life lessons. They gain support for their educational and life goals through the program’s positive environment.

Image credits: The Garden Project

Never before has eating your veggies looked so good. Actress, vegan chef and eco-lifestylist, Leslie Durso, refuses to compromise style for sustainability. America’s “Veggie Dreamgirl” shares her farm-to-stylish-table recipes, warmhearted sensibilities, and passion for fresh whole foods daily via her website and live appearances on the Food Network, the Discovery Channel, CNN and more.

A practicing vegetarian since 8 years old, the Southern California native attributes her early passion for cooking to growing up in a huge meat-eating Italian household. What turned out to be quite the unpopular decision as far as her family was concerned landed Durso in the kitchen at a very young age, where she learned to prepare meals for herself and pretty soon her whole family.

As she grew up, Durso leveraged her bright, sunshiny personality to break into the acting and modeling worlds. It wasn’t until she was invited to appear on the popular children’s television program, “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” that she discovered her deep-rooted passion for education. This experience sparked her lifelong journey to inspire healthy living habits across the country and around the world.

After establishing herself as a private chef for the New York and Hollywood elite, Dursoemerged as a public persona, hosting cooking segments on television and producing healthy living content online. Determined to inspire beneficial life-long eating habits for everyone, she manages to evangelize the benefits of a mindful lifestyle, with a charming girl-next-door relatability.

When asked about her key to success, Durso responded simply: “Love. Love what you do and who you are every single day, and you will find joy in everything.” Through her multimedia engagement and numerous upcoming initiatives, Durso plans to spread the love of a plant-based lifestyle to an even broader swath of fans, including mainstream omnivores and fellow millennials.

However, establishing herself a leading foodpreneur, healthy living educator and eco-lifestylist is not without its challenges. “In this business, there are so many temptations to be what 'they' are looking for. I think the biggest challenge is to maintain your sense of self and stick to the message and brand that you want to deliver,” Durso explained.

She also offered a piece of advice for emerging entrepreneurs who are working in a similar space: “Find your niche. Find what sets you apart from everyone else who is working in your space. And, most of all, follow your passion!”

As far as sustainability is concerned, it plays a huge part in Durso’s work. “Living a plant-based life is the greatest part you can play in helping save the environment. You can help reduce global warming, reduce methane production, save water, reduce your ecological footprint and so much more!”

When asked if she has any tips for reducing food waste, Durso responded: “If you buy it, eat it. Some of my favorite recipes have come from putting all the random ingredients left in my fridge on the counter and coming up with something wild and crazy. I am also big fan of reinventing leftovers. If you follow me on Instagram (@lesliedurso), you will see me reinventing dinner from the night before into something delicious for breakfast or lunch.”

Durso will share some of her favorite recipes and eco-lifestyle tips at the upcoming Green Festival in San Francisco, Nov. 13-15. The Green Festival is America’s largest and longest-running sustainability and green living event. It brings together the world’s most trusted companies, innovative brands, national and local businesses, pioneering thinkers, and conscious consumers in one place to promote the best in sustainability and green living.

“I love doing the Green Festivals!” Durso exclaimed. "I attended a festival in LA after being the guest judge on the all-vegan episode of Food Network’s 'Cupcake Wars' (the winner got a display at the festival). I fell in love with the people who run the event and with the people who attend.”

When asked about how the Green Festival is different from other expos or events, she responded: “Attendees of the Green Festival are my kind of people. They are looking for knowledge and inspiration. I love that! I love people with a passion to think beyond themselves and make the world a better place. Of course, I hope I can inspire them to add more veggies to their diets!”

As far as her vision for the future, Durso would love to have her own cooking show. “It is the perfect time for a plant-based cooking show to be introduced to mainstream audiences.” And as for the world, she would like to see people appreciate the planet and treat it with a bit more love and respect.

Durso is currently looking forward to filming episodes of "The Doctors" on CBS and embarking on a digital campaign for Dole Foods. To learn more about Leslie, be sure to follow her on Twitter or check out her website for inspiring eco-tips and vegan recipes.

Images courtesy of Leslie Durso 

An Israeli shopkeeper has come up with an innovative way to inspire world peace -- or at least create dialogue within his tiny country: offer a enticing discount for Arab and Jewish patrons who will break bread together.

Kobi Tzafrir, who owns a hummus bar in the northern Israeli town of Kfar Vitkin, a fairly short drive from the Palestinian-run West Bank, offers a 50 percent discount to Jews and Arabs who will agree to eat together at the same table.

Posted in Hebrew, Tzafrir notes that what he offers is not just a cultural blend of the quintessential Israeli fare ("Arab hummus" and "Jewish falafel"), but a reminder of the ambiance that once was common in many Israeli restaurants.

And his idea seems to be working. According to Al Jazeera, many mixed tables have already offered to pay the full price to show their support for the idea. The restaurant draws Palestinians from the other side of the border, as well as residents from the historic Jewish enclave, which has existed as a community since the 1930s. It's apparently a hit with tourists from Japan as well, who are eager to experience the true Mideast ambiance.

“If there’s anything that can bring together these peoples, it’s hummus,” Tzafrir told the Times of Israel. It's true: Few things seem to mend old hurts better than a dish that shares a common history.

In fact, the idea got me thinking: Could it work here? Are there communities or viewpoints where a common sharing of bread could enhance dialogue and in, so doing, promote commerce together? Could shared meals help Democrats and Republicans find common ground as they gear up for the 2016 elections? What about oil and gas industrialists and renewable energy proponents? Climate change activists and global warming skeptics? No matter how entrenched our issues seem at times, we all have our yearning for common terms ... and common goals, it would seem, since Tzafrir's hummus bar is benefiting from the concept's success.

“Scared of Arabs? Scared of Jews? By us, we don’t have Arabs! But we also don’t have Jews… By us, we’ve got human beings!"

And it's a great way to build business, as well as bridges.

Images: 1) Hummus - Steve Snodgrass 2) Kfar Vitkin - Ori~

Another fast-food chain will phase antibiotics out of its meat supply chain. This time, the announcement came from Subway.

Not too long ago, Subway announced it would transition its chicken supply chain to one that does not use antibiotics important to human health. But now the fast-food chain is transitioning its entire U.S. meat supply chain to make it antibiotic-free by 2025.

Subway will phase out the use of antibiotics in stages. First, will come chicken. By 2016, all meat served in American Subway restaurants will be antibiotic-free. Next, will come turkey. In 2016, the chain will introduce antibiotic-free turkey, but it will take up to three years to completely transition, the company said. Pork and beef will be the last and will not be fully antibiotic-free until 2025.

Why is it taking so long? Dennis Clabby, executive vice president of Subway’s Independent Purchasing Cooperative (IPC), said in a statement that “a change like this will take some time, particularly since the supply of beef raised without antibiotics in the U.S. is extremely limited and cattle take significantly longer to raise.” In other words, it can’t happen overnight.

That it is happening at all is testament to the fact that bad press can sometimes spur a company to do the right thing. A report by a coalition of environmental and food advocacy groups, released last month, rated different fast-food chains. Subway received a failing grade (31 percent). The report noted that Subway didn’t even respond to a survey sent to the chain. The company also didn’t respond to attempts to clarify its position.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the groups that participated in the report, has been pressuring Subway to take action on antibiotics. NRDC launched a campaign in August when it commissioned a full-size billboard near Subway’s corporate offices “challenging antibiotic use in its supply chain,” an NRDC blog post said.

Clearly, the billboard got to Subway. The NRDC blog post notes that, a few days after the billboard launched, the company updated the antibiotic use policy on its website. Then came the announcement about phasing out antibiotics from its chicken supply chain, and, most recently, phasing them out from its entire meat chain.

NRDC is not the only organization that targeted Subway with a campaign, as other groups also did, including Friends of the Earth. The message to the company was quite clear: Take action about antibiotics. Subway evidently received the message and decided to take action.

Coincidently, Lena Brook from NRDC was ready to deliver a petition with almost 300,000 signatures to Subway’s leadership at its Connecticut headquarters. On her way out the door, she saw the news about Subway’s announcement, she wrote on NRDC's Switchboard blog. Brook pointed out that Subway’s commitment to completely phasing out antibiotics from its supply chain puts it “on track to join an elite group of food industry giants.”

Indeed, Subway has joined a group of fast-food chains that have committed to phasing out antibiotics, including Chick-fil-A and McDonald's. That’s a long way to go in such a short time. The coalition that scored fast-food chains on antibiotics intends for its reports to be annual. Perhaps next year Subway will receive a much higher grade given its recent announcement.

And that matters because antibiotic resistance is real. Experts, including the World Health Organization, cite the routine use of antibiotics among livestock as contributing to antibiotic resistance. Fast-food chains can lead the way in phasing out antibiotic use among livestock, which will reduce antibiotic resistance. It’s a proverbial win-win situation. 

Image credit: Flickr/Dwight Burdette 

By Dr. Myriam Sidibe

We've just witnessed the member countries of the U.N. agree to 17 Global Goals that will, all going well, transform our world by 2030. These Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have three ambitious aims over the next 15 years: end extreme poverty; fight inequality and injustice; and fix climate change. They will replace the Millennium Development Goals and will be measured by 169 indicators. The hope is that these goals and indicators will frame national policies and agendas, starting now.

This is an exciting moment in history, when positive change in the lives of millions of people around our world could at last be in our grasp.

So, the next question is: How? How do we translate these goals into practical action? The idea of public-private partnerships (PPPs) is not a new one, but they could not be more relevant now. No one individual, organization or government is able to tackle the SDGs. But effective partnerships can. Working together, governments, NGOs and the private sector can pioneer the kind of innovative, sustained and, most importantly, practical initiatives that can end extreme poverty or fight inequality. They can, for example, combine to raise awareness of what good hygiene and good nutrition mean, and encourage new habits that deliver them.

My company, Unilever, works with many partners to address issues like hygiene and nutrition (which are intrinsically linked) at scale. For example, 6.3 million children around the world still die before they reach the age of 5, and sub-Saharan Africa takes the greatest burden of this, accounting for over 3 million of these deaths. Sadly, many become victims of preventable illnesses such as pneumonia or diarrhea, and almost half the deaths are linked to malnutrition.

How does a public-private partnership work in practice to deliver on the SDG ambitions? Take Nigeria, for example, and the issue of malnutrition. Unilever’s brand Knorr has committed to help reduce the prevalence of iron deficiency anaemia, by making nutritious cooking more desirable, easy to understand and afford.

Knorr has set up an inclusive business model, “Gbemiga,” with several partners, such as the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and the Growing Business Foundation and Society for Family Health (SFH). By working together, they are able to improve living standards by training women to sell nutritious products and simultaneously reinforce the dietary changes that can help reduce the prevalence of iron deficiency in families across the country -- and Unilever has successfully fortified its bouillon cubes with Iron.

Another example is the practice of handwashing with soap. Both pneumonia and diarrhea (and the deaths they cause) can largely be prevented by this simple hygiene routine. This is where another of Unilever’s brands, Lifebuoy, can have a real impact ensuring that we make soap available, accessible and affordable and embedding habit-building into our marketing strategies.

By working with NGOs and governments to embed these practices into health and education systems, we are able to reach more mothers and save more newborn lives. Lifebuoy has recently renewed its partnership with USAID, expanding its hygiene education program to reach pregnant women and new mothers across Kenya.

The combination of Lifebuoy’s behavior-change expertise and USAID’s ability to deploy programs at scale, in the areas where help is most needed, is a positive example of the power of collaboration and the public-private partnership approach.

These kinds of innovative partnerships help scale up programs, reaching more people much faster. Working with its partners, Lifebuoy’s programs have managed to reach 257 million people in 24 countries, making it the world’s largest hygiene behavior-change initiative. With NGO teams on the ground, government infrastructure support and the private sector’s behavior-change expertise, together with its distribution networks, it is a ‘win-win-win’ solution for the people who are most in need.

As we await the final agreement of the SDG indicators, and contemplate the work that will need to be done by all parties to achieve them in just 15 years, the role that public-private partnerships can play becomes more important than ever. Innovative ideas and market expertise will, I believe, play a crucial role in achieving these ambitious goals. Without them the challenges ahead of us will be even more daunting.

Image credits: Unilever 

Dr Myriam Sidibe is one of the world’s leading experts of brands that drive health outcomes through behavioural change. From within Unilever, she has created a movement to change the handwashing behaviours of one billion people, the single biggest hygiene behaviour change programme in the world, and conceived and established the UN recognised Global Handwashing Day – now celebrated in 53 countries.

Myriam’s approach to pushing boundaries and challenging the status quo has been pivotal to leading a paradigm shift in the way public private partnerships for health are managed and funded. They have also been replicated across Unilever as best practice examples for other brands looking to positively impact the world while driving market share. Myriam is a Commissioner for the Lancet for the future of health in Africa, an honorary lecturer from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and is a Ted speaker.

Follow Myrian Sidibe @Myriam_Sidibe

By Jesse Bragg and TJ Faircloth

As the world turns its attention to Paris in advance of the United Nations climate negotiations in December, hundreds of thousands of people are also unifying around a common cause: kicking the very polluters that have caused the climate crisis out of those negotiations.

Sound common-sense? Unfortunately, it is far from the reality. New findings indicate that corporate influence is undermining climate policy progress globally. And here in the U.S., members of Congress are calling for an investigation into ExxonMobil for its misinformation campaigns. Around the world, people are exposing Big Oil’s true intention to talk the talk, but never walk the walk, on climate change.

Corporate co-optation of U.N. climate negotiations

From direct sponsorship and cooptation of U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) talks to external advisory commissions and initiatives, fossil fuel industry interference in policymaking is an obstacle at every level. Just last week, the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative — an alliance between some of the world’s largest oil and gas producers — released a pro-natural gas report advocating for industry friendly, “market-based” solutions. And just weeks ago, Shell and BHP Billiton announced a partnership with McKinsey Consulting to “advise” governments on climate policy.

Inside the UNFCCC, big polluters like the fossil fuel industry and energy utilities are using the convention to greenwash their brands and legitimize their role in climate policymaking. In May, it was revealed that the next Conference of the Parties (COP 21) would be yet another “Corporate COP,” with the announcement of a host of sponsors including corporations such as Engie, Électricité de France S.A. (EDF) and Suez Environnement. Suez Environnement, infamous for its dealings in water privatization, is partially owned by Engie, which profits from fracking operations, putting it at direct odds with the advancement of the treaty. EDF and Engie’s current coal operations account for the equivalent of nearly half of France’s entire emissions.

To make matters worse, industry involvement in the policymaking process is not only allowed, but also encouraged, regardless of a corporation’s environmental track record. The Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) involves over 1,100 corporations including major fossil fuel corporations, transportation corporations and energy utilities. Such an initiative not only allows some of the world’s biggest polluters to greenwash their images, and it gives them access and leverage in the treaty process.

The fossil fuel industry’s cooptation, appropriation and PR posturing are the same used by Big Tobacco to position itself on the side of health and stave off tobacco control action. In that parallel we find a powerful public policy precedent: the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which came into force in 2005, insulates tobacco policymaking from the tobacco industry itself, recognizing the inherent conflict of interest in allowing Big Tobacco to have a seat at the negotiating table.    Join more than 350,000 people who are demanding: Kick Big Polluters Out

The good news? Hundreds of thousands of people around the world — from Kenya to Columbia, Uganda to Sri Lanka — are mounting a historic campaign to jettison polluters from climate policymaking. They are demanding action from governments, now. The campaign and new global platform, called Kick Big Polluters Out, launched just as delegates wrap up the final rounds of U.N. negotiations before the Paris meetings in December.

Join the more than 350,000 people who have already called on their governments to take action to protect climate policymaking — and the planet — from the fossil fuel industry. To join the rapidly growing call and view the new campaign platform, go to: www.KickBigPollutersOut.org

Jesse Bragg is the media director of Corporate Accountability International, a member-powered organization with a 38-year track record of challenging corporate abuse. In concert with allies around the world, Corporate Accountability International coordinates the global initiative to kick big polluters out of climate policy.

By Judy Levin

Just a couple of months ago, I wrote in this space about shopping for safer furniture made without toxic flame retardant chemicals. For decades, virtually all upholstered furniture was made with these chemicals, but in the past few years advocacy work by health, environmental and consumer groups across the country exposed the fallacies of flame retardants and uncovered the science demonstrating that these chemicals don’t protect us in fires, but can cause cancer and other serious health problems.

When I last wrote about furniture shopping, I outlined the unscientific survey of the San Francisco Bay Area locations of three national retailers I visited to see how the companies were adapting to new California rules that call for labeling. At the time, Macy’s seemed to be far behind the market in making the change to safer furniture. In the visit to one Macy’s furniture store, I could not find a single item made without toxic flame retardants.

Our organization’s surveys earlier this year of major national furniture retailers have found dozens, including Ikea, Ashley and many others, that have committed to selling furniture made without toxic flame retardants. But while some companies took the lead, we heard no such commitment from Macy’s.

With the rest of the market moving rapidly to protect our children’s and families’ health, we believed that consumers deserved to know about Macy’s furniture. We joined with the national Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition’s Mind the Store campaign in planning to expose Macy’s with national demonstrations outside of its stores on Oct. 21.

But the demonstrations were replaced with a victory celebration. On Oct. 20, Macy’s told the campaign that it would immediately tell its furniture suppliers that it will only carry products made without toxic flame retardants.

There are three important takeaways from Macy’s commitment to safer products: First, it’s clear that the end is near for the use of flame retardants not only in furniture, but also in many other applications where the dangerous chemicals simply aren’t needed.

Second, Macy’s response indicated that, even though labeling on the use of flame retardants is required only in California, the company told our campaign that its products will be labeled nationwide. This is especially important to understand in the context of the current debate in Congress over proposed reforms to our nation’s broken system on protections from toxic chemicals.

Proponents in Congress of current proposals for a weak federal rule say that we need a single national standard to protect all Americans from toxic chemicals because state rules only protect the people in those states lucky enough to have stronger rules.

But this specious argument exposes a misunderstanding of how business works. Macy’s is going to label its products nationally, even without a national regulation requiring labeling, because it is simply too complicated to make different products for markets in different states. In response to strong state rules, companies don’t typically produce a safer product just for that state while selling unsafe products in other states. Instead, strong protections from a single state most often lead to market protections for all Americans.

Finally, the Macy’s announcement shows that pressure works. Everyone who works for safer products for children and families should know that our voices are being heard, and major corporations are responding. Take a moment to celebrate, and join us in the ongoing fight for safer, healthier environments for all Americans.

Judy Levin is the Flame Retardant Campaign Director at the Center for Environmental Health.