Few Things Last Forever—Unfortunately, Plastic Comes Close
There’s nothing like a home-cooked meal. Like so many people, we aim for that. But hectic schedules and/or lack of energy to plan, shop, and cook lead us to grab take-out, order delivery, or pick up a roasted chicken from the market, and fairly often. That means bringing home big plastic containers, along with the
Sustainable Water Management
In Pakistan, one-third of the land was submerged after devastating floods. Much of Nigeria is also flooded, and the gulf coast of the United States has been punished with hurricanes and torrential rains. In fact, extraordinary flooding has made headlines several times this year globally, and yet other regions do not have enough. Viral pictures
Shades of Green – Can a Firm Stance iImpede Pprogress?
This summer, the European Parliament endorsed the European Commission’s decision to classify investments in natural gas and nuclear power plants as climate-friendly under the EU taxonomy. For those not familiar with the EU taxonomy, it’s goal is to define which economic activities are “environmentally sustainable” to help protect investors from greenwashing and guide companies to
Food, Glorious Food – But Not When We Waste It
The next time you toss out an overripe banana or search for the “Use By” date on a can that has been in the cupboard for, umm…, a while, think about this: Estimates show that up to one-third of all food produced worldwide is never consumed, and 1.4 billion hectares of land, which represents 28
Investing In Natural Capital
Carbon emissions receive a great deal of attention in conversations about ESG and sustainable investing, and rightfully so. Climate change—caused by CO2 (and methane) emissions that are generated directly or indirectly by human activity—is now having economic and humanitarian consequences that range from dire to catastrophic. But this focus on CO2 emissions can unintentionally downplay
Sustainability and the Circular Economy
The terms “ESG” and “Sustainable/Sustainability” are often used interchangeably, and for the most part that’s okay (we could split hairs on this but will save that for another day). The concept of “sustainability” is, in our view, both simple and profound, and is worth examining consciously. So, let’s do that. In a broad sense, sustainability
Reuse and Refill
Women shouldn’t vote. Seatbelts are optional. Smoking cigarettes is “cool”. It’s okay to drive if you’ve only had a few drinks. Why would you wear a bike helmet? In case you think we’ve gone over to the dark side, these are just a few reminders that societal norms can change. Behaviors that are deeply ingrained
The Most Essential Kind of Diversity is Biodiversity
Nature’s balance reflects interdependence We all learned in school that animals breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide – toxic for us – while plants and trees breathe in CO2 and give off the oxygen animals (including us humans) need to survive. What an amazing balance of supply and demand to meet the survival needs
Blockchain and ESG. Really.
We’ll put this one in the category of “unexpected pairings” (sort of like pickles and peanut butter, or avocados and chocolate). We’re talking about blockchain and ESG. Mining cryptocurrencies, which is tied to but is not the same as blockchain technology, uses enormous amounts of energy – Bitcoin mining takes more power than Finland uses
Innovative Financing to Boost Carbon Removal Tech
Nature’s most obvious form of carbon capture – forests – are imperfect in terms of their ability to address the need. They have a limited capacity and take many years to grow. They also carry the inherent risk that fire will release the trapped carbon, destroying the carbon offset potential those trees represented. While we
Food Waste = Profit Waste | ESG Featured Key Issue
Shockingly, over one-third of all food never makes it from farm to fork. Somewhere along the supply chain, something goes wrong, and an unthinkable portion of otherwise perfectly good food winds up in a landfill. With over two billion people living in dire poverty, it’s astounding that more hasn’t been invested in reducing this food waste.
Five Steps to Become an E-S-Genius
Lots of recent articles talk about the benefits of using ESG data to invest. But what does that mean in a practical sense? How does ESG help make better investment decisions? Whether your aim is sustainable investing or increased returns (or the sweet, sweet overlap of both), here are five resources to get you started.
