The fund industry continues to launch more funds investing with an eye toward environmental, social and governance, or ESG–150 in 2018 alone at last count.
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If you’re like most people with a 401(k), you probably don’t know which companies are in your mutual funds, let alone whether those companies have policies to support gender equality or how many women they have on their board of directors or senior management team.
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Packaging designer Ryan Gaither believes in the power of cardboard.
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A year ago, Royal Dutch Shell, now the largest oil company in the world, acquired NewMotion, a company with thousands of electric car charging points throughout Europe. A month later, Shell started installing fast chargers at some of its largest gas stations. In late October, the company started installing ultrafast chargers that can fully charge the newest electric cars in 10 minutes.
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More than 290 companies and groups, including some of the world’s largest consumer goods makers and plastics packaging firms, signed on to a plan Oct. 29 from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to make their packaging much more environmentally friendly.
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Companies are under more scrutiny than ever about whether the cobalt in their products comes from mines with poor labor practices, but that isn't translating into greater transparency, according to a new report by the Responsible Sourcing Network (RSN).
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Concern over plastic marine pollution and waste among institutional investors has grown sharply over the last 18 months, according to the organizer of a $1 trillion campaign to pressure major consumer brands to reduce their plastics use.
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Although this announcement from Mondelez is an ambitious sustainability initiative, the CPG maker said it has already made its packaging more environmentally friendly. The company said most of its packaging is currently recyclable, since about 75% of it is glass, paper or metal, and about 70% of the paper-based packaging comes from recycled sources. Oreo packages in the U.S. were also made 23% thinner, reducing about 1.5 million kilograms of cartons used annually. These efforts could indicate that the brand is on track to follow through with its lofty goals.
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Last week, I participated in the 2nd Conference on Fossil Fuel Supply and Climate Policy at the University of Oxford in England.
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A group of environmentally minded investors persuaded about one-third of General Mills’ voting shareholders to support a proposal aimed at eliminating pesticide use from the company’s supply chain.
California has fired another volley in the plastic-straw wars, enacting a law that bars sit-down restaurants from offering straws to diners unless they specifically request them. The move follows total bans on plastic straws in cities including San Francisco; Malibu, California; Seattle; and Miami Beach, Florida.
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In a San Francisco courtroom, DeWayne “Lee” Johnson sat facing the Honorable Suzanne R. Bolanos. Lee, a cancer-stricken groundskeeper who was suing Monsanto, the giant agribusiness firm, was used to the cool outdoor air coming off Grizzly Bay while working the grounds at the Benicia Unified School District. Now, he sat in a stately, wood-paneled courtroom with his team of attorneys awaiting Judge Bolanos’ rendering of the verdict. It was Friday, August 10. The court had been in session since July 9.
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Increasingly, it seems like it’s supporting expanding bottle deposit programs. But big beverage companies want any solution but that.
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The merchants of war who have shaped U.S. foreign policy since the end of WWII have a foothold so strong, the act of extracting ourselves from the war economy has become incredibly complex.
Oracle has been telling investors that because it did not hit certain goals related to its cloud computing business, none of its top four executives earned any chunk of the massive block of stock options they were granted last year.
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In a Fortune op-ed touting her company's use of recycled content and $55 million investment in recycling over the past 10 years, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi also recognized "that these efforts are simply not enough." Groups such as Greenpeace and As You Sow, were quick to release statements about why they don't believe this latest investment is enough either.
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According to The Star newspaper in Kenya, GE is reconsidering its investment in the Lamu coal plant, following a letter sent to the company by a group of 56 institutional and individual investors, as well as advocacy groups, As You Sow and Proxy Impact, calling on the company to reconsider its recent decision to acquire a 20 percent stake in the plant. Lamu is one of Kenya’s top tourist destinations and home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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A proposal by advocacy group As You Sow (Oakland, CA) was presented and voted on by shareholders in March asking Starbucks to phase out plastic straws. It received less than 30% support, but As You Sow considered it a victory.
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It’s estimated that more than 500 million plastic straws are used per day in the U.S. But that number could be about to plunge as big corporations like Starbucks (SBUX) start to eliminate them.
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“Starbucks taught the world how to drink coffee, and I believe that this commitment will help teach the world how to embrace sustainable business practices, starting with the plastic straw,” actor Adrian Grenier, Lonely Whale co-founder, said Monday.
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