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Blog | Friday September 15, 2017

Where BSR Will Be During the UN General Assembly and Climate Week NYC

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This week and next, major events are underway in New York around the UN General Assembly (September 12-25): Climate Week NYC (September 18-24) and Global Goals Week (September 16-23).

BSR staff will participate in these events associated with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as we work with the private sector and other partners to build inclusive prosperity and climate resilience, leadership, and action.

The following members of our team will be on the ground in New York City—follow them on Twitter for their take on what’s happening:

• President and CEO, Aron Cramer (@aroncramer)
• Senior Vice President, Laura Gitman (@lauragitman)
• Managing Director, John Hodges
• Managing Director, Consumer Sectors, Elisa Niemtzow (@ElisaN)
• Director, Jeffrey Crawford (@JeffCrawford79)
• Director, Women’s Empowerment, Aditi Mohapatra (@AditiMohapatra)
• Director, Healthcare, Dorje Mundle (@dorjemundle)
• Director, Sustainable Futures Lab, Jacob Park (@JacobPark)
• Director, Sustainability Management, Alison Taylor (@FollowAlisonT)
• Director, Climate Change, David Wei (@ClimateWei)
• Associate Director, Chhavi Ghuliani (@cghuliani)
• Associate Director, David Korngold
• Associate Director, Consumer Sectors, Jorgette Mariñez (@JorgetteBSR)
• Associate Director, Inclusive Economy, Susan Winterberg (@susanwinterberg)
• Manager, Byron Austin (@byronaustinCSR)
• Manager, Sara Enright (@sgenright)
• Manager, Jonathan Morris (@tweetmorris)
• Manager, Meghan Ryan (@MeghanClareRyan)
• Associate, Katie Abbott (@kaabbott)
• Associate, Shubha Chandra
• Associate, Martin Lemos (@martineieio) 

We will update this post throughout the week with new information about BSR’s participation, so check back for the latest.

What We’re Hosting

• September 18: BSR is a partner of Business Fights Poverty: Rethinking Collaboration for the SDGs. Gitman will speak and Enright will attend.
• September 19: BSR will host the Responsible Retail Symposium, a one-day event that will offer participants a perspective on the current state and future ambitions of sustainable business practices in the U.S. retail industry. Cramer, Niemtzow, Winterberg, Mariñez, and other members of BSR’s consumer sectors team will attend.

What We're Attending

• September 17: Morris will attend the Social Good Summit, hosted by Mashable.
• September 17: Park and Winterberg will attend the MIT Solve Challenge Finals.
• September 18: Mohapatra will attend a breakfast hosted by Women Deliver and the other Deliver for Good partners.
• September 18: Mohapatra will attend the session “Behind Every Global Goal: Women Leading the World to 2030,” hosted by the Business Commission, at the International Conference on Sustainable Development.
• September 18: Cramer will attend the Climate Week NYC 2017 Opening Ceremony.
• September 18: Mundle and Austin will attend an event on "Addressing Multiple Chronic Conditions."
• September 18: Cramer and Winterberg will attend a dinner for the World Economic Forum’s New Vision for Development Competition.
• September 18: Crawford will attend Business for the SDGs: Innovation, Technology, and Connectivity for a Better Future for All, hosted at the UN Headquarters.
• September 18: Ryan will attend Modern Slavery in the Americas: From Here to Elimination, hosted by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre.
• September 18: Abbott will attend Building Ambition to 2050: Taking Action Toward 100% Net Zero Carbon Buildings, hosted by The Climate Group.
• September 18: Wei will attend Bold Solutions: How Innovation and Creativity Are Tackling Climate Change, hosted by Purpose.
• September 18: Cramer and Gitman will attend Nightcap at the Museum, hosted by the B Team.
• September 18: Cramer will attend a reception hosted by the Abraaj Group.
• September 18-19: Cramer will moderate a panel on inclusive innovation at the World Economic Forum Sustainable Development Impact Summit. Winterberg will also attend.
• September 18-19: Taylor will represent the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network and speak at the Concordia Annual Summit. She and Crawford will also attend the event "Toward a New Trust: Serving Public Interests through Transparency and Integrity," hosted by B Team.
• September 19: Hodges will attend a private consultation on corporate benchmarks for the SDGs, hosted by the UN Foundation.
• September 19: Wei will attend VELOCITY: Accelerating Climate Action, hosted by The Climate Group, Formula E, VICE Impact, and Spring Studios.
• September 19: Mundle will attend an event on "Shaping the Future of Health and Healthcare," hosted by the World Economic Forum.
• September 19: Cramer will attend a climate dinner hosted by California Governor Jerry Brown and the UN Foundation.
• September 19: Wei will attend a discussion on NDC enhancement.
• September 19: Mohapatra will attend a reception hosted by Women Deliver and the Government of Canada to build momentum for the next Women Deliver Conference.
• September 19: Mundle and Austin will attend a session on "Supporting Maternal Health During the Refugee Crisis."
• September 19: Chandra will attend the launch of the ILO’s Global Estimates of Modern Slavery and Child Labor.
• September 20: Morris will attend Tackling Climate Risk with Climate Action, hosted by MSCI.
• September 20: Mariñez will attend Going “All In” to Address Commodity-Driven Deforestation, hosted by the Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 and Forest Trends.
• September 20: Enright will attend a dinner hosted by Sustainia, DNV GL, and the UN Global Compact.
• September 20: Ghuliani will attend the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers event.
• September 20: Korngold will attend Business Solutions for the SDGs, organized by the UN Development Programme, Business Call to Action, and the UN Global Compact.
• September 20: Gitman will attend WE Day UN.
• September 20: Wei will attend an evening gathering of friends of We Mean Business.
• September 21: Cramer will attend the launch of the World Benchmarking Alliance, hosted by Aviva, the UN Foundation, and Index Initiative.
• September 21: Wei will attend Accelerating Ambitious Climate Policy Globally: The Role of Corporations, hosted by InfluenceMap.
• September 21: Mohapatra will attend the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit.
• September 21: Park will attend We the Future: Accelerating Sustainable Development Solutions, hosted by the Skoll Foundation, TED, and the UN Foundation.
• September 21: Taylor will attend Building an International Coalition against Corruption to Achieve the SDGs, hosted by the Danish Minister for Development Cooperation.

Blog | Thursday September 14, 2017

How Business Can Help Build Climate Resilience Today

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Around the world, we are experiencing record-breaking extreme weather events—from monsoon flooding in South Asia, to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma the United States and Caribbean islands, severe flooding in Nigeria, and Typhoon Hato here in Hong Kong and southern China. The loss of life, displacement, and financial damage are devastating.

While seasonal storms are nothing new, climate change is expected to make them more powerful. Warmer temperatures elicit more rainfall, and storm surge is worsened by sea-level rise. When combined with, in some cases, poor urban planning, existing socioeconomic vulnerabilities, and lack of preparation, these stronger storms can cause significant damage.

The recent and ongoing events illustrate for many of us the very real impacts of climate change. This begs the question: are those of us who work in or for the private sector doing everything we can to prepare for and build resilience to future weather- and climate-related impacts?

The private sector faces a range of climate risks that can affect overarching strategies, finances, human resources, and sales. And businesses are exposed to these risks throughout their operations, supply chains, and communities where they work. Companies rely on suppliers and communities around the world for both human and natural capital including land, water, and a consistent energy supply, among other critical resources. Simply put, the range of impacts from climate change can directly affect business continuity.

Catastrophic weather events or natural disasters can serve as “trigger events”—prompting (rightfully) an uptick in support from governments, businesses, and communities to aid relief and recovery efforts and “build back better” homes, schools, and roadways. But preparation can dramatically reduce the cost of recovery—studies show that for every US$1 spent to mitigate risks, US$4 is saved on recovery costs. We are not seeing the same level of investment or urgency to proactively prepare for extreme weather events and build climate resilience as we see for recovery.

As Alice Hill of U.S. President Obama’s National Security Council recently lamented, it took eight years and the destruction of Hurricane Sandy to agree on federal building standards to protect against floods. Despite this, President Trump revoked the flood protection rule 10 days before Harvey made landfall.

While “trigger events” can drive us to act, the implications of climate change for business go beyond extreme weather. Gradual, slow-onset climate events—sea-level rise, increasing temperatures, ocean acidification, glacial retreat and related impacts, salinization, land and forest degradation, loss of biodiversity, and desertification—are also affecting business in myriad ways.

For example, salinization, brought on by sea-level rise, is shrinking rice yields in Vietnam, Bangladesh, and other major rice-producing markets, which in turn affects global commodity supply chains and threatens food security. Salinity can also cause structural damage to buildings, equipment, and roads, which can impact the production and transport of goods and services.

To build their resilience to salinization, businesses can protect or install a combination of green and gray infrastructure: wetlands and forests act as natural barriers, and drainage systems and subsurface barriers can stop the flow of contaminants. In the agriculture industry, farmers can diversify crops and livelihoods to help maintain or build financial security; investments in new research could help uncover alternative solutions such as salt-tolerant crops.

Given that we’re experiencing the impacts of climate change today, it’s important that we invest in climate resilience. Here are three ways businesses can start building their adaptive capacities:

1. Assess and disclose climate risk: In addition to assessing both gradual and sudden climate hazards, businesses should take inventory of their exposure and vulnerability throughout their operations, supply chains, and communities. Poor infrastructure and communication channels, existing labor issues, low-income communities, and social injustices are a few examples of vulnerabilities that can exacerbate climate risk. Disclosing risks can help companies generate awareness of issues, facilitate goal-setting for risk mitigation, and identify opportunities to collaboratively address challenges.
2. Leverage expertise: Businesses should consider leveraging their knowledge and skills to build resilience throughout their value chains. For example, real estate developers can partner with city planners to solve for local vulnerabilities, such as planting trees to provide shade in hot environments and investing in safe and secure infrastructure like permeable pavers to reduce flooding.
3. Empower individuals: Companies can up-level their civic engagement by empowering individuals to build personal resilience to climate change. For example, information and communications technology and financial services companies can collaborate with local governments to expand access to information and insurance for at-risk populations, including women, people with disabilities, the elderly, poor, homeless, and outdoor workers, among others.

As affected communities assess the damage brought on by the recent extreme weather events and work together to heal and recover, let’s take action within the businesses where we work. Let’s ask ourselves how we can make sure our companies and our communities are prepared.

With thoughtful, proactive, and collaborative efforts, we can build the resilience that’s essential for today’s climate reality. Learn more and get your business involved on our climate change page.

Blog | Wednesday September 13, 2017

Emerging Human Rights Issues for the Transport and Logistics Sector

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While for many transport and logistics (T&L) companies, climate change is at the top of the sustainability agenda, human rights is increasingly a strategic theme. These two issues are important for businesses across industries: in fact, as we learned from the 2017 BSR/GlobeScan State of Sustainable Business Survey, climate change and human rights are most companies’ top sustainability priorities.

To reflect this increasing focus on human rights, BSR has published a business and human rights primer that identifies the top 10 human rights challenges for the transport and logistics sector, as well as emerging risks and opportunities for the industry to promote human rights.

Ensuring mobility and trade comes with tremendous social and economic impacts, and the T&L sector plays an essential role in connecting countries and spreading technologies. The industry is key for the performance of other sectors of the economy: For example, manufacturing and agriculture (to name only two) both depend on the ability to ship their goods to consumers in a quick, cost-effective, and reliable way.

In addition, transport subsectors—roads, railways, and civil aviation—employ many workers in a wide range of job categories. Because of this, the T&L sector strongly influences the economic performance of other industries and countries and contributes to value creation and national competitiveness, which means that overall it has an immense opportunity to promote human rights and the sustainable development agenda.

As we think about the many changes shaping the world around us, whether as a result of trade, climate change, globalization, automation, or a combination of these factors, here are a few emerging human rights topics for T&L companies to keep on their radars:

• Working Conditions in Ship Breaking: NGOs are increasingly highlighting the risks of child labor, forced labor, and environmental pollution in ship breaking—the NGO Shipbreaking Platform is one example of this. The T&L sector is seen as responsible for impacts throughout the entire lifecycle of its operations, and this includes disposal of material and equipment.
• Transport of Migrants: Every year, millions of people decide to leave their homes to escape conflict or persecution—or simply to improve their lives. This decision often involves transport and carries with it huge risks. T&L companies should understand the increasing human rights risks they face due to this worldwide trend, as well as the opportunities to promote and secure the rights of this often highly vulnerable population.  
• Accessible and Affordable Public Transport: For many poor people, public transport is their only link to jobs, family, and social services—and one of their greatest costs. The T&L industry can play a key role in promoting access to public transport and, ultimately, access to opportunity.
• Conflict-Affected Areas: Building or restoring transport infrastructure is one of the first steps in the post-conflict recovery process. While these environments can be extremely challenging, they also represent one of the most significant ways that T&L companies can contribute their expertise to development.
• Promoting the Circular Economy: Logistics plays a critical role in implementing circular economy models that minimize the use of resources and reduce carbon footprint. As a technology-intensive industry, the T&L sector should be at the forefront of developing innovative models to reduce waste, reuse industrial byproducts, and invest in renewable energies.

If you’d like to continue this conversation around these topics and others, please join us at the BSR 2017 Conference in Huntington Beach, California. The following three sessions in particular will explore the transport and logistics sector and its relationship to human rights:

• Human Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery
• Protecting Workers on the Move
• Transportation of Tomorrow

We look forward to seeing you there.

Blog | Monday September 11, 2017

Q&A: The Future of Sustainability Management

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To kick off a Q&A series with our experts on the past, present, and future of sustainable business, we sat down with our Sustainability Management lead Alison Taylor to discuss innovations, opportunities, and challenges in the field.

Elisabeth Best: What has been the single most important innovation in sustainability management in the last 25 years? 

Alison Taylor: The last 25 years have really seen the emergence, traction, and now maturing of corporate sustainability as a whole, and this has been a transformational process. Conceptually, this has meant a shift in companies moving from addressing risk as a way to reduce their ‘negative externalities’ to the idea of sustainability as a driver of innovation, growth, competitive advantage, public trust, and (ultimately) long-term survival.

The most visible and concrete innovation over 25 years is that large companies now have a corporate responsibility or sustainability function. This has been accompanied by clear commitments to international norms and efforts to measure and report on their efforts. For disclosure specifically, 25 years ago, we were making it up as we went along; today, standards exist. However, it will take another 25 years for those standards to mature to the point where they are as robust as financial disclosures.

Sustainability is increasing in importance for CEOs: In the 2017 BSR/Globescan survey on the state of sustainable business, 52 percent of companies cite sustainability as a top-five CEO priority, up from 37 percent just two years ago.

Best: What does sustainable business, specifically as it relates to sustainability management, look like in 2030? 

Taylor: By 2030, I’d simply hope that sustainable business is synonymous with good business. Does this mean that the sustainability function will disappear? Not necessarily. But I would hope that we are spending less energy trying to demonstrate the relevance and benefits of our efforts and can instead direct that energy toward driving innovation and organizational change to meet society’s biggest challenges.

Best: What’s the biggest challenge or opportunity you see looking forward?

Taylor: Sustainable business is fundamentally about managing organizations to survive and thrive over the long term, which considers that business value and societal value are ultimately aligned. But these concepts are very difficult to translate into how companies behave and operate today. Human beings have limited memory and attention, are highly social, and tend to focus on short-term, concrete goals over long-term, conceptual ambitions. Successful companies will need to address the challenges presented by these behaviors and incentives in a very deliberate way. Many will not succeed, which means huge opportunity for those that do.

Best: What are leading companies doing today to make a sustainable future a reality? 

Taylor: Examples of future-oriented sustainability efforts are everywhere. I’m fascinated by how companies are working to bring external perspectives into their strategies, innovations, and social impact efforts. Our increasingly hyper-transparent world can seem threatening, and many companies are struggling to manage the reputational challenges that this presents. But others are taking advantage of the new opportunities to work more closely with their stakeholders to tackle systemic challenges. A sustainable future means anticipating emerging societal and environmental needs—and that requires much broader and more inclusive engagement.

That said, I think even the organizations held up as poster children for sustainability would acknowledge that this is a journey, and we all have much to learn from each other.

Best: What aspect of this year’s BSR Conference are you most excited about?

Taylor: I always have a brilliant time at Conference catching up with colleagues and friends from BSR and our member companies. To have a phenomenal speaker line-up and California beach setting as well? What an incredible way to spend the working week. 

Interested in participating in more conversations like this? Register today to join us at the BSR Conference 2017: How Business Leads in Huntington Beach, California, on October 24-26.

Blog | Thursday September 7, 2017

Innovative Finance for Sustainability at Scale

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The 72nd Session of the UN General Assembly will commence next week, marking the second anniversary of the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Financing is one of the pivotal challenges for the SDGs: The annual SDG financing gap in developing countries is estimated at approximately US$2.5 trillion.

Innovative finance is now recognized by international agencies and national governments as a central solution to this challenge, a view that is increasingly shared by civil society and the private sector. Using blended finance and impact investing, governments, companies, investors, and philanthropists are mobilizing larger amounts of capital than any of them would be able to manage alone. Responding to these signals, the size of the private impact investing market has continued to grow dramatically, from US$10.6 billion in 2013 to US$22.1 billion in 2016. Similar increases have been observed in public-sector innovative finance flows.

At a time when corporations are both integrating impact ever more deeply into commercial operations and raising their strategic philanthropy ambitions, innovative financing represents a significant opportunity. Leading companies across many sectors are deploying strategies and partnerships to tackle critical social and environmental challenges at various stages of their value chains. For example, Apple and Starbucks have issued green bonds and sustainability bonds worth US$3 billion combined; Syngenta has innovated agricultural insurance products for BOP farmers; and many companies, including Barclays, Centrica, Danone, Mars, and Pearson have increased impact investment funds.

Despite these exciting developments, senior decision-makers in many large corporations lack an awareness of innovative finance and the practical opportunities it presents. That is why BSR has pioneered the first sectoral guide to the these activities and opportunities at each stage of the healthcare value chain.

In healthcare, innovative finance mechanisms such as Gavi, the Global Fund, and the Affordable Medicines Facility for Malaria have played a longstanding role in leveraging diverse funding sources to overcome barriers to healthcare access. However, the current scale and diversity of mechanisms and partnerships do not meet healthcare financing needs, and many philanthropic and commercial financing opportunities remain untapped. This is largely because healthcare companies are unaware of the opportunities or uncertain as to how to engage in an increasingly complex investor landscape. They may also lack the tools, knowledge, and expertise to be able to capitalize on the opportunities presented by innovative finance. At the same time, the investor and donor communities are not always aware of specific health investment needs or how to engage companies.  

In 2013, a group of private and government funders, led by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, offered Merck & Co., Inc. and Bayer a sales volume guarantee to dramatically improve the availability and affordability of contraceptive implants, which provide long-lasting, effective contraception particularly suited for low-resource settings. This volume guarantee was secured by US$340 million in legally binding agreements aimed at de-risking expanded manufacturing and supply of contraceptives in 69 developing countries. If the demand for contraceptives did not reach a pre-agreed threshold level, the donors and investors would bear the responsibility of paying for the increased production.

Four years later, the results of the volume guarantee have surpassed expectations. Demand for the contraceptive products greatly exceeded the threshold amount specified in the guarantee, transforming these countries into viable markets. As of July 2015, 24.4 million more women and girls were using modern contraceptives than in 2012. The guarantee has also saved US$240 million for global public health donors; the savings could reach US$500 million by 2018. Because the threshold demand level was exceeded, the guarantee never had to be paid out.

This is one of a growing number of powerful examples of how innovative finance is transforming the healthcare sector by unlocking new sources of funding to scale business solutions to our most pressing global health challenges. To realize the potential of opportunities like these, increased corporate engagement is needed, combined with greater collaboration across sectors to address the mismatch between available capital and the unmet needs of consumers and communities.

Our new paper offers practical recommendations to achieve this in healthcare, and we believe similar analyses in other sectors would help to unlock more funding for sustainable, scalable business solutions to some the world’s greatest societal challenges.

Join me at the BSR Conference in Huntington Beach, California, this October for a panel on Financing Change, where we will discuss the exciting new ways companies are increasing social impact and business value to meet the SDGs.

Blog | Tuesday September 5, 2017

Business Leadership: Continuing to Build the Momentum

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The world is increasingly looking to businesses—and business leaders—to chart a path forward on a range of topics, from diversity, to climate action, to the changing nature of work as automation reshapes our world and our economy. One of the more inspiring stories so far in 2017 has been the large number of CEOs who have stood up publicly to support progress on these topics, which are central both to the business agenda and the public’s priorities. Advocacy for a just and sustainable world is more important now than ever.

As many of us prepare to gather in New York this month for Climate Week and the UN General Assembly, we are also focused on how to translate this important talk into action. That’s why we are excited to continue the momentum of these efforts and work with you to define the future of sustainable business during our 25th annual BSR Conference in Huntington Beach, California.  

This milestone arrives at a time when looking ahead in a rapidly changing world is essential. While we will be taking stock at the Conference of where we have come from—not just BSR, but the wider sustainability community—we will be focusing even more attention on redefining business in a world where it is said that the pace of change will never again be as slow as it is today. As we know, it is already mind-bendingly fast.

In our times of change, it is no longer enough to look to “integrate” sustainability into business strategy. Our changing demographics, disruptive technologies, economic dislocation, shifting culture, and natural resource scarcity are not just sustainability issues; they are business issues. The best companies we work with are the ones who know that women’s empowerment, climate resilience, the changing nature of work, and new production and consumption models aren’t topics only for the sustainability report: They are crucial conversations for the board room.

In our view, this means a new agenda for business, new tools for sustainability leaders, and, in a world of political volatility, a new approach to business leadership.

At the Conference next month, we will be highlighting changemakers who are embracing the need to redefine business for an era of change.  We will be featuring a special track, “FastForward 25,” that will feature conversations on topics like “Harnessing New Technologies for Supply Chain Sustainability,” “The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence,” and “Redefining Sustainable Business.”

We will explore how leading businesses are embracing new technologies; helping to reshape the social contract, navigating the intersection of technology and human rights, and many other cutting-edge topics. We will also be introducing BSR’s Sustainable Futures Lab, which we are launching this year as a new way for us to integrate futures thinking and methodologies into our collaborative and one-on-one work with our members.

We will hear from prominent voices who are looking ahead with a keen understanding of where we have come from. Al Gore will kick us off on Tuesday. He has focused on the future throughout his career. He has the perspective of someone who was involved in the earliest U.S. Congressional hearings on climate and was a powerful representative for the U.S. at the first Earth Summit in 1992, the same year BSR was launched. 

BSR’s earliest leaders, including my predecessor Bob Dunn and BSR’s longtime Chairman Mats Lederhausen, both of whom possess a clear vision of what it takes to make business truly sustainable, will join us. We are also delighted to showcase some great BSR alumni: Kara Hurst of Amazon, Michael Kobori of Levi Strauss & Co., and Wei Dong Zhou of The Sustainability Consortium, great leaders of whom we are immensely proud.

The 25th BSR Conference will be a fun and stimulating opportunity to encounter old friends and new ideas. We are excited to redefine sustainable business, recharge our wonderful community of leaders, and recommit to building a just and sustainable world.

I hope you will join us by the ocean in Huntington Beach as we meet our moment with passion, creativity, and commitment.

Blog | Thursday August 31, 2017

Sustainability on the Move: Transportation Innovation

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In a recent blog post, I described how the design phase often determines the biggest sustainability impacts of infrastructure projects. With transportation infrastructure in particular—whether for air, rail, road, or sea—about to be radically transformed through technological advances, I foresee tremendous opportunity for sustainability.

If you think about it, the basic experience of transportation infrastructure has remained the same for the past 50 years. While other industries have undergone revolutionary technological advancements, cars, planes, and trains (at least in the U.S.) move at roughly the same speeds today as they did 50 years ago. There have been advances in safety and fuel efficiency: for example, planes now have about twice the fuel efficiency they had in the 1960s. But a passenger’s experience has not changed much in recent history, with only a few visible technological improvements and exceptions.

Many people believe the most significant impending infrastructure shift is to a system of electric and autonomous vehicles. France, India, and the United Kingdom are just some countries which have come out with plans to eliminate gasoline and diesel vehicles in the coming decades. Many major transport fleet owners—such as UPS, PepsiCo, and Walmart—have agreed to the Sustainable Fuel Buyers’ Principles and started making efforts to move to vehicle electrification. 

Autonomous vehicles are expected to bring tremendous safety benefits by eliminating the approximately 30,000 annual traffic deaths in the U.S. alone. They are also anticipated to have significant environmental impact, with as many as 80 percent fewer cars needed in urban areas and greater fuel efficiency achieved. Given that transportation currently accounts for about 27 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. and a very large portion of air pollutants and petrochemical smog, the environmental benefits of a shift to autonomous vehicles could be planet-changing.     

This autonomous future will not be limited to automobiles. Two large Norwegian companies are preparing to launch the world's first autonomous container ship, which is also a zero-emissions, electric-powered vessel, in the next few years. These advancements could make a new container ship as much as 90 percent less expensive to operate. And with about 40 percent of all maritime container traffic being used to transport coal and oil, there could be a significant reduction in environmental impact through reductions in the demand for these commodities, too.

While maritime transport today only accounts for about 2 percent of global greenhouse emissions, it is one of the fastest growing areas of emissions and is expected to double its share by 2050. BSR’s Clean Cargo Working Group, which now represents 87 percent of ocean container shipping by volume, was established with several leading carriers and shippers more than a decade ago to measure, evaluate, and report environmental performance. In the group’s new report, published today, it shares that from 2015 to 2016 alone, CCWG members have reduced average CO2 emissions per container per kilometer for global ocean transportation routes by 2.4 percent.

Of course, there are also opportunities for more radical infrastructure transformation, some of which could be categorized as completely new modes of transportation. Hyperloop rail systems are one such emerging innovation with potentially significant sustainability benefits. A study funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that this could be approximately six times more energy efficient than air travel on short routes and completely powered by solar energy. Not to mention that it is multiple times faster than current high-speed rail, which can provide economic and social benefits for employers and commuters.

Uncertainty about the social impact of these systematic shifts remains. For example, an estimated 3 percent of the U.S. population works as drivers, an occupation that may likely be in low demand in the near future. Furthermore, while there will be a trend toward more public-private partnerships to bring these transportation innovations to life, it will be important for governments and the private sector to work together to ensure low-income inclusion and access to transportation.

And while we are seeing exciting developments for transportation by land and sea, more investment and innovation will be needed for the future of long-haul air travel. One area of focus is more efficient supersonic, high-altitude planes. A main concern associated with supersonic travel is its high fuel consumption, and while it is true that the Concorde used significantly more fuel per passenger mile in the 20th century than today’s planes, there are many supersonic designs under development that are more fuel efficient.

Other ideas for aviation, like circular runways, have potential sustainability benefits like reducing congestion and plane taxi times. Regardless of which technologies are ultimately adopted at scale, it is a good sign that some infrastructure operators, such as Heathrow Airport, are now developing bold and forward-looking sustainability strategies.

At BSR’s 25th anniversary Conference later this year, we will explore these exciting transformations and how some companies are leading the sustainable transportation revolution. Join me in Huntington Beach on October 25 for a panel on the Transportation of Tomorrow.

Blog | Tuesday August 22, 2017

Turning the Internet Green: A Progress Update from BSR’s Future of Internet Power

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Data centers—the large facilities housing networked computer server systems that keep the internet running—accounted for nearly two percent of all energy use in the United States in 2014. With more and more business being conducted in the cloud, and with the internet playing an ever-more-prominent role in societies around the world, energy demands for these centers are only expected to grow.  

Increasing the use of renewable energy to power data centers can therefore have a strong positive impact on corporate, regional, and national sustainability efforts. That’s why some of the world’s most influential internet companies—including Adobe, eBay, Facebook, HPE, Salesforce, and Symantec—are working through BSR’s Future of Internet Power initiative toward a bold vision: an internet powered by 100 percent renewable energy. Following completion of the initiative's fourth year of work, we’re taking a moment to look at what we have achieved recently and to highlight our ongoing efforts.

Corporate Colocation and Cloud Buyers’ Principles

Last July we successfully developed and launched the Corporate Colocation and Cloud Buyers’ Principles. Through these Principles, customers of data center colocation and cloud services set out six criteria that they expect their data center service providers to meet to help achieve sustainability goals. What’s more, signatories to the Principles intend to give preference to providers engaging in these Principles, which include delivering monthly data on energy consumption and engaging in advocacy efforts around renewable energy.

Thanks to a strong collaborative effort, 21 companies, including several data center service providers, have signed the Principles. This sends a strong collective message for the future of the industry that data center sustainability is good business. As signatories, such as Bank of America, Etsy, and Intuit, are making clear, addressing the carbon footprint of their data is not just important to the technology sector: Any company that has an online presence or relies on data center and cloud services can benefit—and can play a role in creating a more sustainable internet—by signing the Principles.

To build on this success, Future of Internet Power will be developing a toolkit to accompany the Principles. This toolkit will offer a practical, step-by-step guide for putting the Principles into practice, using examples and case studies to show how partnerships between a data center or cloud user and service provider can ensure that both parties have incentives and resources to reduce energy consumption and increase renewable energy use.  

White Paper: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Accounting, Renewable Energy Purchases, and Zero-Carbon Reporting

More recently, we have worked closely with the World Resources Institute (WRI) to produce a white paper addressing the issue of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions accounting, renewable energy procurement, and reporting in the data center sector. Research for this paper highlights the issue of double-counting scope emissions and subsequent zero-carbon claims, specifically when both data center service providers and their customers classify the same GHG emissions related to the data center as their own scope 2 emissions. Given the current accounting and reporting standards of WRI's GHG Protocol, this double-counting becomes problematic when both the data center provider and the customer want to make a zero-carbon claim related to a renewable energy purchase and scope 2 emissions at a particular facility. We will continue to work with WRI and other industry stakeholders to establish clear GHG accounting and zero-carbon reporting guidance for all parties.

Renewable Energy Buyers’ Alliance

Lastly, to strengthen our public advocacy for renewable energy more generally, we will continue to work closely with our co-founders of the Renewable Energy Buyers’ Alliance (REBA): Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewables Center, the World Wildlife Fund, and WRI. Through this partnership, we can work with a network of larger companies to help scale renewable energy and reach REBA’s collective goal to help corporations purchase 60GW of additional renewable energy in the US by 2025. Earlier this year, REBA was awarded the Corporate Eco Forum’s C.K. Prahalad Award for demonstrating how collaboration is critical to widespread adoption of renewable energy.

On September 17-19, we will co-host the 2017 REBA Summit, which will gather 400 energy buyers, service providers, developers, financiers, nonprofit organizations, and utilities in Santa Clara, California, ahead of GreenBiz’s VERGE17 conference and expo, to identify opportunities to accelerate corporate procurement of renewable energy. We look forward to continuing the conversation with our Future of Internet Power members and the greater REBA network at the summit.

Submit registration requests for the 2017 REBA Summit on the GreenBiz website.

Primers | Monday August 21, 2017

10 Human Rights Priorities for the Power and Utilities Sector

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Human rights are inherent to all human beings. They are defined and established in more than 80 international legal instruments¹ and include fundamental protections of human dignity, needs, and freedoms, such as food, housing, privacy, personal security, and democratic participation. Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948, the responsibility to protect human rights has primarily fallen on governments. Beginning in the early 2000s, however, it became increasingly clear that the freedoms enshrined in the human rights framework could also be violated—and promoted—by the private sector.

In 2011, the UN Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (Guiding Principles), the first international instrument to assign companies the responsibility to respect human rights. The Guiding Principles state that governments must put in place good policies, laws, and enforcement measures to prevent companies from violating rights; companies must refrain from negatively impacting rights even when governments are failing to create or enforce necessary laws; and victims of corporate abuses must have access to effective remedy. As part of this responsibility, the Guiding Principles require companies to undertake due diligence to identify and manage their negative human rights impacts.

This issue brief identifies the 10 most relevant, urgent, and probable human rights impacts for businesses operating in the power and utilities sector. The information here is gathered from BSR’s direct engagement with power and utilities companies, as well as our 25 years of experience helping companies in all sectors manage their human rights risks.

The power and utilities sector comprises a wide range of businesses and activities, from electricity and heat, gas, waste, and water utilities to different actors in the energy markets, like power producers and energy developers. While each of these sub-sectors will have its own human rights profile and challenges, this brief highlights universal risks to the sector as a whole.

Blog | Monday August 21, 2017

The Human Rights Implications of the Renewable Energy Transition

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In 2015, Amnesty International and Greenpeace released a joint statement calling on governments at the UNFCCC meetings to urgently shift to phase out fossil fuels through a transition to 100 percent renewable energy worldwide by 2050. What I find noteworthy and special about this announcement around the global climate negotiations is the fact that it frames the energy transition as a necessary step for the protection of human rights.

We have already started to experience the negative effects of climate change, which disproportionally affect vulnerable communities. For people around the globe, but these groups in particular, climate change can impact a broad range of human rights, including health, access to clean water, food, sanitation, and other basic human needs. From a human rights perspective, the renewable energy movement could not be more welcome–or more urgent.

The renewable-led transformation that the International Energy Agency describes in the last release of the World Energy Outlook gives us cautious hope that we are on track to shift to cleaner energy options. Specifically, it suggests that the renewable energy transition is underway, as evidenced by a projected increase in the share of renewables in the global electricity generation mix from over 23 percent in 2015 to almost 28 percent in 2021. Moreover, investments in onshore wind and solar, which represent rapid short-term deployable renewable energy technologies, seem consistent with the global goal of limiting temperature rise to 2°C.

This “renewables rush” is also exemplified by bold pledges and announcements from nations in both the developed and developing world:

• Germany has been able to meet as much as 78 percent of a day's electricity demand from renewables.
• Denmark got 42 percent of its electricity from wind turbines in 2015 and aims to be 100 percent fossil-fuel-free by 2050.
• Renewables provided 99 percent of Costa Rica’s electricity in 2015.
• Nicaragua is aiming for 90 percent renewable energy by 2020.
• China announced its intention to spend more than US$360 billion through 2020 on renewable power sources like solar and wind.
• Nigeria is targeting 30 percent renewable energy by 2030.

However, while we keep the pace of this clean transition, have we appropriately considered the human rights and social implications?

For instance, dispossessions of indigenous peoples' lands remain a significant issue for renewable energy projects in territories with indigenous communities, no matter the scale of the project. For example, if a wind farm were placed on indigenous lands without appropriate consent, it could harm livelihoods, including, for example, by blocking access to food, if the land was previously used for local farming.

If the recent scenarios from the World Energy Outlook are to be believed, we can expect the intersection between human rights and renewable energy needs to become increasingly relevant in our near future. As former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson pointed out, “It is important to remain cognizant that not all action which is good for the planet is automatically good for people. We require a just transition where human rights inform all climate action.”

This means that, at a macro level, energy policies need to be conceived in a way that trade-offs, co-benefits, and competing priorities are considered in the context of energy security, climate objectives, and the human rights of stakeholders, including local communities and workers.

At a micro level, renewable energy projects need to be designed, financed, constructed, and integrated into energy systems with special consideration of human rights in fragile contexts where vulnerable communities are present.

Thankfully, renewable project developers, which tend to be small and dynamic company outfits, provide us with some positive examples of effective community engagement and consultation and community investment programs, including community ownership of projects. Global energy players investing in renewables are also increasingly paying attention to human rights, for example through establishing human rights policies and increasingly integrating social and environmental considerations into energy investment decisions.

If we look beyond that, for instance at the engineering and construction sector, we can find examples of company action on human rights that shows that the infrastructure sector is looking at addressing its human rights challenges in a collaborative way. These trends—and a call for the inclusion of human rights in the renewable energy agenda—are well captured in a recent study by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre.  

We would like to invite you, the companies involved in this welcome “renewables rush,” to be a part of this trend by integrating the human rights agenda into your business practices.

To help you determine which human rights are particularly relevant to you and your company, we have produced a business and human rights primer for the power and utilities industry that addresses the sector’s ten key human rights challenges, as well as ideas for positive human rights impacts and emerging risks that you should be aware of. We encourage you to read it, and we would love to hear your thoughts on what incorporating human rights into the transition to renewable energy will look like.