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Recent Posts by Marc Gunther
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I’m heading home from an eight-day, action-packed vacation in Alaska. Hiking, biking and sea-kayaking, I saw snow-capped mountains, the largest ice field in North America, a couple of glaciers, countless bays and rivers, abundant and beautiful wildflowers, salmon swimming upstream, bald eagles, seals, a sea otter, marmots, a porcupine and bears (three!) – all in one corner of the state, the Kenai Peninsula. But what really impressed me was the women. There are surely more women who call themselves feminists on New York’s Upper West Side than there are in, say, Anchorage. But women in Alaska — at least the ones that we met – are plenty strong and self-reliant. Of the 199 runners who completed the grueling Crow Pass marathon this past Saturday, twenty-eight were women. I
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The plastics industry is dealing with a nightmare these days when it comes to potentially toxic chemicals. Because so many people no longer trust big business or federal regulators to protect them and their health—perhaps with reason, perhaps not—companies are vulnerable to campaigns by activist groups, politicians and trial lawyers who want to get alleged dangerous toxics off the market. The latest example: Bisphenol-A, the chemical used in polycarbonate bottles, including baby bottles, and in the linings of aluminum cans and in many, many other products.I’ve spent a fair amount of time—more than I’d intended to—looking into the controversy around BPA. The result is a column that was posted today on fortune.com and cnnmoney.com. The FORTUNE websites is also running a video
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There’s no doubt that buying and eating local food is a hot trend. But is it good for the environment? Recently, I got a press release from Wal-Mart saying that Partnerships with local farmers have grown by 50 percent over the past two years—one example of the company’s efforts to support local economies, cut shipping costs and provide fresh food offerings. For the 4th of July, a Wal-Mart Supercenter in DeKalb County, Ga., featured Georgia-grown Vidalia onions for burgers, Georgia cantaloupes and watermelons for fruit salad and Georgia peaches for cobbler, the company said. Meanwhile, Chipotle Mexican Grill reports that it has stepped up its efforts to buy local produce. The fast food chain says it is the first and only national restaurant company committed to buying local
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One of the great things about the environmental movement is that it provides cover for those of us who are, shall we say, prudent about spending money. You can probably guess where I’m going here. Now, when I tell my wife that, no, we don’t really need to turn on the AC even though it’s 78 degrees outside, or when I urge my daughter to spend just a little less time in the shower, or when I cringe at the way we waste food in our home, I am no longer a skinflint or cheapskate. Seizing the moral high ground, I am now the guardian of our family’s carbon footprint. Unfortunately, there are times when my intention to be “green” and to be frugal come into conflict–which brings us to my new car. I’m not into cars, to say the least. I have been perfectly happy with my 1994 Volvo
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The easy way to do corporate philanthropy is to write a little check to everyone who asks. Many companies operate this way–$5,000 to the Boy’s Club, $5,000 to the YMCA, $5,000 to the local cancer society or heart association. This is mostly a feel-good exercise, performed, it must be said, with other people’s money. Today’s Sustainability column at fortune.com and cnnmoney.com is about GE, and the company efforts to be strategic in its corporate giving. I met Bob Corcoran, who runs the GE Foundation, on a trip to Ghana in 2004, and had a chance to see GE’s health care initiative in action there—the company donated medical equipment, a generator, money and lots of expertise to a hospital in rural Ghana. Last week, Bob and I had a chance to catch up when he was in
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Brainstorm: Green, the aftermath
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Brainstorm: Green, Fortune’s first conference on business and the environment, turned out well, judging from the feedback I’ve had since the gathering last week in Pasadena. I was pleased by the caliber of the speakers, by the constant buzz of the crowd (a good thing, despite the difficulty of getting people to quiet down!) and by the quality of the experience (food, setting, entertainment–the people in Fortune’s conference division really are first-class). Special thanks, one last time, go to our programming partners—Conservation International, Environmental Defense, NRDC and World Resources Institute. It’s looking as if there will be a Brainstorm: Green in 2009.
Here are some things that got me thinking during the event:
Climate-change legislation. A discussion about the prospects for climate change legislation left me mildly pessimistic about the prospects of getting a strong bill enacted anytime soon. Panelists were Andy Karsner of the federal energy dept., David Crane of NRG Energy, Jerry Brown who is California’s attorney general, Google’s Dan Reicher and John Bryson of Edison International. Most thought it would take at least a year, and maybe two, to get a bill onto the president’s desk. And they all agreed that it will be extremely challenging for Congress to get the legislation “right”—that is, to enact a law that will be strong enough to slow down and then reverse U.S. GHG emissions without driving up energy costs up so high that they provoke a political backlash. It’s a real conundrum.
They also agreed, as I recall, that even a good climate change bill won’t by itself be enough to drive the deep changes we need in the energy economy. It’s incumbent on Washington to enact stronger efficiency standards, for example. Rising energy costs alone won’t drive waste out of the economy. (Gas at close to $4 a gallon has not cut down driving much, if at all.) Karsner, the only Republican in the group, favors increased federal dollars for investment in renewables. That’s not entirely surprising, since he now oversees those investments, but on the other hand there are Bush administration appointees who see their job as shrinking the government’s role in the economy. Karsner, thank goodness, is committed to promoting renewable energy, and a good guy, to boot. (Very cool fact about him–he took his honeymoon in Antarctica.)
Electric cars: Here there’s real reason for optimism. Think Global, which makes an electric car in Norway, announced at Brainstorm Green that they are launching in North America. Their backers include venture funds Kleiner Perkins and Rockport Capital. I took a spin in a Think electric car, which will retail for about $25,000 and was really impressed—a fun ride. Even more exciting was my ride in a two-seater, three-wheeler brought to the event by a company called Venture Vehicles; the car isn’t quite ready for prime time but could be appealing to city dwellers or suburbanites looking for second car for short trips. Shai Agassi of Project Better Place opened the conference, and talked about the progress he is making in getting his electric cars rolled out in Israel and Denmark. And Beth Lowery of General Motors said she has high hopes for the Chevy Volt, due out in 2010. Dan Reicher of Google told me they, too, are exploring ways to link electric cars to a smart grid powered by renewable energy. Utility execs like Peter Darbee of PG&E and John Bryson of Edison see this as an enormous opportunity. My takeway–there is lots of momentum here.
Sustainable agriculture: How can we produce more food with fewer environmental inputs on no more land? That’s an enormous challenge as the global population keeps growing and hundreds of millions of people emerge from poverty and subsistence diets. You only have to read the headlines to see that this will be a huge issue. (The Washington Post is running an extensive series this week on the global food crisis.) I moderated a panel with Jason Clay of WWF, Tom West of Pioneer (DuPont’s seed company), Bob Langert of McDonald’s and Howard Yana-Shapiro of Mars Inc. to talk about this, and we were only able to scratch the surface of the problem. One thing immediately became clear—as laudable as they may be, locavores, organic farms, community-supported agriculture and backyard gardens (sorry, Michael Pollan) will not solve this problem. Large-scale solutions will be needed. But our discussion planted the seeds (couldn’t resist) for future columns and stories, so watch this space in the months ahead.
Rabble rousing: Putting activists from Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network in the same room as CEOs set off some sparks, as you might expect. A panel on “clean coal” was among the liveliest at Brainstorm: Green, featuring Mike Brune of RAN, David Crane of NRG, John Lavelle of GE Energy and David Hawkins of NRDC. (I had to miss it because I was leading another discussion. Next year, we’ll showcase this debate.) Brune also challenged bankers during a panel on Wall Street and climate change to stop investing in conventional coal plants; in response, Mark Tercek of Goldman Sachs said it’s not an investment bank’s proper role to set energy policy for China or India. Of course, as a practical matter, even if Goldman were to stop financing coal, other banks would step in. Enviros who want to stop all new conventional coal plants need to build a broader political consensus, just as anti-apartheid activists did when U.S. companies stopped supporting South Africa back in the 1980s—an analogy made by Brune.
Brainstorm Green underscored the fact that big companies and NGOs are increasingly working together towards shared goals. Doug McMillon of Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart said his company has learned an enormous amount from the enviros who regularly trek to Bentonville. Paulo Adario of Greenpeace Brazil and Bob Langert of McDonald’s talked about how they formed an alliance to try to prevent deforestation of the Amazon caused by planting soy.
Where we stand: On a panel called “The Path to Sustainability,” I asked Fisk Johnson of SC Johnson, Ursula Burns of Xerox, Beth Lowery of GM and Linda Fisher of DuPont to rank the U.S. economy, on a scale of 1 to 10, when it comes to sustainability. A “1” means we are destroying the planet and urgently need major changes. A “10” means we meeting our own needs in a way that preserves the ability of future generations to meet theirs. They all gave the economy a ranking of “1” or “2” – so there is a lot of work to be done.< /p>
For better or worse, we crammed a lot into two days. There’s lots and lots of coverage, including video, here at the Fortune website. My friend and colleague David Kirkpatrick wrote a terrific column about one of my favorite speakers, Janine Benyus, who is doing amazing works about biomimicry. The tireless David Roberts of Grist blogged about the event here and here and here and here and here. You can read blogger and PR guy Willie Brent’s comments here, and read this upbeat take from blogger Donna Barnett.
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