Walmart to cut virgin plastics use

“The company has set a significant initial goal to reduce the use of virgin plastic,” says Conrad MacKerron, senior vice president of As You Sow “We encourage other companies to step forward and make bolder, larger absolute cuts in overall plastic packaging. Reducing virgin plastic use is a good start, but cuts in total plastic use have a greater impact. We need hundreds of companies to make significant cuts in single-use plastic packaging if we are to make meaningful progress in reducing the flow of plastic wastes into oceans.” Read More →

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Microsoft has promised to actively look into right to repair

As You Sow calls Microsoft’s commitment “an encouraging step,” but it’s worth keeping in perspective that it is just a step — what Microsoft has actually done today is said that it’ll have a study done and then use it to “guide” its “product design and plans for expanding device repair options,” according to a statement emailed to The Verge by a Microsoft spokesperson. Read More →

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Bowing to investors, Microsoft will make its devices easier to fix

Kelly McBee, the waste program coordinator at As You Sow started intensively exploring the issue of electronic waste several years ago. After learning that Microsoft was actively contributing to the crisis through its restrictive repair policies, she reached out to the company to have a “good faith conversation” in May. It didn’t go well. Read More →

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Microsoft Has Committed to Right to Repair

“This is an encouraging step by Microsoft to respond to the upswell of federal and state activity in the right to repair movement,” Kelly McBee, waste program coordinator at As You Sow, said in a press release. “Excitingly, this agreement will begin to allow consumers to repair their Microsoft devices outside the limited network of authorized repair shops.” Read More →

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As new signs of climate change emerge, here’s how you can invest in companies and funds that keep the environment safe

As You Sow, a non-profit focusing on corporate social responsibility, offers an online tool that compares where funds rank with regard to criteria such as deforestation, fossil fuels, gender equality, guns, weapons, tobacco and prisons. Read More →

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The SEC, and ESG advocates, want to know how well companies are treating their workers

In recent years, both the World Economic Forum and Business Roundtable, pre-Covid, embraced stakeholder capitalism over shareholder capitalism to the exclusion of every other interest. Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, which has taken on many companies over the years in proxy battles focused on ESG issues, says the tide it not turning back to Milton Friedman’s view of the world. Read More →

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Climate experts are worried about the toughest carbon emissions for companies to capture

Andrew Behar, a shareholder advocate and CEO of As You Sow, which has long led climate disclosure efforts among investors pressuring companies, and who is involved in the Say on Climate initiative, says using the 2050 net-zero target as an example — which is the timeline for many companies — means a net 50% reduction by 2030, because once the low-hanging fruit is taken care of, the percentage goals get harder to reach. “That means 5% every year for the next 10 years, and it means Scope 3, and they need to actually report that.” Read More →

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