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Blogs and Columns
Raising the Bar on Supply Chains
In the modern economy, supply chains stretch across the globe, creating both efficiencies and risks. Severe weather spurred by climate change, human rights abuses, worker health and safety, or environmental degradation – any of these can trigger disruption and financial losses for corporations and their investors. A supply chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Turning up the Pressure for Cleaner Energy in Michigan
Michigan’s DTE Energy is one of the nation’s top 25 largest electricity producers. It’s also one of the nation’s most polluting power companies. With 75 percent of its power coming from coal-fired plants, DTE faces a significant challenge from recently finalized EPA air emissions regulations.
Corporate sustainability activism is picking up pace in the US
Major US companies are taking the lead on sustainability as policy makers in Washington fail to act on green issues.
How US Utilities Can Avoid a Risky $2 Trillion Bet
There are times when business as usual becomes a risk in itself. America’s electric utilities are approaching just such a moment. A new report from Ceres analyzes the impacts investment decisions will have on utilizes and their stakeholders.
"Last Call at the Oasis" is loud wakeup call on global water crisis
The new documentary “Last Call at the Oasis” does far more than recount the alarming woes of our country’s most water-stressed regions; it’s a beautifully produced, detailed picture of an immense global crisis bearing down on us as we speak – and thankfully a roadmap of sorts to what we can do about it.
A new Ceres report finds business progress on sustainability disappointing
As the world population soars beyond seven billion, human beings are putting unprecedented demands on natural resources and generating ever-higher levels of greenhouse gases. Can our global economy, and the environment on which it depends, survive these stresses?
It’s Time to Link Compensation and Sustainability
In a world of mounting economic risk from climate change, water scarcity, poor labor conditions and other threats, it’s time for a new set of incentives. Some major companies are linking executive pay to sustainability performance – that is, toward achieving environmental, social and governance goals that improve long-term viability.
Forbes: Business Sustainability at Rio +20 - What are we waiting for?
Part of Rio+20 will be the Corporate Sustainability Forum, a global effort to engage the private sector on building a sustainable economy for a sustainable planet. This aligns perfectly with Ceres’ mission – and Ceres will be in Rio pushing for accelerated action and results.
Cape Wind Project is a Good Deal for Massachusetts
The Cape Wind project has received two positive jolts in recent weeks. First came the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision upholding a long-term power agreement for National Grid to purchase half of Cape Wind’s 454 megawatts of wind power for at least 15 years. Yesterday the second came – Massachusetts regulators gave final approval to a merger between NStar and Northeast Utilities.
Shale Oil "Flaring" Is Dirty Secret of U.S. Oil Boom
Given the economic, energy and climate change challenges we face, you'd thick it wouldn't be necessary to write a column illustrating how it makes no sense to "flare" --literally burn up-- $110 million worth of perfectly good natural gas each year without even using it to power a single light bulb.
eBay and Republican lawmaker score clean energy win in Utah
When eBay, the world’s largest online marketplace, built its first-ever data center in South Jordan, Utah, it wanted to not only design and build the site to LEED Gold standards, it wanted to use clean energy to power much of the sprawling facility. This wasn’t simply part of eBay’s company-wide commitment to sustainable operations, it was a bottom-line business decision.
Investors are Making Money on Renewable Energy
When Prudential Capital Group provided $121 million in financing for an Arizona solar power project earlier this year, and General Electric hit the $1.4 billion mark in solar energy projects it has invested in cumulatively, they weren’t speculating in risky, early-stage technology ventures. They were investing in core infrastructure projects with high gross margins and revenues fixed for 20 to 25 years.
Sea Level Rise Hits Close to Home
An important new report released today by the independent research organization Climate Central makes clear, U.S. coastal states, especially Florida, New Jersey, Louisiana and California, are facing similar risks. Millions of people, millions of homes and businesses, and vital infrastructure are vulnerable and taxpayers and insurance companies face unprecedented exposure.
What To Do With My Aging Coal Plant?
As I discussed in my last post, companies that own coal-fired power plants are facing tough decisions these days. Some don’t want to acknowledge the challenging economic conditions that coal plants are facing and would rather blame the EPA’s mercury rule for forcing them to retire coal plants.
Deseret News: Proposed Lake Powell pipeline is bad bet for Utah taxpayers
Across the West, proposed high-stakes projects to capture water resources are generating well-deserved controversy because every one of them ignores cheaper, more sensible alternatives that are more sustainable in the long term.
The Huffington Post: Insurers Brace for Stormy Weather as the World Warms
On Capitol Hill yesterday, major re-insurers drew a grim picture of increasing floods, droughts, severe storms and other weather disasters. Invited by a group of senators advocating responsible action, the insurance leaders called for our country that has long led the world in producing greenhouse gases to take the lead in tackling climate change.
Forbes: Ending Quarterly Capitalism
Quarterly capitalism, a system that drives far too many CEOs, directors, investors, and analysts to focus on short-term performance and return on investment, is on a collision course with reality.
Utilities Blowing Smoke on Coal-Plant Retirements
When the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its Mercury and Air Toxics Rule (MATS) in December, a handful of utility companies that rely heavily on coal-fired power plants claimed the rule would lead to power plant retirements. Yesterday’s publication of the final rule in the Federal Register has set off a new round of criticism as the clock starts ticking on any last-minute legal or legislative actions to undermine the rule.
Forbes: Starbucks, Nike, Yahoo Tell Congress To Renew Key Wind Power Tax Credit
At any moment Congress will decide whether to extend the production tax credit (PTC), which gives wind power producers a 2.2 cent tax credit for every kilowatt hour of power they produce. Among those urging extension are some of America’s biggest brands and largest purchasers of wind and other renewably sourced energy.
Las Vegas Sun: Cutting water use is the best bet for Southern Nevada
Much of Nevada’s livelihood comes from gambling, but some things are too precious and too costly to gamble on. Unfortunately, gambling is exactly what the state’s largest provider of that most precious desert resource – water – is doing. The stakes are high for residents and businesses.
Forbes: Ending Wall Street's Big Sleep on Sustainability
Companies often point to investors as a reason why they’re not doing more on sustainability. “We’d like to do more…but mainstream investors just don’t care about it,” is the common refrain according to a survey by Accenture on CEO attitudes. That’s starting to change.
GreenBiz: The Economic Risks of a Water Constrained World
The economic slump still with us after several punishing years is largely rooted in living beyond our means -- too much spending and not enough money in the bank to cover people's expectations for the future. Tackling this disconnect is a well-worn battle cry by now in the financial markets. But it is also taking root in a far more precious and increasingly-scarce resource: fresh water. If investors and companies do not plan for this already unfolding global threat, they are as vulnerable as overextended banks were when subprime mortgages and housing markets collapsed.
Huffington Post: Major Investors Show the Way on Climate Change
Anyone who thinks the business world doesn't believe in acting on climate change should check out what's happening at the United Nations today. Some 450 global investors who control tens of trillion in assets are gathering for the Investor Summit on Climate Risk and Energy Solutions.
Corporate Responsibility Magazine: Drip, Drip, Drip
In November the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a special report examining the link between climate change and extreme weather events. Its finding: Climate change is indeed responsible for the increased frequency of pronounced heat waves, droughts, and heavy precipitation.
The Hill: Time for the Power Sector to Get to Work
The word on the street is the recession is behind us, but times are still tough. The economy is stagnant and businesses of all sizes are still trying to weather the economic storm that forced many to close their doors and left countless workers unemployed. For these reasons, every other word out of politicians’ mouths is “jobs,” and how we can protect them and create more.
Forbes: U.S. Climate Negotiating Team Should Take Their Cue From Investors
The Obama administration’s resistance to a new binding global agreement on climate change is not only disappointing; it reeks of political calculus.
Delay Tactics: A Few Big Utility Companies Seek to Delay Important Clean Air Protections
The EPA is scheduled to release its Mercury and Air Toxics (a.k.a., Utility MACT) Rule on December 16. The rule will establish, for the first time, limits on mercury and other toxic air pollutants from coal-fired power plants. Although power plant operators would not be required to comply with the Utility MACT rule until 2015 or 2016, members of Congress and some within the electric industry have been suggesting that EPA push back the compliance schedule even further. AEP, for example, has suggested that it may need until 2020 to comply.
Forbes: IPCC Report Confirms What Businesses Already Know - Extreme Weather & Climate Change Has Economic Impacts
The brouhaha over a newly released batch of climate scientists’ hacked emails should be ignored. It is nothing more than a bald attempt to derail international climate talks and distract from the increasingly rock solid research confirming that climate change is real and that more extreme weather is on the way unless we dramatically reduce carbon pollution.
The Hill: New Report Links Costly Extreme Weather to Climate Change
Ceres President Mindy Lubber blogs about a report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last week that reaffirms the link between a changing climate and a rise in extreme weather — and how businesses are already dealing with the impacts of extreme weather.
Forbes: Climate Change Creates Risks — and Opportunities — for Florida Business
The insurance/climate change nexus is the focus of a reception Ceres is hosting in Miami at the Society of Environmental Journalists annual conference. This post, done with Energi CEO Brian McCarthy, explores Florida’s unique vulnerability to climate change and the key role insurers and others businesses have in tackling this challenge.
Florida Sun-Sentinel: Bad Weather Takes Its Toll on Property Insurance
What a year for cruel weather. Devastating tornadoes, heat waves, wildfires, and record-breaking floods have forced millions of Americans to experience the kind of weather-related upheavals that hurricane-hardened Floridians have long been used to. Severe weather has already caused $55 billion in economic losses in the U.S. in 2011 — and we still have a couple months to go.
Environmental Finance: Engaging with Water Risk
For most investors, a detailed bottom-up assessment of water risk across hundreds of companies is likely to be impossible. Enter a new tool to assess corporate responses to water risk and opportunity. Ceres' Brooke Barton and Irbaris' David Hampton explain.
Harvard Law School Corporate Governance Forum: Proxy Voting for Sustainability
It’s illogical – and quite myopic – that many of the nation’s largest institutional investors refer to shareholder-sponsored resolutions addressing material topics such as climate change, resource constraints and environmental stewardship as “special interest,” “non-routine” or involving “special circumstances.”
Forbes: Mainstream Investors Sharpen Sustainability Focus
Recently, the jam and syrup mogul J.M. Smuckers heard resoundingly from its stockholders on an uncommon topic: climate change and coffee prices.
Corporate Responsibility Magazine: When CROs Speak CFO
A growing number of companies are hiring sustainability officers to tackle challenges from waste reduction and product stewardship to green innovation. Sustainability can seem, well, squishy, to a profession that thrives on financial numbers and hard data. But that’s starting to change.
Forbes: Percolating a Sustainable Coffee Cup
It’s the cup we cherish for our morning ritual: the lowly-but-ubiquitous disposable coffee cup. Yet this same cup’s environmental footprint...is inspiring a consumer backlash that’s grabbing boardroom attention for its potential hit to brand and customer loyalty.
Forbes: Why Environmental Policies Don't Kill Jobs
President Obama unveiled his jobs proposal last night and among many strong points, he rebuffed the naysayers who disparage the key role that clean technology jobs have in America’s revival.
The Hill: Energy Projects Generate Jobs
A bipartisan bill to help both our economy and environment is emerging in Congress — in these days of hyper-gridlock, the effort deserves our full support. The bill restores a popular financing program, Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), to improve energy efficiency in homes and businesses across the country.
Forbes: Investor Giant CalPERS Wrestles With Real-Life Challenge of ESG
CalPERS has long been an innovator in the ESG space, but early this year it decided to scale those efforts by committing to across-the-board ESG integration. Last week in Sacramento, board members got a two-hour preview of what this mammoth undertaking will likely entail.
Triple Pundit: So Your Company has a Stakeholder Team, Now What?
Stakeholder engagement is a critical process that helps companies build credibility, improve performance and get out ahead in addressing emerging environmental, social and governance issues. In this blog post, Ceres offers advice for companies looking to make the most of their engagements.
The Hill: New Gas Mileage Standards Will Boost the Economy
By setting an average standard of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 for passenger vehicles, the Obama administration has done right by America’s economy. Higher gas mileage and greenhouse gas (GHG) standards will spur innovation, create jobs and save drivers money at the pump.
Forbes: Time to Replace Eisenhower-Era Power Plants
Most of us won’t put up with decades-old technology. Yet when it comes to our electricity, we’re stuck with last century’s dirty and inefficient power plants—even though cleaner and newer technologies are available. It’s time for our electric power industry to embrace the 21st century with modern, cleaner power generation.
Forbes.com: Economists Urge Honest Accounting of Carbon’s True Costs
With all eyes riveted on the debt talks and efforts to avert an economy-busting government default, little attention is being paid to another debt that is similarly ballooning out of control and threatening to spur its own economic chaos. The carbon debt.
Forbes.com: Investors Tackle Fracking And Water Scarcity Risks
The Lone Star state just joined Colorado, Arkansas and Pennsylvania in requiring oil and gas companies to come clean on the chemicals they use in hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” the controversial natural gas drilling practice that’s sweeping the country and raising myriad environmental problems.
Mother Nature Network: Water Scarcity Means Business for Companies & Investors
Growing pressure on our most precious resource – clean, potable water – is creating a new set of challenges that will quite literally impact things basic to everyday life, such as eating, drinking and turning on the lights.
Forbes.com: Strong Fuel Economy Standards Will Fuel America’s Economy
This spring, California’s Air Resources Board (ARB) is working jointly with federal officials on one of this year’s biggest energy and environmental decisions – stronger nationwide fuel economy standards.
Forbes.com: Companies, Investors Band Together to Catalyze a Sustainable Economy
From Wall Street to business associations, recognition is growing that the long-term viability of business depends on how quickly we develop and support solutions that use fewer resources and cleaner energy. That’s what sustainable capitalism is all about: generating financial return in a long-term and responsible manner.
The Hill: Demanding stricter fuel economy
In surveys we conducted over the last year, Americans express a clear preference for much higher fuel economy standards. Just last month, for Ceres, we explored attitudes in the heart of the industrial Midwest and the headquarters of America’s auto industry — Ohio and Michigan — where we found overwhelming support for at least a 60 miles per gallon standard.
How Timberland, Levi's Use Teamwork to Advance Sustainability
Businesses can't take on complex environmental and social issues without input from the full spectrum of stakeholders ranging from NGOs and community groups to their suppliers, employees and investors.
Sustainability: Ending the ‘Tyranny of Short-Termism’
In addition to the economic crisis, businesses operating in our global economy face colossal environmental and social challenges – climate change, energy and water constraints, population pressures, rising consumer expectations and endemic poverty, to name just a few.
Canadian Companies Pushed to Green Up Their Disclosure to Investors
Canada's stock exchanges list some of the most energy-intensive companies in the world, including hundreds of miners, like Barrick Gold and Teck Resources. The Toronto Stock Exchanges alone have handled more than 80% of worldwide mining equity transactions over the past five years.
Companies Cannot Sweep Climate Change Under the Rug
In Australia, epic floods and drought have caused billions of dollars in economic losses and helped send food, coal and other global commodity prices through the roof. In China, melting glaciers have contributed to a drop in water supplies comparable to the entire flow of the Mississippi River. In the western U.S., warmer temperatures and the spread of destructive insect pests have ravaged millions of acres of valuable forest; Colorado alone lost 100,000 spruce trees a day last year from spruce tree infestation. Scientists have been warning for years that the frequency of these extreme weather events will only increase as we continue to emit more carbon pollution into the atmosphere.
Support U.S. Business Making Green Investments
If there’s one thing Americans agree on in these divided times, it’s the urgent need to move toward cleaner energy. Polls as recently as November show a majority of Americans favoring comprehensive energy reform that limits pollution, develops domestic sources and stimulates renewable power.
Cleantech Momentum Gives Reason to Be Optimistic in 2011
Even though comprehensive reform for clean energy is not likely to happen in the year ahead, there are still strong paths toward a cleaner, more sustainable economy, according to Ceres' President Mindy Lubber. That's because smart entrepreneurs are taking the lead.
Swimming for Wind Power in America
Ceres' President Mindy Lubber blogs about what her team is learning at COP-16 in Cancun, such as that exciting wind projects are popping up all across the globe - except in America. For the first time in history, wind energy installations in developing countries this year will outpace those in industrialized countries.
Companies Tackle Climate Change Together
Anne Kelly, co-director of policy at Ceres, blogs from COP-16 in Cancun about how companies are working together to tackle supply chain climate problems, despite the fact that climate action is stalled in Cancun and Congress.
'Tis the Season for Greening Wall Street
Ceres' President Mindy Lubber blogs about the enormous worldwide business innovation that is taking place to build a clean sustainable economy - and how it's only a matter of time before it translates into huge financial rewards and a new business paradigm.
9 Miles a Gallon - and Lovin' It
Ceres' President Mindy Lubber blogs about how the Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are considering new mileage standards, and how standards for heavy-duty trucks should - and could - be 9 mpg.
Walmart and General Mills Bullish on Sustainable Palm Oil
Many consumers don't know that food producers, through their heavy use of palm oil, are a major driver of rainforest deforestation in Southeast Asia. Walmart and General Mills recently committed to changing that practice by "sourcing palm oil in a socially and environmentally responsible manner."
Lessons from the Edge
Jared Diamond, author of the acclaimed book, "Collapse," is the prophet of sinking societies. So what is Diamond's take on threats facing society today - and what lessons are there for 250 hardheaded investors at Deutsche Bank, who gathered Monday in New York to hear Diamond and other experts discuss climate change and other sustainability challenges.
Getting to 60 mpg in fifteen years
Federal and state officials working jointly on new national mileage standards for cars and trucks can do America’s businesses a big favor by boosting those standards sharply.
Pakistan Flooding Hits Home
Beyond the immense suffering within Pakistan's borders, the flooding is also triggering ripples for America's economic interests, from higher cotton and rice prices to national security costs in the fight against terrorism.
US Power Sector is Changing -- Even Without a Climate Bill
Now that the climate bill is in hibernation, it would be easy to despair that the US power sector will resume its tradition of burning high-polluting coal to sell increasing amounts of electricity.
The Senate Punts Recklessly on Energy and Climate
Even in hyper-partisan modern Washington one would have thought that, in the end, the Senate would have more plain sense than to turn its back on comprehensive energy and climate legislation this year. But that's exactly what it did last week.
BP Drops the Ball, Nike Scores
The World Cup. The BP Oil Spill. Both are reverberating around the world. But in one, you have a company who responded poorly to risk. In the other, you have one meeting it head on -- a soccer header if you will. What exactly do the World Cup and the BP oil spill have in common?
Outdoor Industries: Feeling the Heat from Climate Change
Outdoor pursuits will be among the first activities widely altered by climate change, and many of the $750 billion outdoor industry's largest companies are getting vocal about it.
Oil sands production could carry risk for investors
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has already had devastating environmental consequences, but let's leave that aside for a moment and ask -- how should oil company investors be thinking about risky production projects?
Compensation and Sustainability
Mindy Lubber of Ceres blogs about addressing sustainability issues, innovative compensation schemes and the demand for new business models in the 21st Century Corporation.
Storms, Science, and Climate Change
Mindy Lubber of Ceres provides a guest view on the weather events around the SouthCoast and New England, touching on how we need a new path after the economic shocks of recent years for our families, our country and our planet.
Business as the engine for social change
The world can no longer afford business as usual. Our global economy faces unprecedented challenges, whether from climate change, ever-increasing food and water shortages, surging populations, or myopic financial markets obsessed with short-term gains and growth at all costs.
Sustainability Must Drive Business Success
Mindy Lubber of Ceres blogs about the importance of sustainability in the 21st century business world as a strategy of success.
The Color of Money: Green is Green in Colorado
Mindy Lubber of Ceres blogs about the ‘Race for American Jobs’ event held last week in Denver, Colorado
Banks Should Finance Energy Efficiency Loans, Not Subprime Mortgages
Mindy Lubber of Ceres blogs about how banks and financial institutions can refurbish their tarnished reputations by innovating new financial products that actually help average Americans.
It's All About the Money in Copenhagen
It's all about the money these last days in the Danish capital and one key question is being asked: How on earth do you build and finance a robust and credible global carbon market? On buses, in hallways, in long lines outside the Bella Center, participants are all talking about the explosion in financing and carbon trading that is needed to dramatically reduce the pollution causing climate change.
It’s All About the Money in Copenhagen
Mindy Lubber of Ceres blogs about the key question being asked in the Danish capital: How on earth do you build and finance a robust and credible global carbon market?
Drive Less, Pay Less: Win-Win for Consumers & Climate
Mindy Lubber of Ceres blogs about the benefits of a car insurance based on the miles you drive. Pay-As-You-Drive (PAYD) was a hot topic at the National Association of Insurance Commissioner's Climate Risk Summit in San Francisco last week.
The Arena: Copenhagen Climate Conference Edition
Mindy Lubber of Ceres blogs about why U.S. businesses want strong climate action in Copenhagen.
CGI Members Fight For Strong Climate Policy In Copenhagen
As the United Nations conference on climate change opened in Copenhagen on Monday, Dec. 7, representatives of 192 nations came together in the hopes of negotiating a pact to reduce emissions. It’s a colossal task, and Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) members are stepping up to help.
Obama at the Copenhagen endgame: Climate experts’ forum
Mindy Lubber of Ceres answers the question, 'What do you think the impact will be of US President Barack Obama’s decision to attend the summit at the end of the conference rather than the early stages?'
Business Coalitions Form to Back Climate Change Bill
A delegation of more than 150 businesses supporting the bill, which is sponsored by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., arrived in Washington yesterday and will flood senators' offices today to urge movement on climate change legislation.
Business Blitz Seeks Fast Passage of Senate Climate Bill
Executives from the Dow Chemical Co., Energy Corp., Nike Inc. and more than 140 other companies and venture capital firms will convene in Washington this week to lobby Senate lawmakers to pass a comprehensive climate and energy bill quickly.
Climate legislation: catalyst for energy efficiency
Cleveland's office workers could contribute to reductions in global warming pollution equivalent to taking 35,000 cars off the roads -- permanently.
Closing the Climate Change Accounting Loophole
Ceres president Mindy Lubber blogs about the world's first Carbon Counter unveiled in NYC today and why honest accounting of environmental costs of doing business are crucial to solving the climate crisis.
Big Business Failing to Disclose Climate Change Risks
As climate change business impacts take hold, a growing number of investors are boosting their attention to the risks and opportunities from global warming that are embedded in their portfolios
Don't Believe the Doomsayers
Rather than join forward-thinking business leaders in meeting our energy and climate challenges, special interests fall back on their old refrain that tougher regulations will hurt business and thus the country.
Why Businesses (Big and Small) Should Support the Waxman-Markey Bill
Tom Benson, owner of the World's Largest Laundromat in Berwyn, Illinois, is tired of listening to conservative industry groups' bluster that climate change legislation is bad for business. That's because clean energy saved his.
Is ESG Data Going Mainstream?
It wasn't so long ago that U.S. corporate reports on environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks were as rare as penguins in the desert. Not anymore. Last week, American Electric Power published a sustainability report detailing its environmental and social performance, including laudable goals to double renewable energy sources and reduce contractor injuries by 10 percent. Coca-Cola Co.'s recent 10-K filing outlined water scarcity risks and how those risks will likely be exacerbated by climate change. National Grid is now disclosing publicly how it is linking executive pay to greenhouse gas reduction goals.
Growing Business Risks from Global Water Scarcity
With global temperatures increasing, scientists have told us to expect water scarcity problems like those California and China are now experiencing to increase and become even more severe. The consequences for an already reeling global economy will be profound. Numerous industry sectors should expect decreased water allotments, shifts towards full-cost water pricing and ever-more stringent water quality regulations.
For a Long-Term Stimulus, Invest in Green Energy
A green stimulus bill that spurs innovation in energy efficiency, renewable energy and achieving a smart grid will help America get its swagger back. Consider energy efficiency, the lowest-hanging fruit for improving company bottom lines and slashing global warming pollution.
Whole Foods Needs a Holistic Approach on Climate Change
Why would a new Ceres report give low scores to Whole Foods, one of the nation's largest purchasers of renewable energy, for the way it is responding to the challenge of climate change? Precisely for the word that Whole Foods uses to describe itself: "whole." Many of the company's actions on climate change are laudable, but it still lacks a holistic strategy for dealing with this colossal challenge that will ripple across all industry sectors.
From Starbucks to Nike, Business Asks for Green Legislation
Would it surprise you to learn that Starbucks is a leading advocate for action on climate change? "The way we see it," says Ben Packard, Starbucks VP of Global Sustainability, "addressing climate change will help companies like ours reduce operating costs and mitigate future economic instability. Starbucks has joined with other companies to form a coalition that calls itself BICEP (Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy) and it has a clear message for next year's Congress--move quickly on climate change to kick-start a transition to a clean energy economy.
Why Cleantech Investors Haven't Panicked
The short-term blowback from the global financial panic has been pretty logical: A flight to value and safety and reallocation of assets to deal with longer-term risks of the new economy. So what does this mean for cleantech investing?
How to Cure Our Short-Term Thinking
If we have any doubt about the prevalence - and cost - of "short-termism" in global capital markets, the current economic meltdown is an obvious reminder. But, beyond the $700 billion bailout and other financial band-aids to stop the bleeding, the bigger debate is how to fix the regulatory and corporate governance systems to avoid future calamities -- whether financial or environmental.
Short-Term Strategies Don't Work for Wall Street or the Planet
The fiscal crisis on Wall Street is a painful lesson in how entire industries can delude themselves into ignoring the most fundamental issues -- in this case, the hidden risks from easy sub-prime mortgages. It also reveals the vast pitfalls of an economic system obsessed with short-term gains and growth at all costs while ignoring essentials such as building long-term shareholder value and protecting the future of the planet. As we confront global climate change -- perhaps the biggest challenge mankind has ever faced -- business and government leaders have an opportunity to learn from the ongoing Wall Street debacle and get it right.
How Insurance Has Become a Well-Spring of Green Innovation
We all know the saying: adversity begets opportunity. Today, the insurance industry is heeding that idea and discovering that hurricanes, among other climate adversities, can create innovation -- and revenue.
Telecommuting's Small Carbon Footprint
The concept of open work is a relatively new one for me. If you had told me 10 years ago that I would be sending email to my staff during half-time at my daughter's soccer game, videoconferencing via the internet with a colleague in London from our office in Boston, and writing a blog post on the benefits of working remotely from my couch at home, I would have told you that you were crazy. And it makes me wonder--are we really maximizing the impact of open work as a strategy to combat rising energy use, increased greenhouse gas emissions, and the greater climate change crisis?
Can Canada's Oil Sands Solve the Energy Crisis?
The Wall Street Journal may not like T. Boone Pickens' clean energy plan, but it has a lot of merit. What Pickens sees -- and the WSJ ignores -- is that our oil-driven global economy is stretched to the limit and is likely not sustainable. A telling indicator is an enormous oil-extraction project in Alberta, Canada -- an enormous energy-intensive, financially questionable undertaking that oil companies are now treating as the next great oil bonanza.
Climate Change: Investors' Next Global Mega-Trend?
Warning to U.S. companies: Just because national lawmakers are dawdling on global warming, don't think your business can dawdle, too. While U.S. policymakers are running in place on climate change, global investors are moving quickly to make money from its far-reaching risks and opportunities.
In Green Business, Strange Bedfellows Are Becoming the Norm
Ceres president Mindy Lubber blogs on the growing importance of stakeholders in corporate sustainability.
