On websites from H&M to Gap to Gucci, you’ll find phrases like “innovative materials,” “sustainably sourced,” and “enhancing transparency.” But when it comes to finding out whether companies actually walk their sustainable talk, there may still be problems behind their promises. In short, consumers still need to do research when shopping for…
Impact investors and responsible banking institutions across the country have made a big difference this past year, advancing causes ranging from climate change to board diversity to immigration justice. Green America celebrates these 2017 victories and identifies how you can keep the economy moving in a greener direction.
Shareholders Win…
If you’re part of the movement for a just and sustainable future, or you're interested in solutions to reverse the climate crisis, chances are you’ve heard of Paul Hawken. To say that Hawken has an interesting background is a bit of an understatement.
You might know him as a green entrepreneur. Starting in the 1960s, he founded several…
Paul Hawken and the Project Drawdown experts thought they knew what to expect when they modeled and ranked 80 solutions that could reverse climate change. But the data had some surprises in store.
Most prominently was that even when the solutions are modeled in terms of what they call a “Plausible Scenario”—a conservative measure of…
As we work toward Drawdown, it’s critical to address the impacts of climate change in communities of color, which are often hit “first and worst.” Jacqui Patterson, director of the NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice program, says we all need to work toward energy justice for everyone in our communities.
People often ask why the NAACP…
The border lands between the North Woods of northeastern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan historically haven't been a hotbed of environmental activism. The region, populated largely by farming and middle- or working-class families, trends staunchly conservative in states that toggle between red and blue from election to election.…
If you’re read our article from the Fall 2017 Green American, “The Back Forty Mine: Is It the Next Standing Rock?”, you’re likely familiar with what’s going on in Upper Michigan. Briefly, Aquila Resources, a Toronto-based company, is trying to site a sulfide mine 150 feet from the banks of the Menominee River.
While Aquila…
Photo caption: The board of We the People of Detroit, from left to right: Debra Taylor, Chris Griffith, Monica Lewis-Patrick, Aurora Harris, and Cecily McClellan. Courtesy of We the People of Detroit and the KIND Foundation.
They were a group of women who didn’t start out together as community organizers. In 2009, the state proposed that…
When I was teaching English in a low-income rural community in southern Louisiana over 20 years ago, I had a short conversation with a mentor teacher that would stay with me. I was lamenting how a particular teenage boy in my class had a real knack for writing but was prone to rather shocking outbursts of temper, prompting random refusals to do…
Since before he went on the presidential campaign trail, Trump has touted what he sees as the benefits of natural gas hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. In July 2012, shortly after the Obama administration issued rules limiting fracking on federal lands, Trump needled the then-President on Twitter, saying: “Fracking will lead to American energy…
The Delaware River isn’t the most glamorous river. There aren’t songs written about it, like the Shenandoah or the Mississippi. It’s named for one of the smallest and least populous states. Yet, the watershed provides drinking water to 13-19 million people every day and is fed by water in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. In fact,…
You wouldn’t think that here in America, there would be entire swaths of the population without proper sewer systems, resulting in raw sewage seeping into their yards and water tables. You would be wrong.
You would also probably hope that the substandard living conditions caused by the lack of affordable and failsafe sewage systems wouldn’t…
On April 1, 2016, Native Americans from across the country gathered at Sacred Stone Camp in Cannonball, ND, to protect the Missouri River.
They ran to draw attention to their opposition of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), a proposed crude oil pipeline that would stretch 1,172 miles from North Dakota to Illinois. Activists worry that a spill…
There are “more than 2.5 million miles of pipelines across the US and 18,000 places where they cross under rivers, streams, and lakes,” according to American Rivers. That’s a big concern because accidents happen, and when they do, they often leak poison into US drinking water. In 2015, the Poplar oil pipeline spilled nearly 50,000 gallons of oil…
About one percent of all water on Earth is drinkable. Drinkable water plays a huge role in our daily lives, from brushing our teeth to cooking our food. The US Geological Survey reports that the average American uses between 80-100 gallons of water per day at home. However, saving drinkable water is imperative to ensure clean, accessible water…
Although Flint, MI, has become the poster city for America’s issue with contaminated water, it is only one of many communities experiencing threats to its water supply. Perhaps because they don’t completely trust their tap water, Americans are buying bottled water now more than ever. According to the Beverage Marketing Corp., Americans drink more…
Using the fictional Fizzy Cola Company, we walk you through a shareholder proxy ballot. If you'd prefer to view this image as a PDF, click here to open.
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Choose your new bank or credit union. While picking a local bank is a good option, and a local credit union an even better option, moving your accounts to a community development bank or credit union is your best bet to matching your banking with your values. Find hundreds of options at Green…
In this new Trump era of deregulation, it’s clear the government isn’t going to look out for the common good or for future generations when it deals with corporations. So responsible shareholders are picking up the slack, standing up to Corporate America on behalf of people and the planet.
In fact, they’ve been using their economic clout to…
Since 2012, investor activists and college students have been advocating for divestment from fossil fuels, to send a market signal to the industry that investors and the public want it to stop warming the climate and start putting its resources into clean energy and other sustainable sectors.
The success of the fossil-fuel divestment…
If you ask multiple financial advisors for generalized advice on money matters, they’ll likely tell you that every person’s finances are different and ever-changing based on goals and plans. If they’re advisors who specialize in socially responsible investing (SRI), they’ll also agree that no matter how much money you have, you can use your money…
In the 1990s, socially responsible investors played a key role in bringing down South Africa’s brutal and racist apartheid regime. Since then, they’ve made a difference on a wide range of issues, pressing companies around the world to move in a more socially and environmentally responsible direction.
Thanks to engaged shareholders:
In…
Wondering how you can make a real difference in the world? Move your money.
People who bank and invest in a socially responsible manner arguably have never been more important to the health of humanity and the Earth. As Donald Trump’s administration doubles down on anti-environment, anti-science, and anti-immigrant policies, it’s clear that…
You know by now that socially responsible investing (SRI) does make a difference in the world, but perhaps you’re wondering what kind of difference it will make in your portfolio. Will you sacrifice financial returns if you align your investments with your values?
The evidence, amassed through hundreds of studies, shows that historically,…
Karen Bearden compares greening her money to a waterfall: one act of socially responsible investing (SRI) was like a drop of water that led to a cascade.
She became a Green America member back in 2005. After reading about SRI in our publications, she and her husband Joe moved some of their investments into a Pax World socially responsible…
Are you expecting a delivery? Mail-order meal kits are popping up everywhere, maybe even on your doorstep. Blue Apron and Hello Fresh might be the ones you’ve heard of, but there are dozens of similar plans out there.
The insulated boxes they deliver include enough goodies to quickly whip up a meal for two or four, and there’s no denying the…
Doug Rauch doesn’t care about food waste. Food waste to him is the scraps on your plate that get pushed into the trash. It’s the crumbs at the bottom of a box of cereal. What Rauch does care about is wasted food: Perfectly good tubs of yogurt, cans of beans, speckled peaches, and wilting veggies. Food that is going into a dumpster instead of…
Those “expiration dates” printed on your food? In most cases, they’re not really expiration dates. The stamped “use by,” “sell by,” and “best by” dates on food most often do not indicate safety*.
Manufacturers establish and print the dates, in general, to indicate when an item is at peak freshness and optimal taste. In other words, they have…
If you want to know the ins and outs of wasting less food, you don’t have to look much farther than Dana Gunders’ book, Waste-Free Kitchen Handbook (Chronicle Books, 2016). In it, Gunders examines how and why we throw away food in America — then provides step-by-step instructions on how to generate less food waste, from reorganizing your fridge to…
At the close of 2015, the nation was reeling from news that residents of Flint, Michigan, had been drinking and bathing in water contaminated with lead, a potent neurotoxicant. Though the mostly Black community had long been voicing concerns about the troubling quality of their drinking water, government officials assured them time and again it…
On December 10th, 2015, a delegation of 50 members, most from 15 historically Black colleges and universities held a rally. The familiar, and frequently polarizing, chant of “Black Lives Matter” echoed in the hallways of the Le Bourget Conference Centre. This was Paris, France; this was the United Nations’ 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21).…
Longtime activist on environmental issues and how they affect Native communities, Tom Goldtooth (Mdewakanton Dakota and Diné) became passionate about climate justice in 1991, when he was appointed spokesperson of the Native Peoples Caucus at the first annual National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in Washington, DC.…
Early in 2015, a national poll revealed that 54 percent of Latinos in the US say that global warming is extremely or very important to them personally, compared with 37 percent of white Americans. The poll was conducted by Stanford University, The New York Times, and a polling group called Resources for the Future, and its results made…
People of color are on the front lines of the climate crisis, and are leading the call for equitable protection and meaningful action. Green American published its issue, Climate Justice for All, as part of our mission to amplify the voices of those on the front lines of the climate crisis, working to protect the most vulnerable areas around the…
Bernard Yu, Green America’s content strategist and information architect, has experience facilitating dialogue among participants from different backgrounds. Bernard offers this advice to groups working on climate justice who would like to become more diverse and inclusive.
The modern environmental movement‚ which has done much good‚ was started…
The tragedy happening in Flint, MI, right now (see People of Color Are on the Front Lines of the Climate Crisis) may have finally shone a light on environmental injustice in a way that hasn’t happened in the past. But it’s important to understand that environmental racism, including the climate racism we’ve discussed in this issue, does not…
For the past several years, scientists had established the threshold of danger as two degrees Celcius, or about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. World temperatures could rise 2℃ above pre-industrial levels, they said, and after that point, coastal flooding, extreme weather patterns, widespread droughts and heat waves, and other climate-crisis impacts…
If you've read our spring 2016 Green American issue "Climate Justice for All," it might have brought up a number of questions and ideas. In the issue, we included this list of questions intended for community or reading groups who’d like to use the climate-justice articles in this issue as the basis for a discussion. Green America invites you…
The Muslim world, representing one-fifth of the world’s population, is also among the hardest hit by the impacts of climate change. A March 2016 NASA study, for example, found that a drought hitting the eastern Mediterranean countries of Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey since 1998 was likely the worst to hit the region…
Marie Angel Hoole moved to California happily in 2015. Her fiancée was about to start school in Los Angeles. Hoole had a bachelor’s degree and years of experience in the restaurant business, from service to management, and good references. She felt confident she would find a job and the couple’s new life in California would be better than it was…
A burst of over 1,000 hate crimes and incidents have occurred since Election Day, and the President’s words and actions are only making perpetrators bolder. With White supremacists in the cabinet and anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric coming out of the White House, we need green, people-centered solutions that bring people together—and don’t…
In November 2017, Pramila Jayapal won her Congressional election bid and became the first Indian-American woman in the House of Representatives.
Jayapal (D-WA) is also an immigrant: Her parents sent her from her home in India to the US to attend college when she was 16 years old. She stayed, got an MBA from Northwestern University, and launched a…
During the presidential primaries, Matthew Bucher didn’t like what some candidates were saying about immigrants, refugees, and people of color. It frustrated him that people might take divisive language to heart. So he took his frustration and turned it into action.
Bucher is the pastor at Immanuel Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, VA, a small…
Since early January, a wave of anonymous bomb threats against Jewish community centers, day schools, synagogues, and other Jewish-affiliated buildings has swept across the country, from Albuquerque to Chicago to Birmingham. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reports that more than half of all US states and one Canadian province have experienced…
On January 28th, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance declared a one-hour strike: From six to seven p.m., they would not pick up or drop off passengers at JFK Airport, to protest a Trump executive order banning refugees, as well as travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries, from entering the US.
“We stand in solidarity with all of our…
Ninety-four percent of Americans say they recycle in some manner, according to a 2014 Harris Survey. That can only be a good thing, right? For most people, yes. But for some, the impacts of recycling aren’t always all positive. In fact, they can be devastating.
“For those who make environmental and industrial decisions, communities of color—…
The Road to Recycling Contamination
Single-stream recycling, the simple act of dumping all of your recyclables into one bin, has become one of the most common recycling methods in the US. Public participation has increased due to the ease of single-stream bins, but the chances for contamination have skyrocketed. Reducing contamination is…
Kamikatsu, Japan, a small mountain town of 1,700 on southern Japan’s Shikoku island, is going zero waste by 2020.
So are a lot of communities in the US. But when local political leaders make this pledge, they sometimes state their city will send “zero waste to landfill” — a phrase meaning that in addition to recycling and perhaps composting trash…
In an effort to boost recycling participation, cities and towns across the country have introduced single-stream recycling, where people simply dump all of their recyclables into one bin, and the waste management company collects and sorts them, sending them off to other facilities for recycling.
Public participation has increased due to the ease…
