As a global society, our progress toward a green economy has been sidetracked by the COVID-19 pandemic — economically speaking, it should be precisely the opposite. 

This is particularly true for the United States with its current economic, health, and political challenges. It’s time to move to a new phase — not just for a clean, green future, but to create jobs that pave the way for a profitable circular economy. Investing in environmental protection can quickly create jobs in new industries, but fragile markets like those we have now tend to be conservative.

According to a 2019 study by the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing, more than 8 in 10 individual investors in the United States now express interest in sustainable investing, with 95 percent of Millennials interested in sustainable investing. ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) investing can no longer be minimized by Wall Street. What can you say to a climate-change skeptic about building a green economy? If you say it’s to achieve carbon neutrality, they will not care. If you say it’s a wonderful idea, they will tell you to come back when it’s ready. However, at groups like the Solar Impulse Foundation we are committed to finding 1,000 clean and profitable solutions to help the environment and speak about profit and job creation now.

When people talk about a sustainable future, they usually think about wind and solar and electric vehicles. But it’s much more than this. It’s about creating new types of businesses. A truly circular economy, one built on qualitative growth, replaces jobs that pollute the environment with new jobs that protect it. A recent report by the World Economic Forum indicates that 400 million new jobs can be created by 2030 if we focus on a sustainable future. A circular economy also increases efficiency and reduces waste. Half of our energy, food, and natural resources get wasted. For example, when you take a shower, the hot water goes down the drain. But, what if you were able to recover that hot water and use it to reheat new, clean water coming for your next shower? If the installation costs were $300, it would quickly be profitable for a family of two or three people in a matter of months, and you’d save money with each shower.

We have the technology to retrofit old buildings with systems for smart city evolution and combustion engine vehicles into electric ones, which is much less expensive than building new electric buses, trucks, and cars. All of these solutions create sustainable jobs.

In many cases, solar and wind energy are competitive with (or even more profitable than) gas, oil, or coal. Hydrogen systems for energy storage can provide opportunities for oil companies to transition from fossil fuel to more eco-friendly energies. For the most part, we still rely on processes discovered in the late 1800s with the advent of oil drilling. This is insane.

I know we can make this work — if we think like explorers breaking boundaries. I learned about breaking boundaries from my grandfather, Auguste Piccard, who was the first to witness the curvature of Earth after he literally rose to new heights by inventing a pressurized capsule for a balloon. This invention opened the door to modern aviation. My father, Jacques Piccard, made history when he submerged in his bathyscaphe to the Mariana Trench ocean floor to find sea life and stop governments who wanted to dump nuclear waste into the ocean. Following in their footsteps, my flight around the world in a solar-powered plane — flying day and night powered only by the rays of the sun — proved “the impossible” is only in our heads, not
our reality. Engineers, manufacturers, and a committed team representing numerous industries came together to think differently, and we found the solutions we needed.

Now it’s time for industry and government leaders to get unstuck from their old and expensive ways of thinking about energy, infrastructure, farming, and mobility and the ways we waste food, water, and resources daily. My goal is to change the world through the ingenuity, intelligence, innovation, and creativity of humankind. Together, we can get there. And yes, a green economic recovery is worth striving for because it is much more profitable and creates many more jobs than a dirty one.

As a global society, our progress toward a green economy has been sidetracked by the COVID-19 pandemic — economically speaking, it should be precisely the opposite. 

This is particularly true for the United States with its current economic, health, and political challenges. It’s time to move to a new phase — not just for a clean, green future, but to create jobs that pave the way for a profitable circular economy. Investing in environmental protection can quickly create jobs in new industries, but fragile markets like those we have now tend to be conservative.

According to a 2019 study by the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing, more than 8 in 10 individual investors in the United States now express interest in sustainable investing, with 95 percent of Millennials interested in sustainable investing. ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) investing can no longer be minimized by Wall Street. What can you say to a climate-change skeptic about building a green economy? If you say it’s to achieve carbon neutrality, they will not care. If you say it’s a wonderful idea, they will tell you to come back when it’s ready. However, at groups like the Solar Impulse Foundation we are committed to finding 1,000 clean and profitable solutions to help the environment and speak about profit and job creation now.

When people talk about a sustainable future, they usually think about wind and solar and electric vehicles. But it’s much more than this. It’s about creating new types of businesses. A truly circular economy, one built on qualitative growth, replaces jobs that pollute the environment with new jobs that protect it. A recent report by the World Economic Forum indicates that 400 million new jobs can be created by 2030 if we focus on a sustainable future. A circular economy also increases efficiency and reduces waste. Half of our energy, food, and natural resources get wasted. For example, when you take a shower, the hot water goes down the drain. But, what if you were able to recover that hot water and use it to reheat new, clean water coming for your next shower? If the installation costs were $300, it would quickly be profitable for a family of two or three people in a matter of months, and you’d save money with each shower.

We have the technology to retrofit old buildings with systems for smart city evolution and combustion engine vehicles into electric ones, which is much less expensive than building new electric buses, trucks, and cars. All of these solutions create sustainable jobs.

In many cases, solar and wind energy are competitive with (or even more profitable than) gas, oil, or coal. Hydrogen systems for energy storage can provide opportunities for oil companies to transition from fossil fuel to more eco-friendly energies. For the most part, we still rely on processes discovered in the late 1800s with the advent of oil drilling. This is insane.

I know we can make this work — if we think like explorers breaking boundaries. I learned about breaking boundaries from my grandfather, Auguste Piccard, who was the first to witness the curvature of Earth after he literally rose to new heights by inventing a pressurized capsule for a balloon. This invention opened the door to modern aviation. My father, Jacques Piccard, made history when he submerged in his bathyscaphe to the Mariana Trench ocean floor to find sea life and stop governments who wanted to dump nuclear waste into the ocean. Following in their footsteps, my flight around the world in a solar-powered plane — flying day and night powered only by the rays of the sun — proved “the impossible” is only in our heads, not
our reality. Engineers, manufacturers, and a committed team representing numerous industries came together to think differently, and we found the solutions we needed.

Now it’s time for industry and government leaders to get unstuck from their old and expensive ways of thinking about energy, infrastructure, farming, and mobility and the ways we waste food, water, and resources daily. My goal is to change the world through the ingenuity, intelligence, innovation, and creativity of humankind. Together, we can get there. And yes, a green economic recovery is worth striving for because it is much more profitable and creates many more jobs than a dirty one.

Americans are seeking out and are willing to pay a premium for environmentally friendly products, according to a new study from GreenPrint, an environmental technology company.

The first-ever edition of the company’s Business of Sustainability Index found that nearly two-thirds (64%) of Americans are willing to pay more for sustainable products, but most (74%) don’t know how to identify them. According to the findings, 78% of people are more likely to purchase a product that is clearly labeled as environmentally friendly.

The study also found a large degree of mistrust about companies’ environmental claims. Many people have doubts when companies say they are environmentally friendly, with 53% of Americans never or only sometimes believing such claims. To trust a company statement, 45% of Americans say they need a third-party validating source.

“Businesses are in a bind. Broadcasting sustainability would capture an untapped consumer base but also sow distrust,” said Pete Davis, CEO, and Co-Founder of GreenPrint. “We’d suggest they follow the data. Third-party validation helps certify progress in consumers’ eyes, and the process of carbon offsetting – which is easy to measure and communicate – helps create tangible benchmarks. Both are good tools for building trust. It’s about exploring your trustworthy methods of communication, then selecting one that aligns with your objectives.”

Other key findings of GreenPrint’s Business of Sustainability Index include:

• 75% of Millennials are willing to pay more for an environmentally sustainable product, compared to 63% of Gen Z, 64% of Gen X, and 57% of Boomers.
• 77% of Americans are concerned about the environmental impact of products they buy.
• More than half (56%) of Americans would use a credit card that could calculate and offset the environmental footprint of products purchased.
• There’s a noticeable break between generations, with 71% and 66% of Millennials and Gen Z willing to do so, compared to only 50% Gen X, 46% of Boomers, and 39% Silent Generation.
• 76% of Americans would switch their preferred packaged goods brand if they were offsetting carbon emissions. 74% would switch gasoline brands in the same situation.
• Comparing sectors, 78% of respondents said food/groceries are doing well in demonstrating their commitment to environmental friendliness. Tech is close behind at 74%, while gas stations and convenience stores rank lower at 51% and 54%, respectively.

This index and its future editions will track sentiment around sustainability in the economy – how climate consciousness impacts consumer preference and perceptions of companies and their products and the overall effectiveness of the sustainability benchmarking ecosystem across various sectors and demographics.

Davis said of the survey: “Companies must build trust and loyalty by clearly demonstrating that they share environmental goals with their customers. Defending and preserving our planet is not only the right thing to do, it’s good business. Companies that can navigate the business of sustainability will be best positioned for future success.”

www.greenprint.eco

COVID has proven to be a great lens, showing us the importance of healthcare, education, the importance of care work, and the urgent need to transform our economic values and current systems.                  

The caring economy is an economic system that promotes the wellness and development of people regardless of sex, class, race, or ability while respecting and taking responsibility for the planet. In essence, the goals of a caring economy align with most democratic constitutions — so do we still search for these values and the superior results they bring? 

Is it normal that in today’s world:

• 1 in 3 women experience domestic violence during their lifetime?
• Every year more than 50% of children suffer from violence, and 20% die from that violence?
• More than 700 million people (the majority women) and children live in extreme poverty?
• That, according to the WEF2020 Gender Parity Report, we need 257 years to reach gender equality?

In the past few decades, we have seen a massive increase in deforestation, CO2 production, chemical pollution, and biodiversity destruction. Is this normal? Also, why has conventional economics been so slow to offer compelling solutions to these issues?

Since its theoretical beginnings, capitalism (and even socialism and communism) consider “care work“ — for the young, the elderly, the sick — unnecessary for a “productive” economy, and therefore even today, these at-risk groups are not valued. They continue to effectively be invisible to our culture and the economic metrics of countries and society’s. Consider today’s broad spectrum of politico-economic systems, and ask yourself: do these different systems provide authentic wellness and care for citizens and the environment? The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated our understanding of a harsh reality — that we need to shift to a new economic system that respects all people’s work, and the planet.

So, how did the caring economy begin? The anthropologist Margaret Mead once gave a clear example, when she spoke of a person surviving a broken femur bone thanks to the care of others. Civilization began with the protection and care of individuals. Mead asserted that the act of caring was the first building block of human civilization. 

Inspired by four decades of research and activism by Dr. Riane Eisler, Founder and President of The Center for Partnership Studies, we should see the critical pillars of the caring economy as such:

1. To Value and Make Visible Caring for the Environment

As late as 2009, leaders worldwide couldn’t find a way to fight climate change, and the Copenhagen Climate Summit turned out to be an absolute failure. Fast forward six years, and we have finally seen some progress. At the 2015 Paris Climate Summit, many nations, for the first time in our civilization’s history, agreed to pursue collective climate action as the only way to deal with this issue.

Today COVID-19 has shown us that when a public health crisis arises, governments can take quick, sweeping action. So, why have governments worldwide still not taken any real action against climate change? The global pandemic has also shown us that companies that were more environmentally and socially responsible — the ones that cared for their employees and environment — did relatively better. Seeing this accelerated transformation gives us hope — from traditional business values with purely profit-oriented goals, to more sustainable ones that consider all stakeholders. 

2. To Value and Make Visible “Care Work”

COVID showed us the importance of healthcare workers, 75% of whom are women. Their pay does not match the dedication and risks they take. In addition, research shows that American women do seven additional years of free care work compared to their male counterparts. 

The work of care is invaluable to a functioning society and a necessity that capitalist, socialist, and communist countries take for granted. Many studies show that the Status of Women Predicts the Quality of Life of everybody around them. However, in today’s world, If women are discriminated against in the workplace and their home, and if women do most of the care work for free in their families and work for underpaid wages in the market, a nation’s overall quality of life is negatively affected. Have you considered that our massive economic inequalities exist because currently, we fail to value this care work fully?              

3. To Invest in the development of early childhood education: our most important asset

COVID has shown us that all humans, more than ever before, need to collaborate, be resilient, and flexible. To bring those skills to work and home, research shows that the quality of care and education received in the early years of childhood is important . A plethora of other research shows that early childhood experiences directly impact our brain development. Therefore, this will determine later, as adults, how these children will think, feel, act, and even vote. At an early age, children learn what is “normal,” moral, and even inevitable. What is worrisome is that in some cultures, children learn that “one kind of human is more valued than another.” This explains why preserving a rigidly male-dominated, “traditional” family is a priority for authoritarian regimes and religious fundamentalists. Children in these conditions learn another daunting lesson: that to fit into a dominating or hierarchical system they shouldn’t question orders (authority), no matter how unjust. This is one reason why totalitarian regimes survive — because there is tolerance for violence and fear.                                    

4. To Pursue Transparency and Metrics on the Caring Economy: changing our measures of economic health

We measure what we want to grow and improve. The most widely recognized measure of economic health is GDP, created more than one hundred years ago. Mass production and technology have changed since then, and the metrics used to measure success need to adapt to our new reality — one that reflects an authentic measure of the quality of life. One of failures of GDP is that it considers “productive” many activities that do harm, and even take lives: cigarette sales or fast food, as just two examples.

Another example of the failure of GDP metrics is that it doesn’t subtract “externalities,” for example, the cost of natural disasters caused by climate change or a company’s disregard of nature (which might appear as a positive on their balance sheets).

Not only does GDP regard some negatives as positives, but it also fails to include as productive the care work found in households. This, despite studies that show that if it were included, it would represent between 20% – 50% of GDP. Riane Eisler’s Social Wealth Economic Indicators is an excellent alternative for evaluating a nation’s prosperity authentically.

However, none of the suggestions above, that could add to GDP metrics, are taken into consideration by conventional economists and governments. It’s also not taught in schools and universities, so it’s up to likeminded people such as myself and colleagues at Women 4 Solutions to create awareness and action.

COVID has created more gaps between the have-and have-nots worldwide, in addition to some severe environmental problems. Let’s take a look at our current reality: it takes just one infected person to unleash chaos and country-wide shutdowns — the “butterfly effect” of mathematical chaos theory: “that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly’s wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world,” becomes a reality. 

COVID reinforces the idea that our planet has become a “village,” and technology is still rapidly scaling our interconnected world. It’s now clear that climate action can only be accomplished if all nations collaborate with global goals.

Thus, we have clear proof that we cannot act in isolation any longer. We need a sense of urgency to transform our economic values and systems into something that all humans have had in common from the beginning: caring for each other! 

Learn more about the Caring Economy and do something every day to take care of our planet and people!                   

The fleet of de-icing vehicles at Munich Airport has received powerful and environmentally friendly support. Recently, an all-electric “Elephant e-BETA” from Danish manufacturer Vestergaard has been used for de-icing aircraft.

According to the manufacturer, the “Elephant e-BETA” is the first electric de-icing vehicle. The spray arms and nozzles driven by electric motors perform the de-icing of aircraft silently and effectively and the heart of the vehicle is a large lithium-ion battery power pack that enables the electric de-icing of around 10 to 15 aircraft. The battery allows the de-icing vehicle to complete around two to three hours of operation without recharging.

The vehicle still drives to the de-icing areas with a conventional diesel engine, but at the aircraft site itself, the engine is switched off, and the all-electric de-icing begins. Elephants are known to have great endurance and exceptional sensitivity, and the Danish manufacturer adopted the Elephant e-BETA name to demonstrate that these attributes of nature can be applied to technology and machines that perform important jobs, while reducing environmental footprints.

Compared with conventional de-icing vehicles, the electric version can avoid up to 87% of the CO2 emissions caused by traditional vehicles. The vehicle is the latest initiative to be added to Munich Airport’s climate strategy, which envisages the airport operating in a CO2-neutral manner by 2030.

You’ve heard the cliché: trust is the grease that lubricates business. Without it, transactions become time-consuming and expensive because everything must be negotiated, tested, verified, and, perhaps, litigated. Innovation and nimbleness suffer. Partners and consumers go elsewhere.
The confidence needed to try the next new thing evaporates.

Trust in government, science, NGOs, business, and other major institutions has been eroding for decades. Business stands out as the exception. In Edelman’s 2021 Trust Barometer report, business is the only institution seen by people worldwide as both ethical and competent. What are the implications for business leaders? Does it create an opportunity? An obligation?

The basis of trust is changing. Throughout most of human history, trust required proximity: you learned who to trust by observing the behaviors and hearing the stories of people you knew and encountered. To use lodging as an example: when traveling, you stayed with people you knew or places endorsed by people you knew. Proximity trust became less effective as society industrialized, mobilized, and urbanized. For society to function, trust needed to come from different sources. People needed to learn how to trust food that came from afar, currency based on credit, dependability based on brands, and expertise based in professions. A new source of trust emerged to replace our own eyes and connections: referees, regulators, authorities, experts, watchdogs, and gatekeepers. Trust became an attribute sought, earned, managed, and protected by brands, political parties, media outlets, professions, universities, science, government, and other institutions. To continue the lodging example, we trusted where to stay based on a hotel brand’s reputation.

Institutional trust is eroding for three reasons:

1. Declining accountability: not all people and institutions get punished for wrongdoing.
2. End of expertise: eroding confidence in gatekeepers and referees such as scientists, professionals, and other experts.
3. Echo chambers: segmented media that limits access to some information while reinforcing access to other information.

In Who Can You Trust, Rachel Botsman argues that we are living through a trust transition. A new form of trust — distributed trust — is emerging and it is transforming markets and governance. Trust has turned on its head. Rather than flowing vertically, down to users from experts and brands, it now flows horizontally, from and among other people and, in some cases, from and among programs and bots. The consequences, good and bad, cannot be underestimated. How should you respond?

All three trust models are similar in that they rely on the following three evaluations: Is the actor competent? Is the actor reliable? Is the actor honest? It doesn’t matter if you decide whether to trust a bank, lawyer, neighbor, hotel, or renter; you will evaluate the same three questions. Distributional trust differs from institutional or proximate trust in how these evaluations are conducted and shared.

Distributed trust is supported by digital technology that allows crowdsourcing evaluations from the users — consumers, citizens, lodgers, renters, you, me, everyone. Continuing the lodging example, Airbnb’s trust model relies on transparent evaluations. Renters evaluate lodgers using evaluations posted by other renters and lodgers evaluate renters using evaluations posted by other lodgers. Your evaluation matters in a distributed trust model because it impacts others’ reputation just as their evaluation impacts your reputation. The towels you would leave on the floor of a hotel you hang up in an Airbnb, because the lodger’s evaluation matters to your online reputation and ability to find subsequent lodging opportunities.

How are businesses responding to the changing nature of trust? You will be familiar with the following innovations, but thinking about them through the lens of trust may help you see new opportunities:

• Branding: Sophisticated monitoring of social media and timely response to critiques and compliments. Good consumer service and highly visible corporate social responsibility.
• Employee Recruitment and Retention: Co-create, promote, monitor, and report tangible, meaningful, and visible corporate social responsibility mission and metrics. Distribute responsibility for deciding who is an acceptable client and what is an acceptable project.
• Community Operations and Relations: Provide clear, transparent, accessible metrics about economic, social, and environmental impacts.
• Investors and Access to Capital: Monitor, report, and manage for indicators such as those developed by the Sustainable Accounting Standards Board.
• Supply Chains and Other B-to-B Arrangements: Demand, monitor, report, and base decisions on sustainably accounting metrics such as CDP and GRI. Organize and engage in roundtables such as Responsible Soy or Sustainable Beef.
• Consumers: Meaningful and actionable product certification and labeling.
• Purchasing Agents: Engage organizations such as the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council.

Of course, there is a potential dark side to distributed evaluation. Botsman describes an Orwellian-like trust-scoring system in China called the Social Credit System that rates its citizens’ trustworthiness based on their honesty in government affairs, commercial integrity, societal integrity, and judicial credibility. The system is currently in prototype, and the details are not exact, but it might evaluate everything from bill paying to court appearances to online browsing activity. The resulting “Citizen Score” would help everyone assess your trustworthiness and could be used to determine your eligibility for a mortgage, employment, where your children attend school, or even just your chances of getting a date.

What is next for your organization?

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