So what happens to NGOs?

CSRHUB | Friday February 24th, 2012 | 2 Comments

The following is part of a series by our friends at CSRHub (a 3p sponsor) – offering free sustainability and corporate social responsibility ratings on over 5,000 of the world’s largest publicly traded companies. 3p readers get 40% off CSRHub’s professional subscriptions with promo code “TP_2010_Intro”

By Ashley Coale

There’s no question that the CSR and business responsibility fields are alive and growing – with clear signs that they’re here to stay. We’ve seen many companies adopt whole systems approaches to retooling their business model. We’ve seen executives like Unilever’s Paul Polman turning away investments from sources that don’t buy into Unilever’s equitable and sustainable model. Furthermore, we’ve seen corporations shift from sources of philanthropy to active participants in implementing and participating in projects that give back.

So, you may be asking, what’s wrong with all this? Well, in some ways, not much. But increasingly, as we’ve heralded the blurring of the public and private, I have to ask, so what happens to NGOs?

The rise of civil society in the latter half of the 20th century dramatically changed the landscape of social and environmental activism. In fact, the pure numbers of NGOs grew astronomically from 176 in 1909 to nearly 5,500 in 1996. When you think of some of the most successful campaigns for everything from dolphin-safe tuna to non-discriminatory hiring, somewhere there is an NGO to thank.

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TrendWatch 2012: Legitimization of the Access Economy

| Friday February 24th, 2012 | 1 Comment

In honor of the release of Trendwatch 2012, we’ll be rolling out posts about sustainability and economic recovery. You can find them here all week, or read the whole set here. Please also join us for a free webinar on February 29th where we’ll be discussing the role of sustainability in economic recovery.

“Sharing is caring,” or at least that is what they teach you in kindergarten.  With the advent of such service platforms as Craigslist, Netflix and ZipCar, one might say that tech and social entrepreneurs took this lesson to a whole new level.  But the idea of sharing the commons for the common good is nothing new. Community development resource-sharing initiatives like bike coops, food banks, book exchanges, clothing swaps, tool trades and community gardens have been around for decades.

So while the internet didn’t reinvent the wheel here, social networking tools make bartering, sharing, swapping and renting out our own goods more widely acceptable and accessible.  Now start-ups can harness these alternative resource-distributing communities using supporting technology, making “people power” a real game changer financially, environmentally and socially.

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Proof that Disclosing Carbon Emissions Increases Stock Prices

| Friday February 24th, 2012 | 0 Comments

A new study by the University of California provides evidence that companies that publicly announce information about their carbon emissions will see a significant and almost immediate increase in share price. The study, conducted by Paul Griffin of UC Davis and Yuan Sun of UC Berkeley, involved an analysis of ten years of news releases from Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire, which regularly publishes press releases disclosing companies’ greenhouse gas emissions.

The researchers narrowed down their initial sample of press announcements to 172 voluntary releases of carbon footprint data from 84 companies in a wide range of industries including healthcare, technology and financial services. For each announcement, they tracked the historic stock price for the company for a five day period starting two days before the greenhouse gas data was published and ending two days after. These prices were then compared to a control group of similar companies that did not release carbon information during the same timeframe.

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Finally, the Green Business Movement Has a True Leader – Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever

| Friday February 24th, 2012 | 6 Comments

“We need corporate sustainability to be in the DNA of business culture and operations,” U.N. Secretary General told the participants of KPMG’s Global Summit, which took place last week in New York, addressing business sustainable challenges towards Rio+20. I’m sure many, if not all, in the audience agreed with him. And if they were looking for a role model that actually does it, they didn’t have to wait long, as he appeared just after the Secretary General has left the stage.

Paul Polman, the CEO of Unilever took part only in one discussion, which followed the Secretary General’s address. Yet, he left such an impression that no matter what discussion I attended in the next few days, I heard his name mentioned over and over. Polman’s name is nothing but new to people in the green business space – Unilever’s sustainable living plan and Polman’s maverick style earned him the reputation of a distinctive voice in the business community when it comes to sustainability. Yet, only in the summit, getting to hear him together with many other business leaders and seeing his influence, it became clear to me that Polman is not just another CEO who embraces sustainability, he is the leader of the green business community.

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Pump Price Truths: Gas Won’t be Getting Cheaper, and That’s Okay

Bill Roth | Friday February 24th, 2012 | 1 Comment

As a professional energy economist I am obligated to set the record on gas prices straight. This week I’ve heard that President Obama is to blame for higher gasoline prices. I have heard politicians claim they can lower gasoline prices. A noted MSNBC announcer that covers the stock market pronounced that removing oil industry subsidies would raise gasoline prices.

Here’s the economic truth:

TRUTH: Price = Supply and Demand
Gasoline stations adding a mark up to supply costs do NOT set prices. Prices are established by the market dynamic of consumer demand and manufacturing supply. The price of oil is high right now because incremental world demand is growing faster than the marginal capacity for increasing oil supplies.

TRUTH: Gasoline Prices Will NOT Come Down
Because it is supply and demand that sets the price of gasoline, the price of gasoline will not fall over the long term. Does anyone really think the price of gasoline will be less in 5 years?

There are two mega-trend reasons why the long term price for gasoline will be higher:

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Forget Recycling: Here Comes Edible Packaging

| Friday February 24th, 2012 | 1 Comment

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Food packaging, especially single serving, is a major contributor to landfill waste. About 76 tons in the US annually. Frequently difficult to recycle, and otherwise not top of mind for people to think of as recyclable, it has seemed like a necessary evil, as people aren’t about to stop consuming such products.

We are on the cusp of that figure being radically reduced.

Monosol and WikiCells are two contenders in the soon-to-emerge edible packaging market. Monosol is closer to market, as it’s already being used in detergent, pesticide and clothing applications, and has begun talks with food companies. However, its method of dispersal is getting wet, which precludes it being used in liquid applications, a sector where much of food packaging waste originates from. WikiCells has no such problem.

Monosol’s materials are biodegradable, but there may be a psychological barrier to overcome, as the example shared in Fast Company shows:

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South Africa Set To Introduce a Carbon Tax Next Year

Gina-Marie Cheeseman | Friday February 24th, 2012 | 0 Comments

South Africa is poised to introduce a carbon tax next year, Reuters reports. The Treasury Department proposed in its budget for 2012/2013 to enact a 60 percent tax-free threshold on annual carbon emissions for all sectors with a tax of 120 rand per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) for emissions above the thresholds. The tax would come into effect in 2013/2014, and increase by 10 percent a year until 2020. The draft policy will be published later this year, the Treasury Department said.

It sounds great, doesn’t  it? South Africa is already feeling the impacts of climate change “sooner and harder than anticipated and we can expect that current projections will also be overtaken,” according to a 2011 report by the environmental group, Ground Work. Climate change experts predict that by mid-century the South African coast will warm by around one to two degrees Celsius, and the interior by around two to three degrees Celsius. After 2050, the warming is projected to be around three to four degrees along the coast, and six to seven along the interior. This would be well above the international target of keeping temperature increase below two degrees Celsius.

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Is Shale Gas Good or Bad? Panelists and the Audience at KPMG Summit are Split

| Friday February 24th, 2012 | 0 Comments
A fracking site in NY's Catskill Mountains
A fracking site in NY’s Catskill Mountains

“Is the emergence of shale gas a positive or negative development with respect to sustainability?” This was one of the most interesting questions discussed on one of the panels at KPMG’s Global Summit last week in New York. Given the growth of both interest and dispute around shale gas, is shale gas is a bridge to a sustainable future or a bridge to nowhere?

It’s not that we lack controversial sources of energy, from nuclear energy to ethanol, but none of these resources has the potential to become a substantial resource like shale gas has for better and worse. With so much at stake when it comes to how sustainable the future of energy is going to be, it’s no wonder that even at the KPMG summit, shale gas became such a hot topic that the panelists and the crowd seemed to be very passionate about and at the same time split about the answer to the question.

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Renowned Scientist Confesses to Stealing Heartland Institute Documents

RP Siegel | Friday February 24th, 2012 | 1 Comment

In a startling disclosure, world renowned scientist, Peter Gleick, co-founder and president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security and the chair of the American Geophysical Union’s Task Force on Scientific Ethics - the man that the BBC had called a “visionary on the environment,” - confessed yesterday to using a false identity to obtain confidential documents from the Heartland Institute, and then to leak those documents to the press. The documents contained the organization’s 2012 strategy to continue their assault on climate science by deliberately spreading doubt on the subject and targeting young children, among others.

Gleick claims that he was sent copies of a document from an anonymous source early in the year. And then, “given the potential impact, however, I attempted to confirm the accuracy of the information in this document. In an effort to do so, and in a serious lapse of my own professional judgment and ethics, I solicited and received additional materials directly from the Heartland Institute under someone else’s name.”

He claims that the materials he received confirmed the strategic elements contained in the document. The Heartland Institute has acknowledged the authenticity of the material they sent him, though they insist that the strategy document itself was a fake.

The question of who authored the allegedly fake document remains unanswered. Could it have been Gleick himself? Megan McArdle at the Atlantic thinks that is certainly possible, based on admittedly circumstantial evidence. This includes things like a glaring error in the amount contributed by the Koch Brothers, the fact that it had been scanned just the day before the leak occurred, some similarities to Glieck’s writing style, and the way the facts all lined up, suggesting that the document, if it was indeed a fake, was written after the pilfered documents had been read.

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Will Apple’s ‘Spaceship’ Be the Greenest Building Ever?

3p Guest Author | Friday February 24th, 2012 | 1 Comment

By Zac Colbert

Last year, the late Steve Jobs revealed plans for Apple’s new ‘Spaceship’ building to be located in Cupertino City, California. The futuristic structure should be completed in 2015 and will house approximately 13,000 employees. It may look like it’s been plucked from the imagination of Philip K Dick, but what was previously the realm of science fiction has now become science fact. It promises to be one of the most technologically advanced offices in the world, being totally self-sufficient for power with the national grid acting only as backup.

Critics and eco groups dug into Apple some years ago due to their lack of green credentials, so their new corporate campus will have state-of-the-art energy efficient technology to control the building’s environment combined with an eco-friendly design and solar paneled roof. The architects responsible are Foster + Partners who have a proven track record with ultra-modern big buildings, they’re behind the beautiful Berlin Reichstag and the impressive Dallas Opera House, so expectations are certainly high.

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USDA Certification Raises the Bar for Biobased Products

3p Guest Author | Thursday February 23rd, 2012 | 0 Comments

By Mark Eisen and Jacquelyn Ottman

With carbon footprint and energy independence on everyone’s minds, many marketers are looking to capitalize upon their product’s biobased content. But not all biobased claims are alike. The scientific rigor of an ASTM standard combined with the credibility of the USDA raises the bar for the industry and makes the USDA Certified Biobased label a new source of competitive advantage within the consumer and government procurement markets for brand owners who make the effort to get their biobased products certified.

What is “biobased?”

There is no Webster’s definition of biobased.  So, marketers have tended to define it loosely or link it to perceptions of biobased as anything biological, living, natural, renewable or even biodegradable.  Some do not reveal the amount of, or basis for, claiming biobased content, making comparisons difficult.  This can even represent greenwash when biobased content levels are insignificant. Many questionable biobased claims have emerged, including several official-looking logos with no third party backing. With over 25,000 biobased products on the market, clearly there’s a need to clear up the confusion.

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Balancing the Energy-Water Nexus

3p Guest Author | Thursday February 23rd, 2012 | 0 Comments

By Nathan Schock

Energy and water. Water and energy. Both are critical to human development, and both are strongly interrelated.

With few exceptions, water is necessary to generate and distribute energy. In turn, water can’t be collected, purified and transported without energy. A term has even been coined to describe the relationship: the Energy-Water Nexus.

For a company like ours, operating a network of 27 biorefineries with the capacity to annually produce 1.6 billion gallons of ethanol, strategic thinking about water is a necessity. We spend a lot of time thinking about how we use water and where it comes from. More specifically, we focus on conserving water by using less and drawing it from alternative sources.

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InBev Uses Brewery Waste to Make Shaving Cream

| Thursday February 23rd, 2012 | 0 Comments

AB-InBev and Blue Marble Bio convert brewery waste to fatty acids and biogasFans of beer will soon have yet another reason to imbibe, when a new partnership between Anheuser-Busch (now AB-InBev) and a company called Blue Marble Bio takes off. The two firms have launched a venture to convert brewery waste into a group of carboxylic acids that have a wide variety of commercial uses, including the manufacture of shaving creams and soaps. This renewable source of carboxylic acids will help the chemical industry along as it transitions out of petroleum-based formulas, and as a side benefit, the process also yields biogas that will be used to generate renewable electricity.

With the new venture, Anheuser-Busch also pushes the “green beer” movement up a few notches beyond the kind of measures that have become expected from responsible beverage companies, such as water conservation, waste reduction and the installation of renewable energy.

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In the Zone: Judge Rules NY Town Can Ban Fracking

Bill DiBenedetto | Thursday February 23rd, 2012 | 0 Comments

One way to stop fracking is to do it one town and county at a time.

New York Supreme Court Justice Phillip R. Rumsey ruled this week that the Town of Dryden, NY has the right to adopt zoning rules that prohibit natural gas drilling that uses the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, method of extraction.

In Anschutz Exploration Corporation v. the Town of Dryden and the Town of Dryden Town Board, the judge concluded that the town’s zoning ordinances are not preempted by the state’s Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Law.

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