Contact Root & Leaf: Website | Facebook | LinkedIn 

You’ve created something to help people, or you’ve finally started your green business. What next? How do you get the word out about your product so it can have an impact? 

That’s where Root & Leaf comes in. Dan LaBelle and Sam Engel started the marketing agency to do good. 

“We’ve got a climate crisis on our hands, along with a lot of other crises, and if you have an applicable skill set, you should try and solve some of the problems in the world,” LaBelle states matter-of-factly. 

The pair, deeply entrenched in the worlds of marketing and social media, met at a start-up in Seattle. Neither were satisfied. They felt the burnout of Facebook advertising and thinking about dollars all day. They were tired of marketers making false claims instead of using truth and clarity. 

So, they got together one day after each leaving the start-up and posed the question: “What if we could use our marketing skills instead to try to improve the world and build movements around these really important companies that are doing things to better the planet and better people?” 

From there, Root & Leaf was born with the intention of helping smaller and well-intentioned businesses who don’t have the resources or money like the ill-intentioned Chevrons of the world. 

Both LaBelle and Engel agree that the marketing industry—or, as LaBelle describes it, the “soulless persuasion machine”—often gets a bad rap, and for good reason. 

That’s why Root & Leaf infuses ethics into every step of its processes.

The ethics of Root & Leaf 

It starts with vetting potential clients, looking at their funding and what they stand for. LaBelle notes this work is not just for a paycheck. “We want to be able to stand behind the marketing work that we do for these clients,” he adds. 

It’s a mutually beneficial working relationship, but what is the work Root & Leaf provides for their clients? 

It starts with AMC. LaBelle explains: “AMC stands for audience, messaging, and channels. It’s the framework we use to go in and deeply understand what our clients want to achieve.” 

They research the market their client wants to tap into, and then create a plan for what the messaging should be and how to get it out in the most effective, engaging, and far-reaching way possible. This work includes ads across platforms (Google, Facebook, etc.), performance marketing, email marketing, and much more. Their strategies are always uniquely tailored to the client and what the specific goal is. 

Ultimately, your business may not need Root & Leaf forever. Their goal is education and success—for both their clients and their clients’ audiences. 

“The ethos we work under is that we don't want to keep any of those secrets,” Engel states of Root & Leaf’s dedication to transparency and explaining, step-by-step, what they’re doing for a client and why. 

Some may think they need a lot of money for professional marketing help, but that’s not necessarily the case, and especially not for LaBelle and Engel, who prize what their clients’ missions are over everything else. Engel has worked on six-figure campaigns before, and it’s taught him how best to optimize platforms for smaller businesses.  

Root & Leaf engages in their own ethical practices, too, offering pro bono consultations and giving back to 1% for the Planet. 

Their successes run the gamut, from legal nonprofits to ethical investment companies. 

One success is with Farm Commons, which began providing virtual workshops, resources, legal support, and more during COVID-19. What started as a one-hour conversation with Root & Leaf, simply identifying ways to help, turned into multiple hours.  “Here we are a year and a half later,” LaBelle says. “We’ve helped them with numerous aspects of their business, from new membership signups, to email flow, and messaging.” Rachel Armstrong, the executive director of Farm Commons, even noted Root & Leaf helped them proactively solve problems they didn’t see coming. 

In another win, Root & Leaf helped the legal nonprofit Earth Law Center market their textbook about nature rights to higher education institutions. “We identified the right audience and the messaging that would resonate best with them,” LaBelle explains. “We researched decision makers at US law schools, looking at the deans of curriculum and which law professors would be most amenable." Now, at least three different law schools across the country are teaching the course in full or as part of another course using the textbook. 

“I am not an Earth lawyer, I cannot go into a courtroom and argue on behalf of a river for its right to not be polluted,” LaBelle concludes. “But what I can do is make sure that those organizations doing good work have what they need to be successful.” 

Do you want to lessen your environmental impact during the holidays and other special occasions? We’ve compiled a directory—by occasion—to get you started on greening holidays, including giving sustainable gifts and tips on getting your family involved. We’ve included resources from Green America’s archive, as well as from our partners and organizations we admire. 

Since chocolate is a big part of so many holidays, from candies, to desserts, to beverages, make sure to choose chocolates that are fair and direct trade that are best for people and the planet. Check out Green America’s handy scorecard to help guide your chocolate purchases. 

Finally, remember to avoid corporate holidays like Black Friday, Cyber Tuesday, and Amazon Prime Day. These are designed to make you buy things you don't really need, as are post-holiday sales. And when you do have to shop, check out the Green Business Network to find green products and services!

Back-to-School

• Go Green at School

Birthdays

• Greening Children’s Birthdays 
• 55 Eco-Friendly Children’s Birthday Tips
• 5 Tips for Sustainable Birthdays and Reducing your Carbon Footprint

Chocolate

• Chocolate Scorecard 

Christmas

• Green Christmas Trees 
• 5 Ways to Put an Eco-twist on Tradition 
• Zero Waste Christmas

Gift Giving

• Recycled Green Gifts
• 10 Great Green Gifts under $100 
• Five Tricks to Green Your Holiday Shopping

Halloween

• Green Your Halloween

Jewish Holidays

• Green Jewish Holidays from Hazon
• Jewish, Green, & Just 
• Jewish Holiday Guide from Canfei Nesharim
• Jewish Holiday Guide from Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
• Every Day is Earth Day: Jewish Holidays and Environmental Justice  

Juneteenth

• 6 Reasons to Support Black-Owned Businesses

Ramadan

• Green Your Ramadan
• Zero-Waste Iftar kits

Thanksgiving and General Holiday Season

• Your Green Holiday Checklist
• Thanksgiving Sides to Spark Conversations
• Plastic-Free Celebrations 

Valentine's Day

• Eco-friendly Ways to Package Valentine’s Day Gifts
• Remember to check out Green America’s Chocolate Scorecard! 

Weddings

• Green Your Wedding

Curious about greening another holiday? Send along your tips and suggestions to info@greenamerica.org.

EarthFolio is a revolutionary online investment platform that provides expert sustainable and socially responsible investing advice. Using an intuitive interface and a radically low cost structure, EarthFolio allows you to invest in an automated portfolio designed with your financial and sustainable goals in mind. Each portfolio is constructed using mutual funds screened on up to 10 ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) criteria. The screens seek best-of-class companies in areas such as clean tech, equal employment, human rights, and animal welfare, while also minimizing companies profiting from tobacco, weapons, or gambling. Getting started is quick and easy. Just answer a few straightforward questions, select your portfolio, and EarthFolio will do the rest. It’s what we call investing for good. Simply.

We all strive to live life on purpose and on mission. Whether an Association driven by mission, a business hoping to be sold one day, or a family eager to send kids off to college and retire to the beach together, our finances should be a means to that end, never a stumbling block. With so much information out there, much of it conflicting, it can be hard to navigate a way forward with confidence. We want to cut through the noise and help you interpret that information so you can apply it properly to your situation. Good financial advice can be the key to achieving your mission and life goals. We empower people to live enriched lives and not be held captive by financial stress. I guess you could say we are in the human transformation business.

Following the murder of George Floyd, US corporations focused attention on the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement -- a slogan and organization launched by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the murder of the teenager Trayvon Martin. The videotape of Floyd’s murder and the public demonstrations that followed prompted Corporate America to recognize its role in addressing racism. A flurry of high visibility Black Lives Matter pledges followed, promises by corporations to provide significant funding – billions of dollars -- to support Black communities. 

What is the status of these pledges? Where are funds going? What level of transparency is available? Should corporations have to account for these pledges? 

Fran Teplitz, Green America’s executive co-director for business, investing & policy interviewed William Michael Cunningham, CEO of Creative Investment Research, to help answer these questions. 

Cunningham filed a petition with the Securities & Exchange Commission in May 2021 seeking transparency and accountability for corporate BLM pledges. Cunningham is a Black economist and long-standing advocate for impact investing and corporate accountability. His firm, Creative Investment Research, is a Green America Green Business Network member, and he is a member of the National Black MBA Association and an affiliate member of both the African American Financial Advisors (AAAA) and the Financial Planning Association (FPA).    

The BLM Pledge

FT: What prompted you to file the SEC petition seeking a “comprehensive framework requiring any public companies or issuers that have promised financial support for Black Lives Matter (“BLM Pledge”) to accurately disclose, on a timely basis, all activity related to that pledge”? Why is this needed? 

WMC:  American companies have the resources to honor these pledges, but structural and cultural problems, as well as a lack of accountability, are hindering their ability to follow through on their promises. We think the SEC can help by requiring transparency.  

FT: Please elaborate on the petition’s implications and how it fits into the concerns of socially responsible investors. 

WMC: Investors have demanded and received significant corporate governance-related changes at major energy corporations.  These activities show that investors are now more effectively using new information on a range of issues, many of which are focused on uncovering and understanding long-term performance and risk management factors impacting public-reporting companies. Clearly, norms of business reporting activities are changing rapidly in response to new social concerns. 

The impact of the BLM promises on corporate valuation is the most significant point, in our opinion. We are working on a study of this. Hiding or providing less than accurate information on corporate performance with respect to BLM Pledges, prevents accurate valuation. This leads to an undisclosed and elevated risk of loss, especially should information concerning the lack of corporate performance become public and lower corporate valuation. 

Evolving Corporate Attitudes on Race

FT: In August 2021 The Washington Post published Corporate America’s $50 Billion Promise estimating BLM corporate pledges – does this number align with the pledge sums you’ve documented with your BLM Tracker? How significant, in your view, is $50 billion in this context, given corporate profits and the scale of the problems addressed by the BLM movement?  

WMC: As of Thursday, June 24, 2021, 261 corporations have pledged $67.186 billion to BLM. We estimate that cash disbursed so far totals $652 million. Net income for the firms making pledges equals $747.5 billion, BLM pledges represent 8.9% of net income.  

We think these pledges may point to a significant change in corporate attitudes concerning race. This is the start of a long, uncertain process, sure to be characterized by fits and starts.  

FT: What accounts for the difference between your numbers and those from The Post? 

 WMC: Because our survey covers 261 companies while the The Post tracked 50 companies, we’re able to capture more pledges; when it comes to actual disbursements, we focus on those with the greatest level of trust that the monies have indeed been expensed. 

FT: “BLM pledge” sounds very broad; where are corporations mostly directing their pledges and why? 

WMC:  Most pledges are going to non profit civil rights organizations, including the NAACP (The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Color of Change, the Equal Justice Initiative, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Justice Under Law.  

Assessing Impact of Black Lives Matter Pledges

FT:  The Washington Post article identifies how corporate pledges are often not provided in ways that can most help Black communities. One example given relates to banks that serve Black communities, and that instead of providing long-term equity, corporations are making large deposits that can be withdrawn anytime. What’s your sense of the real value of these funds for supporting Black communities versus the “PR” about them? 

WMC: Big banks making loan pledges are lazy, since this does not require much new thinking or effort.  

Some are seeking new ways to add value and are coming up with innovative approaches. Most are not.  

FT: What do you consider the most effective pledges and why?  

WMC: The most effective pledges are those that provide significant financial resources that are broadly dispersed without a lot of bureaucracy and suspicion.  

FT: The Post piece states: It will be difficult to assess whether corporations deliver measurable results. There is no single entity tracking the corporate promises. Nor are corporations required to report on where all of their money is going or its impact. …. So far, 37 companies have confirmed disbursing at least $1.7 billion of the $49.5 billion pledged. This lack of accountability and transparency supports the need for your SEC petition -- what’s the next step with your petition? Is there a role that investors can play to support it?  

WMC:  The next step is for the SEC to evaluate the proposal and see how it fits within SEC regulatory framework and rules. Providing letters of support to the SEC is the best way to help.  

Send comments to rule-comments@sec.gov.   The subject line of your message must include the File Number 4-774 

FT: Do you think the public will ever know the allocation of most of the billions of dollars in BLM pledges? 

WMC:  We calculate that the total is $67 billion now. I do not think that, absent the SEC regulation, the public will ever know the allocation of most of the BLM pledges. 

FT:  Is there anything else you’d like Green America’s readers to most understand about corporate BLM pledges and their range of impacts? 

WMC: We are developing new analysis tools in this area and will launch several BLM Pledge compliance tools soon. 

FT: Thank you very much and we look forward to staying in touch and learning how oversight of corporate BLM pledges develops. 

Take Action

Email the SEC to require transparency and accountability for Black Lives Matter pledges, totaling billions of dollars.

• Email rule-comments@sec.gov
• Subject line must include File Number 4-774
• Key points you can include about why accurate and timely disclosure of BLM pledges is needed:
  • Transparency of corporate conduct is a benefit to investors and other stakeholders
  • Investors and the public deserve accountability of corporate financial promises
  • Corporations have acknowledged their role in helping end racist practices in society and the economy by making BLM pledges. There should be integrity to the pledge process.

Social justice cannot be a performative action. Join millions of Green Americans taking action on workers' rights, divesting from fossil fuels, and more.

Begin your environmental education journey by checking out these green books that have quickly become modern classics.

Women are already bearing the disproportionate brunt of climate change—so it makes sense to listen to the women at the forefront of climate change work, sharing stories and solutions for environmental issues. All We Can Save (Penguin Random House, 2020) is a staple for understanding the role feminism and intersectionality have in protecting our planet. 

It’s always good to start with the basics—the plants and life on our planet, and the stories they tell. In Braiding Sweetgrass (Milkweed, 2014) Robin Wall Kimmerer, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and a botanist, gives voice to these living things in order that we may better co-exist. This book weaves tales of myth, science, and history, to reveal how sacred our world is. 

Byrd and DeMates offer a great first step in learning what sustainability can mean and how to become agents of change, in their book Sustainability Made Simple (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017). The book introduces the environmental problems seen by all humans, discusses how companies and institutions transition toward sustainability, emphasizes why individual action is vital, and gives examples of changes we can all make. 

There are numerous factors contributing to our current climate crisis, but Naomi Klein points to capitalism as the root cause in her book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (Simon & Schuster, 2014). Klein discusses the intersection of profit and environmentalism, and how economic systems have power in creating a sustainable planet. While this book has been noted as provocative and controversial, it is a good read to help understand how our economy contributes to the environmental crisis. 

The number of fiction and nonfiction texts that explore climate is constantly growing with new ideas and voices to be heard. Continue your education by purchasing green books from BookShop.org to support independent bookstores or borrow from your local library.

The bad news: wasteful and throwaway packaging is bad for human health, human rights, communities, wildlife, and climate and we’re using more and more. The good news: we’ve made big strides in sustainable packaging. It is possible for customers and workers to be healthy and safe without excessive waste and other negative impacts. It’s time to embrace and scale the sustainable packaging solutions that are already here and pursue innovations for the future.

Why do materials matter?

• 40% of all the plastic made each year is for packaging, most of it is designed to be tossed.
• More than half of all the paper made each year is used for packaging. Only about half the pulp that goes into that packaging is recycled, and much of it is not or can not be recycled after.
• Glass is made from sand and extracting sand is the largest mining endeavor globally and also the least regulated. Globally less than 35% of glass is recycled.
• Aluminum is made with bauxite which is extracted through damaging open-pit mining. It is far less energy-intensive and damaging to recycle than make new, and infinitely recyclable, yet less than 70% of aluminum products are recycled. 

Can’t we just..?

Make everything so we can compost or recycle it? The infrastructure to recycle or compost packaging is not currently available in most parts of the world. Packaging is more difficult and expensive to recycle because of the types of plastic used or because it’s made by layering different materials together. To fix this, companies need to make packaging that is easier to recycle and policymakers need to prioritize improving recycling systems. 

Replace all the plastic in packaging with another material? Replacing one kind of unsustainable packaging with another isn’t a true solution. For example, if a candy bar used to be wrapped in plastic you could only toss in the garbage and now it’s wrapped in paper you can only toss in the garbage, that’s a false solution. 

Use bioplastics? They’re less harmful, right? Most bioplastics, which can be made from as low as 20% plant material, require industrial processes to break down and many release toxic chemicals when they do break down. Bioplastics also can contaminate the recyclable plastic stream. They can rely on large-scale, unsustainable agriculture and require additional land for agriculture. While some bioplastics are better than traditional petroleum-based plastic, these negatives make them a poor choice for long-term sustainability.

Use biodegradable packaging? Biodegradable is a term that is used inconsistently and often misunderstood. It is applied to a wide array of materials, including plastics that take a very long time to break down and leave toxic residues when they do. Compostable is a word that has applied standards in regards to break down time and impact on soil health that make it a better standard to aim for. 

What really works

Get naked. More companies are going naked or packaging-free, even designing their products and their stores so they don’t need packaging.

Go reusable! Many companies are creating products with reusable packaging and zero-waste stores are popping up to help people buy staple goods in packaging they bring from home. 

We live in a world where practically every purchase comes with packaging baggage, so why not vote with your dollars to support companies that invest in sustainable packaging? Every time you open your wallet, think of the small ways you can reduce your packaging footprint.

Whether you are gift-shopping for an advanced green-thumb or a hopeless horticulturist, here are some rad(ish) green gardening gifts to jumpstart them into next spring. 

{GBN} signifies a Green Business Network member. Green America's directory of certified businesses are small and micro-businesses that have passed rigorous standards for social and environmental responsibility.

Collect next season’s bounty in an artisan-made, pine needle and pajón (a native grass found in Guatemala) Harvest Basket from A Thread of Hope {GBN}. Find this unique piece for $60.

Shop Thread of Hope

Florida Native Wildflower’s {GBN} fresh seeds are the perfect way to spice up a garden, while attracting pollinators to improve veggie production. Seed packs for 
this Blanket Flower are $4.

Shop Florida Native Wildflowers

The Great Outdoors Survival Kit from Purple Prairie {GBN} is filled with goodies, like the body butter and gardener’s carrot salve to relieve hardworking hands. The bug spray, sunscreen, soaps, and sanitizer protect your favorite gardener from the wilderness. Get this set for $44.

Shop Purple Prairie Botanicals

A Toad Stool from Nomadics Tipi Makers {GBN} is a charming accent to small spaces (12” height, 8” diameter, max 150 lbs). They are made from scraps recycled from the tipi-making process. Nomadics Tipi Makers helps to sustain the values of Native American Culture via donations, and their scholarship. Toad stools can be found for $45 each.

Shop Nomadics Tipi Makers

Sproutamo’s {GBN} Easy-Sprout containers help maintain the optimal temperature and moisture levels to quickly and easily grow and store sprouts. Starting at $10.95.

Shop Sproutamo

Subscriptions from Permaculture Gardens {GBN} have something for everyone—from a low commitment, one-time permaculture guild to an annual grow-it-yourself program which includes a step by step 8-hour course, Masterclasses, Zoom classes, seeds, plants, and tools, garden-themed printables and apps.

Subscribe to Permaculture Gardens

For birthdays, celebrations, or just to let someone know you're thinking about them, show the love with these green gardening gifts that will never go out of style.

We all know that supporting small businesses is key to strengthening our communities. According to the Small Business Administration, they create 1.5 million jobs annually and account for 64% of new jobs created in the US. But how can we support green and local businesses without overconsuming? Check out our list of tips for some ideas on how to diversify the ways that you support your local businesses. 

Boost their online presence 

If any of your local businesses have a social media presence, funnel more eyes towards their pages by tagging them in your own posts, writing reviews on sites like Yelp and Google and signing up for any promotional newsletters that they may have. You can also find new small businesses on sites like Etsy and Shopify, browse and buy from local businesses on Sook and find used, out-of-print and rare books from independent booksellers on Alibris. 

Vocalize your support 

Recommend your favorite local businesses to friends and family. Word of mouth is an incredibly powerful marketing tool: a study by global marketing research firm Nielsen found that 92% of consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all forms of advertising. Leverage the power of your endorsements to bolster support for local businesses. 

Open your eyes, ears, and laptop 

The impulse to click “place order” online before shopping at a brick-and-mortar store is stronger than ever. Counteract this by evaluating your online purchases and taking notice of local businesses in your city or town. 

There are plenty of ways to find new favorites. Your local Chamber of Commerce, community Facebook groups and Nextdoor forums are all resources to broaden your index of neighborhood businesses. Make an adventure out of exploring new community businesses with friends. These local stores may carry items that you would otherwise buy online; increasing your knowledge of your surrounding merchants allows you to shift from buying shipped items to making purchases from small businesses. 

Pickup is preferred 

Though getting meals or groceries delivered is tempting, ordering from most delivery services reduces the profits received by merchants. Companies like Postmates, DoorDash, and Instacart charge additional fees to the businesses who use them, whittling down already thin profit margins. When you’re able to buy from a local restaurant or grocery store, picking up your dinner order and grabbing products in-store bolsters the impact of your purchase. 

Start networking 

Green products and services are at high demand with more and more people keeping people and the planet at top of mind. Businesses that join the Green Business Network® (greenbusinessnetwork.org) can get lots of resources for going green and meet other eco-entrepreneurs.  

For everyday purchases or special occasion shopping, remember to think small and explore the independent storefronts in your community or online. When you support small business, you make the world smaller—in all the best ways.

Ever since the creation of Bitcoin in 2009, the cryptocurrency market has staked its claim as the 21st century gold rush. Investors have made and lost millions in the digitized crypto trade, and as of 2021, over 100 million people are using cryptocurrencies. 

Whether you’re hoping to strike it rich, or you think that crypto investors are chasing fool’s gold, it is probably here to stay, and so is the massive amount of energy that is required for its operation. 

What is cryptocurrency? 

Mainstream cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are defined by three main qualities: they can be mined and used internationally, are not regulated by a central authority, and their value can be quite volatile.

Crypto’s unique security system, investment potential, and convenience have led to its rise in notoriety over the past decade. Because of a recording technology called blockchain, cryptocurrency is considered very secure, almost impossible to counterfeit, and able to operate without a regulation authority. 

The volatility of cryptocurrency creates opportunities for considerable financial gain or significant loss. Trading cryptos also allows for lower transaction fees for online money exchanges and may be an enticing option for unbanked individuals. 

Earning Coins Takes Big Energy 

Here’s where things get complicated. At first glance, deviating away from paper money and plastic credit cards seems like an effective way to conserve resources. However, most cryptocurrencies are produced through a process called mining, which requires extensive computing power. To mine cryptocurrency, high-powered computers from around the world race against each other to verify and record cryptocurrency transactions; the first computer to do so is rewarded with cryptocurrency coins. 

But the intense computations involved in the mining process require massive amounts of energy, and much of this energy is derived from fossil fuels. Mining rigs operate 24 hours a day, and Digiconomist estimates that one Bitcoin transaction uses the same amount of energy as powering the average US household for 53 days. 

As cryptocurrency becomes more popular and prices rise, mining competition intensifies, and more energy is consumed. As more miners enter the cryptocurrency market to compete for coins, the probability that a single computer will win the race to solve a given computation goes down, and it becomes increasingly difficult to make a profit through mining. This carbon-emitting cycle causes miners to continually up the processing power of their servers to increase their chances of striking gold, which requires more and more energy. 

The mining process also produces a significant amount of electronic waste. As the special hardware required to mine crypto is updated and older versions become obsolete, most previous technology is thrown away. Mining technology is highly specialized and can’t be repurposed; Digiconomist estimates that the bitcoin network alone creates eight to 12 thousand tons of e-waste every year. 

It’s Only Getting Dirtier 

Environmentalists have raised concerns about the oppositional relationship between cryptocurrency prices and mining efficiency. On the Bitcoin network, the computations required to mine get more complicated as the price of bitcoin increases, extending time required to solve each problem increases but computing power stays constant. Therefore, as the price increases, the network will have to use more computing power (and fuel) in order to process transactions. 

“The hard part about cryptocurrency is because people can mine it and create anywhere in the world,” says Brady Quirk-Garvan, co-owner of the Money With A Mission Team at Natural Investments LLC {GBN} and Green America board member. “You can’t really standardize and say, ‘this currency is only created from renewable energies, or is even low carbon.’” 

The location of mining is important because it determines the type of fuel that is used to produce electricity. According to researchers at Cambridge University’s Centre for Alternative Finance, roughly 65% of bitcoin mining is based in China, which is heavily dependent on coal. CNBC reported that the fossil fuels used to mine bitcoin release more yearly carbon dioxide emissions than New Zealand (about 36 million tons per year). 

“The good news is that the overall policy framework in China is conducive to climate action,” says Marilyn Waite, co-host of the China Cleantech podcast and head of the climate and clean energy finance portfolio at the Hewlett Foundation. “China is the largest market for solar panels and electric vehicles. Now, the challenge in China is to not build any new coal fired power plants, retire the old existing coal power plants, and replace them with renewable energy. Those climate-friendly investments will lead to decarbonization, and therefore everything, including blockchain activities, will become greener.” 

In September 2021, China declared all cryptocurrency transactions illegal. How this will affect mining and the market is still unclear because the country had banned cryptocurrency trading in 2017 and it remained a hub for mining and trading. 

A relatively new coalition of cryptocurrency firms, renewable energy producers, and even a crypto-friendly environmentalist group called the Crypto Climate Accord is dedicated to expediting this process of greening cryptocurrency. They’re pursuing this goal through a combination of improving cryptocurrency mining methods, using 100 percent renewable energy, and using open-source technology to anonymously and transparently report on how much mining is actually green. Bitcoin and Etherium are not currently signatories of the Crypto Climate Accord; you can see the supporters and signatories at cryptoclimate.org.

As of 2021, the BBC and Digiconomist reported that each year, the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks use about 180 terawatt-hours of electricity combined; that amount of energy could power over 15 million homes for an entire year. 

“Mining cryptocurrency is just like any other economic activity—what is causing it to be harmful for the planet and for the climate is the underlying energy sources that we use,” says Waite. “Mining cryptocurrency though very inefficient in energy use, is not inherently climate change-causing. Because our energy systems are mostly fossil fuel-based, any economic activity, whether it’s manufacturing EVs or industrial agriculture, is going to have this negative impact on climate change. To solve that we need to do what we should be doing anyway: transforming our energy systems to low-carbon resources.”

In 2019, meat alternatives went from a fringe food to a mainstream trend. “Meatless” beef—practically indistinguishable from actual beef—made its way to fast food establishments to appeal to meat-eaters as the climate-friendly burger. But with all these choices, what’s the difference, and are they truly planet-friendly?
We compiled a shortlist of the most popular plant-based meat alternatives out there, looking at environmental impacts, ingredients, and taste. 

Sunshine Burger: The Green American Pick 

The Sunshine burger contains no soy, peanuts, or tree nuts, and is vegan, non-GMO, and the only option on this list that is USDA-certified organic. Unlike other alternative meat companies, Sunshine Plant-Based Foods{GBN} does not claim its burgers taste like beef. It is also the least processed compared to other options on this list, offering “whole food ingredients” like sunflower seeds and brown rice. 

Shop Sunshine Foods

Beyond Burger: Non-GMO Peas, Please 

The Beyond burger is made with a variety of plants, from pea for protein to fatty coconut oil to imitate that classic grill sizzle. Beyond Meat’s entire line of products are non-GMO. A peer-reviewed Life Cycle Analysis published by the University of Michigan in 2018 revealed that the Beyond burger uses 99% less water, 93% less land, and produces 90% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than a quarter-pound beef burger. 

Morningstar Farms: Cheap, Easy, Everywhere 

Morningstar Farms are stocked on grocery shelves across the nation, making it accessible for many people. The company, which is owned by Kellogg, carries a wide variety of flavors when it comes to vegetarian burgers, but these were never intended to taste like real meat. Ingredients can vary widely between options, but all contain some form of soy, and only some are non-GMO. A 2016 Life Cycle Assessment notes that the spicy black bean burger produces 89% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than a beef burger of equal weight, making it a solid alternative for reducing your carbon foodprint.

Impossible Burger: Fast Food Goes Vegetarian 

The Impossible burger made headlines in 2019 for tasting just like beef. According to the company that makes it, the process uses 87% less water, 96% less land, produces 89% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than a beef burger. Its ingredients include soy and potatoes, but would-be eaters should know that the component that makes the burger meaty—heme protein—is produced with genetically-modified yeast. As one of the few food companies to create lab-grown proteins, more research is needed to understand the scope of potential health and environmental concerns caused by creating those proteins.

What’s the Scoop on GMOs? 

In the 70s, GMO foods were created to work in tandem with synthetic pesticides and have resulted in high pesticide use on crops and fertilizers. Atrazine, a component in pesticides, is linked to severe health issues like birth defects. Overuse of nitrates, found in synthetic fertilizers, is responsible for eutrophication and mass marine animal die-offs in the Gulf of Mexico. Glyphosate, also called RoundUp, is linked to cancer. Green America is dedicated to educating consumers and businesses about the impacts of GMOs, shifting corporations away from a reliance on toxic herbicides and GMOs towards organic and regenerative farming practices.

What's going on with GMOs?

{GBN} signifies a Green Business Network member. Green America's directory of certified businesses are small and micro-businesses that have passed rigorous standards for social and environmental responsibility.

Going meatless can sometimes feel like a real sacrifice, especially if you grew up with cookouts and barbecues, but today's plant-based burger buffet has so much to offer. Try out the various meatless brands to find the one that works for you!

As your clothes tumble around in the washing machine, water washes away your shirt’s dirt, smells, and tiny pieces of microplastics. Microplastics, plastics less than 5 millimeters long, can be shed off clothes in the form of microfibers of non-biodegradable material such as polyester, nylon, acrylic, or spandex. When water empties from the washer and goes down the drain, microplastics head toward rivers and oceans. They have been found across the globe, sinking towards the Mariana Trench and climbing up to Mount Everest, all because we have plastic in our clothes. 

“We are seeing microplastics showing up literally everywhere. You simply can’t avoid them,” Jay Sinha, founder of Green America’s member Life Without Plastic {GBN} explained. 

A 2021 study published in IOP Science Conference Series notes that microplastics can cause serious harm to sea creatures, such as inhibiting growth, reducing food intake, and more. In terms of fish and other marine life, individuals should be concerned by microplastics’ ability to have worse and worse repercussions as they go up the food chain, says Paul Anastas, professor at the Yale School of the Environment and School of Public Health.

Scientists still don’t know the full extent of the impact of microplastic pollution on human health. Of course, all microplastics pollution is caused by humans, as the users of plastic. 

Shedding from synthetic clothes in home washing machines make up about 35% of the global release of microplastic, coming from the synthetic fibers that make up 60% of global fiber consumption, according to 2017 estimations by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. 

We can all take steps to reduce opportunities for plastics to travel toward our oceans and harm marine ecosystems and human life. Microplastic pollution is a problem that can be solved if consumers and businesses play their part. 

Managing Microplastics in Your Closet 

Even if your closet is already full of clothes made with microplastics and synthetic microfibers, such as polyester, nylon, or spandex clothing, you can act against microplastic pollution. 

Wash your clothes less and do full loads. Washing clothes less creates fewer opportunities for the fibers to be shed—try letting your clothes air out after wear and spot cleaning to reduce smells and trips through the wash. The Environmental Protection Agency explains that washing full loads causes less friction between clothes, reducing the number of microfibers shed. Meanwhile, a 2020 study done by researchers at the Newcastle Innovation Center and Northumbria University estimated that going from small to large loads about halved the number of microfibers released. 

Buy a filter for your washing machine. More and more companies, such as Lint LUV-R and PlanetCare sell filters that specialize in capturing microfibers and stop many microplastics from leaking into waterways. One 2018 study from the University of Toronto found that the Lint LUV-R filter captured about 87% of microfibers shed each wash. One can also buy laundry bags or laundry balls that specialize in catching microfibers, such as those from Guppyfriend, Cora Ball, and Wolven. 

Use a front-loading washer. Researchers at the University of California Santa Barbara found that front-loading machines had microfiber masses that were 7 times smaller than top-loading machines. This is likely occurring because of the central agitator in top-load machines that causes clothes to move more vigorously. 

Filter your drinking water. This won’t reduce the pollution already in the water system, but will keep particles out of your system.

Alternatives to Synthetic Microfiber Clothing 

There is no need for microplastic pollution. It is possible to create non-polluting fabrics. 

Choose plastic-free fabrics. This includes organic cotton, wool, linen, and other natural fibers. These fabrics are easy to find and do not contain the synthetic microfibers that are shed in washing machines. 

Many of Green America’s members work on producing plastic-free products and clothing. For example, Life Without Plastic {GBN} produces fabrics made out of organic cotton and laundry materials that reduce plastic use. Their lavender drying bag replaces microplastic-containing dryer sheets, can be composted, and is made from organic cotton. OOLOOP {GBN}, and others, sell a variety of clothes that come from natural and organic fibers like organic cotton and linen. Linen, silk, and wool can be particularly expensive to buy new, so look out for them at the thrift store, too. 

Reach out to companies about alternative forms of plastic. When asked about solutions to microplastics, Anastas replied that “There are three steps that should be taken: design, design, design.” Design makes it possible to create plastics and fabrics that biodegrade and do not harm wildlife. 

Write to companies and request that they do more to address microplastic pollution. Let them know that alternatives exist, and they should do their part to implement them.

If your closet contains synthetic materials, don't just throw them away! Wash them responsibly to fight the impact of plastic in clothes, then shop for more eco-friendly clothing in the future.

Updated August 2023

Bringing an outside caregiver into your home is such a personal decision and can make you feel vulnerable. Whether the person is there to work with your kids, an elder, or a family member with a disability, it can feel awkward to have a stranger there doing the job. Imagine being on the other side—domestic workers are often women, immigrants, non-native English speakers, and/or from other vulnerable groups. 

When you hire a domestic caregiver, you are working together to create a caring environment and you can use your justice and equity values to guide that relationship. At Green America we talk a lot about using your money to express your values—we call it voting with your dollars. When someone works for you, think of yourself as an employer and what kind of workplace and policies you want to have. 

“Most people who employ someone in their homes don’t think of themselves as employers because of legacies of oppression in the United States, which begins with workers being left out of landmark labor policies,” says Erica Sklar of Hand in Hand, the domestic employers network. “So before people even start their research, stepping into the identity of ‘employer’ is really important.”

Rethink your role:

It is a symbiotic relationship—and to borrow biology terms, you want it to be a mutualistic relationship, where both parties benefit, not a parasitic one, where one takes and the other gives. There may be tension sometimes, like in any workplace, but you can return to questions that ask how you both can benefit.

We are more than our work—at Green America, we often quote folk singer, Charlie King, saying “Our life is more than our work, and our work is more than our job.” That’s true for domestic workers as well. Caregiving encompasses many kinds of different work, plus workers have whole lives outside of the homes they work in. Being compassionate to that will go a long way. 

Making your home a safe and hospitable work environment can mean better care, and a better life for the worker. It can also be a big lift. Hand in Hand offers tons of resources for employers to start thinking about wages, leave, and other concerns during the hiring stage. It also offers checklists of topics to consider in advance and steps to take as you bring a nanny, cleaner, or health attendants into your home—find those resources at domesticemployers.org. Sklar also recommends introducing your employee to the National Domestic Workers Association because domestic workers often work alone, which can be very isolating. By joining that group they can become aware of their rights and find solidarity with each other and with justice-minded employers.

Before people even start their research, stepping into 
the identity of ‘employer’ is really important. 
—Erica Sklar, Hand in Hand 

Offer fair pay and time off: 

If you’re not working through a hiring service (a visiting nurses association for example), the person coming into your home is working for themselves and wouldn’t have days off unless they are given by you. Christy Schwengel, director of major gifts at Green America, is a mom of two whose nanny worked with her family for 10 years. She offered vacation, sick leave, and snow days, as well as pay if her family canceled at the last minute.

“Our motto was, if we were paid and off, she should be paid and off,” Schwengel says.

Determining what to pay and how much time off to give is a conversation between you and your employee, but there are guidelines in the bevy of resources online. Don’t forget to check laws, Sklar reminds—domestic workers do have rights, but they’re not nationally mandated. Do an internet search for “domestic worker laws” and your state.

Communicate and consider a contract: 

Make sure to talk about important issues upfront. Hand in Hand works with the National Domestic Workers Alliance to create sample contracts in English and Spanish, to talk through important issues with care workers in advance. A contract is a good way to have a conversation right at the beginning to plainly state assumptions and eliminate guessing one another’s needs. A contract can also be a good place to outline your family’s covid-19 precautions and what you expect from someone working in your home. Make sure the conversation is two-way, so that an employee may express concerns or add their needs into the contract as well. 

Share the work, if the fit is right:

Marketing manager Dana Christianson likes using a nanny share for her toddler, to lessen the cost and switch off the location of kids and a nanny. Shares can be challenging to navigate but can be worth it if you find a family in your area with similar values when it comes to childcare. Hand in Hand also has resources about navigating nanny shares.

Sklar recommends signing Hand in Hand’s Fair Care Pledge, because having solidarity among ethical domestic employers is important for creating fair policies that include, instead of discount, the importance of care work done at home. 

“We know that most people want to be ethical employers, but what that looks like is not always clear, and that’s particularly unclear in a pandemic,” says Sklar. “Once you sign the fair care pledge, we send you any resources we develop because we’re constantly meeting our moment and expanding our resources.” 

Bringing anyone into your home, it is always important to feel safe, sure, and secure, but remember that those feelings should go both ways. When hiring at-home care, make sure to be provide a just work place.

The state of the fashion industry is harrowing, to say the least; can online thrifting help abate this crisis? 

The fashion industry is currently responsible for roughly 10% of all humanity’s carbon emissions, making it one of the world’s largest air polluters. It is also the second-largest consumer of the world’s water supply. It takes roughly 650 gallons of water to make one new cotton t-shirt and a single pair of jeans takes 1,800 gallons. Plus, studies show that the constant shopping culture combined with low-quality goods from the fast fashion industry means the average American tosses 81 pounds of clothing annually. When you add all that waste up, roughly 26 billion pounds of textiles are thrown into landfills every year in the United States.

It’s abundantly clear that we need to push for major change in the fashion industry. Secondhand shopping significantly reduces textile waste, lowers our carbon footprints, and helps conserve water. Recirculating clothing through thrifting is a solution that benefits both our world and our wallets. 

Over the past decade, companies have taken notice of the trend towards thrifting, and online clothing resellers like Depop, ThredUp, and The RealReal have popped up alongside fast fashion retailers. These online thrifting sites make a lot of promises surrounding the positive environmental impacts that they create. 

These companies create a lot of messaging around reducing textile waste and creating a circular economy, making it difficult to discern whether or not these sites are greenwashing their services or changing the market for the better. Ultimately, the decision of whether to use them may boil down to your location, lifestyle, and consumption habits. 

Green: E-Thrifting 

Transit is a major component of shopping. According to a 2008 study by Carnegie Mellon University, e-commerce is the more energy-efficient option in roughly 80% of transactions, with 30% less energy use on average than in-store purchases. According to the Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Americans travel a total of 14 miles on an average shopping trip, with 1.5 items purchased per trip. According to the Carnegie Mellon study, delivery trucks drop off approximately 1 package for every 0.1 to 1 mile that they drive. If you live in a rural or suburban area and can’t reach your destination by foot or bike, online thrifting may be the way to go. 

ThredUp is a popular site that takes donations and pays people a small percentage of what they will sell them for or may decline to take a donation. The company reports it has processed 125 million items as of 2021 and displaced 1.1 billion pounds of carbon emissions. It does not report what it does with donations it declines or items that do not sell, making it similar to a traditional large thrift store chain, like Goodwill or Savers, plus the added shipping to customers.

Poshmark, eBay, and Depop are platforms where you can buy from individual sellers, who may have different sustainability and business goals. Depop’s 2021-22 sustainability plan outlines many goals, like achieving carbon neutrality by the end of 2021, but not all of its goals are specific and measurable. Poshmark does not have public-facing sustainability goals or reports. Green America encourages all businesses to be transparent in their practices and goals, in part so their customers can help hold them accountable.

Take time to consider where your money is headed. Brick-and-mortar thrift shops may support 
charitable causes and create jobs 
in your community. 

Greener: Thrift Locally

Local thrifting is one of the greenest ways to get your clothes, period. Brick-and-mortar thrift shops create jobs in your community and often are nonprofits or support charitable causes. You can also find green materials at more accessible prices than buying new. 

If you want to broaden your selection of sellers while keeping it local, you can check out online community hubs like your town’s Facebook groups, Nextdoor, Freecycle, or local websites that host forums for online sales and trades.

When you thrift thoughtfully, whether online or in-person, you’re keeping clothes out of the landfill and contributing to greener business models than conventional fashion.

Tips for Greener E-Thrifting

To maximize your emissions savings while online shopping, opt for the tortoise instead of the hare. Choosing a longer shipping window, where offered, allows companies to reduce packaging and fuel by bundling your orders in the most efficient way. Further reduce your emissions by narrowing down your search results to only display listings from local sellers or warehouses. Etsy, Poshmark, Depop, ThredUp, and eBay all offer this filter option. 

Don't Rely on Returns

Frequently returning packages is another polluting pitfall of all e-commerce; free returns aren’t free from emissions—it doubles the transportation emissions, and oftentimes, returned items aren’t resold. Instead, they’re sold in massive pallets to liquidation companies, or worse, trashed. 

In 2019, Etsy became the first major online retailer to fully offset its emissions generated from shipping and packaging. Items returned to ThredUp are subject to a $1.99 restocking fee in order to ensure that they can be inspected and re-listed on the site. On sites like Poshmark, Depop, and eBay, return policies may differ from seller to seller. 

Ensure that your pieces are the perfect fit and won’t need to be returned by checking garment measurements prior to adding them to your cart. If you can’t find measurements, message the retailer for more information. 

Shop For Quality

Being able to filter by the brand is another perk of e-thrifting. Even though you’re picking up items secondhand, buying clothing from environmentally conscious brands that offer quality materials is still key. Along with encouraging others to buy green, sporting these brands promotes garments made with ethically produced textiles such as organic cotton, hemp, soybean fiber, and linen. Check out GreenPages.org to find over 50 clothing brands that have achieved Green America’s certification. 

Though the internet often encourages excessive shopping, it can also act as an invaluable tool to curb unnecessary emissions. If you live in a suburban or rural area, lack local stores with the items you need, and are dedicated to conscious consumption, online thrifting may be right for you.

Fighting for food justice is an ongoing American battle as we take action to end hunger and food insecurity. The Food Research & Action Center reports that 10% of households in the United States experience food insecurity. While it can be difficult to address such a large-scale issue, confronting hunger in your own community can lead to a long-standing ripple effect. 

Take these steps to help relieve hunger in your community. 

Reach Out to Restaurants

At the end of the day, many businesses will throw out leftover food; food that could be going to hungry people in your community. Asking local restaurants if they would give any leftover food that can be donated to a food bank can help combat this. Not every restaurant will agree, and some are already donating. But by asking around, you could lead one more business to help those in need.

Support Black-Led Food Justice Initiatives

With 19.1% of Black households experiencing food insecurity, according to USDA data, Black Americans remain the most food insecure group in America (though Native American communities were not included in the data group). This disparity makes it critical to support Black-owned food justice initiatives. Fuel The People, The Okra Project, and Brooklyn Rescue Mission all work to provide both food and support to marginalized communities. The Heal Food Alliance has an even longer list of groups to support, across the country. You can show your support by donating or asking restaurants to consider partnering with these initiatives. 

If you don’t have the proper means to financially support, local food banks are often under-resourced and in need of volunteers. Find food banks in your community by searching your location on feedingamerica.org/find-your-local-foodbank.

Set up a Community Fridge

Since the pandemic started, community fridges grew increasingly popular as many Americans lost their jobs and thus, their means to buy food. Community fridges act as a free fridge that is accessible to anyone in need, while also cutting food waste and creating a more bonded community. Freedge is an online resource to find community fridges in your state and finding inspiration when creating your own. To set up a fridge in your community:

• Research: Read about why community fridges are effective and crucial. Look into the difference between mutual aid and charity, and how to implement solidarity over charity through your fridge. Read our article on the power of mutual aid at greenamerica.org/mutually-inclusive.
• Reach Out: Connect with people in your community and other community organizers to create a base of volunteers. 
• Resolve Logistics: Before buying the fridge, it’s important to discuss a thorough plan with other organizers. Deciding where the fridge can be plugged in, how it will be restocked and cleaned, and how to engage the rest of the community can be done through a text thread or social media group. 

Once these questions are answered, you can plug in the fridge, stock with fresh food, and begin a new chapter in your community. 

The fight for food justice is one we can all participate in. Support your hungry neighbors near and far by supporting food banks, advocating for better legislature, and educating yourself and others.

Throughout this pandemic, many of us have spent more time at home than ever before. For those who work remotely, our homes became our place of work, school, entertainment, and refuge from covid-19. Those of us who continued working on location were at home more during time off. Before the virus spread, the average American spent 99 hours in traffic every year. Since the pandemic, this number has fallen to 26 hours. That’s a significant gift of time that offers us an opportunity to reflect on our priorities and the way we spend our time. 

We asked Green Americans how setting intention has changed how they go about their daily lives. Some of them noticed green side effects—here’s what they had to say: 

Setting Boundaries. 

When your work and home life blend, it’s more important than ever to set boundaries. Creating hours that work for you (even if not the traditional work hours), sticking to that schedule and resisting checking emails at all hours of the day helps create balance and time to recharge. In our culture of busy, where we’re bombarded with messages telling us if we’re not working all of the time, we must be lazy—setting boundaries around our work life can be freeing. Making time for rest and joyful activities without guilt became crucial to mental health in covid times. Each time we set a boundary, it becomes easier to practice setting them elsewhere. 

Time outside. 

With so many entertainment venues closed, we met our friends outside more than ever before and got our exercise around the block instead of at the gym. 
Many Green Americans intend to continue meeting their friends and family outside for walks and bike rides, instead of meeting indoors as often as they used to. 

Gardening.

Many Americans began gardening during the pandemic due to food shortages, a desire to avoid going shopping and to simply have something to do. Thousands of new gardens were added to Green America’s Climate Victory Gardens map. Growing a home garden improves your own physical and mental health; it helps capture carbon and improve the environment, and it helps reduce the carbon footprint of our food since the produce doesn’t have to travel thousands of miles to reach you. 

More time with close family. 

Some Green Americans who were able to work from home reflected on being able to have breakfast with their partners in the morning, as well as more time in the evening to share a home-cooked meal and spend quiet time together. While we missed seeing our friends and family in person, it was nice to spend more quality time with those with whom we live. 

Less commuting stress. 

Some Green Americans reflected on how stressful their commutes used to be. Late buses, packed trains, rushed mornings. Many of us experienced high stress and anxiety every day going to and from work, arriving at our destinations in a less-than-calm state. We prefer to stick to calmer, more intentional mornings post-pandemic, thank you very much. 

More home-cooked meals. Less food waste. 

You may recall several cooking fads from the early pandemic stages (sourdough bread and pasta chiefly among them). With restaurants closed, many of us were cooking at home a lot more than usual. Home-cooked meals are healthier for our bodies and for our wallets. We feel more connected to our food and its effects on our bodies (and minds) when we cook it ourselves. To shop as little as possible, many of us found creative ways to avoid food waste (hello, carrot top pesto), saving money and preventing methane emissions from rotting food waste. Consider starting your own compost bin if you have the space to do so!

Bonus: Cooking at home means fewer takeout containers in our waste bins, as our climate campaigns director, Beth Porter, pointed out. 

Less fuel consumption. 

Some were able to skip the commute—even a few days a week—and saved time and helped the planet and their wallets by consuming less fuel. If you commuted by car, that’s less wear and tear on your vehicle, too. You benefit from the cost-savings, and the planet benefits from fewer emissions. 

What were some of the ways you were more intentional about your time during the pandemic? 

Did spending time at home allow you to 
green different aspects of your life? 

Each of the colleagues interviewed expressed that they will continue to 
be more intentional about their time and energy “post-pandemic.” 

How will you hold intentionality?

By setting intention, we become mindful of how we spend our time and where we have room to grow. Be inspired by these stories and pandemic-takeaways to set intention in your own life, now and in the days to come.

Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright serves as the director of environmental justice for New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. As a native to New York City, Rogers-Wright grew up seeing the vast discrepancies his community navigated compared to the more affluent communities where his white peers lived. His childhood experiences catapulted Rogers-Wright to a career in environmental justice and its relation to public health and human rights when it comes to access to clean air, healthy food, and more. He previously worked at the Climate Justice Alliance, as well as a policy advisor for various candidates for elected office. 

Green America’s Cyna Mirzai spoke to Rogers-Wright about environmental justice, which isn’t an ingredient, but “its own drink.”

Lesson #1: Educate Yourself

One of the first steps in starting your environmental justice journey is educating yourself.

“We need to firmly identify who and where these communities are,” Rogers-Wright says. “There is a fantastic piece of legislation sponsored by Representative Cory Bush, in partnership with Senator Ed Markey; an environmental justice committee mapping act.”

Identifying these communities reveals the disproportionate impact harmful environmental actions have on them. Rogers-Wright identified public health as the first and foremost concern.

“There are communities like Cancer Alley, in Mississippi and Louisiana, where there are some of the highest instances of cancer in the United States due to exposure to fossil fuel refinery operations,” he says.

This public health crisis is worsened by other inequities these communities face, from poor access to healthcare to lacking education and over-policing.
Rogers-Wright warned that these communities are not looking to be saved, however.

“These [community-led environmental justice] organizations are not indigent, they’re not waiting to be saved, rather, they have good solutions that need to be heard,” he says, emphasizing empowerment over control.

Two examples of such empowerment are climate reparations and Indigenous consent.

Lesson #2: Support Good Policies

“The root causes of climate change are white supremacy, patriarchy, and colonization,” Rogers-Wright explains. “The progenitors of these root causes and their respective nation states owe a debt to populations of developing nations and the so-called global south for centuries of extraction, subjugation, genocide, and violence.”
Such a debt can be partially paid with new legislation and policies that empower and benefit communities most affected by the climate crisis, like climate reparations, a relatively new concept in the environmental movement.

“Climate reparations is about restoring some semblance of balance in an effort to ensure, to the greatest extent possible, that those hit first and worst have an equitable opportunity to absorb inevitable climate shocks and survive them,” Rogers-Wright explains.

Another social justice concept that must be followed by policymakers and businesses is free, prior, and informed consent when it comes to land use. In dozens of projects in the last decade, like Standing Rock and Line 3, as well as an untold many projects in the history of the US, Indigenous communities have been ignored during development of their lands.

“No project should be placed in any Indigenous community without the community’s consent and without the tribe holding tribal sovereignty—that’s a major component of environmental justice.”

Lesson #3: Vote, Vote, Vote

How to make these policies a reality?

“Push your local leaders and your local media,” Rogers-Wright advises. 

Campaign for what you believe in and support leaders who believe in the same thing by voting. Unfortunately, voting rights are under attack nationwide. Do what you can to stop voter suppression, which in turn will help these climate policies become reality.

If leaders in power aren’t doing the right thing or what they promised they’d do, pressure them by calling their offices, writing letters, and threatening the loss of your vote.

Lesson #4: Resist the Status Quo

“Whenever there is some sort of large awakening, what comes with that is this idea that we all have to be conscious about this problem. But then it dies down and we go back to the status quo.”

It’s happened over the past several years—mass protests, marches for women and science, and corporations claiming accountability without taking meaningful steps toward change.

Rogers-Wright says it’s not easy for change to come of these awakenings because of a two-fold issue: money and leadership.

“When we look at funding advocated for environmental justice groups, versus the largest, white-led organizations, 2% of these white-led environmental organizations command 98% of the funding,” he explained. 

“I think the reason why we are still in the position that we are in is because of the environmental organization founded by a white supremacist: John Muir who founded the Sierra Club,” says Rogers-Wright.

“[Traditional environmental groups have] historically been a white-male dominated apparatus and unfortunately, it remains that way.”

It’s time to upend this norm.

Lesson #5: Put Your Money (and Time) Where Your Heart Is

The final lesson Rogers-Wright imparted is to “dig into” this work.

If you have time but not money, Rogers-Wright suggests reading the Jemez principles for Democratic Organizing and educate yourself on how people in your community might be affected by environmental injustice—see his list of recommended reads in the sidebar. You can also push your local leaders and media in particular, to pay attention to local environmental justice groups and actions.

“When we talk about climate change, the ‘experts’ are often white men, but they’re not the ones experiencing the worst aspects of the climate crisis. It’s important to ask, ‘What is the role you can play with your privilege and use that to flip the script and transform the narrative?’” 

Speak up for environmental justice and marginalized communities, but not over them.

We made a list of organizations across the country led by people of color that are working for environmental justice causes locally, which is where you can make the biggest difference. 

Organizations Led by Communities of Color to Know and Support

There are environmental justice groups to support in all parts of the country, led by the Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color that are most harmed and stand to gain the most from the enactment of environmental justice. 

Find a group in your region and support their work.

• Hip Hop Caucus, Washington, D.C.
• New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, New York City, NY 
• Vermont Releaf Collective, Colchester, VT 
• Opal Environmental Justice, Portland, OR 
• Front and Centered, Seattle, WA 
• Communities for a Better Environment, California 
• Indigenous Environmental Network, Bemidji, MN 
• Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, New Orleans, LA 

Resources from our Conversation

Rogers-Wright urges us all to “dig in” to environmental justice to understand it and our role in creating a just society. He gave us many resources to start that journey—here are a few resources he referenced and where to find them. 

Learn more about Cancer Alley from Pulitzer Prize-winning Jarvis DeBerry of the Louisiana Illuminator in “Science catches up to what residents of Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ have been saying about pollution.”

The act introduced by Rep. Bush (D-MO) and Sen. Markey (D-MA), as well as Sen Duckworth (D-IL) is called the Environmental Justice Mapping and Data Collection Act of 2021. You can find it by searching its name or H.R. 516, which you can also call it by when you call your representatives to support it.

Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) is a right of Indigenous people that is advocated for by Indigenous leaders around the world. Native scholars Carla F. Fredericks and Kate R. Finn wrote about FPIC in “Indigenous Peoples’ Human Rights as a Minimum Standard for Corporate Practice.”

The 17 Principles of Environmental Justice was created by the delegates to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991.

The Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing were created by participants at the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice meeting in Jemez, Mexico, in 1996. It was adopted by its participants upon creation, and by many other environmental groups in the years since, including the Sierra Club in 2014.

In a longer version of this interview, Rogers-Wright spoke about a 1989 essay by Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw, in which the Black feminist scholar coined the term “intersectionality,” which is now widely used. The essay is called “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics."

The pandemic keeps evolving and “new normal” is an ever-changing concept. What we can look to are the lessons learned from the pandemic to build a better normal, while still remembering and honoring what was lost. 

Keeping the momentum going during the post-pandemic years will be crucial to building that better—greener—normal. These four enduring lessons are a few of our takeaways from the worst of the pandemic. 

Mutual Aid 

Within the first few weeks after the March 2020 lockdown, mutual aid networks blossomed throughout the country as social safety nets and systems-based support fell through. Neighbors delivered groceries and prescriptions, offered transportation, and assisted elders, the immunocompromised, and high-risk people who were safest at home. This is the spirit of mutual aid—working cooperatively to meet the needs of the community. 

When unemployment peaked at 14.8% in April 2020—the highest rate observed since 1948—people helped each other meet bills through outpourings of small donations. Today, the Mutual Aid Hub website lists 895 mutual aid networks throughout the nation. 

While we hope this is the only pandemic in most of our lifetimes, with more and more climate crises causing fires, floods, and migration, we know we will face more hardships in the future. With the lessons of mutual aid, we are more resilient when we face them together. 

Support for Small Businesses 

Small businesses across the nation closed their doors permanently due to the pandemic and 30% of small businesses say they won’t survive 2021 without additional government assistance, according to a survey from the Federal Reserve. Yet small businesses are a crucial sector of the economy, creating two-thirds of net-new jobs. Unlike large companies that create their own internal infrastructure, small businesses generally outsource skills like accounting, web design, and more, which keeps money flowing through the local economy. 

It seems that people understand the importance of local and small businesses more than ever before. Just over 82% of people said they would spend more at local businesses after the pandemic, according to a study from Red Egg Marketing. And people are not necessarily doing it for ease or convenience—just over 77% of respondents do it simply to support local business. These efforts are going to be essential to rebuilding resilient communities in the years after the pandemic. 

Sustained Energy for Racial Justice 

An estimated 15 to 26 million people in the US participated in Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, according to the Crowd Sourcing Consortium, making it one of the largest sustained movements in American history. Immediately after George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, public opinion spiked in support of Black Lives Matter, according to polling firm Civiqs. 

However, that support has faded, with just under half of US adults a year later holding favorable views of the Black Lives Matter movement—down from 61% in May 2020. There has been little lasting policy reform for racial justice and small reforms from companies and communities, but not enough to move the needle. For our nation to truly have a racial justice reckoning, it is more important than ever that we sustain energy for anti-racism and racial justice efforts from our communities and legislators long after 2020. 

Working From Home 

The mass exodus from corporate offices redefined the day-to-day of office jobs—high rises and cubicles were traded for dining tables and bedroom desks. Some US companies are even adopting a hybrid office workweek, with 13% giving up on office space entirely, according to a PwC January 2021 survey. 

There’s a climate case for working from home, too. Road travel accounts for three-quarters of greenhouse gas emissions, most of which come from commuter vehicles with just one person in them. Working from home cuts down on this traffic and the resulting emissions. While many workers are not remote, those who can work from home and drive less contribute to the reduction of air pollution, which is a benefit to air quality and respiratory health everywhere. But for these benefits to last, companies must consider remote work a climate policy. 

Companies can account for a work-from-home carbon footprint by making clean energy a workplace benefit. SkySpecs, a digital asset management company, is doing just that with Arcadia{GBN}, a clean energy provider. For employees that make the switch to Arcadia’s 100% wind plan for their home, SkySpecs covers the extra cost on their energy bills. Other options for creating a climate-friendly work-from-home policy could be subsidizing energy-efficient appliances and providing public transit perks for company-related travels. The latter option could apply to workers who are not remote, too.

In the years after the pandemic, a hybrid workweek could bring balance to office workers’ lives and act as a small part of addressing the climate crisis.

As we continue emerging from this pandemic, consider what you want our "new normal" to look like and what we as a community can do to make it a reality.

When my colleagues and I talk to Green America members, whether they started their green journeys last year or 30 years ago, we see a pattern: times of transition lead to new ways of thinking. And that’s when people often adopt greener ways of living, by taking eco-friendly and socially just actions. When someone discovers a new food sensitivity, their research may lead them to more organic and local food. When a family welcomes a new baby, they might start to learn about toxic chemicals in their home. When local, state, or national governments are out of step with addressing climate, environment, and social justice crises, it draws people to take action and create policies that work for people and the planet. 

The editorial team has dedicated this issue to those moments of transition. In this time like no other, it seems like those moments are coming faster and faster. So whatever changes you are contemplating, we hope you find lots of ideas for your own green journey as you turn these pages.
We encourage you to start where you are—if you’ve been getting greener over the decades, push yourself in a direction that’s calling to you. If you’re brand new to greening your life, follow your passions and interests—it’s a journey of a lifetime, and easy to get overwhelmed if you try to take it all on in a month or even a year. We all have important choices to make. 

When we vote with our dollars, it shows companies, our social circles, and even policymakers what we find important. While we cannot buy our way out of the climate crisis or systemic injustice, our choices matter as we push corporations, governments, and other systems to be better. 

We can also lift our voices together as communities to make important change in local and national policies. Even when we’re not in an election year, keep up the conversation with your local politicians and regulators when you see injustice. Add your representatives’ phone numbers to your contacts list and visit greenamerica.org/signup to receive our email newsletter and regular notice of Green America’s powerful consumer actions.

Collaboration between individuals, families, communities, local businesses, corporations, and governments is necessary to make the big system changes—such as anti-racism, renewable energy, regenerative agriculture—that none of us can do alone. 

The pandemic has forced us to consider how our lives could better align with our values. Are we spending our time, money, and energy to create the best version of the world? This intentionality brought many green changes, and if we hold onto that mindset, can bring many more. 

In this time of tremendous change, let’s harness the intentionality of transition to find greener ways of living that make our homes, communities, and the world itself safer, healthier, and more just.

Your guide to making your life more sustainable for people and the planet.

ESG investing can be confusing. It helps to have an adviser who is on the same wavelength.

By Cheryl Wi nokur Munk

Sept. 30, 2021 1:00 pm ET
It isn’t easy being an ESG investor these days. Financial products that focus on environmental, social and governance issues have multiplied, leaving many investors confused about which ones best suit their needs.

To help, some investors might be considering financial advisers who focus on ESG and are able to offer investment ideas that closely track their clients’ moral and financial goals.

For investors who want to go that route, here’s how to get started, as well as some questions to ask prospective advisers.

What tools can help me find a financial adviser who is focused on ESG?

There are several free, searchable online databases that list financial advisers who self-identify as having an ESG focus. Just keep in mind that being listed in a directory isn’t an endorsement of an adviser’s abilities or investment prowess. Due diligence on your part is still recommended.

• Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc.’s database lets investors filter for “socially responsible investing” to find certified planners nationwide who offer these services.
• In the College for Financial Planning’s database, investors can search under the designation “Chartered SRI Counselor or CSRIC” for advisers.
• Green America, a nonprofit alliance that focuses on issues including climate and clean energy, sustainable food and responsible investing, has a listing of financial-planning and investment consulting firms. Advisers listed here are certified members of Green America’s Green Business Network or are members of US SIF, a sustainable-investing trade group. According to a Green America spokesman, listed advisers self-report whether they have experience creating portfolios that are fossil-fuel free and whether they have worked with clients to pursue fossil-fuel-free investments.
• In the US SIF’s directory of members, investors can do a basic search under the category of “financial planners, advisors, and brokers” or an advanced search to narrow the list by city, state or ZIP Code.
• XY Planning Network, a member-based organization of fee-only advisers, has a find-an-adviser portal. Entering SRI/ESG as a keyword search will turn up a list of several dozen advisers who identify as having this specialty. To be a member of XY Planning Network, advisers must work with Gen X/Gen Y clients in some capacity, operate on a fee-only basis and be in good standing with Finra, among other criteria.

How do I evaluate the adviser’s ESG prowess?

First, see if an adviser has a disciplinary history, using Finra’s BrokerCheck, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s investment adviser public disclosure website and the CFP Board’s site. Enter the adviser’s first and last name to check for customer complaints, regulatory actions or other disciplinary measures.

After finding an adviser with a clean disciplinary history, you might ask the adviser directly about his or her experience with sustainable or impact investing and how long it has been part of their practice, says Josh Charlson, a director of manager selection for Morningstar Research Services LLC, a subsidiary of Morningstar Inc.

Ask how many clients the adviser has created ESG-focused portfolios for. “Ideally you’d be working with an adviser who has some history in this area instead of someone who just stepped into it,” Mr. Charlson says.

How do I assess whether an adviser is aligned with my goals?

Start by asking the adviser for his or her approach to ESG, socially responsible and impact investing. If you are looking for a specific focus—such as environmental investing or a particular impact goal, for example—can the adviser accommodate this, or does the adviser only offer a select few investment models that aren’t readily customizable?

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

What criteria do you find most important when picking a financial adviser? Join the conversation below.

“If you are someone who is more focused on, say, impact investing, or you don’t want tobacco or nuclear-energy stocks, is the adviser capable of customizing the plan or the portfolio to accommodate your preferences?” Mr. Charlson says.

Or, if you’re someone interested having a more diversified portfolio centered on sustainability and impact investing, how would the adviser accomplish this?

Whether the adviser is recommending you invest in funds or individual stocks, it is also important to see how his or her investment returns compare to appropriate benchmarks.

What are some other ways to gauge an adviser’s ESG expertise?

While it’s no guarantee, financial advisers with a genuine interest and expertise in ESG and impact investing usually will highlight it on their websites and LinkedIn profiles, says Michael Young, manager of education programs at US SIF.

“If they are putting themselves out in the public sphere that they are doing this, that’s a good starting point,” he says. 

Mr. Young recommends asking them about their professional networks, affiliations and designations related to sustainable investments. For example, is the adviser a member of Ceres, a nonprofit focused on sustainability, Green America or US SIF? Does the adviser speak at sustainable investing or other investor conferences about the topic?

The College for Financial Planning in 2018 began offering certification in socially responsible Investing, its SRI Counselor Designation program. It’s a relatively new designation, but Mr. Young says it can be another signal of interest in and ongoing commitment to the field.

Ms. Winokur Munk is a writer in West Orange, N.J. She can be reached at reports@wsj.com.

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized the first new climate rule of the Biden-Harris Administration tackling hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), super pollutant greenhouse gases used for refrigerants. HFCs have hundreds to thousands of times the global warming potential of CO2 and are leaking out of refrigeration systems, escalating the climate crisis.

The new rule establishes an EPA program to phase down the production and use of HFCs in the United States by 85% over the next 15 years. This important step to curb these climate-polluting refrigerants was mandated by the bipartisan and refrigerant industry-supported American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act that passed in Congress last year as part of the December 2020 Omnibus bill.

The total emissions reductions of the rule from 2022 to 2050 are projected to be the equivalent of 4.6 billion metric tons of CO2, or taking over 1 billion passenger vehicles off the road for a year.

The Administration has also launched a task force to detect and prevent illegal trade of the potent gases. These actions support the transition to HFC alternatives (many of which are also more energy efficient) and encourage the responsible reclamation and recycling of HFCs from retired equipment to reduce HFC production in the interim. There is still more to be done on the policy front, and Green America continues to join the calls for President Biden to follow through on his promise to deliver the Kigali Amendment, a global treaty to phase down HFCs, to the Senate for ratification.

Green America applauds this highly pivotal step in curbing these emissions, but our Cool It campaign continues to urge supermarket companies, starting with Walmart, to move faster than the new rule’s timeline to eliminate the use of HFCs and switch to refrigerants with ultra-low global warming potential.

Additionally, we call on companies to immediately reduce their refrigerant leaks to restrict the amount of HFC gases that escape their stores and escalate the climate crisis. Leaks from supermarket refrigeration cause the emissions equivalent of adding 9.5 million cars on the road every single year. Our allies at the Environmental Investigation Agency report that more than half of supermarkets they’ve surveyed are emitting climate-warming refrigerants – companies shouldn’t wait to address these leaks.

Companies can take steps today to reduce leaks and phase out their use of HFCs in all facilities on more aggressive timeline.  The technologies are available, and some supermarket chains, including ALDI and Target, are already using HFC alternatives in stores. The climate crisis is not waiting, and we need major emitters to take responsibility and change practices at a rapid pace.

The fossil fuel and nuclear energy sectors and spouting renewable energy myths, telling us clean energy isn’t the solution to the climate crisis. But in the last 20 years, renewable energy from wind and solar sources has grown dramatically worldwide. In 2020, wind and solar power grew 45%, their greatest rate of growth since 1999, outpacing the growth of all other energy sources.

This growth is driven by the commitments that governments and corporations have made to reduce emissions to address the climate crisis, as well as a dramatic decline in the cost of wind and solar power.

This handy fact sheet debunks five prominent renewable energy myths:

Renewable Energy Myth 1: We can’t power the country with 100% renewable energy.

Fact:  We can reach 100% renewable energy with the technology we already have

Opponents of a 100% renewable future like to say that the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow, so renewable energy can’t possibly meet all our needs for electricity.  However, multiple studies demonstrate that renewable energy tied to battery and other storage technologies can easily meet all our electricity needs. 

The real issue is not whether renewable energy can meet our demand for electricity, it’s do we have the political will in the US and around the world to move our countries to 100% renewable energy?  If we do, it’s entirely possible to get to 50% renewable energy in 10 years and 100% in the US in the next two decades.

Renewable Energy Myth 2: Renewable energy is too expensive.

Fact: Renewable energy is the cheapest source of electric energy.

Proponents of this myth often cite outdated data to say that wind and solar power are too expensive and can only compete with fossil fuels because they are heavily subsidized. The truth is the cost of wind power has declined 70 percent since 2010, and will likely decline another 35 percent by 2035.  Solar energy prices declined 89 percent over the last decade and will likely drop another 34 percent in the coming decade.

Wind and solar power are now the cheapest source of energy, period.

The declining cost of renewable energy is due to advances in technology, manufacturing, and installation, not subsidies.  In fact, subsidies for fossil fuels are 7 times higher than for renewable energy.

Renewable Energy Myth 3. Renewable energy is bad for the environment.

Fact: Renewable energy has the lowest environmental impacts of any energy source.

The data is clear. Renewable energy has much lower greenhouse gas impacts than fossil fuels.  That fact may seem obvious, but it is surprising how often it is called into question.

Opponents of renewable energy often point out that solar panels have a lifespan of about 25 years and then need to be junked.  But they ignore the fact that 80 percent of the materials in these solar panels can be recycled, and improvements are being made to recycle the remaining components.

Critics of battery storage say this technology can actually increase emissions, but this is only true when batteries are paired with fossil fuel sources, not renewable energy sources, and battery and other storage technologies are improving dramatically, making them an increasingly important part of the renewable energy future. 

Opponents of wind power say that wind turbines kill birds, ignoring the fact that turbines lead to few bird deaths, especially compared to buildings and cats.  It goes without saying that wind turbines don’t cause cancer.

What does cause cancer?  Fossil fuels. And they cause a lot more disease and economic hardship overall. The economic and health costs of burning fossil fuels are estimated at $2.9 trillion per year worldwide.

What’s bad for humans is bad for other species as well. Fossil fuels destroy habitats, create polluted water sources, and create air pollution that is much worse for the environment and ecosystems than any other source of energy.

Renewable Energy Myth 4: Renewable energy can’t provide as many jobs for American workers as fossil fuels.

Fact: Renewable energy is already providing more jobs than fossil fuels.

Clean energy jobs, including renewable energy and energy efficiency, employ three times as many workers as fossil fuels.  Even with the recent Covid-19 economic downturn, clean energy jobs maintained their sizeable advantage over fossil fuels.  And as wind, solar, and energy efficiency are projected to grow rapidly in the next two decades, those jobs will only grow, while fossil fuel jobs continue to decline.

Renewable Energy Myth 5: Wee need to invest in both renewable and nuclear power to go carbon free.

Fact: We don’t need to take the risks of nuclear energy to address the climate crisis.

Advocates for nuclear energy will often say that the only way we can get to emissions-free energy in the US is by including nuclear energy in the mix.  But, nuclear energy carries enormous risks – including accidents, terrorism, and proliferation.  There is also no solution for storing nuclear waste that can remain radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years.  

And, nuclear energy is far too expensive, and takes too long to build, to be an effective climate solution.  Instead, we need to scale up wind and solar, with storage technologies, now.

Coming soon.

Put Your IRA to Work for People and our Planet 

If you are 70 1/2 years of age or older, you can make a tax-free charitable gift from your IRA to support Green America. You can direct up to $100,000 to Green America and enjoy the satisfaction of your gift going to work immediately to support our work for justice and sustainability. Request a Qualified Charitable Distribution Form from your IRA custodian. 

Here is the information you will need to provide to your IRA administrator:

Checks should be made payable to Green America and mailed to:

1612 K Street, Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20006

EIN:  52-1660746

Memo Line:  If possible, please include your name in the memo line, as often these checks come to us without any donor information. Ex: "IRA QCD donation from (your name)".

Questions? Contact Kathy Harget, Director of Development & Organizational Advancement, at 202-872-5330 or kharget@greenamerica.org. 

Gifts from Donor Advised Funds 

What is a donor advised fund? A donor advised fund is a tax-advantaged charitable investment account for the sole purpose of supporting charitable organizations you care about. Anyone can open a DAF; you don’t have to be extremely wealthy or a financial expert.

Easy and tax-savvy, it makes sense that donor-advised funds are the fastest growing giving vehicle. Contact your financial advisor or institution to determine if a donor advised fund is right for you.

What if I already have a donor advised fund? We have great news. Green America is pleased to announce we’ve partnered with DAF Pay, which allows you to make secure donations from your donor advised fund directly on our website in 3 easy clicks! This makes giving from your DAF much easier than ever before!

Making your DAF contribution online is the fastest and easiest way for you to give and helps avoid lost, mislabeled, or anonymous checks and saves our organization time and money tracking your gift. DAF Pay also allows you to set up recurring donations from your donor advised fund just like you would with a credit card or a bank account.

If your Donor Advised Fund (DAF) does not participate in DAF Pay or you would prefer to work directly with your sponsor organization, contact your DAF administrator or sponsor organization to initiate a gift and provide them with this information: 

Green America 

1612 K Street, NW, Suite 1000 

Washington, DC 20006 

Tax ID number: 52-1660746 

Please also ask your administrator to include your name on the check or with the accompanying documentation! (Sometimes we receive DAF checks without the donor name and are unable to acknowledge the gift.) 

You may also wish to name Green America as an organizational beneficiary of your Donor Advised Fund (Tax ID number: 52-1660746). 

Questions? Contact Rob Kraemer, Donor Engagement Manager, at 202-872-5339 or kraemer@greenamerica.org.

Fall Planting Guide

While Fall is a time to harvest the final veggies in our gardens and put them to bed, it is also an active planting season!  Many plants need a dormant period before being able to produce their flowers or fruit.  Planting them in the fall gives them a chance to take root and adjust to their new home before the ground freezes. 

Before you decide what and when to plant, make sure you know what hardiness zone you live in.

What Can You Plant in the Fall?

• Bulbs:  Perennials like daffodils, tulips, lilies, crocuses, for example!  It is best to get bulbs in the ground when the soil temperature is about 55°F, when night temperatures are between 40-50°F.  If you’re in colder zones, be sure to cover the ground with mulch to help protect the bulbs. 
• Alliums:  Garlic, onions, and shallots are best planted in the fall.  Do so when you are planting flowering bulbs.    
• Trees & Shrubs:  Trees and shrubs are best planted from early fall until the ground freezes.  Be sure to research winter care for them as well.  If you miss planting in the fall, it isn’t impossible to do so in the spring.  If you do plant in the spring, one trick that you could use for stone fruit trees, for example, is placing the pit in a moist paper towel in the refrigerator for 10 weeks before transferring to the ground.
• Evergreens:  Plant evergreens by mid-fall, well before the ground freezes, to give their roots enough time to get stable footing before winter. 
• Peonies:  Peonies are hardy to zone 3 and grow well as far south as zones 7 and 8.  Peonies are best planted in the fall because they need proper chilling for bud formation.  Be sure to plant them at least 6 weeks before the ground freezes.  If you plant them in the spring, they will grow, but the following season will likely produce much better results. 
• Cool-season veggies: Get in a second (or first!) planting season by planting leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables like radishes, turnips, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts. 

Other Tips for a Successful Fall Planting

• Mulch—mulching helps the new roots establish themselves and it protects them from freezing temperatures.  If you plant a tree, don’t put the mulch right up to the trunk, leave a couple inches around the trunk of the tree to prevent rot, disease, and insects from damaging the tree.
• Plan ahead—some fall planters need to be planted in early fall while others should be planted 6 or 8 weeks before the ground freezes. 
• To learn more, check out this article from the DIY Network.

“Hollywood amuses me,” Grace Kelly once said. “Holier-than-thou for the public and unholier-than-the-devil in reality.” 

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who can’t name their favorite movie or TV show. Hollywood is ubiquitous and mesmerizing. 

For me, I live in Los Angeles, and I’m married to someone who works in the entertainment industry. My media consumption is nearly incalculable and matches my passion for it, to boot. Despite my love for it, however, I started to wonder... what is Hollywood’s impact on the planet? It is, after all, a massive industry, from studios, to international shoots, to red carpets and award shows. 

Suddenly my love of Hollywood and the planet went to war with one another. 

So, I reached out to some experts, armed with questions about sustainability in Hollywood, including Hunter Vaughn, the Environmental Media Scholar-in-Residence in the University of Colorado Boulder’s Department of Media Studies, and Colleen Bell of the California Film Commission. 

“Hollywood can make changes on pretty much every level,” Vaughn told me right off the bat. 

Ouch. 

But okay. We can work with this. What does “change on every level” actually look like? 

Take Two 

Movie and TV productions happen across the world. For larger ones (think Marvel or The Fast and the Furious franchise), they need hundreds of people, food services, vehicles, land usage, and much more. 

One key factor of choosing where to film is tax incentives, which is why so many productions shoot in places like Georgia, New Zealand, Canada, and more. Vaughn warns, however, that by “opting for the highest profit margins” based on such tax incentives can lead to “localized ecosystem destruction” due to travel and wreaking havoc on local plant life, animals, and more. 

A practical way to offset such destruction is to “earn” the tax incentive by establishing and following strict sustainability guidelines and/or giving back to the community. 

Some examples of this include New Mexico’s giveback program as part of being approved for its film tax credit or Tyler Perry’s film studios in Atlanta organizing community outreach. 

There are also sustainable production practices more filmmakers can start adopting. Bell suggests working with local NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to donate uneaten meals or wardrobe to locals in the community and reusing sets. 

And the Oscar Goes to... 

Think of some of your favorite movies—including those beloved Best Picture winners like The Hurt Locker or Braveheart. How many of them depict explosions, ruin, and general havoc? 

Those seemingly fun moments are part of the problem, according to Vaughn. 

“The enormous influence Hollywood has on cultural values belies perhaps its most negative environmental impact,” he says. “It continues to train hundreds of millions of viewers in ideological contradictions that speak environmental concern while practicing environmental destruction.” 

What Vaughn wants to see are movies that do less “fetishizing of explosions and glamorization of extreme wealth” and more that “provide stories and images that speak to the importance of social welfare and environmental protection.” 

How Bad Is Sustainability in Hollywood, really? 

According to a report by the British Film Institute (BFI), A Screen New Deal: A Route Map to Sustainable Film Productions, each tentpole flick—films with a budget of $70 million—uses about 2,840 metric tons of CO₂ (carbon dioxide).  

A majority of the emissions, about half, come from fuel and is the equivalent of a passenger vehicle driving 3.4 million miles. 

The remainder of the emissions come from 30% energy, enough to power Times Square for five days; 16% from air travel, equating to 11 one-way trips from Earth to the moon; and 4% from accommodation, about the same as the annual electricity usage in 34 homes. 

Needless to say, one single film production inflicts major damage to our planet. 

“Show Me the Money!” 

Box office numbers are reported like professional sporting events and the paychecks of directors and actors are staggering. It’s no secret that Hollywood’s main motivator is cold, hard cash. 

“By far the biggest limitation is the profit-driven logic of capitalism that still guides Hollywood decision-making,” Vaughn says of what’s holding this industry back on being more sustainable. 

“Solutions are there, popular cultural values have shifted in that direction, and Hollywood has already spent two decades branding itself as green—but the culture of excess and profit are still its defining tendencies.” 

When I ask Vaughn about financial incentives to become more sustainable, he defaults to Hollywood prioritizing its profit margin. 

That doesn’t mean there’s nothere isn’t room for hope, however. 

Vaughn believes through other industry models, public pressure, and long-term financial gains, Hollywood will realize environmental sustainability is not just a good moral decision, but a smart fiscal decision, as well. 

Bell adds: “Implementing more fuel-efficient practices can require an initial capital investment, but inevitably reduces bottom line costs in the long run. Most groups report they are not seeing increased costs, but instead see savings generated by sustainability efforts.” 

What Can Hollywood Do? 

Vaughn and the BFI haves several recommendations for Tinsel town: 

• Reduce reliance on traveling to maximize profits by exploiting local tax incentives, consolidate travel 
• Work with renewable energy sources and providers 
• Produce less content romanticizing destruction, explosions, and material excess 
• Reuse materials, costumes, buildings, and more whenever possible
• On all levels, within stories and practices, stress the urgency of climate change 
• Collaborate and share infrastructure and tools, engage in more virtual planning 

There are also some simple solutions not exclusive to the entertainment industry. These include electric vehicles, practicing recycling and reusing policies, or setting goals like net zero. 

Like any movement, environmental justice is an intersectional one which requires the efforts of many organizations and industries. Hollywood can further its sustainability practices through federal guidelines, giveback programs, or government help. 

The California Film Commission, for example, has a Green Resource Guide that productions can use. This includes guidelines and resources for things like catering and craft services, recycling and donation guides, and more. 

There’s also the Green Production Guide, a toolkit for sustainable filmmaking. It’s a joint venture between the Producers Guild of America Foundation’s PGA Green committee and the Sustainable Production Alliance. 

Happy endings are abundant in Hollywood, so why not strive for one for our planet, too? 

Amazon has NO public info on its chemical management policy for its own apparel brands nor for any textiles it sells.

43 million tons of chemicals are used to dye and treat our clothes every year AND there are 8,000 different chemicals used to manufacture clothing as noted in our 2019 Toxic Textiles report.

How do popular apparel brands, leading fast fashion brands, and retailers stack up on chemical management? Our two scorecards reveal which companies are working to end toxic textiles and which are not. 

Tell Amazon to ditch the Toxic Textiles!

Even if a company has some policies in place to address sustainability within its current supply chain, it does not negate the sheer volume of resources used and lost annually to manufacture new clothes.

There is still no way for us to shop our way to sustainability, but there are many ways to shop with the planet and workers in mind.

Contact What's Good: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook 

Greenwashing. You’ve heard the term. It’s when an organization spreads disinformation to appear sustainable and environmentally responsible without being so. 

Jennifer Young began getting frustrated every time she ran into this problem while trying to be an ethical consumer. 

“’Hey, here’s an eco-friendly product,’” she describes of various companies’ marketing. “And it’s like, ‘Are you kidding me? That’s not really green.’” 

This, combined with being in a moment of transition—“My youngest son was off to college, I was no longer at the job I thought I would be at for the rest of my life,”—led Young to create What’s Good, an eco-friendly online store boasting a variety of products at fair prices. 

The way What’s Good works is simple. You’re looking for greener products? What’s Good is your one-stop-shop. 

Every product offered at What’s Good is personally vetted by Young—but that’s not all. 

“We also take a look at the makers and the small businesses we’re buying from,” she explains. “What is their corporate responsibility? Are they giving back to their community?” 

Young also makes sure her company is vetted and giving back. What’s Good has a commitment to 1% for the Planet and donates to a new organization monthly, from the ACLU, to the Equal Justice Initiative and more. When advisors warned Young she may want more of a profit before donating like this, she pushed back. 

“It’s my business,” she recounts. “This is where we lay the foundation for what we’re going to do moving forward. Could we put more money in our pocket? Yeah, but we’re giving back and we’re working with makers committed to the environment and social justice in their communities, so it’s a win-win.” 

Young says small businesses are “role models.” She describes these environments and their cultures as domino effects. When employees experience an equitable, just, and sustainable work environment, they take that home and model it for others. 

“You hear that people say we vote with our dollars,” she says. “Well, small business owners vote with their company culture. Small businesses can create change, not just in the product you're making, but in the way you run your business.” 

Ready to get shopping yet? We know, we know, but hold on—there's more good on the way. Each first order comes with a sample packet of monarch milkweed seeds in support of the organization Save Our Monarchs. 

“I think it's important—when you're dipping your toe in trying products that are not traditional—to be able to sample them.” 

If it sounds like Young runs her business based on her own beliefs and desires, that’s not far off. 

She admits part of the inspiration behind What’s Good was a selfish want to find eco-friendly products and not buy from corporations like Amazon or Walmart. Then she thought, why not share these finds and collect them in one place? 

You don’t need to be a green expert immediately to buy green products—or ever. 

As Young says, not everyone is “ready to go to soap nuts in their washing machines.” Instead, you could try soap strips, eco-friendly powder detergent, and more. 

That’s why What’s Good offers a broad variety of products in numerous areas.  

“You have a choice,” Young enthuses. “And choice is really important to us. Someday we’ll have huge capital, every product we offer will have three choices.” 

Until then, shopping at What’s Good remains an easy and ethical way to find products that are kinder to the planet. 

“There are days that I wake up and I'm like, ‘What are we doing?’ Young admits. “Especially with things like plastic-free July, it’s so challenging to try and live in our culture without plastic. 

“You get overwhelmed and bombarded with, you know, the planet, the planet, and that creates a lot of anxiety. So I say: ‘Take it easy, just do one green thing.’ I really, really believe that if all of us are doing a little here and there, it's better than none of us doing nothing. And I think it becomes a lifestyle, you start with one thing, and then you move on to the next." 

Contact Emma’s Eco Clean: Website | Facebook 

Household products can be a lot more dangerous than you might expect. Did you know that there are over 1,000 chemicals used in the formula to add scent to Clorox? Some of those chemicals have been linked to infertility, asthma, and are even possible carcinogens.  

That’s why Emma’s Eco Clean, a woman-owned Bay Area cleaning cooperative, uses non-toxic cleaning supplies to protect the health of their employees and customers. With over 2,600 clients, the business has come a long way from its beginnings at Wages. Wages, now known as Prospera, is a nonprofit founded by two women who were cleaning houses in Palo Alto and were not happy with the poor benefits house cleaners were receiving. So, they decided to teach Latina women how to legally open a cooperative, Emma’s Eco Clean being one of many, with the goal of economically uplifting them. 

Maria Rosales, one of the partial owners of Emma’s Eco Clean, was in the original co-op class back in the 90s. “We received weekly training for a year to learn how to run meetings, financials, and legal matters,” she recalls. 

Whether they were unsatisfied with pay, looking for better benefits, or had an entrepreneurial mindset, everyone had their reason to join the program. Maria explains, “I always wanted to have my own business— when I was going to school in Mexico, I sold clothes to people. When I heard Wages was helping people start their business, I thought ‘you know what, I’m interested.’”  

While many of the women were already housecleaners, people from all backgrounds found their niche within team. Rosales, who worked for an electronic company for 11 years prior to Emma’s Eco Clean, said, “My English was not great, and I cannot do housecleaning because I have a condition that does not allow me to do that. So, Wages offered me a job in the office.”  

At the end of the program, more than 20 women dropped out, leaving a group of five to build their business. From the start, they were determined to use simple cleaning agents and vegetable-based soaps from natural brands including Seventh Generations. 

“Wages published a study about how people working in cleaning were getting sick with asthma and a cough when using Clorox. We wanted to protect both the housecleaners’ and customers’ health by using safe soaps, which have the same quality clean,” Maria explains.  

Starting Emma's Eco Clean

The early days were not easy; their first step was to get funded. 

“To get a $10,000 loan from the bank, we had to raise $3,000,” Maria said. “Some of the ladies sold tamales and we hosted garage sales to make it happen.” 

With their hard work, they secured the loan and opened in 1999. At times, the team drove an hour just to clean one house and at times and only found a couple hours of work each week. 

“Luckily, we grew fast. People were hungry for eco-friendly cleaning,” Rosales recounts. 

With 27 co-owners, multiple awards, and residential as well as commercial services, it’s clear that their clean approach is thriving. Their co-op model is also a strong example of the strength of many. Maria says, “We get paid but health insurance, vacation, sick time, profit distributions at the end of the year, which wouldn’t happen if we worked by ourselves.” 

To learn more about sustainable labor, check out Green America’s research on everything from chocolate child labor to smartphone sweatshops. 

Supermarkets like Trader Joe's are leaking potent greenhouse gases called HFCs and it’s a huge climate problem.

In fact, refrigerant leaks from U.S. supermarkets are the emissions equivalent of adding 9.5 million cars to the road each year! Eliminating HFCs and improving refrigeration can avoid half a degree of global warming and 460 billion of tons of greenhouse gases in the coming decades.

Trader Joe’s has a particularly bad history of emitting refrigerant gases that hurt the climate and the ozone, and the company doesn’t follow best practices in reporting its current refrigerant use. The good news is, it’s pretty easy to find out.

That’s why we’re working with our friends at the Environmental Investigation Agency to crowdsource photos of refrigerant labels at your local Trader Joe’s!

How can you investigate your local store? All you need is a camera phone.

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A post shared by Green America (@greenamerica_)

1. Find the label on the refrigerated shelves

On most refrigerator cases in a store there is a label that lists the refrigerant number. Start in the refrigerated foods section for dairy. Take a look up to the top of the refrigerated shelves for the label.

The refrigerant can be clearly marked, or you’ll just see R followed by a few numbers (most commonly, R22, R404A, or R134a - these are all different types of HFCs!), and sometimes you’ll see more than one refrigerant listed. That’s normal too! Look for something like this:

2. Turn on geotagging on your device

This helps us confirm the location of the store for our data collection.

IPHONE

ANDROID

3. Take a photo of the label

Make sure the refrigerant number is in frame!

4. Email climatefriendlysupermarkets@eia-global.org and include:

• The Geotagged Image and ensure geographic information is shared:
  • On an iOS device, using the built-in photo app, you must choose to send the image "Actual Size"
  • On an android device, you must attach your image from your phone storage and not from the google cloud
• Store name (Trader Joe's) 
• Store address and zip code (optional, in case of Goetagging error)

Check back soon to see your store on EIA's Supermarket map that tracks which stores are climate-friendly and which are super polluters!

Have questions? Send us an email!

By Christopher Marquis

In establishing Beneficial State Bank as a financial institution with social and environmental impact in mind, co-founders Kat Taylor and Tom Steyer saw an opportunity to serve as an example for others in the U.S. financial industry, which handles trillions of dollars in finances daily. The potential for positive change is great in a system where the biggest U.S. banks have trillions in assets, and even smaller financial institutions oversee millions.   

“It’s a very powerful system that has monopolistic tendencies. Banking is really a utility that should be governed in the public interest,” Taylor says. “We had a hunch that this powerful positive public system was going terribly awry, and somebody had to set an example for the banking industry that said, ‘You can be financially sustainable without trashing people or the planet.’” 

They launched Beneficial State Bank in 2007, just before the Great Recession, as a foundation-owned, for-profit bank as well as a Community Development Financial Institution and Certified B Corporation. All of that adds up to a mission-focused bank committed to doing good in its communities — so the money goes toward community, environmental, and social benefit. With about $1.5 billion in assets, Beneficial State Bank has offices in California, Oregon, and Washington, and an eye on expansion of its services to provide more people a banking option with positive impact. 

By establishing Beneficial State Foundation as the owner of the bank’s economic rights and a public charity, Taylor and Steyer sought to ensure that no entity would use its resources for self-serving interests and instill the community connection from the start. The foundation works with coalitions, campaigns, and other partnerships to advance social and economic justice, and environmental advocacy.

In 2020, Taylor shifted from her role as CEO to a member of the bank’s Board of Directors, and Randell Leach was named to succeed her. As a longtime COO at Beneficial State Bank, Leach is familiar with its unique value set that helps it envision and provide new products, services, and outcomes for its customers and community partners. 

Continue reading.

If money talks, then divestment walks. At least it does in the fossil fuel divestment movement that has prompted large and scalable campaigns against organizations that ally with oil and gas. Since 2012, investment activists and college students have been pressuring universities, religious institutions, and philanthropic foundations to divest from fossil fuels. Nine years later, the movement has totaled over $14 trillion in institutional divestments, according to advocacy group Fossil Free. 

These activists have prompted the largest anti-corporate campaign of its kind, sending a market signal to industries and investors that the public wants companies to stop fueling the climate crisis and start putting their resources into clean energy and other sustainable investments. The success of the fossil fuel divestment movement has encouraged others to launch additional campaigns against companies and projects that are harmful to people and the planet. 

Fossil Fuels

2020 is currently tied with 2016 for hottest years ever. US carbon emissions decreased in 2020, but analysts credit lockdown, not significant action by the government or companies to fight the climate crisis. However, the fossil fuel divestment campaign has made significant strides in squeezing the industry: in 2020, Dominion Energy sold its gas transmissions holdings and BP announced the $5 billion sale of its petrochemicals business (chemicals made through the use of oil, like plastics and solvents). 

To prevent the burning of fossil fuels and further exacerbate climate change, 350.org founder Bill McKibben launched a campaign to get investors around the world to divest from the top 200 publicly traded fossil-fuel companies. The movement has evolved significantly since its launch in 2012—what began with universities, religious institutions, and philanthropic foundations now includes major capital cities, mainstream banks, insurance companies, and massive pension funds. Divestment pledges now span across 48 countries with over 70% of commitments outside the US, as of Fossil Free’s latest report.

Recent victories have added to the multi-trillion dollar divestment records. New York City promised to completely decarbonize its portfolio by 2040—at a value of over $500 billion. Also in 2020, 42 faith institutions in 14 countries announced their divestment in the largest-ever joint announcement by faith groups. 

Despite these new records, there is much work to be done. Harvard University sits on the largest academic endowment in the world, $41 billion. Yet the university refuses to divest despite growing pressure, including a complaint to the Attorney General of Massachusetts claiming the university is violating its duty as a nonprofit by investing in fossil fuels. Other higher institutions have stepped up, including Columbia University, which has divested from companies that derive 35% or more revenue from coal production. 

The biggest opportunity for divestment lies with the largest financial institutions in the country. Megabank JPMorgan Chase has not only continued to fund but has increased funding for fossil fuels and their expansion. Its financing of $253 billion in the last four years alone is by far the greatest investment in the climate disaster that any bank in the world has made. 

JPMorgan Chase is not the only one—between 2016 and 2020, 56 global private sector banks funneled $3.8 trillion dollars into fossil fuel projects and companies. Some banks have taken small steps such as increasing their lending for renewable energy, but these actions don’t target the root of the problem that is fossil fuel funding. FossilBanks.org has the full list of banks that are the largest financers of the fossil fuel industry, including, but not limited to: Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Barclays, TD, and Morgan Stanley. 

Studies show that the return on investment for fossil fuels is no longer lucrative. Citing figures from stock market company MSCI, the Guardian noted in 2015 that “investors who divested from fossil fuel companies would have earned an average return of 13% a year since 2010, compared to the 11.8% a year return earned by conventional investors.” Sustainable funds held up better than conventional counterparts in the first quarter market downturn in 2020, according to investment research company Morningstar.

Visit greenamerica.org/divest-reinvest for a list of resources to help you divest from fossil fuels and reinvest in sustainability, including fossil-free mutual funds, CDs, as well as financial advisors who can help clients construct fossil-free portfolios.

Private Prisons and Detention Centers

Incarcerated people in both government and private prisons face poor living conditions such as insufficient food and shelter, coupled with inadequate services like poor healthcare, education, and working environments. Inmates are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act and can be required to work for free while incarcerated under the 13th Amendment. Most inmates work in maintenance or food service in their own prison facilities to reduce the overall operating costs. 

Operating costs are also cut by skimming on safety, education, and health standards; a 2016 report from the Justice Department found that private prisons have more safety and security incidents per capita than federal institutions.

Private prisons, unlike public ones, have an added profit incentive. Rather than reducing recidivism and rehabilitating prisoners, private prisons can increase their profit margin by lobbying for laws that increase incarceration and extend sentences. 

Of the biggest private prison companies, GEO Group derives $1.3 billion in profits from its contracts with the government and CoreCivic makes about $1 billion per year from government contracts. They benefit from the aggressive immigration policy that fills detention beds and backlogs immigration courts—all while having unlimited access to a growing pool of workers. In 2021, President Biden signed an executive order that the Department of Justice would not renew contracts with private prison operators, but this does not affect ICE detention centers, which are run through the Department of Homeland Security.

A federal lawsuit filed in 2018 by a coalition of civil rights groups and lawyers alleges that detainees in the Stewart Detention Center in South Georgia were coerced into working for a few cents each day or go without necessities like food and soap. Stewart Detention Center, which is run by CoreCivic, is still open and oversaw some of Georgia’s highest COVID-19 rates due to a spike at the facility. The lawsuit is ongoing as of June 2021.

Like people convicted to sentences in private prisons, immigrants in for-profit detention centers face—and work in—inhumane conditions; however, asylum seekers are fleeing persecution, torture, or death in their home countries and come to the US for protection. Zero-tolerance policies led to the separation of over 5,500 children from their families at the US-Mexico border. Some of those families have been reunited. Others have not been deemed eligible, or parents had already been deported, cutting contact without well-kept records.

Activists are standing up for prison workers and unfairly detained immigrants through divestment. Freedom to Thrive (formerly Enlace) is urging investors to remove investments from GEO Group and CoreCivic. They’re also targeting the The Million Shares Club, a group of 39 major financial investors that each own over one million shares of these two private prison companies combined. The Million Shares Club includes groups like BlackRock Inc., Vanguard Group INC, and Prudential Financial Inc, to name a few.

In a wave of 2019 victories, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, BNP Paribas, SunTrust, and US Bancorp all announced decisions to exit the private prison and immigrant detention industries. Private prisons continue with funding from smaller banks, contracts with ICE/DHS, and with states.

You can take action by breaking up with mega-banks that support fossil fuels or private prisons and detention centers and put your funds in a community development, green bank or credit union. These institutions work to build the green economy through community development projects and loans—not private prisons and detention centers.

Get A Better Bank

Since 2018, professionally managed assets in the U.S. using socially responsible investing (SRI) strategies have grown by 42% and now total $17 trillion, according to the United States Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment. 

With SRI—which also refers to sustainable, responsible, and impact Investing—on the rise, robo-advisors, automated investment management services with minimal or no human involvement, are increasingly offering sustainable investment portfolios. 

Whether called SRI; environmental, social, governance (ESG) investing; impact investing; or sustainable investing—a few of the terms currently in use—this approach to investing recognizes that the social, environmental, and corporate governance impacts of investments are part of the returns generated by every portfolio. Those impacts should help guide investment decision-making. In other words, with SRI (the term we’ll use), you can invest for profit, people, and the planet. 

Robo-advisors, such as Ellevest, Wealthfront, or SoFi, use computer software and an algorithm to both put together and maintain investment portfolios. Many robo-advisors champion certain causes or target specific audiences. For example, Ellevest is a robo-advisor which markets itself specifically to women in order to address a gender gap in the financial services industry. According to Data USA, 68.5% of personal financial advisors are men. 

“Some robo-advisors have different focuses than others,” says Helen Beichel [see footnote], founder of FatTail Financial Advisory Group {GBN}. “But one thing I think they probably have in common is basic investment management services with a focus on low cost, passive investment management.” 

Art Tabuenca is the founder of EarthFolio, an automated investing service managed by Blue Marble Investments which focuses solely on sustainable investing. Tabuenca says robo-advisors have made investing in a fully diversified portfolio more accessible because of lower management fees and what is typically a lower minimum investment amount. Consulting a financial advisor, he says, is significantly more expensive. 

“What robos did is just kind of disrupted [the personal] model and said, ‘Look, we can deliver this advice to someone at a high level, at a much lower amount,’” he says. 
Boris Khentov, senior vice president of operations and legal counsel at Betterment, a financial advisory company which offers robo-advising services, says it can be more expensive to have a portfolio composed entirely of SRI investments because the investments required to put together that kind of investment portfolio are more expensive to manage. Betterment’s portfolios generally consist of a broader mix of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which are less expensive to manage. 

Betterment, which first launched its SRI options in 2017, offers three SRI portfolios—Broad Impact, Climate Impact, and Social Impact. These options are greener than conventional robo-investing offerings and less green than a non-robo option that actively screens and engages with companies. SRI does not have a fixed definition but can instead be understood as a range of practices. Khentov says Betterment’s SRI portfolios aim to balance financial performance with accessibility and impact. 

EarthFolio offers entirely ESG portfolios, some of which are also fossil-free. Tabuenca says an entirely ESG portfolio can be more expensive because it must incorporate different types of investments, such as mutual funds, which can lead to slightly higher operating expenses. This is because there is not currently enough variety in ETFs to build a fully ESG portfolio. 

The Importance of Accountability 

One factor to consider is whether an investment firm is independent. Beichel says conflicts of interest can arise when companies, including those offering robo-advisors, provide multiple in-house financial services, which decreases the checks and balances that come from doing business with other companies. These practices can create incentives to only offer clients in-house services or portfolios, rather than considering other potentially more beneficial options. 

“One thing to consider is what the potential conflicts of interest might be,” Beichel says. “Is the firm you’re dealing with independent? Are your financial planning, custodial, broker, dealer, and investment advisory firms separate, and if they’re not separate, why not?” 

Beichel also recommends being aware of what criteria and data providers portfolio managers are using when integrating SRI concerns, especially when it comes to robo-advisors that lack active, human management and have fewer investment options. 

“[Robo-advisors] could be a good option for novice investors, in particular for people who are just beginning to grow their portfolios,” Beichel says. “[People] just need to be educated consumers and understand that robo-advisor money managers are not involved in changing corporate manager behavior beyond using the data from ESG data providers.” 

Human vs. Robot 

Investors should also consider the pros and cons of robo-advisors when searching for the best tools and products to increase their socially and environmentally responsible investments. 

Robo-advisors differ from traditional financial advisors in that they offer investment management services and advice at a lower investment minimum and money management fee. Tabuenca says an online platform may also make investing more accessible to younger generations who frequent that medium and tend to support social justice issues. 

However, robo-advisors do not know the ins-and-outs of a person’s financial situation, or interests, which can be important in SRI. 
“Robo-advisors provide services online and through call centers,” Beichel says. “They don’t actually meet people face-to-face like I do. You don’t get a person who knows your financial situation intimately, and financial advising can be an intimate process.” 

The value to working with live financial advisors is that they have more strategies and products to offer, including community investment options and support for shareholder engagement. 

Beichel also says robo-advisors tend to provide only basic, standardized financial education and investment management based on your investment goals, values, and risk with limited support for more complex financial needs. 

As the SRI marketplace continues to grow and evolve, both Tabuenca and Khentov predict that more investment options will become available, expanding what robo-advisors can offer. 

“We see social and environmental issues that we’re grappling with, and we’re saying, ‘Well, what can I do about it?’” Tabuenca says. “Money becomes an extension of what you want to see in the world.” 

What can you do to green your investments? 

No matter what kind of advisor you may use, there are ways you can make your money work for the causes you care about. 

Find a Financial Advisor Focused on SRI 

Having an expert guide you through the transition to SRI, or strengthen your current SRI portfolio, can help you navigate the growing number of investment options. Find an advisor that is the best fit for you at greenpages.org. 

Divest and Reinvest 

The burning of fossil fuels is a major cause of climate change. You can contribute to a clean-energy economy by divesting from fossil fuels, shifting your investments to clean energy and supporting policies which work toward a fossil-free future. Learn more about how you can divest at greenamerica.org/divest-reinvest. 

Use Your Power as a Shareholder 

If you own stock directly, rather than in a mutual fund, you have influence over how companies operate. As a shareholder, you can advocate for the issues that you care about and have an impact on corporate behavior. Learn more about shareholder activism at greenamerica.org/shareholder-activism.

_{FOOTNOTE: Registered Representative, Cambridge Investment Research Inc., a Registered Broker/Dealer, Member FINRA/SIPC, Investment Advisor Representative, Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc., Cambridge and Fattail Financial Advisory Group are not affiliated.}

Breaking up with a megabank is easy. And it can make your life easier, too.

In New Orleans, Louisiana, Michael Butler sold his car to pay his medical bills, and racked up 1,400 miles on his Nikes walking to and from work for nine months. His mother saw an ad for HOPE Credit Union {GBN} and encouraged him to apply for a car loan, even though he thought his bad credit would disqualify him. An auto loan from HOPE helped him get a 2015 Dodge 3500. “I was overjoyed to get a car loan from HOPE,” Butler says, “I haven’t met too many people that nice. Of course I want to pay it forward. Now I’m happy to be able to help other people who also need a hand.”

Get Started Today:

1. 

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 greenamerica.org/getabetterbank.

2.     

Open your new account. Keep your old account open as you order checks, debit cards, and deposit slips.

3.

Make a list of your automatic payments and withdrawals.

4.

Move your automatic deposits to your new account. Ask your employer to transfer your direct deposit paychecks to your new account. Do the same for Social Security and other deposits you receive. Ask for the date on which deposits to your new account will take place. 

5.

Move your automatic withdrawals to your new account, once you know you’ll have sufficient funds in the account. Ask for the date on which payments from your new account will begin. It’s wise to leave a small amount in your old account for a month after you’ve shifted your deposits and withdrawals to your new bank or credit union, just in case.

6.

Get print or electronic copies of statements and canceled checks that you may later need if you have only online banking through your mega-bank.

7.

Transfer the remaining funds in your mega-bank account to your new account after you have all your automatic payments and deposits transferred and any final checks have cleared your old account.

8.

Close your mega-bank account! Obtain written confirmation that your account is closed.

9.

Inform your mega-bank why you’re breaking up with it. See a sample letter in our “Break Up with Your Mega-Bank Kit,” free at Green America’s BreakUpWithYourMegaBank.org.

10.

 Encourage your house of worship, alma mater, workplace, and community organizations to use a community development bank or credit union. 

For congregations, turn to US SIF’s {GBN} free “Community Investing Toolkit for Faith Communities” at ussif.org/pubs. 

Colleges and universities can get assistance from the Responsible Endowment Coalition  {GBN} at endowmentethics.org.

The Black Lives Matter protests after the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, inequities exposed by the covid-19 pandemic, and a rising sense of urgency on climate and environmental issues have made people reevaluate their priorities and question the systems they are a part of. One of those systems is the financial system, which attracted a historic level of support from investors in the spring 2021 proxy season for resolutions on issues such as corporate political activity, corporate policies on diversity, and corporate impacts on the climate. 

For example, as of June 24, 2021 there have been 34 majority votes on shareholder resolutions pertaining to environmental, social, and governance issues (ESG), with more possibly by the end of the year, according to Proxy Preview, an annual report which tracks shareholder action. This is extraordinary because corporate management typically urges all investors to vote against resolutions on ESG issues and most investors follow that advice—even when it’s contrary to the long-term benefit of the company and society. During the 2021 season, 17 votes broke 70% support; in comparison, only two resolutions received that much support in 2020. Moreover, four ESG resolutions that received over 90% support also had the support of management. For so many ESG-focused resolutions to receive majority support is historic and a dynamic to watch closely.

Importantly, however, shareholder resolutions can succeed by earning far less than 50% support since success includes the ability to remain in front of management and investors in subsequent years by remaining on the proxy ballot. A first-time resolution now needs to garner 5% support, a second-year resolution needs 10%, and thereafter a resolution needs 25% support to continue to appear on the ballot and thereby generate investor pressure for corporate transparency and change in corporate conduct. 

Some are crediting the overwhelming turnout to the volatility of the last year. 

“We’ve been locked in our homes and had a little time to think about what’s important in life,” says Andrew Behar, the CEO of As You Sow [GBN]. “[As shareholders,] we are owners of these companies, we profit from these companies … [and] we are complicit in the system that we live in.”

The increased attention to ESG issues among shareholders is also a possible sign that investors are seeing issues of climate, racial equity, and political transparency as important to long-term financial sustainability. Even larger asset managers, like BlackRock and Vanguard, have begun voting in favor of ESG proposals, which is vital to ensuring change, says Josh Zinner, CEO of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility.

“We’re seeing that the big fund managers like BlackRock, who have been talking for some years now about ESG, are finally beginning to look their proxies in accordance with what their stated values and concerns are,” Zinner says. “Once you have those big fund managers who are significant universal owners starting to support these proposals, you’re seeing a major rise in the votes.”

Changes to the Shareholder Resolution Process

Despite investor support of ESG issues this proxy season, the next year in shareholder action is hard to predict. In late 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission, under the Trump administration, made changes to the 14a-8 rule that decides exactly who and how a stockholder can file resolutions. 

Previously, any stockholder owning at least $2,000 worth of stock for a year could file a resolution; investors must now own a whopping $25,000 worth of stock if they have owned the stock for one year. Shareholders need $15,000 worth of stock if held for two years if they wish to file a resolution, and smaller shareholders, with at least $2,000, must now wait three years before they can file resolutions. This is an attack on shareholder democracy and the rights of smaller investors. As SEC Commissioner Caroline A. Crenshaw said in opposing the new rule, “the implication of today’s rulemaking is that the wealthy are more likely to possess ideas worthy of corporate consideration. That is one way to reduce the burden on corporations, but I believe that that is a bad result.” 

Green America mobilized thousands of concerned investors and consumers to oppose the SEC rule, calling for strong corporate oversight through the shareholder resolution, rather than less oversight by restricting the participation of smaller shareholders and by increasing the percentage of support needed for resolutions to be refiled.

As You Sow, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, and individual investor James McRitchie have filed a lawsuit to challenge the SEC’s proposed changes to the 14a-8 rule. The lawsuit, which was formally presented on June 15, argues that the new regulations are a Trump-era attempt to curb the voices of activist shareholders and smaller investors.

“It’s really ironic that at a time where investor support for ESG resolutions is skyrocketing that this SEC rule would significantly curb the filing of those resolutions,” says Zinner.

Climate

Perhaps the most notable shakeup in 2021 in the realm of shareholder action happened at ExxonMobil, where shareholders voted to elect three activist investors to the oil company’s board of directors this June. The three new directors were put forward as candidates by Engine No. 1, a relatively new, small investment firm, with the intention of installing leaders who would push Exxon to reduce its carbon footprint and explore sustainable energy options. 

What’s more, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street voted on behalf of their clients against the formal recommendation of ExxonMobil’s management to oppose the new board candidates—instead supporting Engine No. 1’s dissident directors.

Heidi Welsh, the Executive Director of the Sustainable Investment Institute, says that the change in the board was a result of a perceived lack of climate action on Exxon Mobil’s part.

“The results that occurred are enough to make companies really think hard about how much disclosure they need to do and what their goals are with regard to climate change,” Welsh says. “It’s basically an affirmation that climate change is a big problem for business.”

In addition to the events with Exxon, eight climate change proposals earned more than 50% support this year, resulting in two of the highest votes of the season. Management-backed resolutions at Bunge and General Electric calling for reporting on different environment-related goals resulted in 98.8% support and 98% support, respectively. 

More shocking, however, were the majority votes for climate and environmental resolutions that were opposed by management. A resolution at DuPont for more disclose on plastics pollution received 81.2% support from investors, and one at Chevron asking for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions received 60.7% support.

Investors at Walmart also voted this past season on the first-ever resolution regarding the climate impacts of refrigerants, specifically the leakage of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). The resolution was filed by the State of Rhode Island with Walmart and built on refrigerant-related campaigns at Green America and the Environmental Investigation Agency. HFCs are an incredibly potent greenhouse gas and make up 48% of the company’s climate emissions. The resolution received 5.5% approval—despite the Walton family owning half of Walmart’s shares—and has reached enough support to be refiled next season.

Political Spending and Lobbying

Proposals about political spending, money donated by corporations through PACs, trade associations, and other organizations to influence elections and policymaking at all levels, received 14 majority votes overall, the most out of any other issue. The Center for Political Accountability found that, since 2010, IRS-designated 527 PACs have raised over $1.5 billion. Much of this spending is undisclosed or only partially disclosed, to the peril of our democracy. Resolutions at Netflix and Chemed asking for more disclosure about election spending received 80.6% support and 80.1% support, respectively. 

ICCR members introduced resolutions this year regarding climate lobbying—that is, asking corporations to not only disclose corporate lobbying activities, but to lobby in favor of environmentally-responsible policies.

“The resolutions on climate lobbying are noteworthy because they're not policy engagement with their stated values,” Zinner says. 

ICCR members filed climate lobbying resolutions with seven companies, reaching agreements with five of them. Most noteworthy is the resolution at Norfolk Southern, a transportation corporation, which went to vote and received 76.4% support.

Diversity and Race

Increased national attention to racial justice issues throughout 2020 resulted in shareholders asking for reports on racism. Resolutions covered a broad area of issues—asking for reports on lobbying related to equity and racial justice; gender and minority pay gaps; racial justice impact reports; and more. 

Of the 46 proposals in the 2021 proxy season that asked companies to address a human rights issue, 18 asked companies to produce reports on how racism affects company proceedings or plans to address systemic racism. Proposals at Amazon and JPMorgan Chase received 44.2% and 40.5% support, respectively—which is an unusually high level of support for a first-year resolution. 

Behar says that the success of resolutions asking for racial justice audits was especially noteworthy, considering that organizations like As You Sow have only developed metrics for measuring racial justice in the past year or so.

“We only started … collecting data on racial justice after the George Floyd murder, and to see that data become actionable, and companies really using it to rate and rank themselves—that was, I think, really profound,” Behar says. 

Additionally, more attention was given to the diversity of companies, their executives, and their boards of directors during this proxy season. A resolution at IBM asking for a report on the effectiveness of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs received 94.3% with management support, while a call for more diversity at First Solar received 91.2% without management support. Overall, there were nine majority votes on diversity-related proposals.

To monitor and strengthen follow-up on corporate pledges made to fortify their diversity and equity commitments, William Michael Cunningham of Creative Investment Research [GBN] filed a petition with the SEC in May 2021 calling on the Commission to develop a “comprehensive framework requiring any public companies or issuers that have promised financial support for Black Lives Matter ("BLM Pledge") to accurately disclose, on a timely basis, all activity related to that pledge” as well as to address the costs of anti-Black racism and how BLM corporate pledges could reduce that cost. These points and others raised in the petition, if enacted, would demonstrate the reliability of corporate BLM pledges and as Cunningham states, “Requiring additional BLM Pledge disclosure will enhance the competitiveness of U.S. markets and help correct economic injustices perpetrated against African Americans.”

Creative Investment Research has also developed a Black Lives Matter Donation Tracker to hold corporations accountable for their BLM pledges and to help ensure that needed changes in corporate conduct actually take root.

Looking to Future Seasons

The 2022 proxy season is expected to be a transition period as the changes to the 14a-8 rule go into effect unless they are reversed; as such, it’s hard to predict exactly what will happen in the next year. That being said, Welsh says that she expects issues of diversity, political spending, and climate change to be leading issues, but the individual focus of those proposals might change.

Regardless of changes to the resolution process, there are still ways for investors and shareholders to encourage change. Tim Smith, the director of ESG shareowner engagement for Boston Trust Walden, noted that pressure on companies to make change is happening not just through shareholder action — fund managers like BlackRock are also putting pressure on companies through pledges of divestment.

“In 2020, several large institutional investors pledged to divest from fossil fuel companies,” Smith says. “In addition, we witnessed record levels of votes supporting climate-related shareholder resolutions in the 2020-21 proxy season. This combined pressure from global investors should prompt company management and boards of directors to take a closer look at how they are addressing the climate crisis.”

Green America resources on shareholder action include our infographic on how to read a shareholder proxy ballot (p 19) and our list of sample resolutions to vote at greenamerica.org/shareholder-resolutions-vote.

_{Special thanks to the authors of the 2021 Proxy Preview report} 
 

When Gambian immigrant Mariama Jallow aspired to launch an African hair shop in Maine more than five years ago, she lacked a cosmetology license and other means to start a business in an unfamiliar country. Today, however, thanks to assistance from a community development financial institution (CDFI) called Coastal Enterprises, she runs Mariama’s Beauty Supply, a unique hair-braiding salon employing immigrants in Portland. 

Across the US, people from diverse economic backgrounds are increasingly recognizing and moving toward community investing, which uplifts marginalized localities by boosting livelihoods and economic resources. This trend has expanded substantially over the past couple decades, delivering job creation, affordable housing, sustainable agriculture, robust infrastructure, and climate change mitigation. According to the US Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment, community investing assets rose to $266 billion last year, climbing 44% since 2018. 

What’s more, anyone can explore and contribute to them via CDFIs and similarly mission-centered institutions. 

“It’s never been easier” to invest for racial, gender and economic justice, according to Justin Conway, vice president of investment partnerships at Calvert Impact Capital, a community investment firm based in Washington, DC. 

Fostering Wealth to Counter Injustice 

The goal of community development financial institutions is to shift resources to under-served and under-estimated communities and those of color, where longstanding unjust policies and underinvestment have trapped a lot of residents in poverty and hindered their success. 

Calvert Impact Capital{GBN} collaborates with organizations worldwide to fix the harms of structural racism, sexism, economic injustice, and environmental injustice. It uses investor dollars to fulfill local needs like housing, healthcare, schooling, and childcare and spread prosperity by supplying inexpensive credit. The nonprofit aims to spur capital markets to make a difference “loan by loan, family by family [and] community by community,” Conway says.  

To maximize investor payoffs and promote racial equity, Community Capital Management’s {GBN} Minority CARES investment program combines investment themes, receiving the most financing for community development ventures and people of color, including enterprise development, affordable housing and healthcare, and education and childcare. 

“Economic inequality, racial injustice and the need for sustainable investing are very connected,” according to David Sand, the Florida-based company’s chief impact strategist. 

In Maine, Coastal Enterprises concentrates its lending, investing, and advising on underprivileged entrepreneurs and businesses in poorer localities or with low-wage workers. It maintains a special focus on America’s rural regions, which often experience limited access to economic resources. To aid in establishing jobs, the CDFI leverages flexible private funding via the federal New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program, and even venture capital funds. 

Another CDFI, Chicago Community Loan Fund{GBN}, turns investor contributions into advances for projects in low-income minority neighborhoods throughout the city to “ignite the local economy,” according to its president, Calvin Holmes. It takes chances on for-profit and nonprofit organizations that would otherwise struggle to obtain financing, he says. This enables “their growth, their employee growth, their balance sheet growth [and] their ability to spend money in the neighborhoods, which all leads to higher levels of community wealth.”  

And Optus Bank, a CDFI in Columbia, South Carolina, uses deposits to offer loans and banking services to elevate disadvantaged locals like minorities and women through businesses, homes, and savings they can hand down to later generations. To address the racial wealth gap that African Americans face, CEO and president Dominik Mjartan says the bank aims to uplift entrepreneurs and empower would-be homeowners in the community. 

“When communities are thriving with small businesses, they can employ other members of the community to help them grow, create wealth and ultimately give back to that same community, which hopefully creates long-term effects of growth and self-sufficiency,” Danielle Burns says.

Many Needs, Many Possibilities 

Community investing presents a broad scope of causes to finance, with the prospect of steady gains over several years. 

Affordable housing and small-business advancement are areas of high impact , according to Danielle Burns, vice president of CNote, a company that harnesses technology to facilitate investment in CDFIs. She also serves on the board of directors at Green America. 

“When communities are thriving with small businesses, they can employ other members of the community to help them grow, create wealth and ultimately give back to that same community, which hopefully creates long-term effects of growth and self-sufficiency,” Burns says. 

Due to the massive number of jobs resulting from construction of housing, affordable housing is a smart investment. Recent investing trends involve scaling up livelihoods in poorer locales through avenues such as green technology production, affordable housing construction, and mixed-use development, Holmes says. The numerous layoffs suffered due to the coronavirus stress the need to ensure all Americans have, at minimum, living-wage jobs producing savings to buffer against future disasters. 

Calvert Impact Capital’s Justin Conway noted that small-business investments have not seen serious risk since 2020 because community-based financing institutions are designed to serve their people. They “work with their customers and provide accommodations…to make sure people can stay in their homes or keep their jobs and doors open through challenges.” 

He added that given climate change’s disproportionate burden on disadvantaged communities, investors are now most interested in improving racial and climate justice. 

Renewable energy, sustainable food, and education are also major investment sectors, according to Coastal Enterprises’ spokesperson Elizabeth Rogers. She highlighted the opportunity the food system offers, from farming and fishing to processing, manufacturing, and distribution. She added that work from home policies due to the pandemic requirements underscored the importance of funding childcare and broadband as well. 

The coronavirus fallout and George Floyd’s killing have raised awareness of entrenched racial wealth disparities and related vulnerabilities, including inadequate livelihoods, housing and healthcare, according to Optus Bank’s Mjartan. He added that those two events have emphasized community investing’s significance and encouraged participation in mission-oriented local initiatives. He pointed out that billions of dollars went into CDFIs last year—more than the total across their prior 25-year history. 

“That’s an unprecedented opportunity to build a stronger economy for everyone in America, not just the top 1%,” Mjartan says. He underlined the need to transform this moment into a movement to secure community resilience and equitable opportunities for everyone, no matter their zip code or inherited privilege. 

Tips for Investing 

From community banks and credit unions to investment advisers and brokerage accounts, the opportunities are growing when it comes to community investing. Supporting a nearby CDFI such as by holding a checking or savings account there, is a good start. 

According to Community Capital Management’s Sand, CDFIs are “first financial responders…helping communities survive and rebuild,” so the Federal Reserve deems them “economic shock absorbers.” 

Using CDFIs to hold your checking or savings account is a low-risk way to manage your money, with the potential to make a big impact. By definition, federally certified CDFI banks and credit unions must be insured by the Federal Reserve for at least $250,000 per account. You can ask your bank or credit union if it is federally insured. 

“Have a real honest conversation with yourself and your family about what areas of impact are important to you,” says CNote’s Burns. She recommends incorporating issue and geographic priorities into your portfolio. 

Optus Bank’s Mjartan says if you’re able, putting your money into an account or financial product for five to fifteen years gives it the greatest potential to solve longer-term systemic problems. Community investments can play an important role in every portfolio, no matter what size.

Individual Action Matters 

While institutional investors bring large sums to community investing, individuals can also have big impact. Although individuals frequently think their actions are too tiny to achieve change, people are nimbler than institutions and are able to have collective power, putting their dollars to work. 

Community investing leaders who have witnessed amazing growth in community development investments appreciate how individuals continue to strengthen this effort with their assets and voices. 

“Every person in America can be a community investor,” Mjartan says. “Regardless how much money you have and where you’re located now, you can align your money with your values.” 

“Ultimately,” says Fran Teplitz, Green America’s executive co-director for business, investing and policy, “community development investments are about dignity, hope, and opportunity for individuals and neighborhoods left out of the economic mainstream.” 

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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 to support sustainable business practices and local economies. 

That said, Green America pinned a few of them down on general financial and SRI advice for every decade of our lives, based on where the average person is at each stage. Use it as a rough guide to maximizing the power of your investments as you go through life. 

In Your 20s

People in their 20s tend to have: 

• Some debt, including student loans. 
• An entry-level salary in their field. 
• Few expenses (may have no kids, rent instead of own a home, etc.).
• A beginner's knowledge and comfort level with investments. 

Start saving early: People in their 20s may feel that the need to save for retirement is less urgent, since it’s 40-plus years away. However, Kathleen McQuiggan, senior vice president of Global Women’s Strategies at Pax World {GBN} stresses that the money you put away today will compound over time, so the earlier you start saving, the more you’ll have when you need it most. 

Steve Dixon, principal and investment manager at Birchwood Financial Partners {GBN} says it’s critical for young people to start saving. “My parents, the Baby Boom generation, didn’t need to figure this stuff out like younger generations will need to. Pensions were more prevalent and Social Security was more secure. Nowadays, [no one can count on these]. It’s much more critical that young people save for retirement. The nice part is that there are lots of ways to do it.” 

Save as much as you can: Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Senator and bankruptcy expert, coined the “50/30/20” rule of budgeting, which suggests you should keep your necessary costs to 50% of your after-tax income, spend up to 30% on “wants,” and sock 20% into savings. When you’re just starting out in the working world, 50/30/20 might be more of a goal than a reality, but make a point to save as much as you can until you can reach 20%. 

Make saving routine: Steve Dixon says your financial plan in your 20s should emphasize making saving for retirement part of your routine. 

“It’s like working out or exercising or eating right; if you build it into a routine, it’s so much easier than if you put it off,” he says. “Don’t wait until you have money to put away, because invariably, we never feel like we have enough money to put away.”

Get involved in your workplace retirement account: The easiest place to start saving is at work: If your employer offers a retirement savings account and will match a portion of your savings, take advantage of that—it’s free money! Make sure to save at least the amount that earns you the maximum employer match amount. 

Save more if you’re a woman: McQuiggan warns young women to consider their savings and investments even more strategically than men: “Women live five to six years longer than men. Also, the wage gap exists—[white] women make 80 cents [for every dollar a man makes, and women of color make even less]. So when women retire, they have to have more money than men.” 

Considering SRI:

Break up with your mega-bank: The easiest thing to do to use your money for good is to switch banks. Break up with your mega-bank, if you belong to one, and choose a community investing bank or credit union. (The federal government provides certification for some, which will be called “community development financial institutions.” Not all are certified.)

Community investing banks and credit unions are known for treating customers better and generally charging lower fees than mega-banks. Most allow the same convenience of online banking that a mega-bank would have. 

Where does the socially responsible part come in? Community investing banks and credit unions have a mission to use their money to lift up low- and middle-income communities. For example, Wells Fargo lends its money to fossil-fuel projects, while many community investing banks make a point of avoiding fossil fuels, instead lending money to foster local businesses, support people trying to buy homes, and more. Community investing banks and credit unions are federally insured, which means they’re just as safe as a mega-bank or your local bank. 

Get SRI into your workplace retirement account: Ask your employer if socially responsible funds are included in your workplace retirement account. If they aren’t, ask your employer to consider adding them. 

In Your 30s

People in their 30s tend to have: 

• Less debt. 
• A higher salary than in their 20s. 
• Growing expenses, from buying a home, growing a family, etc. 
• Some retirement savings. 

Set aside an emergency fund: The investment advice site Betterment.com recommends making sure you have an emergency fund by your early 30s. Most experts recommend setting aside at least six months’ worth of your salary in a savings account, in case of illness or job loss, for example. 

Don’t cash out retirement accounts: People with even a small amount of retirement savings shouldn’t cash it out early, an article from Money Magazine warns. When you cash out a 401(k), the government takes out extra taxes, so a $5,000 balance could turn into $3,500 cash. If you leave your retirement accounts alone, you keep the money growing. 

Reconsider your savings: As you age, make a point to divert as much as you can into retirement and other savings. Increase your contribution to your workplace retirement account, which you can have your employer automatically pull from your paycheck. And have your bank or credit union automatically divert money from your checking account into savings every paycheck, as well. 

Consider mutual funds: If you didn’t already start in your 20s, investing some of your savings in mutual funds may also be a good option in your 30s, because at a younger age, you can be more tolerant to risk since you have time to absorb any losses. As a general rule of thumb, the higher the risk, the more potential for greater returns.

Considering SRI

SRI mutual funds: Generally, socially responsible mutual funds do as well or outperform the general market (see p. 15), making them a great option for green-minded people in their 30s who want to get started investing outside of a retirement account. 

Look for socially responsible mutual funds, such as those listed in the “Mutual Funds” category at Green America’s GreenPages.org. Mutual funds offer automatic diversification, which can help minimize risk, and most types are actively managed. 

A socially responsible financial advisor: Your life is likely to go through some big changes in your 30s. You may get married and/or start a family, and you may buy your first home. Consequently, your finances will go through some big changes as well. A financial advisor can help you navigate these changes. Look for a socially responsible financial advisor, who can offer general financial advice and help you invest your money in line with your values. 

Community investing: Your 30s may be a good time to maximize the social aspect of your portfolio and move some of your money into community investments that go beyond banking. These investments help finance community-building projects in the US or elsewhere in the world. They may help people build houses, install renewable energy, start small businesses, or otherwise help lift up local communities. 

The Calvert Foundation {GBN}, for example, offers Community Investment Notes, which put your money into a pool of community development projects across the US and around the world—from loans for women-owned small businesses in Tanzania powered by solar to loans for affordable housing in Baltimore. 

“Community investing is an important part of every portfolio and can play a key role in diversification,” says Fran Teplitz, Green America’s executive co-director. 

In Your 40s

People in their 40s tend to have: 

• The highest wages of their careers. 
• Long-term loans from big purchases.
• Established retirement savings. 
• A need to continue saving for big purchases/children’s needs, like college. 

Max out your retirement savings: Advisors at Bankrate.com recommend making the maximum annual contribution possible to your retirement savings in your 40s, if you aren’t already. For example, for the 2019 tax year, the maximum annual contribution to a 401(k) was $19,000. 

Consider individual stock investments: If you haven’t already decided to invest in individual stock, your 40s could be a good time to do so. Buying individual stock has more risk than investing in mutual funds, but the rewards can be greater if the company does well. 

Considering SRI

Screen your stock investments: Research companies before buying stock in them to ensure they’re socially and environmentally responsible. And purge any companies from your portfolio that you find are being poor corporate citizens. A socially responsible financial advisor can screen your holdings for you. 

Become an active shareholder: If you hold stock, you’ll receive a shareholder proxy ballot every spring. Vote your proxy ballot in favor of social and environmental shareholder resolutions (see p. 16). (Mutual fund managers receive and vote the proxy ballots for their stock holdings, and they must disclose those votes on the fund website. If you disagree with how one of your mutual funds voted on particular ballot, call the investor relations department and let them know.) 

In Your 50s

People in their 50s tend to have:

• Peak savings and investments.
• A short “time horizon” until retirement. 
• A continued need to help children with college, plus assist aging parents with health and other issues. 

Consider lessening your investment risk: As you start to think about retirement in the next decade or so, it may be time to shift your investments to be more conservative. Bill Holliday of AIO Financial uses the term “time horizon” to talk about how much time people can keep their money in an investment before they need it back. 

"We don’t want to be forced to sell out of a volatile market when markets are down. If you have a short time horizon or don’t tolerate much risk, you want to have a good amount in fixed, stable investments,” Holliday says.

Consider your personal time horizon until retirement, and check with a financial advisor to see if lessening investment risk is right for your portfolio. 

Considering SRI

Find lower-risk socially responsible investments: Just because your investments may be getting less risky doesn’t mean you have to compromise on your values. No matter what your risk tolerance and time horizon, you or a financial planner will still be able to find socially responsible alternatives that fit with your needs. 

Government bonds and certificates of deposit (CDs), for example, offer fixed returns and less risk for investors. Money market funds, or pools of CDs, bonds, and certain other investments offer automatic diversification and reduced risk.

SRI At Retirement (65+)

At 65, you might be setting the date for your retirement, or be retired, and you’re starting to withdraw from your savings and investment accounts. (Be sure to read up on the requirements for starting such withdrawals, to avoid fines or penalties.) 

Steve Dixon suggests reconsidering community investing, which generally has a low level of risk, when you retire. 

“If I know I’m going to need that money in 18 months, if I’m being prudent, I shouldn’t be willing to take a lot of risk,” he says. “I want it in something secure.” 

Community investments can deliver social impact while simultaneously being available for the near term. Many community investments allow you to choose an investment term of anywhere from one to 15 years. 

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, SRI investments have performed as well as or better than their conventional counterparts. 

For well over a decade, financial studies have been confirming what green investors already know: that investing to support people and the environment makes financial sense.

In 2021, a study from Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing found that in a year marked by volatility and recession, funds that focused “on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, across both stocks and bonds, weathered the year better than non-ESG portfolios.” The research looked at more than 3,000 mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and found that sustainable funds performed better than non-ESG funds in 2020 and 2019. 

Investment research firm Morningstar published a report in 2021 finding that the returns of 69% of sustainable funds ranked in the top half of funds, and 37% in the top quartile for returns. Data from the last five years found similar results. 

And even in 2007, a report by the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative analyzed academic work and key broker studies and found that SRI investment strategies had a competitive performance with non-SRI strategies. 

Conclusion: You can do well by doing good with SRI.

The Green America Visa

Cut up those mega-bank credit cards and get a card issued by a community investing bank or credit union that puts its money to work helping people and the Earth. 

To make it even easier for you to find such a card, Green America offers a credit card in partnership with TCM Bank, N.A. which is owned by ICBA Bancard, a subsidiary of the Independent Community Bankers of America. Every purchase on the card supports Green America’s high-impact action campaigns. The card even allows you to earn reward points! 

Visit TakeChargeofYourCard.org to learn about Green America’s card and other cards that benefit environmentally and socially conscious organizations. 

1. If you want to:

• Get problematic industries like tobacco, fossil fuels, weapons, and others out of your portfolio 
• Invest in forward-thinking companies on the cutting edge of green technologies, like renewable energy, water purification, and responsible waste management

Try: Screening

What is it? 

• Screening is making the choice to include or exclude investments in your portfolio based on social and environmental criteria. 
• Avoidance screens mean that investments that violate your social and environmental criteria are kept out of your portfolio. 
• Affirmative screens seek out investments that support business practices in which you believe. 

Scale

• As of November 2020, investors have put $17.1 trillion into vehicles managed with sustainable investing strategies, up 42% from that figure in 2018, according to the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investing (Also called US SIF). 

Impact 

“The very act of buying a portfolio that’s more consistent with goals of universal human dignity and ecological sustainability changes the conversation. It expands the mission of companies. 90-plus global stock exchanges have joined the Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative, which means that over 50,000 companies now attempt to track their impact on people and the planet. Those things never would have happened had just Wall Street been their shareholders.” —Amy Domini, Domini Social Investments {GBN} 

Get Started

• Do research and screen your own investments, or hire a socially responsible financial advisor to help you. Find one in the “Financial—Advisors & Planners” category at Green America’s GreenPages.org. 

2. If you want to: 

• Use your investor power to pressure irresponsible corporations to clean up their acts

Try: Shareholder Activism

What is it? 

• Shareholder activism/advocacy describes the actions many investors take to press corporations to improve their social and environmental practices—using their status as part-owners of companies as leverage. 
• Shareholders, generally in coalition, may start out by dialoguing behind the scenes with corporate management to ask for change.
• If dialogues don’t work, shareholders may introduce a shareholder resolution, which is a formal request to corporate management to change company policies or procedures. All shareholders vote on shareholder resolutions through a proxy ballot mailed to them each spring, or in person at a company’s annual meeting. 

Scale

• Investors controlling nearly $1.98 trillion in assets filed or co-filed shareholder resolutions between 2018 and the first half of 2020, according to the 2020 Report on Sustainable, Responsible and Impact Investing Trends produced by US SIF. Investors introduced over 435 environmental, social, and governance resolutions, in the 2021 shareholder season, according to As You Sow.

Impact 

“Publicly traded companies can benefit from the unique insights offered by their shareholders. Shareholders’ specific views on the marketplace, society, resource constraints, and policy provide us with a clear, powerful, and persuasive voice that can be compelling for corporate directors and management. Through dialogue, shareholder proposals, and other channels of communication, investors serve as an important catalyst for improved ESG policies, practices, and performance.” —Jonas Kron, Trillium Asset Management {GBN}

Get Started

• If you own stock, look for a shareholder ballot to arrive in the mail in the spring, and vote in favor of social and environmental proposals. See p. 12, and visit Green America’s annual shareholder roundup on our key issues at shareholderaction.org. 

3. If you want to:

• Put your money to work helping low- and middle-income people lift themselves up economically
• Move your money away from predatory mega-banks tied to the foreclosure crisis, and toward institutions that are doing good

Try: Community Investing

What is it? 

• The simplest method is to open accounts in a community investing bank/credit union. 
• Community-investing vehicles maximize the social impact of your investments, providing capital to low-and middle-income people in the US and abroad who are under-served by conventional banks. 
• Other options include CDs and money-market accounts in a community-investing bank or credit union, community-investing loan funds and venture capital, and mutual funds with community investments in their portfolios. 

Scale

• Thanks in part to Green America and US SIF’s publicity campaigns, the community investing field has grown from $5 billion in 1999 to $266 billion currently, according to the US SIF 2020 Trends Report. This sector has experienced rapid growth especially in recent years, growing over 600% in the last decade (from $41.7 billion in 2010).

Impact 

“Community development financial institutions like HOPE offer a tremendous return on investment. A credit union is a powerful resource that empowers individuals and communities to help themselves. For more than two decades, HOPE has generated nearly $3 billion in financing that has improved conditions for 1.7 million people in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. In collaboration with a strong network of partners, we equip members to drive positive change. When these kinds of communities have access to the right tools, they thrive. That benefits not only the region, but ultimately the nation.” —Bill Bynum, Hope Credit Union {GBN} 

Get Started

• Find a community investing bank, credit union, or loan fund in Green America’s Get a Better Bank Database at greenamerica.org/getabetterbank. 
• Find more community investments in the “Financial—Community Investments” category at GreenPages.org. 

4. If you want to:

• Send a message to an entire industry that it’s not sustainable

Try: Divestment

What is it? 

• Divestment means pulling all of your money out of a particular investment or industry. 
• The goal is to send a market signal to a company, industry, or government that its actions are not sustainable, and their investors and customers want them to change course. 

Scale

• As of June 2021, 1,326 institutions representing over $14.58 trillion in assets have made a fossil-fuel divestment commitment. This signifies a 160% growth in divested assets just in the last two years. More than 58,000 individuals with about $5.2 billion in assets have committed to divestment as well, according to the Fossil Free campaign of 350.org.
• Investors have divested $4.8 billion from private prisons as of 2019, according to Freedom to Thrive.

Impact 

“Divestment is a powerful strategy, used after other strategies have not achieved the change needed. By pulling assets out of a country, industry, or company, investors declare that entity a pariah, and acutely raise the stakes for the continuation of the unacceptable conduct or policy. Divestment shines a spotlight on an issue that can no longer be ignored, intensifying the pressure for change.” —Fran Teplitz, Green America Executive Co-director

Get Started

• Join the Fossil Fuel Divest/Invest campaign and pull your money out of the top 200 fossil-fuel companies. Also, see p. 20-22 about new divestment campaigns to put pressure on the fossil fuel industry, and private prisons and private detention centers.

In these challenging times, it is more important than ever to use every tool available to protect people and the planet. Can your financial life—beyond charitable giving—make a difference to struggling communities, corporate conduct, and the environment? Yes, it can! With this guide, we want to show you how. 

Strategies to “vote with your dollars,” as we call it, can be used by anyone, no matter where you may fall on the spectrum of wealth. Even if you only have $50 in the bank, it can be in an account where those assets support the kind of world you want to live in as a Green American. 

For example, if you use a checking account, savings account, certificate of deposit, mortgage or other basic banking products, you don’t have to use a conventional mega bank. Instead, you could meet your financial needs through either a community development financial institution (CDFI) or a local community bank. CDFIs are dedicated to the economic uplift of low-to-moderate income communities. A community bank that’s not a CDFI can be a good choice if you want to bank locally and have your money support your community. Minority-owned banks and financial institutions certified by Green America are also great options.

Mega banks like JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Citi continue to invest at record levels in fossil fuels. Is that what you want your money to support? You can join the “Fossil Banks, No Thanks” movement by using a financial institution that does not invest in fossil fuels and by urging “fossil banks” to change their lending policies at greenamerica.org/fossilbanknothanks.

If you have investments in mutual funds, consider choosing funds that screen their holdings with attention to social, environmental, and corporate governance issues. Many studies have shown that integrating these issues into the investment process does not harm one’s portfolio—and may even diminish risk (see p. 8). 
If you own company stock directly, be sure to review and vote your proxy ballots. There may be votes on labor, diversity, human rights, climate change, and environmental issues you won’t want to miss. Make sure you are using your shareholder voice—corporate management listens to investors. 

Whether our political processes are working optimally or not—you can vote with your dollars and make a positive difference today!
 

OLD CITY ACRES
Growing produce sustainably, lovingly, conservatively, locally, and beyond organic

Established:  2013
Location:  Belleville, MI
Website: http://www.oldcityacres.com/

Old City Acres was established in 2013 by Alexander Ball in Sumpter, Michigan, about 30 miles southwest of Detroit.  At 19 years old, Alex was driven to start farming when the last grocery store in his hometown of Romulus closed. He admits that he was a bit naïve at the start, thinking that he would start a farm and feed people.  Naïve perhaps in terms of farming skills, but not in purpose and need.  Starting in his own backyard with a shovel, a neighbor helped Alex till the land (something he no longer does since he now farms regeneratively). 

An entrepreneurial spirit, nurtured on the grounds of Greenfield Village with its array of sights and sounds of agricultural evolution, Alex conceived of the farm as a business from the start, quantifying each part of production.  For the first four to five years, he rented land, but lost the lease back-to-back almost every year for various reasons, including, for example, a pipeline.  Systematically keeping track of production and sales allowed him to show proof of success when he had saved enough to buy his own land. 

Once he owned his own land, Alex felt he really had a stake in the game.  He thinks of his land as his “forever farm”, developing it not only for as it is now, but how it could be in the future.  For example, Michigan saw heavy rains and massive flooding the first year he owned his own land.  He went in with the mindset that “this is the norm now” and planned for it.  Alex built a 400 ft levee and dredged ditches along the whole property.  He also opened a pond up, digging down about 5 more feet and re-routing the water through the ditch system.  Since then, the pond attracts frogs, birds, bluegills, and other native creatures.

The soil is on a long-term improvement plan as well.  At Old City Acres, “beyond organic” practices are used, including no-till and using organic compost to help keep carbon in the soil.  Native plants have re-flowered the prairie, and eagles, hawks, and blue heron have appeared.  These native plants and creatures are a natural defense against harmful pests.

An innovative approach

After starting off with a traditional CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), Old City Acres took an innovative approach to them. Unlike other CSAs, Old City Acres operates a year-round CSA that supporters are able to customize each week.  They operate 6 unheated greenhouses to make this possible, growing veggies like spinach and winter kale in the winter months. As of late, they have also been expanding to include other local products as add-ins to the weekly CSA, such as eggs and spices.

Furthermore, Old City Acres utilizes a debit card model, whereby people invest in the CSA which people can then use to pay for the items they want in each CSA order.  Any credit leftover rolls into the next year.  By allowing customers to customize their orders, Old City Acres has learned their preferences and adopted its growing habits to match them. For example, not many people order cabbage, so they only grow a few.  What’s more, when COVID hit, Old City Acres was the only CSA around that already had contactless pickup.

The typical CSA customer base is white women aged 25-55.  Alex wants to serve a wider community and has been marketing to younger folks and men.  Old City Acres was recently approved as an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) retailer as well.

How you can support local agriculture

Finally, Alex discussed the struggle young farmers, and particularly BIPOC farmers, have obtaining land access.  There is a lack of funds and many barriers to entry, including a struggle to get loans.  Alex suggests that others can help by empowering and purchasing from small farms, supporting a local producer by investing in the farm by sponsoring land if able, and/or by purchasing CSA shares.  

If you'd like to support Old City Acres' work, you can make a contribution here.  

The right to vote is the cornerstone of democracy – and central for creating a just, equitable, regenerative economy that works for all. 

The United States considers itself to be a leading democracy in the world. The 2020 election, which was without fraud or corruption, had a record turnout – particularly remarkable in the middle of a dangerous pandemic.

So logically, it would make sense that politicians across the US political landscape would support the right of all American citizens to vote and work to make it as easy as possible for all citizens to take part in elections.

Sadly, that is not the case.

Voting Rights at Risk

Leaders of the Republican Party at both state and national levels are actively working to suppress voters.

So far in 2021, over 30 laws in 18 states have been enacted to make it harder to vote, according to The Brennan Center for Justice. 

These laws restrict mail in voting, early voting, impose harsher voter ID requirements, and will result in more voters being purged from the rolls (many incorrectly). Texas is the latest state to pass restrictive voting rights legislation, over the heroic objection of state Democrats. Additional restrictive voting laws could be put in place around the country before the end of this year.

The history of voter suppression in the US is tied to racism; in particular Jim Crow laws made it nearly impossible for many Black citizens to cast a ballot for 100 years after all Black men were given the right to vote. Additionally, even after the 19th amendment was enacted, Black women faced repeated barriers, which were purposely designed to keep them from having their vote counted.

It is therefore no surprise that Black citizens and other citizens of color, as well as working class people, people with disabilities, trans people and other marginalized genders will be disproportionately affected by the new voter restrictions. That’s why these new laws restricting voting rights are being called “The New Jim Crow.”

We Can Act to Protect Voting Rights

That’s why Green America supports the call of voting rights organizations, including Stacey Abram’s Fair Fight Action and Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote, to urge the US Congress to pass legislation to protect voting rights nationwide and to get more Americans registered to vote.

Congress has the opportunity to pass two bills, the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act that, between them, would undo many voting restrictions nationwide and would restore the Voting Rights Act and the US Justice Department’s ability to challenge unconstitutional voting restrictions, which have been gutted by the US Supreme Court.

How You Can Help

• Call Your Senators. Green America strongly supports the passage of both bills, and we urge everyone to call their US Senators through the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 to urge their passage as soon as possible. The legislation needs to be in place in order to ensure a free and fair election, where all citizens can vote, in 2022. 
• Get others to take action as well. Share this video from Michelle Obama and Stacey Abrams – encouraging everyone to take action for voting rights.
• Join the August 28 March On For Voting Rights marches, in DC and around the country.  Join people near where you live to take a stand for voting rights!
• Volunteer with or donate to groups, such as Fair Fight Action and When We All Vote to protect voting rights and get more Americans voting!

Ready to start living your green life? The 5-Day Waste-Less Challenge is designed to help you kick start your green journey to zero waste!

Day 1: Conduct a Trash Audit

Before we can reduce our waste, we must first dig into the trash we make—both figuratively and literally.

If you have a full trash bin already, you can start immediately by digging in and separating items by type—paper, food, plastic, etc. We recommend putting the items in separate containers, like brown paper bags or plastic bags from the grocery store, or taking it outside to keep your house from getting too dirty.

If you don’t already have a full trash bin (or if getting elbow-deep in your garbage seems gross), you can set up individual trash bags for each type of trash to collect throughout the week. Once it’s all laid out, ask yourself: Which bag is the biggest? Do you notice that you use a lot of paper towels, napkins, or something else? What could be recycled?

Day 2: Make A Zero-Waste Kit

Now that you know what’s in your waste, it’s time to build a zero-waste kit: a simple, personalized collection of reusables to replace the single-use items you use daily.

Make a list of the items you use every day or weekly, then identify which ones are disposable and could be replaced with a reusable item. Some common items to swap in could be reusable products, like shopping bags, coffee cups, cutlery, cotton rounds, coffee filters, straws, menstrual cups, razors, produce bags, beeswax wraps, and water bottles.

Day 3: Quit Food Waste

If food waste were a country, it would be the third-highest greenhouse gas emitter in the world. Food scraps in your trash go to the landfill where they do not decompose organically (as they would in a composter) and release methane, contributing to the climate crisis. For day 3, fight food waste by finishing your leftovers! Check your fridge for produce on the cusp and use older pantry items to make a stew, stir-fry, or casserole. 

If you need more of a challenge, commit to buying your next round of groceries from your farmers market. Most foods in our grocery stores travel long distances and are grown in ways that damage the soil—by purchasing from local farmers, you are voting with your dollar for a resilient local food system. 

How To Make An Indoor Compost

Day 4: Curate a Sustainable Closet

Our clothes have an outsized impact—the fashion industry produces more carbon emissions than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. It also pollutes waterways with toxic microfibers and reinforces wealth inequality and social injustice for garment workers.

Use Day 4 to start a capsule wardrobe. A capsule wardrobe is comprised of a few versatile basics that are appropriate for various occasions. This exercise helps us rethink how we wear clothes from trendy, fast fashion pieces to beloved, quality items that will last a long time and remember the pieces we still love but may have forgotten.

Go through your closet and find 25 or so versatile pieces for the next month. Try wearing just these items for the month. At the end of the month, ask yourself, were you able to come up with fun and sufficient combinations with just 25 items?

Unraveling the Fashion Industry magazine issue

Day 5: Buy Nothing New

Day 5 is designed to help you be more intentional with your purchases. Try not to buy anything new, except for necessities like prescriptions, transportation costs, and food. Find ways to give old things a fresh purpose or look for something used on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, Freecycle, or your local Buy Nothing group.

This day is about thinking critically about your needs versus wants. How many spontaneous purchases have you made, just to be used once or to end up as clutter in the back of your closet? By buying nothing new, you are slowing down your consumption, which is a very sustainable thing to do. If you thought Day 5 was too easy for you, extend it for the rest of the week—or keep it going and let us know how long you lasted! 

Remember that reducing waste is a process, full of trial and error. But day by day, one step at a time, you're on your way to a greener life!