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The data is clear. Nearly 40 percent of the food produced in America shamefully never reaches our dinner tables — let alone our digestive tracts. Beyond trite food-pantry donation models and expensive city-wide composting campaigns to influence household behavior, the art and science behind solving the food waste problem could boil down to one necessary solution: better branding.

As evidenced by the recent calls from the United Nations, the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency to cut food waste in half by 2030, the agenda is being set for researchers, activists and food industry experts to think both critically and creatively on how food preservation will work in the age of social media and social awareness.

What’s in a name?

Perhaps the misappropriation of the word “waste” to describe perfectly edible food is where we can begin to re-tool the way we think about viable solutions. Let’s consider how we might be able to re-classify what is deemed “waste” versus undesirable food needing a second life.

A new study conducted by a team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University and Cabrini College analyzed the typical monthly food volume across 11 Shoprite grocery stores. The researchers found, that of the surplus food each store received, 44 percent was edible, though undesirable -- marked by ill-shaped produce such as bananas, apples and potatoes. These items also tend to show up in the waste stream (also known as the landfill) most often.

Assuming that majority of grocery chains have similar outputs, nearly 40 percent of a store’s food surplus can be re-purposed and sold as a viable product without taking on the moniker 'food waste.'

Categorically, surplus can be broken down into distinct factions based on the study’s findings, which concluded that a fifth of the food was suitable for donation; 25 percent was inedible; and 10 percent was comprised of small quantities of unique items.

On a consumer level, re-purposing surplus and turned-away food is not without its barriers.

For instance, former Trader Joe’s executive Dough Rauch developed and launched nonprofit supermarket The Daily Table in Boston’s Dorchester community this year with the notion of creating prepared meals for pennies on the dollar from supermarket rejects. The project faced harsh criticism when it was first conceived and labeled as a way to shame the poor by selling them the expired leftovers of the elite.

Without running the risk of offending the very consumers they intend to serve, brands and companies seeking to develop alternative business outlets will need to tread lightly in this space, coupling marketing with consumer education and products that speak their language.

Palatable pursuits

Think about the communities that have sprung up around the love of cooking and artisanal treats. From subscription-based do-it-yourself meals to city transit-sponsored farmers markets, the culture of food is an important narrative and potential solution to turning ugly food into an experience consumers are willing to try.

Culinary students at Drexel even went so far as to develop recipes from the surplus they found during the Shoprite study. They turned pesky odd-shaped food into fruit smoothie bases and potato and apple chips.

“What if we could go into that store, buy the bananas for pennies on the dollar, make the smoothie base, and wholesale it back at a couple dollars a pound and then the store could retail it?” said Jonathan Deutsch, a study co-author from Drexel.

Smart marketing

The Twitter handle @UglyFruitandVeg will change the way you look at odd-shaped produce through fun images and delectable dishes. The social media campaign is artistically aimed at bringing attention to food waste by educating followers about grocer-discarded foods and habits that prioritize aesthetics over responsible consumption.

Imperfect Produce, launched this summer, “redefines the beauty of produce." The Oakland, California-based startup delivers ugly fruits and vegetables in Berkley, Emeryville, Albany and Alameda that cost 30 percent less than produce in the store.

Relevancy as policy

Food is not merely a means of survival for a generation that prefaces dinner with Instagram photo-sharing. Seemingly insignificant in solving both the hunger and waste crisis, the convergence of media and cuisine taps into the crux of food as the center of a cultural connector of people, experiences and business. If we modify the language in which we choose to identify the problem, perhaps we’ll see opportunity quite literally on the table.

Image credit: UglyFruitAndVeg via Twitter

It's often hard to see the local evidence of climate change. That long string of hot days that dried out the lawn earlier than usual this summer may have just seemed like an opportune time to enjoy more warm weather. And that torrential rainstorm or colder-than-usual winter last year may well have been mistaken for just another strange entry for Farmer's Almanac.

But now, thanks to the people at ClimateCentral, we have another visual way to track our wonky weather: WX Shift.

Developed with the help of meteorologists, engineers, climate statisticians and other scientists, the WX Shift website offers a real-time, localized view of just what climate change means. It identifies your location and presents data that visually explains just what's been happening throughout the season in your neck of the woods.

Live in San Francisco? WX maps out the temps for the past 45 years, showing an erratic but steadily-climbing warming trend. It's late September and expected to reach almost 80 degrees tomorrow.

And how about Portland, Oregon, the heart of the rainy, misty Pacific Northwest? Sixty percent of the state is now under severe drought that is projected to continue into the new year.

Want further proof? The "surprise me" button brings up examples of towns and states with their own trends. Clicking on the "seasonal" button translates the daily changes into three- to four-month averages, all with their own seasonal trends.

WX Shift also has educational components, like the Shum Show, which gives an overview of global weather patterns and tidbits that help us understand just why things like sea ice and someone else's stifling hot weather is bad news for our cities and forests. The 10 key indicators section at the bottom of each page helps you understand why phenomena like El Niño or declining land ice are considered warning signs for escalating climate change.

If there were any criticism to be mentioned of WX Shift, it is its overly local appeal. Including temperature and trend comparisons from other countries would only help to broaden the reader's view of just why climate change is a global threat, and why Americans need to be concerned about weather crises and humanitarian issues in other parts of the world. Hopefully this is a developing feature.

Still, even with its small limitations, WX Shift is an attitude-changer. It may well be this year's greatest conversation starter (or stopper) for the next cocktail party, but it also puts to rest the notion that bad weather is like history, fashion or food fads: always repeating and always getting better. Climate change, even when it is tracked from your backyard patio, is a global issue that won't disappear until it's addressed.

Image credits: 1) Flickr/Deepti Hari; 2) Flickr/Development Planning Unit, University College London

Food waste in the U.S. is a big problem, accounting for about 31 percent of the nation’s food supply, or 133 billion pounds. It makes up 21 percent of U.S. municipal solid waste in landfills, and as a result it accounts for the lion's share of landfill methane emissions. Methane is a greenhouse gas with a warming potential 21 times that of carbon dioxide -- and landfills are the third largest source of methane emissions in the U.S.

Given the size of the problem, it is a major deal that last week U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and EPA Deputy Administrator Stan Meiburg announced the nation’s first national food waste reduction goal. The goal is a 50 percent reductionin food waste by 2030. The federal government is leading a new partnership with the private sector, nonprofit organizations, and state and tribal governments to reduce food waste and loss.

“Our new reduction goal demonstrates America's leadership on a global level in in getting wholesome food to people who need it, protecting our natural resources, cutting environmental pollution, and promoting innovative approaches for reducing food loss and waste,” Vilsack said in a statement.

This isn't the first time the federal government has worked on the issue of food waste. In 2013, the Department of Agriculture and EPA launched the U.S. Food Waste Challenge, which gives organizations and leaders the place to share practices for reducing, recovering and recycling food waste. By the end of last year, the challenge had over 4,000 active participants, well over the goal of 1,000 participants by 2020.

Food manufacturers lead the way in food reduction

A 2013 analysis of food waste in the U.S., conducted by the U.S. the Food Waste Reduction Alliance, found that there is a big gap between food waste levels by food manufacturers and the retail sector. Although the food manufacturing sector in 2011 created more food waste, most of it (94.6 percent) was diverted from landfills through initiatives such as donations to food banks. The retail sector only diverted 55.6 percent from landfills

Kellogg Co. is an example of a food manufacturer committed to reducing food waste. Kris Charles, vice president of Kellogg, said of the federal government’s recent food waste goal: “We support the USDA and EPA in their efforts to launch the nation's first food waste reduction goals and are committed to doing our part to halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer level, and to reduce food losses along the production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses by 2030.”

Kellogg has the goal to reduce food waste to landfill by 20 percent by 2015. The company participates in the U.S. Food Waste Challenge, and it has already reduced food waste -- by 41.5 percent from 2005 to 2009, to be exact. In Europe, Kellogg pledged to achieve zero waste to landfill by 2015, and four of its European plants have already met the goal. Three plants in other parts of the world, including two in the U.S., send zero waste to landfill.

Image credit: Flickr/jbloom

Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment, titled Laudato Si: Our Care for our Common Home, is sparking a rare opening for change. The messages within the 184-page papal encyclical, including the moral imperative to take global action on climate change, are gaining momentum leading up to Pope Francis’ upcoming visit to Washington D.C. Sept. 22, where he will meet with President Barack Obama and address a joint session of Congress.

At the first in a series of interfaith events hosted by the University of San Francisco (USF) on the intersection of environment and faith, Dr. Mary Evelyn Tucker, co-director of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, explained: “This encyclical, and its statement on the intrinsic rights of nature, is a breath of fresh air. Efforts to tackle climate change and other environmental issues have been driven by science, policy, economics, technology, and law. But science and policy alone are not going to solve these problems. We need these larger values–religion, art, and philosophy.”

Four reasons why the pope’s encyclical is important

Inspired by the Pope’s upcoming visit to the United States, I offer the following four reasons why I think his environmental encyclical is important:

1. It has sparked a rare opening for change;


2. It is not just about climate change, but an appeal for integral ecology;


3. It is part of a larger movement; and


4. In the end, it is a call to action.

1. A rare opening for change

This is a rare moment in which we have the opportunity to raise awareness and inspire action. For Catholics and non-Catholics, the encyclical has the potential to transform the global discussion on climate change by framing the planetary crisis in moral and religious terms at a strategic moment in international climate negotiations. The hope is that Pope Francis’ messages will influence policymakers at the upcoming United Nations climate talks in Paris later this year, as well as be highlighted in his upcoming addresses to the U.N. and the U.S. Congress.

According to a recent Pew Research Center study, less than half of all U.S. Catholics (47 percent) believe that global warming is a consequence of human activity. Take note: Pope Francis is saying that climate change is real and that humans are causing it. In addition, he connects stewardship of the natural world with justice for the poorest and most vulnerable.

“This opening, it’s never going to happen again in this particular way,” stressed Tucker. She explained: “This is so rich. And that is why people are responding all over the world. It’s poetic. It’s scientific. It’s spiritual. It’s grounded. It’s ecologically sophisticated. And it’s appealing to the sense that we are part of a great mystery, a huge, holy mystery.”

2. Appeal for an integral ecology

A key point to stress is that the encyclical is not just about climate change. It has a much deeper and robust reach. In a recent article in the New York Times Book Review, environmental activist and author Bill McKibben explained: “Instead of a narrow and focused contribution to the climate debate, it turns out to be nothing less than a sweeping, radical, and highly persuasive critique of how we inhabit this planet — an ecological critique, yes, but also a moral, social, economic, and spiritual commentary.”

Integral ecology, an ecology that links the human and social condition to the environment, is a key theme in the encyclical. “Nature cannot be regarded as something separate from ourselves or as a mere setting in which we live. We are part of nature,” the Pope wrote in the encyclical. USF President Paul Fitzgerald artfully expresses the concept of integral ecology in The Beloved in Nature, a video co-produced by Green Impact, in partnership with Northcutt Productions.

You can watch The Beloved in Nature below:

3. Part of a larger movement

“The papal encyclical is igniting energy all over the world, as almost never before in our lifetime,” Tucker suggested. We are on the leading edge of a new movement that weaves science and spirit to find solutions for our social, political and environmental challenges. “This is about long-term change, and a moral force that is unstoppable. It’s a Gandhian force of change,” Tucker said.

McKibben commented: “On a sprawling, multicultural, fractious planet, no person can be heard by everyone. But Pope Francis comes closer than anyone else. He heads the world’s largest religious denomination and so has 1.2 billion people in his flock …” Building on the Pope’s reach, other religious leaders have become energized by the encyclical, including more than 400 Jewish rabbis and 20 Muslim scholars, who have responded to this moment of change.

4. In the end, it’s a call to action

For the sake of Mother Nature and all living creatures, the encyclical aims to evoke contemplation, action and change. “An integral ecology is also made up of simple daily gestures which break with the logic of violence, exploitation and selfishness,” Pope Francis wrote. He ends with a call to action: “Many things have to change course, but it is we human beings above all who need to change.”

Inspired? Here are a few ways you can learn more:

• Attend the Oct. 1 Integral Ecology series forum reflecting on Pope Francis’ United States visit.


• Read the encyclical in its entirety.


• Check out these websites to learn more:  California Interfaith Power and Light and Catholic Climate Covenant.


• Watch Dr. Tucker’s Sept. 3 presentation.


• Go on a hike and sit quietly in nature.

Image credits: 1) iStock artist Neneos, 2) Heather Craig

Deborah Fleischer is President and Founder of Green Impact.  She recently helped the University of San Francisco launch its new Office of Sustainability, including the production of a series of videos (including the one in this article). 

By Raminder Chowdhary

Cotton fiber reigns supreme. Grown increasingly in low-wage countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Mali, India and China, cotton accounts for nearly 40 percent of global textile production -- providing livelihood opportunities to over 280 million people in developing countries. It touches the lives of the poverty-stricken small farmers in remote parts of Bangladesh, as well as the haute couture consumers in New York. Yes, the world depends on cotton and yet we remain ignorant about the highly unsustainable nature of its production fueled by our consumption patterns.

Grasp this: There is no other commodity grown on the farms of our planet that is more polluting than cotton. The Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) estimates that more than 10 percent of all chemicals used in the agricultural sector are for the production of cotton. The World Wildlife Fund states that more than 5,000 gallons of water are needed to grow 2.2 pounds of cotton, which produces one T-shirt and a pair of jeans. To put in perspective: Over 450 million pairs of jeans are sold annually in the U.S. alone, and the average woman has eight pairs in her closet. Not only was the cotton crop drenched in pesticides that damaged our soil, but the fibers and yarns were also stained in toxic dyestuff, the final fabric was chemically softened and stonewashed using pumice stones that polluted our ground water – all just to give us discerning consumers the 'weathered' look!

In the face of high environmental impact and low wages in the growing areas, the calls for fair trade and organic cotton have been rapidly rising. The organic cotton market is predicted to remain relatively small. Keeping in mind the immense scale of global production and consumption, there is need for mass market transformation making sustainable cotton the norm.

An initiative that focuses on making sustainable cotton production the mainstream standard is the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI). This initiative has been formed to make global cotton production better for the people who produce it, better for the environment it grows in, and better for the sector’s future. International brands and retailers – such as Ikea, H&M, Marks & Spencer, Adidas, and Levi Strauss & Co., among others -- have joined the BCI.

In its 2014 Sustainability Report, Adidas reported that it was sourcing over 30 percent of its cotton from sustainable sources under the BCI. It aims to source 100 percent sustainable cotton by 2018.  The lifecycle assessment conducted by Levi’s on its two iconic brands – 501 and Dockers -- showed that the greatest opportunities for reducing the environmental impact were at the beginning of the lifecycle -- i.e., the agricultural stage of the products.

Major apparel and textile brands and retailers need to incorporate sustainable cotton sourcing and communicate the benefits of this to their customers in their corporate responsibility efforts to drive demand. Increased demand is the obvious path toward mainstream acceptance.

Image credits: 1) Flickr/David Stanley 2) & 3) Levi Strauss & Co. 

Raminder Chowdhary:  With 20+ years in managerial roles around the World he founded One Earth Foundation - an NGO focusing on conservation of natural eco-systems, preservation of traditional wisdom and environmental education in remote hill communities. He is a regular speaker on various regional and national forums promoting the need for higher levels of corporate social and environmental participation and responsibility. In 2014 he was awarded the Metro AG Community Silver Star (India) for his efforts. He has initiated and successfully implemented numerous projects in the sectors of traditional wisdom preservation, special needs groups, soil conservation, large scale forest and lakes clean up campaigns, Students for environment initiatives at a national level, etc.

Heathrow Airport in London begins trialling steeper approaches this week, which could help reduce noise for people living under flight paths. Steeper approaches introduced at airports such as Frankfurt have shown this can reduce noise for people living under flight paths.

The trial at Heathrow will run for six months and means that aircraft will fly higher for longer before landing at the airport.

The move coincides with the publication of an independent report that shows a significant reduction in the area and number of homes affected by noise from Heathrow’s operations.

Analysis from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), commissioned by Heathrow as part of its on-going Noise Action Plan commitments, shows that average noise contours annually are smaller than they have been since 2006. 

Over the past 9 years, the area around the airport affected by higher levels of night noise (measured by 60dB Lnight), has decreased by 25%. This has resulted in 25% fewer households affected by these noise levels at night. 

The use of new planes and quieter procedures between 2006 and 2014 are part of the measures driving the reductions in the noise footprint. 

Matt Gorman, Heathrow director for sustainability and environment commented: “Heathrow is at the forefront of international efforts to tackle aircraft noise and these latest contours are testament to the efforts of Heathrow and our airline and manufacturing partners to reduce the impact of the operations. But we won’t stop here. We know there’s more we can do through initiatives like our steeper approaches trial, and we will continue to push all those operating at Heathrow to be industry leaders in reducing noise.”

IKEA has become the biggest food service provider of certified seafood worldwide.

With a commitment for seafood sold and served in its stores to be both ASC1 and MSC2 certified, the Swedish retailer is set to offer sustainably sourced seafood to over 600m customers in 47 countries worldwide.

The seafood offering from IKEA includes over 23 different certified seafood species including salmon, herring and shrimp.

“IKEA is demonstrating global leadership in sustainability," commented Nicolas Guichoux, global commercial director, Marine Stewardship Council (MSC).

"By sourcing and selling only certified sustainable seafood, IKEA is powerfully inspiring consumer choices and influencing sustainable business practices around the world. IKEA's significant commitment is already helping to ensure oceans teeming with life, and secure seafood supplies, for future generations.”

 

 

 

Picture credit: © catiamadio | Dreamstime.com 

Greenpeace has teamed up with a Colorado newspaper, the Boulder Weekly, to rip the thin veneer of academic cred away from the fracking industry's PR blitz in the state. According to the report, entitled Frackademia, the lobbying effort pivoted on industry-funded research conducted at the University of Colorado, Boulder Leeds School of Business.

Greenpeace itself was marked as a "Big Green Radical" in a separate oil and gas industry lobbying effort last year meant to undermine the credibility of several high-profile environmental groups, but apparently name-calling is not a particularly effective tactic against the organization.

Fracking and state fracking bans

In Colorado, local communities face an uphill climb when it comes to banning fracking, an oil and gas drilling method that involves pumping millions of gallons of chemical brine underground at high pressure. The oil and gas industry has successfully taken cities to court over local fracking bans, and cash-strapped communities are an uneven match with the industry's legal teams. High court decisions in Ohio and New Mexico have also cast a long shadow of doubt over the legal authority of local communities to restrict state-regulated energy sector activities.

The situation is different in New York state, which this year shifted from a long-running statewide fracking moratorium to an outright ban. While the moratorium was under way, local fracking bans had the support of an earlier decision confirming their right to ban fracking under their existing zoning powers, handed down by the state's highest court.

Zoning also factors into the fracking fight in Pennsylvania. In that state, one result of former Gov. Tom "wardrobe malfunction" Corbett's ties to the fossil fuel industry was an attempt to impose statewide zoning regulations in support of fracking. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled against the new zoning scheme in 2013, and it also affirmed the right of local communities to impose fracking bans under their zoning powers.

Pennsylvania's new governor, Tom Wolf, reinstated a ban on fracking in state parks and forests when he took office in January, and under his tenure the state is cracking down on drilling violations. But he seems to have taken a statewide ban off the table, at least for now.

The fracking lobby focuses on Colorado

That brings us back around to Colorado and the new Greenpeace fracking report. Without a statewide ban, the fracking fight comes down to local communities, pitting local economic factors against public health and environmental risks. That's where a strong public relations effort comes in.

According to Greenpeace researcher Jesse Coleman, the CU-Boulder Leeds School of Business was "co-opted by fracking industry PR firms and the Koch brothers" to develop supposedly objective studies in support of fracking." The project involved a partnership between the school and the Common Sense Policy Roundtable (CSPR), which Coleman describes as "a front-group funded by the oil and gas industry:"

"This partnership was formed to produce economic studies that benefit the fracking industry’s PR strategy," Coleman said. "CSPR paid the university to host the studies and fully controlled the priorities of the researchers."

Specifically, Coleman cites a 2014 study, titled 2014 Fracking Ban Report:

"The report, published during a major political storm regarding local control over fracking, found that allowing affected communities to hold some regulatory power over fracking would hurt Colorado’s economy — a position favored by the industry. The report, which was paid for by CSPR, did not mention the group’s financial ties to the fracking industry."

Coleman further notes that CSPR is a "a nonprofit created by Starboard Group and EIS Solutions to control and fund the research conducted by the University of Colorado, Boulder," and that the timing of the study was part of a strategic plan developed by the two public relations firms. The findings were used to mobilize "grassroots" groups and to influence a state-level task force in support of fracking.

Documents obtained by Greenpeace and the Boulder Weekly also indicate additional CSPR-related economic impact research projects in which the funding industry exercised an unseemly degree of control -- namely, the American Petroleum Industry and associated trade groups such as the Western Energy Alliance.

The other University of Colorado fracking studies

While the fracking industry seems to have made friends over at the Leeds School of Business, earlier this year TriplePundit took note of another CU-Boulder fracking study with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) as a lead partner. That study demonstrated a strong connection between earthquakes and fracking wastewater disposal.

In 2012, CU-Denver's School of Public Health produced a study of airborne pollutants related to fracking and reached this alarming conclusion, according to its media office:

" ... [A]ir pollution caused by hydraulic fracturing or fracking may contribute to acute and chronic health problems for those living near natural gas drilling sites."

On the other hand, in November 2014, CU-Boulder's media office went far out of its way to pitch an industry-friendly interpretation of a study from its College of Engineering and Applied Sciences with a press release titled, "Major class of fracking chemicals no more toxic than common household substances."

Notably, the press release provided no link to the published study other than to say that it was published in the journal Analytical Chemistry, so we did a little snooping around and found it under the somewhat less remarkable title, "Analysis of Hydraulic Fracturing Flowback and Produced Waters Using Accurate Mass: Identification of Ethoxylated Surfactants."

The study is anything but a general endorsement of fracking fluid safety. It deals with a new method for identifying surfactants (surfactant is fancyspeak for detergents, many of which are common to both industry and household use). In the study abstract, the authors simply conclude that their technique provides a new measuring tool that would enable the "fingerprinting" of surfactants in fracking fluid, with the aim of improving water-quality monitoring.

The study authors are also careful to acknowledge all of the direct supporters of the study, one of which is Multi-Chem, part of the Halliburton oilfield services network. For what it's worth, the press release cites other partners but excludes Multi-Chem.

Just about six months after that study, CU-Boulder swung in the opposite direction with a June 2015 press release headlined, "New study identifies organic compounds of potential concern in fracking fluids." The study of groundwater contaminants in fracking fluid, by the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, found 15 organic compounds of "potential concern" due to their ability to persist and travel in groundwater from one location to another.

The study additionally found that only two of those compounds were relatively common from well to well. While that finding may seem inconsequential compared to the "hundreds" of hazardous substances commonly cited in opposition to fracking, the devil is in the details. The lead researcher concluded that these compounds "could result in potentially hazardous exposures following spills or well failures.”

For the record, the study may have also skipped a few compounds. The press materials note that it was based on information culled from the voluntary industry database FracFocus. FracFocus participants are free to exercise their trade secrets privileges, so the database is not all-inclusive.

Be that as it may, the new study boasts a notably reliable slate of funders compared to certain of CU's other efforts, namely the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Image credit: 1) Flickr/Jeff Foster 2) Courtesy of Greenpeace via LittleSis

By Ian Edwards

The future is uncertain.

Stated one way in business, this simple declarative sentence can open an investor’s wallet for a future with unlimited possibilities. It’s about bravery, stewardship or prescience. Add in imagination and creative license, and the world is full of all kinds of possibilities – with outcomes manifesting in the future.

Delivered another way, the future is uncertain can have us paralyzed in doubt about which way to step next. Looking beyond the next horizon, or the long term, we imagine restraint, doubt and loss.

Sustainability, positioned in modern business as an obligation or sacrifice, sits squarely in this more dire uncertainty, which is compounded by immense scale and consequence. It means taking maverick action now, only to defer the benefit to a future far enough ahead that it might not include you – admittedly a tough sell.

If saving the planet is not, in itself, sufficient reward, in what ways does it make sense to defer a benefit to generations not yet born? What turns long-termism into a near-term benefit? This is where some creative work needs to be done, to engage the vast long horizon of sustainability into language that gets business to act in its interests today – sidestepping uncertainty and building in reward.

Managing uncertainty, it turns out, is something we’re good at. We do it all the time. Uncertainty, on its own, is not a good enough excuse for inaction in the sustainability challenge.

The future and its infinite complexity is a factor in all manner of near-term consequence. Valuations, risk and the expected return on investment – each of these metrics routinely teleported from the future for today’s decision-makers – are just a few factors rooted in uncertainty that weigh on present-day business performance.

Business acts on a hunch that a product or service will find or define a market. Investors capitalize potential, especially if there is a forecast for a return, say, five years out. We pay premiums, gambling now to insure against unknown threats. A resource company attaches a price to potential reserves yet to be extracted from nature, and trades that value, artificial or not, on a stock exchange.

Comprehensive scenario planning – “what if?” – is a mainstay of issues- and crisis-management. A company’s R&D budget might balloon in the current fiscal budget to fund the promise of a disruptive innovation that might be a boon to business many fiscal years from now.

We have made vast investments in other uncertain outcomes. The worldwide space-race engaged the imagination and demonstrated society’s ability to transcend even our planetary boundaries. Over its 40-year history, the U.S. Space Shuttle program alone cost $209 billion. Global spending on defense, managing against real or perceived present and future security threats, represents $1.8 trillion per year, or 2.5 percent of annual global GDP or $249 per person.

On the flip side, we can dismiss uncertain visions we prefer to avoid as lunacy, fear mongering, paranoia or simply anti-business.

In 1998, earthquake researchers identified increasing seismic pressures in the Caribbean region, and by 2008 had predicted a quake of 7.2 on the Richter scale. By March 2009, geologist Claude Prepetit presented a report to the Haitian government outlining the risk to Port-au-Prince specifically and the folly of shoddy construction that didn’t conform to seismic standards.

"If we don't stop these constructions," warned Prepetit, "we risk seeing Port-au-Prince transformed into a vast cemetery … Given the capital's current state of decay, we won't be able to bring necessary help to thousands of victims."

Nine months later, on Jan. 12, 2010, a 7.3 earthquake struck Haiti. According to Oxfam, 220,000 people were killed and more than 300,000 injured. More than 1.5 million people were made homeless. The non-human toll was $7.8 billion in economic losses related to the earthquake – a chunk of business that equates to almost 66 percent of the country’s total GDP in the prior year.

Imagine the Haitian government, confronted with evidence of potential disaster and recognizing the staggering efforts, cost and hassle of responding effectively to mitigate the threat. With such a monumental task, made worse by all the other current priorities and distractions, how could it respond based on a potential future bad outcome?

Maybe that’s a lesson for society’s response, such as it is, to the threats of climate change, biodiversity loss and resource scarcity.

Anthropogenic climate status is particularly rich with bellwethers. In 1957, researcher Roger Revelle told a Congressional committee that the greenhouse effect might someday turn Southern California and Texas into “real deserts.” By 2014, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned the “worst is yet to come.”

“All we can do is speculate,” explains Robert Pindyck, a professor of economics and finance at MIT, explaining why even cost-benefit analysis so far fails to bridge the uncertainty about climate change. “We don’t really know the costs. We don’t really know the benefits.”

Leaders in business, as part of their job descriptions, must manage uncertainty, choosing from moment to moment whether to hedge or gamble or defer.

“Chances are, traditional strategic-planning processes won’t help much [in clarifying great uncertainty],” say the writers of Strategy Under Uncertainty, a dated Harvard Business Review article, still relevant when read through the lens of the sustainability challenge.

“The standard practice is to lay out a vision of future events precise enough to be captured in a discounted-cash-flow analysis. Of course, managers can discuss alternative scenarios and test how sensitive their forecasts are to changes in key variables, but the goal of such analysis is often to find the most likely outcome and create a strategy based on it. That approach serves companies well in relatively stable business environments. But, when there is greater uncertainty about the future, it is at best marginally helpful and at worst downright dangerous. Underestimating uncertainty can lead to strategies that neither defend against the threats nor take advantage of the opportunities that higher levels of uncertainty may provide.”

Focusing capital on the long term, a 2013 paper by McKinsey that includes a survey of 1,000 global executives, suggests that 86 percent of respondents “believed that using a longer time horizon to make business decisions would positively affect corporate performance in a number of ways, including strengthening financial returns and increasing innovation.” However, 63 percent “said the pressure to demonstrate short-term financial performance had increased over the previous five years.”

For discussion, then, how else might leaders leverage long-termism for now?

Define near-term outcomes achievable in this lifetime that have compounding benefits for the future

Incentives in this context have a broad range, but need to be paid off in the near-term with dividends that are real in today’s business language – if they are to speak to today’s results-centric executive. For example, a company that uses sea-level forecasts now to locate important infrastructure in long-term climate-safe regions has a potent public relations and brand-building platform today and a protected asset for future generations. This trade off of risk and reward may not generate a traditional ROI, but it is the kind of strategy that pairs a long-term outcome with a near-term prize.

Expand the list of stakeholders to include Nature and Future Generations

Neither of these stakeholders is served by modern business or even contemporary sustainability. We extract value from nature with no dividend returned. Every bit of damage we cause is an issue to manage for someone in the future. Engaging in a discussion with these stakeholders puts long-termism into play in near-term decision making.

Reward global remedies at scale

One of the colossal obstacles of greater sustainability pick-up is its sheer scale. The International Energy Agency says it will cost $44 trillion to decarbonize the economy by 2050, with that price-tag increasing the longer that we hesitate on action. That’s a 1,000-fold increase from where just U.S. sustainability spending is projected for 2017.

The value of unburnable carbon (or stranded assets) could be as high as high as $21 trillion. By comparison, the debilitating 2008 financial crisis has cost anywhere from $6 trillion to $14 trillion.

Some of the radical global warming remedies, perhaps more suited to movie scripts than business plans, involve orbiting mirrors that deflect a small percentage of the sun’s rays from the arctic, scattering particles like sulfur dioxide to thicken the upper atmosphere, or dispersing microscopic drops of seawater to whiten stratocumulus clouds. Columbia researchers, meanwhile, are developing artificial trees that scrub carbon like real trees.

Convert sustainability from a lifestyle into a tool

A lifestyle iterates endlessly toward no specific result. A tool gets the job done. What is sustainability’s end game? How does a world that is already sustainable operate? When? Imagine, for example, the CEO who is able to free his or her business from fossil fuels, to exit the carbon economy. Now. How would you do it? How would you minimize the pain and maximize the reward? The history books will be kind, your followers will acknowledge your vision, and future generations will be grateful for the chance to improve on your model. That much is certain.

Image credit: Pixabay

Ian Edwards is a sustainability consultant.

Several years ago, Volkswagen became determined to surpass Toyota as the world’s largest automaker by the end of this decade. The German automaker succeeded earlier this year, but in the meantime had sacrificed profitability and, some have argued, quality.

Now the company is mired in the midst of a massive scandal. Over the weekend, Volkswagen halted the sales of many of its diesel-powered automobiles. That decision came after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accused the company of rigging its vehicles with software that “cheated” mandated U.S. emissions testing.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the decision to suspend the sales of diesel cars was made after the EPA accused Volkswagen last Friday of installing “defeat devices” in four-cylinder Volkswagen and Audi automobiles from model years 2009 to 2015. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) also launched an investigation into Volkswagen’s practice of installing software to manipulate information transmitted during vehicle emissions testing.

The EPA’s investigation alleges that Volkswagen’s software algorithm could detect when an automobile was undergoing an emissions inspection. The software would turn on the vehicle’s full emissions controls only during such a test; otherwise, it would shut off such mechanisms when the car was driving in normal street or highway conditions. For drivers, the benefit would be greater performance, especially on torque and mileage. For the environment, however, the EPA charges that Volkswagen’s software trick resulted in nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions spiking as much as 40 times more than acceptable EPA levels.

EPA and CARB were alerted to the defeat devices after a University of West Virginia research team, working with the NGO International Council on Clean Transportation, raised questions about some of the Volkswagen model’s emissions levels during an analysis of the cars’ performance. Their questions were funneled to the EPA and CARB, and after an inquiry Volkswagen admitted to the installation of the defeat devices on approximately 482,000 vehicles.

These allegations are a huge blow to Volkswagen’s hopes to continue its global leadership in automobile sales, especially as the company has struggled with U.S. sales while lagging behind its German competitors BMW and Mercedes-Benz. If the automaker launches a recall, Volkswagen could face fines of up to $37,500 per vehicle for violating the U.S. Clean Air Act — which in the most nightmarish scenario could set the company back $18 billion.

Meanwhile, the American division of Volkswagen has “committed to fixing this issue as soon as possible,” and says it is cooperating with the EPA investigation. Volkswagen’s CEO, Dr. Martin Winterkorn, apologized yesterday for what he described as “breaking the trust” of the general public and the company’s customers, and says an external investigation will soon begin.

Whether Winterkorn’s tenure at Volkswagen, and the company’s already sluggish performance in the U.S., will suffer as a result of these investigations remains to be seen. But the EPA’s investigation is also a blow to the reputation of diesel vehicles in the U.S., which had been enjoying a slow, but steady, acceptance in the marketplace.

Image credit: M 93