March 2010

Solar power’s dirty secrets

March 30, 2010

Maybe we should banish the term “clean energy.” Growing corn for ethanol requires fertilizers and pesticides. Producing and shipping small-scale wind turbines for urban areas generates more CO2 than they save. Production of polysilicon for solar panels leaves a trail of toxic waste in China, as The Washington Post reported back in 2008.

Solar_PanelsNow a survey and scorecard that ranks solar energy firms points to potential environmental, health and safety issues associated with the production and disposal of solar photovoltaic panels–as well as the reluctance of some well-known industry players even to talk about their practices.

The survey comes from the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, an activist group that has produced similar scorecards of the computer and TV industries, designed the shame the laggards into reform. (In the argot of environmental activists, this tactic is known as “rank ‘em and spank ‘em.“)  SVTC is calling for mandatory takeback and responsible recycling by solar companies as a step toward reducing the solar industry’s environmental footprint.

Maybe the most striking thing about the survey was how many solar companies felt free to ignore it. Only 14 companies replied, representing about 25% of the industry’s module production in 2008, according to the SVTC. Well-known companies that did not respond include California-based Solyndra–which has been offered a $535-million loan guarantee by the U.S. Department of Energy–and venture-backed startups Miasole, Nanosolar and Konarka. Other companies that did not respond to the SVTC include Silicon Valley-based SunPower; Suntech, the Chinese solar giant that plans to open a plant in Arizona; and Japanese electronics firm Sharp.

Sheila Davis, the executive director of the activist group, told me she wasn’t surprised at the lack of response.

“We’ve done scorecards in the past, and in the first round, we typically get a low response rate,” she said. “Our experience is after a couple of years, companies are knocking on your door to participate because it becomes a competitive issue.”

The top three scores in the SVTC survey were earned by German manufacturers Calyxo, SolarWorld and Sovello, scoring 90, 88 and 73 respectively. The two U.S.-based respondents scored in the mid range: First Solar in Arizona received a score of 67 and Colorado-based Abound received a 63.

Other key findings:

  • 57% of respondents would support mandatory takeback and recycling programs in the markets where they sell solar panels.
  • 42.8% of companies are setting aside money to finance the collection and disposal of end-of-life panels and 50% said that they provide recycling services free of charge.
  • 50% have undertaken analysis of their supply chain to document the social and environmental impacts associated with different production phases.

The reason why take-back and recycling programs are so important in solar, as they are in other industries, is that when companies understand that they will be responsible for the end-of-life of a product, they have an incentive to rethink their design and materials. “There are hazardous materials and rare metals in solar panels that don’t belong in landfills,” Davis said. “Anytime you have a product that you can’t recycle, that’s waste, and it’s a pollution problem.”

How big a problem? SVTC estimates that announced utility-scale solar panel projects in the state of California alone will generate about 1.5 billion pounds of panel waste.

The good news? Because panels last 20 to 25 years, companies and their customers have time to get a recycling infrastructure together.

Photo courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org

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DuPont: Beyond petroleum

March 28, 2010

Yes, I know, that’s BP’s slogan. But if you are looking for a company that is trying to replace oil with renewable products, consider DuPont.

Izod Yoga wear made with SoronaBrands like Izod (left), Timberland and Calvin Klein Gold all sell clothes made with DuPont’s Sorona, a renewable feedstock made from corn rather than petrochemicals. You’ll also find Sorona in some carpets sold by Mohawk Industries and in the interior fabrics of Toyota hybrids. DuPont’s  Hytrel, a thermoplastic elastomer (basically a rubbery plastic) made from plants, is used instead of oil-based materials in some Salomon ski boots and in automobile components. Zemea, a 100% renewably-sourced glycol from DuPont, which is made out of corn, shows up in skincare and cosmetics sold under the Philosophy brand and in Biotone spa products. Susterra, a bio-based propanediol made from corn sugar in Tennessee by a joint venture of DuPont and Tate & Lyle, finds its way into engine coolants and deicing materials.

DuPont’s efforts to get beyond petroleum are significant, and not just to people who don’t want to smear oil-based product on their face. Replacing petroleum-based products–from gasoline to plastic bags to lipstick–with renewably-sourced products makes consumption, and the economy more sustainable. That’s partly why DuPont is doing it, but the primary reason that the company is developing alternatives to oil is that it believes oil will become scarcer and prices will rise, opening the door for renewable alternatives.

In a fact sheet inelegantly headlined  Reducing Dependence on Fossil Fuels Megatrend, DuPont says:

Whether the focus is on energy security, climate change, population growth or the new reality of the global economy where demand for natural resources is increasing while availability is decreasing, the world needs to use energy smarter and generate it from more renewable sources.

As result, the company is developing a portfolio of biofuels including cellulosic ethanol; films, resins and substrates  for the solar photovoltaic industry;  new materials that insulate and encapsulate the components of wind turbines; membranes for fuel cells, and so on. Because DuPont is a business-to-business science company, its efforts are typically not seen by consumers. (The company’s best-known consumer brand is Corian, which is used in counter tops.) But as a Fortune 500 company with $27-billion in annual revenues, DuPont’s activities help shape countless other businesses and their products. [click to continue…]

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Ellen Weinreb: In search of the Chief Sustainability Officer

March 27, 2010

favfaceToday’s guest post comes from Ellen Weinreb, who is the  CEO of Sustainability Recruiting, a  search firm based in Berkeley (where else?) focusing on sustainability, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate citizenship jobs. Ellen got interested in fair trade issues as an undergrad at Wellesley College (she sold African jewelry on campus), did a stint in Cameroon as  Peace Corps volunteer, got an MBA from Yale, and became a CSR consultant in the late 1990s. working  for such companies as Levi Strauss, HP and Nike. She’s now a full-time recruiter, and says that the market for CSR jobs, which took a steep downturn in 2009, seems to be recovering. “Climate change, Obama and clean tech are driving the increase in jobs for 2010,” she tells me. Ellen tweets about new CSR jobs @sustainablejobs and has a website at http://weinrebgroup.com.

As a corporate social responsibility (CSR) recruiter, I study CSR job postings and titles. For the past six years, I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet of CSR-related job postings. Last month I published my biennial CSR Jobs Report, which identifies hiring trends in the field.

One of  the most notable findings is the increase in senior-level corporate positions—those with VP and Director titles. Before 2006, none of the job postings had a title of VP or above. What’s changed? Companies are placing an increased value on CSR as a component of corporate strategy, which elevates the importance of positions overseeing CSR. Dave Stangis, Vice President of CSR and Sustainability at Campbell’s Soup, says: “The emergence of the VP of CSR and VP of Sustainability titles seems proof of the growing strategic business position of CSR.”

But, why stop at Vice President? How high can the title go? What about a Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO)? Can CSR find a place in the C-Suite? [click to continue…]

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Should Whole Foods, like Google, get out of China?

March 25, 2010

Google is exiting China for a number of reasons, including the hacking of its data, but fundamentally, Google found that it couldn’t live up to its values of openness in a repressive society. Whole Foods Market has a different China problem: The company imports lots of organic food from China, but it’s hard to know whether the state run system of agriculture and organic inspections can be trusted.

imagesThe “natural and organic” supermarket chain has been generating unwanted attention for the foods that it sources from China for at least a couple of years. The most recent bit of news is a Florida lawsuit that adds an incendiary charge–that one of Whole Foods’  big suppliers relies on forced labor. This is only an allegation, and the evidence is skimpy, to say the least, but it’s another reason that branded companies like Whole Foods had better fully understand their supply chains, wherever they may lead.

In fact, all companies would do well to think about traceability–the idea that they should  know the origins of the commodities they use. Without traceability, companies can’t be serious about sustainability. (More about that in this 2009  blogpost, Why Traceability Matters.) Patagonia, Tiffany & Co., Wal-Mart and many others are learning the value of  transparent supply chains.

Sometimes companies learn the hard way. Last week, Nestle and its Kit Kat bars came under sustained attack from Greenpeace, which charged that the global food giant “uses palm oil from companies that are trashing Indonesian rainforests, threatening the livelihoods of local people and pushing orangutans towards extinction.” This set off a major brouhaha–Nestle asked YouTube to take down a video from Greenpeace (which, of course, brought more attention), then told critics on its Facebook page not to mess around with its logo, then printed a response on its website that raised as many questions as it answers. Like most controversies, this one is complex but it appears that Nestle was doing business and still may be with a palm oil producer called Sinar Mas which is accused of leveling Indonesian rainforests to make way for palm oil plantations.

Back to Whole Foods: The Florida lawsuit, which hasn’t gotten much press,  was filed in a state court by a group called Southeast Consumer Alliance that lawyer Bruce Baldwin told me was formed, in part, to hold companies accountable through lawsuits. The suit, which is seeking class-action status, alleges that  Whole Foods violated Florida’s deceptive and unfair trade practices act by labeling as “organic” foods from China that were “the product of a venture using forced labor” and “were not properly certified under the National Organic Program (NOP).” The source for the forced labor allegation is a website run by the Falun Gong, a dissident group that opposes the Chinese government.

The allegation that foods imported from China don’t meet organic standards deserves to be taken more seriously. It’s not new: In 2008, Roberta Baskin, a reporter with an ABC-TV station in Washington ran a story questioning China’s organic standards (available here) in which she pointed out, among other things, that 365 Brand frozen “California style” vegetables are imported from China. It includes this exchange between Baskin and Linda Greer, a scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council:

Linda Greer: ”I wouldn’t buy something organic from China with the idea that it’s truly organic.”
Baskin: “Why not?”
Greer: “The reason is we’ve had such a difficult time tracking things.”

The issue isn’t hypothetical. The TV station tested powdered ginger that was sold as organic at Whole Foods and found it contained a pesticide called Aldicarb. The company pulled the ginger off its shelves, as did others who imported the ginger.

Since then, a nonprofit that works with  Whole Foods called the Organic Crop Improvement Association International has acknowledged problems with organic certification in China. The OCIA, which calls itself “one of the world’s oldest, largest and most trusted leaders in the organic certification industry,” recently published a column by its president, Jim Robbins, who wrote:

Our operations in China continue to be troubled. One of our accreditors believes that our strategic partner in China (OFDC) has irresolvable conflicts of interest, since both OFCD and many of the farms we certify in China are both owned by the Chinese state. After wrestling with this issue for several years, the board of OCIA has decided to withdraw from China as rapidly as we can, while inconveniencing our Chinese associates as little as we can.

Whole Foods has defended organics from China, including in this long 2008 blogpost. Interestingly, it cites as a source the OCIA–the group now pulling out of China.

Here, too, is a detailed response from Whole Foods to the WJLA story, in which, Joe Dickson, the company’s organics expert, says: “Organic products from China can absolutely be certified organic to the same standard as domestic products.”

And in an email to me, Jay W. Connolly, a lawyer with Seyfarth Shaw in San Francisco, who represents Whole Foods, says the company “denies the allegations in the lawsuit, both as to the organic certification and ‘forced labor’ claims.”

The bigger question is why Whole Food–which has a significant and laudable commitment to local growers, including a $10-million loan program–needs to import food from China at all? Particularly for its frozen vegetables–couldn’t it just as easily freeze local produce? Is this a sound, sustainable practice?

I  don’t know the answers to those questions. It would take a sophisticated life-cycle analysis to understand the full impact of growing organics in China and sending them here.

In an effort to answer questions like that, Wal-Mart and its academic partners last year formed the  Sustainability Consortium, which intends to use scientific tools to measure the social and environmental impact of consumer goods. Grocery industry members include Safeway, General Mills and Kellogg, but not Whole Foods. Not yet, anyway.

P.S. Bruce Baldwin, the lawyer who brought the suit, sent me correspondence from Whole Foods in which the company says it won’t release the names of Chinese suppliers unless he agrees to keep them confidential. (He won’t.) This lack of transparency won’t help Whole Foods’ cause in the court of public opinion.

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100 Best Corporate Citizens? What a CROck!

March 23, 2010

google_logoGoogle challenges Internet censorship in China. It invests in solar power, electric cars, geothermal energy and the smart grid, and runs an array of programs to help its employees become more “green.” It’s consistently voted one of the best places to work. And it has an inspiring mission: to organize all of the world’s information.

Yet Google doesn’t even come close to making the 2010 list of 100 Best Corporate Citizens put together by CRO Magazine, now known as Corporate Responsibility Magazine.

Nor does Timberland, a pioneer in corporate responsibility, which monitors its global supply chain, provides employees with generous benefits including time off to volunteer and experiments with labels on its shoes and boots that disclose their social and environmental impact. General Electric, meanwhile, has won praise from environmental groups like the World Resources Council and Environmental Defense for its EcoMagination campaign, and it has led the battle for climate change legislation in Washington. But GE, too, didn’t make the cut.

Who did?

2597643759_083ac733b9Oil companies Hess Corp. (No. 10 on the list) , ExxonMobil (No. 51, which for years sought to delay action to deal with climate change, says Greenpeace), Occidental Petroleum (No. 26, accused of contaminating the Amazon) and Chevron (No. 56, targeted in a landmark class action suit for creating en environmental catastrophe in Ecuador).

The Southern Co. (No. 71), a coal-burning utility which led the fight against the administration’s climate change bill.

And the Newmont Mining Corp (No. 16)., whose gold mines in Nevada have been major sources of mercury pollution.

One last example. Whole Foods Market, which has done more to promote organic agriculture than any company in America, doesn’t make the list but Yum! Brands (No. 62) does. Yum!’s contributions to corporate responsibility include KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.

If nothing else, all this proves that it’s not easy to make a list of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens. In fact, it’s really hard. How do you compare HP (No. 1 on the list) with Kimberly-Clark (5), Wal-Mart (21), Nike (23), Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (39),  Duke Energy (43), Citigroup (57) and Ford (88). They’re in disparate businesses, with different issues.

Simply deciding whether a single company is “good” or “bad”or somewhere in the middle involves a slew of value judgments. If you think nuclear energy will help solve the climate crisis, you’ll applaud the Southern Co. which is pushing new plants; if not, you’ll feel differently. Coca Cola (No. 8) has a great track record on water and packaging issues but the company’s core product is a sugary soft drink. Newmont Mining has an ugly history, but it’s working hard to clean up its act–how far should we look back when ranking citizenship?  Merck (17) has evidently been forgiven for the Vioxx scandal, while Pfizer is in the penalty box after paying a record fine for illegal drug marketing last fall.

Still, while some debate is inevitable, this list strikes me as way off base. [click to continue…]

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How to cool the planet

March 21, 2010

Take a step back from the daily to-and-fro about climate change, and it’s hard to find any reason to cheer.

Copenhagen was pretty much a flop. The Republicans somehow captured a 41-vote majority in the U.S. Senate. Climate scientists are under attack. We continue to emit CO2 into the air at what should be an alarming pace, and many experts say we can no longer avoid significant warming during this century. If you are aware of evidence indicating that we are going to get a global treaty to effectively limit greenhouse gas emissions anytime soon, I’d  like to see it.

-1Which is why we need to think seriously about geoengineering.

Jeff Goodell, the author of a terrific new book on geoengineering called How to Cool the Planet: Geoengineering and the Audacious Quest to Fix the Earth’s Climate, puts it this way:

Barring some kind of social miracle or political miracle, we’re not going to be able to reduce emissions enough to hit the targets that climate scientists tell us that we need to avert the risk of dangerous climate change… This is really a hard thing, reinventing our energy infrastructure. So where does that lead us? One of places it leads us to is geoengineering.

If you haven’t paid attention to geoengineering, it’s time to start. The term refers techniques to deliberately manipulate the earth’s climate to counter the effects of man-made global warming. Technologies could include but are surely not limited to  solar radiation management (shooting particles into the stratosphere to block sunlight), cloud seeding (spraying droplets of seawater into the air to thicken clouds) and ocean fertilization (stimulating the growth of phytoplankton to suck CO2 from the air). Crazy, scary, fascinating stuff, as I’ve written here and here. [click to continue…]

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Jeff Hollender: Greenwashing is getting worse

March 20, 2010

img_JeffreyToday’s guest post comes from Jeffrey Hollender, the founder, executive chairperson and chief inspired protagonist of Seventh Generation, which makes safe and environmentally-responsible products for the home. Jeff is energetic and multi-talented–he is an entrepreneur, the author of several books, including a brand-new one, The Responsibility Revolution, which he wrote with longtime journalist Bill Breen, a lively blogger at the Inspired Protagonist and an activist who sits on the board of Greenpeace USA. (He’s also a good guy and always has been, at least according to my wife; they went to high school together.) I’m looking forward to reading Jeff’s new book and will review it soon. In the meantime, here’s an edited and expanded version of a recent blogpost that he wrote about the challenges that face consumers who face an onslaught of green and sometimes misleading marketing.

As companies step up their spending on green marketing, the confusion about what’s truly green is getting worse.

For consumers, it’s a challenge to cut through the clutter and decide whether to buy green products or support green companies.

Here’s a guideline that is easy to follow:

We should absolutely not support green products from companies that use them to distract us from their larger negative environmental and social impacts. We need systemically green companies to address the challenges we face, not business-as-usual companies that hold up one green hand while hiding another toxic, CO2-emitting, waste-producing one behind their backs.

Two examples: [click to continue…]

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Solazyme’s amazing algae

March 18, 2010

reef3216Algae are so good at producing oil from sunlight and carbon dioxide that there are, by some accounts, as many as 200 companies trying to make biofuels from algae. Some are obscure, little more than a couple of guys playing around with pond scum. Others are attention-grabbing, like Synthetic Genomics, the company led by pioneering scientist Craig Venter that  joined forces with ExxonMobil in a $300 million research program.

Solazyme, a private company based in South San Francisco, stands out from the algae crowd, for a number of reasons.

First, there’s the sheer variety of its products. Solazyme makes fuel for  the U.S. Navy. It makes a heart-healthy, vegetarian, protein-rich microalgae power that goes into Garden of Life supplements and vitamins sold at stores like Whole Foods. And it recently announced a deal with Unilever to use algal oil in renewable,  sustainable personal care products like soap. Its algae are multi-talented.

Then, there’s the fact that Solazyme, unlike other startups, is “producing large volumes of oils and fuels, and we have been for a while,” says its CEO, Jonathan Wolfson. What’s large volumes? An annual rate of tens of thousands of gallons, including a little over 20,000 gallons of shipboard fuel during the first half of this year for the Navy,  part of an $8.5 million contract signed last year.

Finally, Solazyme raised a Series C financing round of about $57 million during the credit crunch, much of it from existing investors including Braemar Energy Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, the Roda Group and Jerry Fiddler, the firm’s chairman–all of whom stuck by Solazyme through some  early stumbles. [click to continue…]

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Microsoft: Democratizing data to protect the planet

March 16, 2010

Much conversation around the greening of information technology is, frankly, boring. Energy-efficient data centers, PCs that sleep automatically, cloud computing that uses server capacity more efficiently–all important, to be sure, but dull.

What’s more intriguing are the ways IT is being used to attack big environmental problems.

IBM has gotten lots of attention, and rightfully so, for its Smarter Planet campaign, in which data is used to help unclog traffic congestion or develop new types of biodegradable, biocompatible plastics. Google has its power meter, which helps consumers manage energy consumption, and RechargeIT, an effort to speed the adoption of electric cars. Not to be outdone, Microsoft has developed several consumer-friendly services that use the power of data to save energy and preserve the environment.

Hohm helps homeowners save energy and money. Bing maps with real-time traffic information help commuters avoid fuel-wasting traffic congestion. Eye on Earth, currently available only in Europe, provides gives citizens air and water quality information they can use to protect their health, and to become more politically active. [click to continue…]

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Can behavioral economics help save the planet?

March 14, 2010

“Consumption is a tricky issue for us, but we need to start talking about it.”

So says Peter Lehner,  executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council. This is welcome news. Like the other big environmental NGOs, NRDC has shied away from telling people what to eat (less red meat and dairy), what kinds of cars to drive (smaller ones), whether to fly (not too much)  or how many homes to own (one).

Peter Lehner

Peter Lehner

That may be about to change.

I spoke to Lehner last week after a three-day symposium on Climate, Mind and Behavior, sponsored by NRDC and the Garrison Institute, a nonprofit whose program on “transformational ecology” is led by Jonathan F.P. Rose, a New York real estate developer who also sits on NRDC’s board.  The event was designed explore ways to change behavior on a scale big enough to have a major impact on global GHG emissions.

The stellar group of participants included environmentalists (Paul Hawken, Van Jones and Gus Speth), investors and business people (Mark Fulton and Bruce Kahn of Deutsche Bank, Jesse Fink of MissionPoint Capital Partners, Jack Jacometti of Shell) and academics (Dr. Benjamin Barber, John Gowdy of RPI, Jon Krosnick of Stanford and Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale).

The headline out of the event: Simple and inexpensive changes could reduce global warming emissions by one billion tons. [click to continue…]

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