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A February report found that the majority of the 164 products researchers tested from Family Dollar, Dollar General, the Dollar Tree, and 99 Cents Only contained at least one hazardous chemical linked to serious health impacts.

Love bargains? You’re right to think twice about seeking deals at your local discount retailer. A February report from the Campaign for Healthier Solutions and HealthyStuff.org found that products from Dollar General, the Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, and 99 Cents Only may be hazardous to your health.

The report revealed the results of toxicity tests the two organizations had conducted on 164 products from the above four major discount retailers. The stores were located in six states, and the products tested ranged from children’s toys and beaded necklaces to kitchen utensils and holiday lights.

“Products were tested for antimony, arsenic, bromine, chlorine, lead, mercury, and tin,” said the report. “A subset of products determined to contain polyvinyl chloride plastic (PVC or vinyl) were further tested for the presence of phthalate and non-phthalate plasticizers.”

Dollar Store Toxins

Fall 2015.

(m) Designates a certified member of Green America’s Green Business Network®

Does money have to be “at the root of all evil,” as the old saying goes? It can be. It buys resource-intensive “stuff” that damages the Earth and runs up debt. It gets deposited in mega-banks that take advantage of Main Street to pad the coffers of greedy, predatory Wall Street businesses. It’s the driving force behind industries like the fossil-fuel companies that harm the environment and heat up the planet.

But your money—and what you choose to do with it—also has considerable power to create meaningful, significant, positive change. You need to save anyway, and by moving your money into the right savings and investing vehicles, you can ensure that it simultaneously works for your future and for a greener planet and healthier communities worldwide.

It’s called socially responsible investing (SRI), and it’s a strategy that’s continuing to skyrocket in popularity. In 2014, Americans put $6.57 trillion in managed investments to work pressuring corporations to clean up their acts, bolstering forward-thinking companies working on sustainable solutions, and lifting up low-income communities across the US and around the world, according to the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment.

That’s an enormous growth of 76 percent from just two years prior, when that figure was $3.74 trillion. More and more, people are demonstrating that where you save and invest your money, even if you don’t have a lot, can change the world.
If you’re new to socially responsible investing, turn the pages, and we’ll show you the many different strategies that, together, make up SRI. And don’t worry if you don’t have a lot of extra cash to invest. Even $100, put in the right place, can make a difference (see below).

If you’re one of the tens of thousands of Green Americans who’ve been greening your savings and investments for years with us, you’ll find the latest news and strategies to help you make the most of your money’s impact on the world.

It Doesn't Take Much…

1. Open a savings or checking account with a community development bank or credit union, which makes it their mission to lift up low-income communities. Minimum amount to open an account: $10-$100

2. Swap your mega-bank credit card for a responsible credit card with a community development bank or credit union. Minimum amount to open an account: $0

3. Have a workplace 401(k) or 403(b) retirement account? Allocate as much of your salary as you can to your workplace retirement account, and take advantage of any socially responsible investing (SRI) options offered. If your employer plan doesn’t have any, give your boss our free guide: Plan for a Better Future: How to Add SRI Options to an Employer’s Retirement Plan. Minimum amount to start: $50-$100.

4. Get a Certificate of Deposit (CD) with a community development bank or credit union and support fully insured lending that makes a difference for families and communities. Minimum amount to invest: $100+.

5. Invest in domestic and international projects that have a big impact, involving microfinance, Fair Trade, women’s empowerment, small business, education, and more. For only $20-$25, you can invest in projects around the world that have a big social impact—and may even have financial returns for you—on platforms like Vested.org (which partners with Calvert Foundation)
or Kiva.org. Minimum to start: $20-$25.

6. Invest in a socially responsible mutual fund. If you plan to invest in the stock market, you can put money into a mutual fund that makes a point of investing in responsible companies, purging the worst companies from its portfolio, and exerting its shareholder influence to get borderline companies to improve. Find one in the “Financial—Mutual Funds” section of Green America’s National Green Pages®, greenpages.org. $500+

Resources

Find a community development bank or credit union

Find a responsible credit card

Get the free guide to SRI retirement options

Find a socially responsible mutual fund
 

(m) Designates a certified member of Green America’s Green Business Network®

Part of making a difference with your money is ensuring that you save enough to put it into the saving and investing vehicles that can do the most good. By making a “shift to thrift,” you’ll spend less and save more, avoiding extra debt and shoring up your retirement accounts to secure your golden years. You’ll be buying less and wasting less, using up fewer of the planet’s precious resources. And, more money in savings and investments means more available to do good work in the world.

Start with these five simple, money-saving steps, and you could save $8,326 a year.

1. Join a carpool rather that commuting solo.

The average American commutes 25 miles to work each way. If you drive a small sedan to and from work 252 days a year (21 days each month), spending 52.2 cents a mile, you’ll spend $6,577 a year. Share your drive with just one other person, and you’ll save $3,289 a year.
Source: US Census Bureau, AAA

2. Make your own coffee and tea instead of hitting the coffee shop.

Buying a $3 latte five days a week before work adds up. Make your own fair trade and organic coffee or tea for 25 cents a cup instead and save $688 a year.
Source: DollarTimes.com Coffee Savings Calculator

3. Cut your clothing purchases in half.

Cut down on the $1,604 the average person in the US spends each year on clothes by declaring a moratorium on buying new clothes (other than perhaps socks and undies). Scour consignment and thrift shops, frequent rummage sales, and hold clothing swaps to get what you need. Conservatively, if you do enough to cut your clothing expenditures in half, you’ll save $802/year.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

4. Take steps to be more energy efficient at home.

The average US household spends $5,550 a year on energy costs. But the average American homeowner could cut his/her energy use in half using existing technologies—including plugging air leaks and installing ceiling fans. Use Green America’s “Ten Easiest Ways to Cut Your Energy Use in Half” to get started. Savings: $2,225.
Source: Alliance to Save Energy, Green American magazine

5. Eat out less and make meals at home.

The average American eats out four times a week, and the average restaurant meal costs $12.72. That adds up to $2,784 a year spent on dining out. Make just two of those four meals at home, and you save $1,322 annually.
Source: TheSimpleDollar.com 

Total Savings: More than $8,000 a year!
That adds up to nearly $42,000 over 5 years

Being a socially responsible investor starts with being informed about your finances. Check out your financial wellness with these calculators.

CNN Money’s Financial Health Calculator

Have a bit of time on your hands? It can’t be better spent than checking your financial wellness with CNN Money’s financial health calculator. Enter your current debt, emergency savings, retirement savings, and other information for a big-picture look at how well you’re doing with your money.
 

When Will You Be a Millionaire?

Want to have a million dollars? Use CalcXML’s “Becoming a Millionaire” calculator to figure out how much and how long you need to save to be a millionaire.

Is Your Retirement on Track?

Will you have enough to retire? Enter a few important pieces of info, like your age and how much you have saved already, into AARP’s calculator, and it’ll tell you how much you will have saved by retirement age and how much you need to step up.

BankRate’s Mortgage Calculator

A vital budgeting tool for anyone thinking of buying a home. Just enter in the price of the home you’re considering, along with other pertinent details, and BankRate’s mortgage calculator will help you figure out how much your monthly payment will be. There’s even a how-to video to help you get the most out of the calculator.

Saving for a Child’s Education

Have a kid who will be going to college in a few years? Investopedia’s calculator can help you figure out how much you need to save to cover tuition.  

Apps to Make Budgeting a Snap

Creating a budget is easier than ever, thanks to new technology. Mobile apps for Android and iPhone can help you create a budget and track your spending in an up-to-the-minute fashion. You can even connect your budget with your bank and investment accounts. Here are just a few that can help:

Mint

Mint has a horde of fans—the company boasts 10 million users worldwide, perhaps for it’s all-in-one convenience.

Mint allows you to link all bank, investment, and credit card accounts to the app, allowing you to create a budget based on historical spending patterns. Once your budget is in place, you can track your spending—which Mint will categorize for you—and set and track savings goals. You can even view how your investments are doing on the same app! (Free: Apple, Android, tablet, online)

Goodbudget

Goodbudget sets up a virtual “envelope budgeting” system. Instead of putting money for groceries, rent, and car payments into real envelopes, this nifty app allows you to divide your income into virtual envelopes for your anticipated expenses. It also encourages setting up envelopes to meet your savings goals.

Goodbudget also allows you to sync your budget with family members if you’re on the paid Plus plan. (Free, although the company offers an upgraded “Plus” plan for $5/month or $45/year. Android, iPhone, online.)
 

Walletmaster

Rather than setting up envelopes, you set a spending goal for the week or month. You then enter in any purchases you make and categorize these purchases as you go.

Walletmaster allows you to look at what is available in your budget as a whole and also visualize where your money is going. (Free: Android)
 

MoneyControl Pro

MoneyControl is a simple and intuitive budgeting app that allows you to add your expenses and income as you go, then categorize them then and there, or later when you have time. The app is integrated with Dropbox, so your info is available for all of your devices.

In addition, the app allows you to view your financial reports in a variety of ways, from graphs to calendar format. Though there is a free version, MoneyControl Pro allows you unlimited budget entries.

For an additional 99 cents, you can get an extension for the app that allows you to take photos of your receipts and attach them to your budget entries for easy archiving. ($1.99: Android, Apple, Mac, Windows)

SavedPlus

The aim of SavedPlus is to help you save more the more you spend. SavedPlus links to your checking and savings accounts. You choose how much of your daily spending you want saved. Then, every time you make a purchase, the app transfers a percentage of what you spend to your savings account.

The app includes safeguards to keep you from overdrafting: You can set a minimum checking balance threshold or a maximum dollar amount to save per purchase.

You can use SavedPlus to set long-term or short-term savings goals, chart your daily progress, and view monthly or yearly savings projections. (Free, Android, iPhone.)

You Need a Budget (YNAB)

Prefer not to link your budget app to your accounts? Carrie Van Winkle, a financial advisor with Just Money Advisors in Louisville, KY, recommends YNAB. This online and mobile budgeting app that allows you to enter in the amount of information you desire about your different accounts without actually linking to them.

In addition, the app produces many types of reports about how you spend, enables you to set up regular transactions, and more. YNAB offers customers free budgeting webinars online.

Cost: Free, though you need to buy the $60 Mac or PC software to get all features, including syncing between all devices.

—Sarah Tarver-Wahlquist & Tracy Fernandez Rysavy

Summer 2015.

If you want to make a corporation sit up and take notice, hit it where it hurts—in its profits.

Think about it: At the root of many corporate ills is a desire to maximize profits and shareholder returns. Abusive sweatshops? Created to squeeze every last dime out of the workforce. Environmental harm? Inflicted by companies that cut corners on manufacturing practices and want to avoid costly overhauls of manufacturing processes. Greenhouse gas emissions? The biggest emitter is the fossil-fuel industry, which earns more money the more carbon people burn.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. knew that money could be a driver for change when he called a boycott on the Montgomery, AL, public transit system as part of the battle for civil rights in 1955. That’s also why scores of people divested from companies doing business in South Africa during apartheid. Today, every single person has the power to pressure companies to improve their impacts on people and the Earth through socially responsible investing (SRI).

“Becoming an engaged shareholder is not only your right, but your responsibility,” says Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow , a nonprofit that promotes corporate responsibility through shareholder advocacy. “When shareholders speak in a unified voice, companies listen. It’s an incredibly powerful thing. We can create change in large corporations, because ultimately, it’s the people who own them that are stepping forth and saying, ‘I want to be engaged. I want to make this a better company, and I want to make the company fit into the whole greater system and greater society in a much more unified, conscious, and intentional way.”

Though we at Green America refer to the process of investing with your values as socially responsible investing, SRI is known by many names—natural investing; sustainable and responsible investment; impact investing; environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing. Whatever you call it, SRI employs three powerful strategies that allow investors to use their economic power for good.

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

Screening for Impact

Screening is including or excluding stocks from investment portfolios or mutual funds, based on corporate conduct. It works in tandem with regular financial analysis.

Avoidance screens keep investments that violate your social or environmental criteria out of your portfolio—for example, tobacco or fossil-fuel companies.

Affirmative screens search out investments that support business practices in which you believe. You may want to invest in companies that are on the cutting edge of green energy or that help mitigate pollution, for example.

Screening has had a profound impact on the corporate world, ever since the first screens to remove tobacco, nuclear energy, and weapons companies from investor portfolios were deployed in the 1980s by SRI mutual fund pioneers like
Domini Social Investments, Calvert Investments, Parnassus Investments, Green Century Funds, and others.

Today, SRI financial advisors help clients screen their investments, including individual stock purchases, as well as mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and other vehicles.
“When you screen your investments, moving your money into companies that are reducing their carbon pollution or use of toxic chemicals, for example, you help send a market signal that these are the kinds of companies that will enjoy investor and consumer support,” says Leslie Samuelrich, president of Green Century Funds.

There are many ways to screen your investments. If you’re so inclined, you may do the research and screen on your own.

Another easy option is to invest in the specialized SRI mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which have managers who screen fund portfolios for social and environmental responsibility. In addition, money managers for a variety of other investment vehicles—including annuities, hedge funds, closed-end funds, and real estate investment trusts all may screen for SRI factors.

Finally, a financial advisor can help you research high-quality social investments of all types.

Some mutual fund and ETF managers screen with an eye for overall responsibility. Other funds take special care to support certain industries. The New Alternatives Fund, for example, emphasizes clean-energy investments, while the Pax World Ellevate Global Women’s Index Fund invests in companies that “advance women’s leadership”.

Why might a mutual fund create a focused fund? Julie Gorte, senior vice-president for sustainable investing at Pax World, says of the Global Women’s fund: “Investing in women was something that [we are] passionate about. It’s also something that we have focused on for many years. Moreover, we are convinced that investing in companies that invest in women is a smart thing to do, in the same way that we think investing in companies that are more sustainable is simply a better and smarter way to invest. And the evidence bears that out: companies that use the talents of the entire workforce, not just the male half, tend to perform better.”

Gorte notes that a focused fund like the Global Women’s fund can still have broad market diversity. “This index fund includes companies from every region and every sector, including both developed and developing markets. It includes around 400+ companies around the globe based on their gender scores, [encompassing] women on boards, women in senior management, women CEOs and CFOs, and endorsement of the United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles.”

Perhaps the biggest impact that investment screening has had is that it has led to greatly increased scrutiny of corporate social responsibility records.

As a 2013 US SIF report called “The Impact of Sustainable and Responsible Investing” states: “Increased demand by investors for more extensive and comparable ESG data from companies has in turn galvanized ... a growing number of publicly traded companies and private equity firms [to] look at environmental, social, and governance issues in a more formal way as part of their decision-making. Some companies are disclosing their environmental and social performance in the same way as they report their financial performance.”

How Abi Greened Her Investments
(and Enjoyed Competitive Returns)

Abi Rome has been screening her investments since the 1990s, with the help of financial advisor Richard Torgerson, including divesting completely from fossil fuels.

Abi Rome has been screening her investments since the 1990s, with the help of financial advisor Richard Torgerson, including divesting completely from fossil fuels.

Abi Rome
Silver Spring, MD

Abi Rome’s love to nature as a young girl led her to study biology in college, and then focus on ecology and conservation for her post-graduate work. So in the late 1980s, when it came time to manage an inheritance she’d received, she wanted to make sure her investments were benefiting the planet, not harming it.

“I was concerned about the impacts of big business on the environment and on social justice, so when I learned about the SRI [socially responsible investing] movement, it seemed natural for me,” says Rome.

She looked for for a financial advisor who used SRI criteria and found Richard Torgerson, with whom she continues to work to this day.

She began by asking Torgerson to screen her investments—some of which came to her as stock shares in oil, gas, and tobacco companies—for social and environmental responsibility.

“The thinking at the time was that you couldn’t do that well if you’re only going to invest in certain sectors or leave out other sectors,” recalls Rome. “But that didn’t stop me. I made the decision that I wanted to be clean with my money.”

Doing so has worked out just fine for Rome for more than 25 years. Today, she invests in SRI mutual funds and Calvert Foundation’s Community Investment Notes®. And she works closely with Torgerson to create a portfolio of individual stocks carefully screened for social and environmental criteria.

She also recently asked Torgerson to help her divest from fossil fuels (see p. S) and was surprised and proud to find that her portfolio “was already, and had been for years, free of fossil-fuel companies.”

Rome has been very pleased with both the financial and social performance of her investments for the past quarter century. “My portfolio outperforms the S&P when the stock market does well, and during crashes, it has not lost as much as the overall market,” she says.

All investment involves a certain amount of risk. But Rome’s portfolio has demonstrated that over a period of time, SRI investments can match and even outperform conventional investments.

—Sarah Tarver-Wahlquist

If you want to:

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

TRY: Shareholder Activism

Shareholder Activists Take on Company CEOs

Shareholder Action/Advocacy describes the actions many investors take—using their status as part-owners of corporations as leverage—to press corporations to improve their social and environmental practices.

“Corporations are very conscious of the value of their brands, or what is called intangible value,” says Gorte. “Today, 75-80 percent of the value of many corporations—particularly large ones—is intangible. What that means is that if investors lose confidence in the company for any reason, its market value could crash quite considerably, and that in turn can turn a company into shark bait, vulnerable to takeovers.”

Adds Fran Teplitz, Green America’s executive co-director, “SRI mutual funds and institutional investors acting in coalition have millions of dollars invested in the corporations they engage, so managers take notice when they approach.”
Shareholder activists often start by meeting with management to dialogue on social and environmental concerns.

Companies will often respond quite rapidly to shareholder requests for dialogue, because they “don’t want to be perceived as being callous to environmental or social issues,” says Jonas Kron, senior vice-president of shareholder advocacy at Trillium Asset Management.

Kron says Trillium often sees companies agreeing to make a change during those dialogues. If the company doesn’t agree, shareholders like Trillium may file a shareholder resolution to get its attention and escalate the process.

Shareholder resolutions are requests to corporate management for changes in company policy or procedure. A resolution appears on a proxy ballot that is sent to all shareholders by mail each year, and votes are taken at a company’s annual meeting.

Even low votes of ten percent or less can add up to big change, because they can signal a potential bad-publicity storm on the horizon.

In 2013, As You Sow filed a resolution with General Mills asking it to remove genetically modified organisms (GMOs) from Cheerios—in tandem with Green America’s GMO Inside campaign, which mobilized consumers to raise their voices against GMOs in Cheerios. 2.2 percent of all General Mills shareholders voted in support of the resolution. As a result of this combined consumer and shareholder pressure, General Mills reformulated Cheerios without GMOs in January 2014.

For companies that are slower to take action, votes of three percent the first year, six the second, and ten percent thereafter are enough to put a resolution back on the proxy ballot the next year, so the negative publicity these resolutions generate keeps coming back to haunt them.

“Through resolution-filing and ongoing long term engagements, shareholders can improve performance in a range of issues critical to the planet and its people—climate change, human rights, labor rights and working conditions,” says David Schilling of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a shareholder advocacy nonprofit.

If dialogues or repeated shareholder resolutions don’t get results, shareholder activists may call for divestment, asking people to remove a certain type of stock from their portfolios. Mass divestment from companies doing business with South Africa during the apartheid years helped topple this oppressive form of government-sanctioned racism.
Today, shareholders hope to do the same by divesting from the fossil-fuel industry, to pressure it to move away from climate-changing fossil fuels and toward green
energy.

If you want to:

• Put your money to work helping low-income people around the world lift themselves up economically.
• Move your money away from predatory mega-banks tied to the foreclosure crisis, and toward institutions that are doing good.
• Support banks and credit unions that prioritize loans to green companies

TRY: Community Investing

Community Investments: Maximizing Social Impact

Community Investing vehicles—which can be as basic as a savings or checking account in a community investing bank or credit union—maximize the social impact of your investments, providing capital to low-income people in the US and abroad who are underserved by conventional banks.

What does it mean to be underserved by banks? It means you’re a member of a population for whom it is exceedingly difficult to obtain fair loans and financial services.

Without access to capital from banks, it’s nearly impossible to buy a home, send a child to college, or start a business—to improve your life and achieve a piece of the American dream.

Underserved populations often fall victim to predatory lenders, which include well-known mega-banks among their ranks. In 2012, Wells Fargo agreed to settle with federal regulators to the tune of $175 million in the face of accusations that it steered black and Latino borrowers into high-cost loans and charged them excessive fees. Overall, African Americans and Latinos are 30 percent more likely to receive high-rate subprime loans compared with white borrowers, a fact that a 2012 study from Howard University and City University of New York estimates cost these populations about $570 billion between 2006 and 2012.

Community development financial institutions (CDFIs) like Hope Credit Union (m), which has branches throughout the mid-South, have been stepping in to fill the fairness gap, making it a key part of their mandate to help people lift themselves up economically.
“You have a country that is becoming more and more diverse, and too often, people of color, or people in rural areas, or people whom banks have not had a great history of serving are left on the outside looking in,” says Bill Bynum, CEO of Hope Credit Union. “It’s critical to the country and the economy to find a way to help all individuals succeed, and to make sure they have financial tools that are responsibly structured and affordable—and no one does that better than CDFIs.”

Bynum points out that since the economic recession started in 2008, a record number of banks have closed across the country, with 93 percent of those closures occurring in low-income areas that need them most, according to a 2013 Bloomberg study. In contrast, Hope and other CDFIs work hard to ensure that as many people as possible continue to have access to capital.

“Rather than leaving people to rely on petty lenders and check cashers that charge very high rates and fees, we’ve probably gone from five to 17 branches since the recession started,” says Bynum. “86 percent of our business loans are in economically distressed communities. Almost 90 percent of our mortgages are to first-time home buyers at a time when many financial institutions are pulling away from providing mortgages, particularly to the markets we serve. Our average home buyer has a household income less than $40,000. If organizations like Hope don’t step in and fill those gaps, a lot of people are going to be shut out of economic opportunity.”
CDFIs also go the extra mile to ensure their loans succeed, providing financial and business counseling and technical assistance to borrowers. And they often take special care to support sustainable, local businesses.

You can help these banks and credit unions, whose social-impact bottom lines are as important to them as their financial bottom lines, simply by breaking up with your
mega-bank and opening accounts with a CDFI.

Make a Difference with Your Money

Together, the three strategies that make up SRI are powerful drivers of economic change. While engaging in screening and shareholder advocacy means you may be invested in possibly irresponsible companies, these strategies help reduce the damage those corporations are inflicting, pressuring them to improve.

And community investing expands the social impact of your investments, paving the way for equal access to fair financial services for all.

“Where people put their money makes a difference, whether it’s going toward something that’s going to lift people up or be a detriment to their lives,” says Bynum.

—Tracy Fernandez Rysavy,
with additional research by Andre Floyd

Does Social Investing Affect Performance?

You may be convinced by now that 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 savings and investments with your values? The evidence, amassed through hundreds of studies, shows that historically, SRI indexes have performed as well as or better than their conventional counterparts. For example, in a white paper published in 2014, TIAA-CREF selected five widely known US equity SRI indexes with track records of at least ten years—Calvert Social Index, Dow Jones Sustainability US Index (DJSI US), FTSE4Good US Index, MSCI KLD 400 Social Index, and MSCI USA IMI ESG Index—and compared their returns with two conventional US equity-based indexes, the Russell 3000 and the S&P 500. The analysis found that the SRI indexes performed competitively with the conventional indexes. Likewise, a 2015 survey by the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing found that, “Benchmark performance of the MSCI KLD 400 Social Index, which includes firms meeting high Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards, has outperformed the S&P 500 on an annualized basis by 45 basis points since its inception” in 1990. And a 2012 meta-analysis of over 100 academic studies, conducted by DB Climate Change Advisors, found that incorporating SRI results in “superior risk-adjusted returns for investors.” Conclusion: You can do well by doing good with SRI.

This graph from the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing shows how the MSCI KLD 400, the world’s oldest socially responsible investment index, has outperformed the S&P 500 since its inception.

Summer 2015.

(m) Designates a certified member of Green America’s Green Business Network®

Money alone can’t secure your future and protect you against crises. That also requires investing in your community, your skill sets, your friendships, and the environment.

Financial advisor Michael Kramer, director of social research at Natural Investments, LLC and co-author of The Resilient Investor. photo: Natural Investments, LLC

What if we said that investing didn’t have to be—and, indeed, shouldn’t be—just about money? That the time and effort you put into volunteering in your city or town, planting a garden, shoring up friendships, learning new skills are all a type of investing? That’s the premise behind The Resilient Investor, a new book from Michael Kramer, Hal Brill, and Christopher Peck, three managing partners at Natural Investments, LLC who specialize in socially responsible investing (SRI), which they call “natural investing”.

Kramer, Brill, and Peck argue that in these times of financial, social, and environmental uncertainty, we all need to be able to adapt to changing circumstances and resolve potential crises, whatever they may be. While saving and investing money is part of preparing for the future, they say it’s important to remember that money isn’t all of it.

The key, they say, is to become more resilient—to be able to “anticipate and prepare for disturbance, improve the capacity to withstand shocks, rebuild as necessary, and adapt and evolve whenever possible.”

“Resilience is a powerful remedy for our uncertain times,” they write. “It helps us learn to live with the fundamental complexity of modern life. When inevitable disruptions do hit the system, resilient investors will have the best possible shock absorbers to minimize being rattled and will be positioned to bounce back even better than before.”

Can a pile of money get you out of every imaginable crisis? Kramer, Brill, and Peck say no, although as financial advisors, they are all on board with the wisdom of saving. But to be truly resilient, they say, people need to go beyond money and shore up the other facets of their lives that could help them navigate hard times: their communities, their skill sets, their friendships and connections with others.

Green America editor-in-chief Tracy Fernandez Rysavy talked to Michael Kramer about this holistic approach to investing.

Green American/Tracy Fernandez Rysavy: I loved the part in your book about how all of our investments should support Aristotle’s idea of “blessedness”. Can you explain that?

Michael Kramer: Aristotle, writing in the Nicomachean Ethics, described the point of a well-lived life, the goal we should be aiming for, as “blessedness.” How do we define the good life? In our society, perhaps we have forgotten that it’s not just money.

It’s one’s well-being and growth as a person on a spiritual, physical, emotional, and intellectual level. Our relationships with people and nature. If we neglect all that in pursuit of almighty dollar, we have forgotten why we’re here on this planet and why we’re connected.

When people become more in touch with their mission in life, the ways they can be of assistance, they can become much more conscientious about learning, about gathering the tools and knowledge and wisdom they need to be that agent of change in the world.

Being part of a family, a neighborhood, a city, a workplace—there are so many ways to leave a legacy to be proud of. Get in touch with what that is for you, and go for it. Don’t just pursue the easy dollar that may not be in alignment with your deepest purpose.

Green American/Tracy: Some people have told us they feel that investing isn’t for them, maybe because they don’t have a lot of money or they don’t trust the market. But you propose a broader definition of investing that is certainly for everyone. Everyone wants to be blessed!

Michael Kramer: [My co-authors and I] really wanted to expand the definition of investing [to note that] being strong financially isn’t only what makes you resilient. Everyone has all these other talents and assets and skill sets that make us more resilient.

For example, time is money, but we don’t realize how important time is. Investing time wisely and putting out energy intentionally can have an investment return.

The amount of volunteerism in our communities—in the nonprofit sector, religious groups, and civic organizations—also provides social and economic benefits that are significant. It creates quality of life in many respects, has significant implications for the revitalization of depressed rural or urban neighborhoods, and can help solve social problems for youth and families. We need to recognize this and encourage more of it.

Our “resilient investment” framework gives credibility to other zones of our lives like these. These other zones help you create real strength. They are necessary and need to be planned for, not just haphazardly.

So our expansion of investing applies to three different categories of assets you employ:
• financial—stocks, bonds, and savings.
• tangible, or your stuff—home, efficient energy systems, local food supply, and a healthy ecosystem.
• personal/social—relationships, community, learning, health, and spiritual growth.
We’ve created a Resilient Investor Map where all three can be used in three investment strategies.

Green American/Tracy: Before we get to all three of those investment strategies, let me ask: Why isn’t investing in financial vehicles enough to be resilient?

Michael Kramer: If you’re only investing in the global economy with financial instruments, you’re not fully diversified. Because of the inherent systemic risk in capital markets right now, revealed by the crisis of seven years ago that’s still not fixed, we think it’s more prudent to diversify to wean some of one’s assets off of the global market in order to be more resilient, in the event that systemic risks cause major problems in the future. It’s a more conservative approach in a way—we’re not assuming growth is inevitable and that the markets are always stable and can perform well.

Green American/Tracy: What does it mean to build resilience in the tangible and personal/social areas?

Michael Kramer: I can give you some examples: In the tangible asset category, consider home improvements in water catchment, energy efficiency, renewable energy, food around your home. Shopping and sharing locally by supporting a CSA, getting involved in sharing-economy networks rather than everyone having their own car or bike. Building shared infrastructure in community, like holding work parties; adopting parks and neighborhoods; being on task forces and committees, or the boards of nonprofits.

Getting involved in community to help shape local priorities. Those are just some examples of what one might do there. At the very, very personal level, [my co-authors and I] give credence to the idea that people should be investing in their own health: physical, emotional, mental. Increase their skills—learn how to make or fix things rather than buy them. There’s changing habits: turning off lights, biking instead of driving. It’s a different way of thinking about investing. We have a rule of financial planning: It’s not just what you make; it’s also what you don’t spend.

There are so many ways we could not spend by developing skills and relationships. That’s good finance, in addition to how cool it is to really learn how to do something useful, like making sauerkraut. That’s why we created the nine zones in our framework: we should put some degree of attention in all of them. Look at your life—where you’re strong and where you need attention and focus. You can then create a plan for yourself.

Green American/Tracy: What are the investment strategies, and how do you apply them to your finances?

Michael Kramer: They are the sustainable global economy strategy, the close-to-home investment strategy, and the evolutionary investment strategy, or changing rules of the game.
The close-to-home strategy brings economics back to its roots, to the household, community, and systems that support our more fundamental being. Close-to-home investing recognizes much of what we already spend time, money, and attention on are rightly considered investments. Our personal health and skills; family and home; community organizations; and intimate, professional, and community relationships are all addressed in this strategy.

Financial investments in this area might include local loan funds and investment clubs, and community banks and credit unions that are already putting capital into play—investing in affordable housing locally, for example.

Second is the sustainable global economy strategy. Much of the resilient investor’s overall strategy is likely to remain in the familiar realm of the existing global economy. That is where most of us have sought to build our assets (via salary and investment gains), and it is where we purchase most of our tangible assets: our transportation, our food, our clothes—the list goes on and on. The role of this investment strategy is to help you work within the existing system as effectively as possible, making wise decisions and sound investments that move you toward your life goals. Our approach to engaging within the global economy is, as the strategy’s name suggests, oriented toward pushing it toward higher standards of environmental ethics and social justice.

At the same time, that can’t necessarily change the system or change nature or make the kinds of improvements society needs to survive. We need new evolutionary ideas and strategies that are fundamentally and structurally different.

Evolutionary means regenerating, too. You can stop deforestation, but then you have to reforest—heal and regenerate nature.

So the evolutionary investing strategy means investing in those new models that regenerate natural systems, increase habitat, not just try not to harm them.

Evolutionary investing goes well beyond the sustainable global economy strategy, in which we focus on ways to incrementally improve the effectiveness of today’s existing structures. With evolutionary investing, the invitation is to create a new vision of the world we wish to see, and then to invest our time and money into creating that world.

Green American/Tracy: Can you give me some examples of how one might engage in evolutionary investing?

Michael Kramer: Well, we can start with the community investing piece, supporting community banks and credit unions and loan funds (see p. L). The [community investing] campaign Green America started was really wonderful, and we [at Natural Investments] continue to support that.

Community development banks, credit unions, and loan funds are already putting capital into play [in an evolutionary way, as well as locally]—investing in affordable housing and more.

Participating in Kiva or online sites directing capital through microfinance institutions around the world provides meaningful poverty-alleviation strategies.

Also, a lot of prospective and new investors are asking about investing locally. They really want to know what financial planners have to offer.

When the SEC comes up with crowdfunding rules so folks would be allowed to invest in local companies, it’ll release a huge flood of capital to a lot more startups and small enterprises. It will be very exciting. There could be a huge weaning off of Wall Street as money flows locally. Now, only accredited investors can invest in those kinds of companies.

[Editor’s note: Accredited investors are those who have a reduced need for financial protection from the government and meet the requirements of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, including having a net worth of at least $1 million and an individual annual income of $200,000+.]

Crowdfunding needs to be regulated to ensure that people play ethically and fairly. There’s a role for financial professionals here, too, to help evaluate opportunities.
If the SEC allows this type of investing for non-accredited people, that’s an evolutionary structural change [to the way we invest], because it changes the rules of the game. Millions more people will be able to direct their capital in the local economy.

That will make a fundamental difference.

Green American/Tracy: My knowledge of crowdfunding is more along the lines of Kickstarter, where people might provide funding to create, say, a video game, and when the project is complete, they get the video game. But this would be a new way of investing capital and earning returns?

Michael Kramer: Exactly. People are just pre-paying for a product now, not really investing. There’s no capital return, and that’s why Kickstarter is legal.
The SEC is currently figuring out how to regulate it. When that regulation happens, people could use the crowdfunding model to invest capital in local businesses and get a return on that capital.

Green American/Tracy: Should people invest in each of the nine sections of your map equally?

Michael Kramer: In our book, we suggested tailoring the investing approach based on one’s world view. Look at different future scenarios and reflect on your worldview.

Some people believe society is in the process of breaking down. Others think we’ll muddle through—we’ll experience a slow decline or emergency but not a full collapse.

Others think we’ll muddle upward in slow changes. Then there’s the breakthrough scenario, which anticipates huge, tranformative breakthroughs in consciousness and lifestyle, i.e. we fix fossil-fuel use as a species. Nobody knows what’s going to happen.

When people get in touch with where they are—a Doomer or a Dreamer or anything in between—they can allocate assets accordingly.

Green American/Tracy: Would you explain more about these categories?

Michael Kramer: “Doomers” might focus on making their primary investments according to the close-to-home strategy, with survivalists focusing more on personal and tangible assets.

Those Doomers who are trying to create a “soft landing” by working together to survive a post-industrial world might put significant energy into community and regional resilience.

“Dreamers” have great faith in humanity’s evolutionary destiny and are eager to be in the vanguard of change they want to see. Most of a Dreamer’s investing will be directed toward an evolutionary strategy, with a significant focus on building healthy and sustainable homes and communities.

“Dealers” buy heavily into the idea that we’ll muddle through our societal crises, so they’ll emphasize investment in a sustainable global economy strategy while leaning away from investments and personal choices with negative social or environmental consequences—with some investments put toward local and personal resilience that provide a buffer against systemic upsets.

“Dualists” are pretty sure we cannot keep going the way we have and can easily see the potential for either breakdown or breakthrough. They’ll be heavily invested in close-to-home and evolutionary strategies, with participation in the global economy focused on green technologies and necessary tangible goods.

And “Drivers” are eco-techno optimists, so they’ll put a lot of juice into new technology and renewable energy. They also emphasize the evolutionary strategy, especially social networking and building global community.

Then there are “Dancers,” who have some degree of investment in each one of the nine zones.

When people tap into what their values are, it can inform allocation, and that is the most resilient way to be.

Green American/Tracy: Which one are you?

The Resilient Investor Map contains nine zones across three kinds of assets and three investment strategies. Resilient investors will give attention to all nine.

Michael Kramer: I’m the Dreamer in the book. I’m always imagining how things could be better and then trying to do something about it. It’s not that I’m ignoring the problems, but I’m focused on the solutions. I have a belief I can change systems by being involved. I’m on the National Policy Committee for US SIF, and involved in working with Congress.

So I invest time and money in creating more resilience on a personal level—my own food and energy and my own way of life—because I want to live by my ideals.

I’m also always wanting to try the latest, most innovative investment opportunity. Some people think, “Oh! New idea! Too risky!” I’m always one of the early adopters. I take a hard look, study, do extra due diligence, but I’ll often go for it. If you want to bring dreams into reality, you have to go for them.

Green American/Tracy: What I love about your framework is that it can apply to nearly everything we do as Green Americans. So anything you do for a green economy is resilient investing, even if you don’t have a lot of extra money.

Michael Kramer: People who don’t have a lot of money should still absolutely feel great about themselves. Look at all the other assets you have!

The Green America victories that made up our best year yet

Green America campaigns help tip corporations and industries toward green practices by applying pressure from: 1 individual members, 2 green businesses, 3 shareholders, 4 allied organizations, and 5 the media.

As Jeremy Rifkin notes, the economy is rapidly moving toward what he calls a “Collaborative Commons” model, where individuals are bypassing corporations to get what they need from each other, cooperatively, for significantly less money and using fewer resources. It’s one more example of the economy fundamentally shifting to a greener, community-based model.

Green America, our members, and our allies are leading the way when it comes to greening the economy. This issue of the Green American marks our 100th issue. While we’ve had some terrific victories over the years since we published our first Green American (then called Building Economic Alternatives) in 1985, we’ve been seeing more rapid results in recent years to our action campaigns, most markedly in 2014, where our campaigns enjoyed their most impactful year yet.

Mobilizing pressure from multiple angles—individual members, green business members, shareholders, allied organizations, and the media—Green America has been engineering tipping points in multiple industries, moving them closer to embodying a truly green economy that works for all.

Celebrate with us as we look at several of our most recent victories—and provide updates on what’s next for the target companies and our campaigns.

—Sam Catherman, Elizabeth O’Connell, Beth Porter,
Fran Teplitz, and Tracy Fernandez Rysavy.

1. FAIR LABOR
Hershey ahead of schedule in eliminating child labor
fairtradeaction.org

The Problem: In 2001, the world was shocked by media reports detailing horrific forced child labor in West African cocoa-growing communities—which are prime sources for US chocolate manufacturers. Children as you ng as five had been sold or conscripted into slavery, toiling for long hours doing hard labor on cocoa plantations instead of going to school.

Our Victory: Exactly two years ago—after sustained pressure from Green America’s Raise the Bar, Hershey! campaign targeting Hershey for child labor in its cocoa supply chain—America’s largest chocolate company announced it would source only “ethically certified cocoa” by 2020.

Green America continued to challenge Hershey about this commitment, and in March 2013, it shared its plans to work with Fair Trade USA, Utz, and Rainforest Alliance for certification. The company also revealed that it would reach ten percent certification by the end of 2013 and 40-50 percent by 2016.

In January 2014, Hershey announced it was ahead of its original goal, reaching 18 percent certified cocoa.

Our Raise the Bar, Hershey Campaign mobilized:
2 Hershey “corporate irresponsibility” reports
+ over 50,000 petition signatures
+ hundreds of letters from US children
+ 3 major protests
+ 2 speeches at shareholder meetings
+ 1 letter from 41 unhappy green-business retailers
+ 1 announcement from Whole Foods that it was planning to drop Hershey products from its stores.

What’s Next? Child labor remains an urgent issue in West Africa’s cocoa sector, and one that stems from extreme poverty. The average income of West-African cocoa farmers and their dependents is well below the level of absolute poverty, according to the Cocoa Barometer. In 2015, Green America’s Raise the Bar, Hershey! campaign will:

• Continue to monitor Hershey to ensure it meets or exceeds its 2016 commitment of 50 percent certified cocoa, including meeting with Hershey representatives on a quarterly basis.
• Pressure companies that have not taken steps to trace their cocoa supply to eliminate child labor, starting with Godiva.

2. FAIR LABOR

Apple bans two toxins from final assembly factories
bad-apple.org

The Problem: Workers are being exposed to deadly toxins on the job in factories that make smartphones and other electronics for US manufacturers. They’re provided with little to no
protection or safety training.

Our Victory: In August 2014, after five months of pressure from Green America’s End Smartphone Sweatshops campaign, Apple agreed to remove the toxins benzene and n-hexane—chemicals that are linked to cancer, nerve damage, and other life-threatening conditions, and are often used to clean smartphone and tablet screens—from its final-assembly factories in China.

Our End Smartphone Sweatshops Campaign Mobilized:
3 key allies (China Labor Watch,
filmmakers Lynn Zhang and Heather White)
+ 1 undercover investigation
+ 1 million documentary film views
+ 1 major protest outside Apple store
+ 40,000 petition signatures
+ 85 allied nonprofit signatories on a letter
to Apple

What’s Next?: In 2015, our End Smartphone Sweatshops campaign will:

• Pressure Apple to remove all toxic chemicals from its entire supply chain.
• Samsung, too.

3. SAFE FOOD
General Mills Removes GMOs from Cheerios / Post Does the Same with Grape-Nuts
gmosinside.org

The Problem: Many processed foods include genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which have not been proven safe for human consumption and result in increased use of toxic pesticides. Breakfast cereals—Cheerios, in particular—are one of the first solid foods fed to many US toddlers.

Our Victory: In January 2014, General Mills quietly announced on its website that it had replaced GMO sugar and corn-based ingredients in Cheerios with non-GMO corn and cane sugar. That same month, the iconic yellow Cheerios box started bearing the words “not made with genetically modified ingredients.”

Post followed suit later in January, rolling out non-GMO Grape-Nuts Original.

Our GMO Inside Campaign Mobilized:
40,000 Facebook posts
+ 1 Cheerios “corporate
irresponsibility” report
+ 1 YouTube video with more than
200,000 views
+ 25,000 e-mails to General Mills

What’s Next?: In 2015, our GMO Inside campaign will continue to pressure General Mills to remove GMOs from all of its cereals, starting with Honey Nut Cheerios.

4. SAFE FOOD
Chobani to work for GMO-free cattle feed, offer organic options
gmoinside.org

The Problem: Dairy products from cows fed GMO grain help feed the GMO machine, from requiring large amounts of untested GM corn and soy that haven’t been proven safe for human consumption to perpetuating the pesticide treadmill that results from GMO use.

Our Victory: Green America’s GMO Inside campaign set its sights on Chobani, America’s top-selling Greek yogurt, in July 2013 because it uses milk from cows fed GMOs. In October 2014, Chobani announced it would partner with Green America to improve US cattle feed, including options for non-GM and organic grains. As a first step, Chobani will launch three organic yogurt flavors in 2015.

Our GMO Inside Campaign Mobilized:
1 coalition of allies
+ thousands of Facebook messages
+ 25,000 petition signatures
+ 1 major protest

What’s Next?: In 2015, our GMO Inside campaign will:

• Continue to pressure Starbucks to switch to organic milk.
• Get GMOs out of infant food, starting with Gerber Good Start and Similac.

5. RESPONSIBLE FINANCE
Payday loans go the way of the dodo
greenamerica.org/socialinvesting

The Problem: Many mega-banks prey on communities by engaging in predatory practices, such as offering “payday loans,” or short-term loans (averaging 12 days) with interest rates as high as a mind-blowing 225 to 300 percent.

Our Victory: In January 2014, a number of big banks targeted by Green America and others decided to phase out “deposit advance loans,” commonly known as payday loans, including Wells Fargo, Regions Financial, US Bank, and Fifth Third. Green America pressured the banks and urged the Office of the Comptroller of The Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) to halt abusive payday loans.

Our Responsible Finance Campaign Mobilized:
Hundreds of letters to the OCC and FDIC from Green America, our members, and allies
+ Years of mobilization to help people “break up” with abusive mega-banks and
switch to community development banks
+ Tens of thousands of customers and community members pressuring banks to
stop abusive payday lending

What’s Next?: In 2015, our Break Up With Your Mega-Bank campaign will:

• Continue to help people break up with their mega-banks and move their accounts to community development banks and credit unions.
• Call for further policy changes to protect the public from predatory financial products and services.

6. CLIMATE ACTION
Amazon hires sustainability director
greenamerica.org/climateaction

The Problem: Amazon.com is a total laggard in the tech industry for its failure
to take concrete action to address the climate crisis. Unlike other tech companies, it has failed to publish sustainability reports, failed to disclose its carbon emissions or set targets for reductions, and failed to use renewable energy to power its enormous servers.

Our Victory: Beginning in fall 2013, Green America and its members pressured Amazon to take climate change seriously, report on its emissions, and work to reduce emissions. In summer 2014, Amazon took its first step—hiring a sustainability director, a position that the company never had before.

Our Climate Action Campaign Mobilized:
Thousands of petition signatures
+ 2 shareholder resolutions asking Amazon to take action on climate change

What’s Next?: In the remainder of 2014 and in 2015, Green America’s Climate Action campaign will:

• Put pressure on Amazon to address the climate crisis through additional petitions and phone calls.
• Provide handy “Alternatives to Amazon” for holiday shopping.
• Support shareholder resolutions, including a pending resolution from Calvert Investments, calling on Amazon to disclose its emissions.

7. CLIMATE ACTION
National Geographic goes recycled
betterpaper.org

The Problem: According to the United Nations, deforestation accounts for 25 percent of global climate-change emissions caused by humans. Forests are disappearing at a rate of 20 football fields a day because of paper and pulp production, and disposable, single-use magazines are a big part of the problem. Only three percent of magazines sold in the US are printed on recycled paper.

Our Victory: In July 2014, after years of talks with Green America’s Better Paper Project, National Geographic began incorporating recycled paper into the pages of National Geographic Magazine, National Geographic Kids, and National Geographic Little Kids.

Our Better Paper Project Mobilized:
1 ally (Natural Resources Defense Council)
+ Dozens of meetings between Green
America and National Geographic
+ Over 2,500 petition signatures
+ Hundreds of photo postcards
+ Two environmental impact studies on
National Geographic’s paper use

What’s Next?: In 2015, our Better Paper Project will:

• Leverage the National Geographic success with other publishers.
• Pilot a paper-recovery program that will help reduce recycled paper expenses.

Just in time for the holidays, New York’s famed Candle Cafe has released a vegan cookbook featuring recipes to help you celebrate every major holiday. Vegan Holiday Cooking from Candle Cafe is not only beautiful to look at on a coffee table, but the dishes are delicious! And for the omnivores out there, John Ivanko and Lisa Kivirist, owners of Inn Serendipity in Wisconsin, published several of their guest favorite recipes in their 2011 cookbook, Farmstead Chef. Here’s just a sample of the delicious meals you can whip up with help from these two terrific green businesses. We’ve flagged ingredients that are commonly genetically modified (GM), so you can also make these sustainable recipes non-GM.
 

Pomegranate Punch (VEGAN)

1 (750 ml) bottle of rum
12 oz. (1½ c.) triple sec
32 oz. (4 c.) pomegranate juice
12 oz. (1½ c.) spicy red wine, such as Malbec or Shiraz
1/2 c. hibiscus tea leaves
16 oz. (2 c.) hot water
16 cinnamon sticks
2 tsp. whole cloves
3 lemons, cut into wedges, to garnish
Ice

Combine the rum, triple sec, pomegranate juice, and wine in a punch bowl, and stir.
Steep the hibiscus leaves in the hot water for 5 minutes. Strain the tea into a bowl, pressing the leaves until dry. Pour it into the punch bowl and stir. Put 4 of the cinnamon sticks and ½ tsp. of the cloves in a piece of cheesecloth and tie tightly. Let it sit in the punch for an hour, then remove. Stud the lemon wedges with the remaining cloves. Pour the punch into cups or small glasses over ice. Garnish each serving with the remaining cinnamon sticks and the lemon wedges and serve.

Peppermint Biscotti

¾ c. (1½ sticks) butter, softened*
¾ c. sugar*
3 eggs
2 tsp. peppermint extract
3¼ c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
1½ c. crushed peppermint candy, divided
White chocolate bark, for frosting
In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in extract. Separately, mix flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir in 1 c. peppermint candy. Gradually add flour/candy mixture to creamed mixture, beating until blended (dough will be stiff). Divide dough in half. On a baking sheet, roll each portion into a 12-inch by 2½-inch rectangle. Bake at 350°F for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown. Carefully remove to wire rack. Cool 15 minutes. On cutting board, cut at an angle into 1/2-inch slices. Place cut side down on baking sheets. Bake 12 to 15 minutes until firm. For frosting, melt chocolate. Drizzle chocolate over cookie in a swirled design. Makes 3 dozen biscotti.
* Choose cane, organic, or Non-GMO Verified sugar and organic or Non-GMO Verified butter to avoid GMOs.

Spritz Cookies (Vegan)

1 c. Earth Balance Buttery Spread*
¾ c. unrefined sugar*
2 Tbsp. Ener-G Egg Replacer*, beaten
with ¼ c. water
2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
½ tsp. baking powder
Pinch sea salt
1 tsp. almond extract
Colored sugar, sprinkles, chips, or dried
cranberries for decoration

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Oil two baking sheets. With a mixer, cream the buttery spread in a large bowl and slowly add in the sugar. Stir in the egg replacer mixture.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt, and gradually beat into the butter mixture until well incorporated. Stir in the almond extract. Fit a cookie press with the desired disk, fill with dough, and press the cookies onto the prepared baking sheets, about 3 inches apart. Decorate with desired toppings. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges are golden brown. Let cool on the baking sheets for 2 minutes. Then remove and let cool on a plate or cooling rack completely before serving. Makes about 40 cookies.
* Earth Balance Buttery Spread is non-GMO. Ener-G Egg Replacer is verified non-GMO by the Non-GMO Project. Choose cane, organic, or Non-GMO Verified sugar to avoid GMOs.

Cornucopia Beer and
Cheese Soup

Third-place winner at the Wisconsin State Fair for a recipe
made with Wisconsin ingredients

¾ c. Organic Valley butter (1 ½ sticks)*
1 c. onions, chopped (about 1 medium)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 c. broccoli florets, cut into small pieces
1 c. carrots, finely chopped
2 c. flour
2 c. organic chicken stock
1 bottle (12 oz.) locally made beer
(dark or light work fine)
3 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
4 c. Organic Valley milk*
3 Tbsp. maple syrup
2 tsp. dry mustard
½ tsp. fennel seed
2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
4 chicken sausages, cooked cut into small pieces
5 c. cheddar cheese*, shredded

In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Add onions and garlic. Sauté until onions are soft and translucent. Add broccoli and carrots. Cook about 5 minutes.
Stir in flour, making sure vegetables are coated. Stir in chicken stock. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Stir in beer, Worcestershire sauce and milk. Reduce heat to low, simmer 10 minutes and add maple syrup, mustard, fennel, salt, pepper and sausage.
Cook five minutes longer, then slowly add cheese by the handful, stirring constantly until cheese is melted and soup begins to bubble. If the soup seems too thick, add a bit more milk or water. Add salt to taste. Makes 12 servings.
* Look for non-GMO or organic milk, butter, and cheese, like those sold from Organic Valley, to ensure that they come from cows that weren’t fed GMO grain.

Braised Cranberry-Orange Tofu (Vegan)

2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
2 shallots, thinly sliced
1 c. water
1 c. fresh or frozen cranberries
2 oranges, juiced
2 Tbsp. agave nectar, plus more if needed
1 c. white wine
1 tsp. sea salt
½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
½ tsp. arrowroot powder, dissolved in 2 Tbsp. water
Finely grated zest of 2 oranges
2 (14-oz.) blocks extra-firm tofu*
1 sprig fresh rosemary

Heat the oil in a small sauté pan over medium heat. Add the shallots and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Transfer the shallots to a saucepan; add the water, cranberries, orange juice, agave, wine, salt, and pepper, and bring to a boil. Decrease the heat, add the arrowroot, and simmer until the cranberries burst and the sauce has slightly thickened, about 7 minutes. If the sauce seems too tart, add a bit more agave. Remove from the heat, stir in the zest, and let cool. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Oil a large baking dish. Cut the tofu into ¾-inch thick slices and put them in the prepared baking dish. Pour the cranberry-orange mixture over the tofu. Turn to coat each side. Top with the rosemary and bake for about 25 minutes, until the sauce begins to caramelize. Serve immediately.
* Look for organic or Non-GMO Project Verified tofu to avoid GMOs.

Lisa Kivirist and John Ivanko are innkeepers and farmstead chefs at the award-winning Inn Serendipity, a bed and breakfast located in Monroe, WI. The inn is 100 percent powered by renewable energy and offers vegetarian breakfasts made with ingredients from its own organic gardens or from local producers.

Find more information about the book at farmsteadchef.com and about the Inn at innserendipity.com.

Recipes from Farmstead Chef (New Society Publishers, 2011) reprinted with permission of the authors.

Photo by Eric Marseglia

Left to right: Angel Ramos, Joy Pierson, and Jorge Pineda, co-authors of Vegan Holiday Cooking from Candle Cafe. Ramos is executive chef at Candle 79, Candle Cafe’s upscale sister restaurant. Pineda is pastry chef and kitchen manager at Candle 79. And Pierson is co-founder of and nutritionist for the Candle restaurants. Learn more about the Candle restaurants at candlecafe.com and candle79.com.

Candle Cafe recipes reprinted with permission from Vegan Holiday Cooking from Candle Cafe by Joy Pierson, Angel Ramos, & Jorge Pineda (Ten Speed Press, © 2014).

Choose green holiday gifts for the kids in your life.

Celebrating greener holidays can  mean reducing the number of gifts you give, choosing intentionally to focus on relationships, human connection, and the spiritual meanings attached to the season. Still, many find great joy in sharing gifts with the children in their lives. Fortunately, there are many wonderful gift-giving ideas guaranteed to bring a smile to a child’s face while embracing simplicity and supporting green businesses.

Because all of the finalists from Green America’s summer 2014 People & Planet Award are experts on products and services for green kids, we asked for their best recommendations for holiday gifts, from among the products they sell and also from others.

Baby Eco-Trends
Miami, FL
For holiday gift-giving, Nasrin Noori, owner of Baby Eco-Trends, nominates her company’s Tree Owl Shadowbox Wall Art as a whimsical decoration for a child’s bedroom. The wall hanging, made by painting layers of sustainably harvested wood, colorful felt, nontoxic veneer, and recycled book pages, results in a bright, three-dimensional rendering of an owl that can be personalized with a child’s name.

In addition to the wall art, Baby Eco-Trends specializes in handmade heirloom-quality children’s furniture and toys made by Amish woodworkers in the Midwest. Noori points out that the builders she works with consciously choose hand-tools over power tools or power their workshops with solar energy.

For more holiday giving ideas, Noori endorses toys made by woodworker John Michael Linck, who builds rocking horses, dollhouses, pull-toys, and more at his workshop in Wisconsin. Linck uses only sustainably grown local hardwoods, and finishes his toys with nontoxic, all-natural walnut oil.

Bamboosa
Andrews, SC
Husband and wife team Morris and Mindy Saintsing founded Bamboosa
to accomplish several goals at once: to produce eco-friendly clothing and other products for newborns, to manufacture those products close to their South Carolina home, and to create local jobs for textile workers suffering from out-sourcing. The fabric for Bamboosa’s baby products comes from 100-percent organically certified bamboo fiber, or is blended with organic cotton, Lycra, or recycled polyester.

For the infants on your shopping list, Mindy Saintsing recommends Bamboosa’s hooded bamboo bath towel. “It’s generously sized and can still be used in the toddler years,” she says, pointing out that bamboo fabric is extraordinarily soft and absorbent. Fellow finalist Dhana EcoKids, also gets Saintsing’s endorsement; she suggests Dhana’s 100-percent organic cotton kids’ T-shirts, especially the “Earth Day Winter White Tree” design, featuring a tree formed from the intertwining words rethink, revive, recycle, renew, regenerate, remember, respect, reuse, restore, and recover.

Dhana EcoKids
Mill Valley, CA
California-based Dhana EcoKids produces apparel for children ages 4-12 using only 100-percent GOTS-certified cotton and carcinogen-free, eco-friendly dyes.

For the holidays, owner Shamini Dhana suggests a product outside of her company’s standard manufactured line. She’s partnering with the cooperative Panchachuli Women Weavers to sell a limited number of fairly traded, hand-spun, and nontoxic “Hope” scarves for girls, handcrafted by Himalayan women who lost their homes in the devastating floods that swept through India’s Kedarnath Valley in 2013.

Dhana is also a big fan of the meaningful books for children published by Little Pickle Press, including What Does It Mean to Be Present?, a picture book about living in the moment.

Maple Landmark Woodcraft
Middlebury, VT
Maple Landmark Woodcraft manufactures all of its wooden toys in its own factory in Middlebury, VT, packing orders for shipping with shredded junk-mail and magazines, and giving leftover sawdust to local farmers to reuse as livestock bedding. The factory fashions the scraps of a local furniture maker into toys, while it sustainably sources other woods, like maple and pine, from within Vermont.

Co-owner Barb Rainville recommends the company’s “Made By Me” kits that allow kids age three and older to assemble and decorate their own wooden toys, like tractors, tugboats, and trucks. She also recommends locally sourced toys from her neighbors at Eco-Kids USA in Maine.

Naturally Playful
Aloha, OR
“Naturally Playful is committed to offering gifts that are made in the US and Canada or fairly traded, and are meant to be handed down to the next generation,” says Lindsey Wills of her family-owned business. “We actually want you to buy less!”

In addition to classic products like recycled cardboard puzzles and organic stuffed animals, Wills’s business sells cooperative board games made by a family company in Canada, which she recommends for the holidays. These games teach kids about cooperation, while also educating about topics like loss of animal habitat (“Then There Were None”), world geography (“Explorers”), and grammar (“Star Words”).

Apart from Naturally Playful’s products, Wills endorses the all-organic bubble bath from the “Clean Kids Naturally” line made by Gabriel Cosmetics, which also includes soap, shampoo, and de-tangler. “These are some of the safest, most natural products for kids,” she says.

Peapods Natural Toys and Baby Care
St. Paul, MN
In addition to its brick-and-mortar store in St. Paul, MN, People & Planet winner Peapods Natural Toys and Baby Care operates an online store with plenty of green gift-giving possibilities.

“One toy we’re very excited about is the YOXO Dragonfly Construction Kit,” says co-owner Millie Adelsheim. “YOXO, a local toymaker here in St. Paul, makes construction toys out of compressed recycled paper. Not only are their toys fun to play with, but they also encourage kids to reuse other household items like paper towel tubes or cereal boxes. We particularly like the dragonfly toy for its gender-neutral design and for the huge three-foot-long dragonfly you can build with it.”

Glee Gum
Providence, RI
If you need stocking stuffers, People & Planet winner Glee Gum’s founder Deborah Schimberg makes six flavors of chewing gum certified by Fairtrade International. The company also offers kits for kids to make their own chewing gum, chocolate, and gummies. For more stocking stuffers, Schimberg recommends chocolate from fellow Fair Trade business Equal Exchange.

Green Beginning Community Preschool
Los Angeles, CA
Finally, while People & Planet winner GBCP doesn’t sell items for kids, director Veronica Cabello is an expert on helping children learn about sustainability. “At our preschool, we like toys that don’t come with instructions,” says Veronica. “We also like to use things we find in nature that can be used for play and that inspire children to use their own creativity.”

For green gift-giving around the holidays, Cabello recommends assembling a “do-it-yourself gardening kit” consisting of: three to five clay pots, water-based paints to decorate the pots, a small bag of potting soil, vegetable or flower seeds, a small shovel, and a child’s set of gardening gloves.

Cabello also recommends a “do-it-yourself rock garden kit,” including a collection of gathered stones and a tray of nontoxic paint for creative decoration. She encourages adults to work together with children to beautify the rocks.

“Kids love to paint the rocks, and animal patterns look great for this, like snake-skin patterns, tigers, or ladybugs,” she says. “We like activities that kids can do with a parent to foster and strengthen their relationship and build memories.”

Need More Ideas?

Try these great green gifts for kids from other Green America Green Business Network members:

• Art kits from Artterro allow children to indulge their creative side, using responsible materials. Kids can make their own bubble wands and wire-and-bead sculptures with the Bubble Wand Kit.
• Terra Experience sells fair trade doll clothing handmade by Guatemalan artisans. The clothes feature Mayan patterns and fit 18” dolls, including American Girl dolls.
• The Children’s Earth Paint Kit by Natural Earth Paint features nontoxic, kid-friendly paints made from natural earth pigments and organic milk protein.
• The made-in-the-USA Labyrinth Wooden Balance Board from Bella Luna Toys challenges kids to maneuver up to three balls (included) along the grooved path of the labyrinth.
• The mini Djembe Drum from Tara Luna is made by fair trade artisans in Indonesia.
• Engage your child’s imagination with the Earth and Sky Playsilk from Down to Earth Toys.
• Global Green Pals are soft, 12-inch dolls made of certified Oeko-Tex 100 and organic cotton, and stuffed with fibers made from recycled PET plastic bottles.
• The Olive and Pickles Crinkle Bunny Teether Toy from Wild Dill provides a safe, all-natural teething toy for babies made from wood and organic cotton.

The “Anything Vegan” nutritionist chefs
Jasmine Simon and Marji Simon Meinefeld
show us how, simply and joyfully.

Photo from Anything Vegan

Sisters Jasmine Simon and Marjorie “Marji” Simon Meinefeld are both committed vegans, and they’ve dedicated their careers to spreading the word of the many benefits of a vegan diet and that it isn’t a sacrifice but a joyful experience.

Jasmine was 15 years old when she had an “a-ha” moment about the links between her diet and her health.

“I started to look around in my community and saw a lot of people who were ill, overweight, and unhealthy,” she says. “I thought there had to be some connection between what people were eating and how they’re feeling.”

So she decided to try changing her diet to see how she felt. She switched to a vegan diet and noticed a big change: After years of suffering with acne that was so severe, she habitually hid whenever someone brought out a camera, her skin started clearing up. She says she was “all in” at that point and has been vegan ever since.

Marji’s dietary transition came later, when she was pregnant and sick on top of it. Over the years, she’d tried to follow her sister’s footsteps and switch to a vegetarian diet, but without education and vegan eating support, she kept relapsing back to eating meat.

When her doctor wanted to remove her gall bladder after her pregnancy, she turned to Jasmine, who by then had more than a decade of vegan living and dietary research under her belt.

The first thing Jasmine did was to closely examine her sister’s diet. She created an eating plan specific to gall bladder illness, encouraging Marji to embrace a plant-based lifestyle.

Two weeks later, Marji’s doctors were amazed when her ultrasound came back negative, and they declared that no surgery was needed.

She continued eating vegan, although her husband didn’t join her, so she occasionally relapsed. But then he died suddenly of heart failure. He was 42 years old.

“He was healthy and strong, or so I thought,” she says. “We ate the ‘healthy’ standard American diet, but that’s when I realized the word ‘die’ is in the word ‘diet’ for a reason. I started to look at my eating habits and lifestyle, and I decided I wanted to live.”

That’s when Marji joined her sister in going vegan for life.

Vegan for Life

The American Heart Association, the World Cancer Research Fund, and several peer-reviewed studies have recommended minimizing consumption of red meat, which several studies have tied to a higher risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and colo-rectal cancer.

After learning these facts and more, the sisters became passionate advocates of a vegan lifestyle to promote optimal health, which they say soon grew into a passion for protecting animals and the environment. And of course, it also became a passion for cooking really good food.

“We love to eat. Our mom has southern roots, and our dad is from Trinidad and Tobago,” says Marji. “We grew up around flavorful, delicious food, and we weren’t about to give that up.”

“Not at all,” adds Jasmine.

In 2010, Marji, an attorney for the US Air Force at the time, threw a dinner party for her omnivorous colleagues and enlisted Jasmine to help. The two prepared a selection of non-vegan dishes but then, as a social experiment, also prepared vegan versions of the same dishes, such as kale with turkey, and “really great kale without the turkey” beside it.

Not only did their guests love the vegan dishes, but they couldn’t believe they were made without meat or dairy.

“They asked how we did it, and we replied with one simple sentence: Anything you can make, I can make vegan,” says Jasmine. “But some of them didn’t believe that the dishes were vegan. One guy even started looking through the garbage for meat wrappers!”

That dinner party planted the seed that would eventually become Anything Vegan, Marji and Jasmine’s business, which is based both in Washington, DC, where Jasmine lives, and Germany, Marji’s home base. The two became certified plant-based nutritionists through Cornell University and now offer vegan nutrition consulting (remote and in person), vegan personal chef home-delivery services, vegan cooking classes, vegan catering, and wellness planning. They are also popular speakers, including the
Green Festivals®.

The two have a vegan cookbook Fork Diabetes; Go Vegan, and they recently launched their own brand of vegan cheese, Oh-So-Cheesy Cheese.

Their company slogan? The same thing they told their dinner party guests back in 2010: Anything you can make, I can make vegan.

Good Food, Simply and Joyfully

One thing that might surprise people after hearing what they do for a living is that Marji and Jasmine aren’t interested in urging others to go vegan.

“We don’t recommend that people go vegan. It’s a personal choice, and telling someone they must go vegan can be met with resistance,” says Marji.

Instead, the sisters prefer to encourage people to educate themselves on the benefits of eating more plant-based foods. “Read the truth about food you’re currently eating and what it’s doing to your health—what’s in it, how it’s made, how the animals are treated, how it affects the planet. As people go through this discovery for themselves, they often self-select to transition to a plant-based lifestyle,” says Jasmine.

Once people make the decision to go vegan, the sisters are ready to help. (For a fee, you can even e-mail them 20 of your favorite recipes, and they’ll “veganize” them and send them back to you with cooking videos and a shopping list.) They offered Green America a few of their favorite tips:

• Understand why you want to go vegan. Studies show that when you feel personally connected to a cause, you’re more likely to commit to it, notes Marji.
• Take small steps. “Try out one new vegan food,” says Marji. “Substitute rice milk for cow’s milk in mashed potatoes. Try Oh-So-Cheesy Cheese in mac and cheese instead of dairy. Discover your local vegan bakery and buy something already made. Slowly start to substitute not-so-loving foods for foods that are truly serving you.”
  
  Jasmine recalls a nutrition client who was shocked to learn she wasn’t going to make him throw the meat out of his refrigerator right away. “We started with the condiments, replacing mayo, cheese, and butter with vegan alternatives,” she says. “I told him to see how that goes, and slowly but surely make more changes. A month later, he’d moved all the meat out of his fridge.”
• Incorporate your favorite seasonings. “No one goes to the store, buys meat, and puts no seasonings on it,” says Jasmine. “It wouldn’t taste good. So apply these familiar tastes to whole grains, veggies, and meat alternatives.”
• Don’t worry about protein. Jasmine and Marji make it part of their mission to counter the myth that people can’t get enough protein in their diets without meat. Beans, legumes, nuts, and seeds provide the same or even more protein than eating meat, the sisters assert. “The meat and dairy industry is a powerful lobby,” says Marji. “It’s difficult to counter their messages.”
• Surround yourself with healthy people. “If you’re leaning toward plant-based lifestyle, if others in your circle aren’t healthy, it can be very discouraging,” says Jasmine. “You need others to encourage and support you. If you’re not in a family with that support, you have to build that.”
  
  She recommends typing “vegan” into Meetup.com or going online or to community events to find a network. “Go to the Green Festival!” she says.
• Prepare and eat food as a family. “Put an emphasis on eating together instead of being on the run and swallowing junk food—make it something that’s important and given actual attention,” says Marji. “Your children will continue to give meals that attention as they get older.”

Most importantly, the sisters encourage everyone to “be gentle with yourself and others.”

“Vegan is a lifestyle,” says Marji. “We believe in living an enjoyable, healthy, balanced lifestyle—for your eating, health, family, exercise, finances. All of these things are intertwined. It’s not about deprivation. It’s about moving into something—something bigger, greater ... amazing.”

—Tracy Fernandez Rysavy, editor-in-chief

Meet Marji and Jasmine at the Washington, DC Metro Cooking Show at the DC Convention Center, Nov. 8-9, 2014. And find them online at anythingvegan.com.

Whether you're lactose-intolerant, working to reduce your carbon footprint, or a complete cheese addict, there are many reasons why people want to try or commit to a dairy-free diet and lifestyle. But change can always be a challenge. So here are five tips to keep in mind in the dairy aisle when you want to go dairy-free.

1. Eat less cheese.

According to the Environmental Working Group, eating one kg of cheese has a carbon footprint of 13.5 kg of CO2-equivalent (CO2 e). It’s not as bad as beef, with its 27 kg CO2e per kg consumed. But yogurt (2.2 kg CO2 e/kg) and 2% milk (1.9 kg CO2 e/kg) are much lower-impact options.

2. Choose organic; avoid GMOs.

Organic dairy products are made from the milk of cows that were fed organic feed free from genetically modified organisms (GMOs)—trace accidental contamination notwithstanding. In addition, the cows were not given preventative courses of antibiotics or hormones, and they must be let out to pasture for at least 120 days out of the year, receive 30 percent of their food from pasture, and have access to the outdoors year-round. If you don’t buy organic, look for Non-GMO Project certification.

3. Buy from Green America Green Business Network® members.

Find best-option organic dairy (and grass-fed beef) from certified Green America businesses in the “Food” categories at greenpages.org.

4. Cruelty-free for the future.

While organic farms are more likely to treat their cows well than factory farms, male calves born to dairy cows often wind up as meat regardless of their origins. And after an average of five years of being milked, a female dairy cow will often be sent to slaughter as well. Pennsylvania’s Gita Nagiri Dairy Farm may be indicative of an up-and-coming trend to mitigate these concerns, offering the first slaughter-free milk in the US to local customers. The farm’s higher prices help support the cows’ lifelong care. If you’re not in PA, Mary Jane Butters’ book Milk Cow Kitchen (Gibbs Smith, 2014) gives instructions on how to raise a backyard cow and make dairy products.

5. Go for dairy-free options.

You can always try organic almond or soy milk (to avoid GMOs, make the latter organic or Non-GMO Verified). And click here for a vegan cheese option that might have you rethinking dairy cheese.

Have you ever heard of conflict diamonds? The phrase refers to diamonds that originate in war-torn areas and are sold to buy arms or in other ways fund a conflict. Turns out diamonds aren’t the only resource financing wars—you may be walking around with a conflict cell phone in your pocket.

Tantalum is one of many “conflict minerals” that are key components of cell phones, laptops, tablets, other types of technology that use miniature circuit boards. Tantalum and other conflict minerals like tin, tungsten, and gold are mined in a number of countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where they are often extracted using forced and child labor. The money made through the sale of these minerals not only fuels the cycle of slavery but also funds a protracted and bloody conflict in the DRC that has claimed an estimated 5.4 million lives, according to a 2007 mortality survey by the International Rescue Committee. War crimes include the use of child soldiers and the massacre of civilians.

Tantalum mining has also devastated populations of the Eastern Mountain Gorillas, which are hunted by the isolated miners for food.

Fortunately, this issue is receiving more recognition. In August of 2012, the Securities and Exchange Commission published new regulations around the Dodd-Frank Act, requiring electronics manufacturers to trace and disclose where potential conflict minerals in their products are sourced.

Under the Act, companies must file their first disclosure reports on May 31, 2014 and annually on May 31st thereafter. Todd Larsen, Green America’s director of corporate responsibility programs, is cautiously optimistic. “It’s good that the industry is finally addressing this,” he says. “But we need to keep a close eye on the effects of these regulations to see if they’re going to amount to real change.”

Industry groups—including the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers—are still fighting the conflict minerals disclosure rule in a federal appeals court. They argue that the Dodd-Frank Act imposes “staggering costs.”
According to Bloomberg Businessweek, “The manufacturers’ association estimates that about 22,000 companies affected by the law would have to pay as much as $16 billion to perform their due diligence. Claigan, which evaluates regulatory compliance for companies, says the total number of affected companies is under 2,000 and the price tag no more than $180 million, if that.”

With conflict minerals present in so many of the devices we depend on every day, what is the green thing to do? First, buying less is always a green option. Don’t upgrade your phones until absolutely necessary, and continue to use your current phone for as long as possible.

Second, it’s vital to recycle your cell phone and other electronics instead of throwing them away, so the conflict minerals inside can be reused. For advice on how to responsibly recycle your electronics, subscribe to Green American magazine.

Li Qiang, founder and executive director of New York-based China Labor Watch, often sends undercover investigators to work in electronics supplier factories in China. They report back on the labor conditions they experienced, which CLW uses as ammunition to advocate—on the ground in China and with US corporations that use the factories—for better pay and conditions for workers. In 1999, shortly before founding CLW, Li decided to go in and work for himself in a factory that made electronics for US retailers, and he also interviewed workers at China’s Foxconn factory, which would go on to make iPhones and iPads for Apple.

The average worker on the production line in a supplier factory for Apple and other electronics manufacturers in China will labor for at least 12-hour shifts, with perhaps an hour break total. She (or he) will work six or seven days a week, particularly during high production times (think when Apple is introducing a new iPhone). Supervisors will put immense pressure on the worker to meet high quotas, so she’ll have to work very quickly at repetitive tasks like wiping screens with a chemical or putting plastic cases into a molding machine.

When she finishes the workday, she’ll have a simple meal in the factory dormitory—as she’s likely a migrant worker who traveled far from home to an industrial area seeking employment. She’ll go to bed, sharing a room with up to 12 people who may not speak her dialect or be from her region in China—all the better to keep workers isolated so they won’t try to organize.

And then she’ll go to sleep, get up in the morning, and start again.

The work is so intense that many factories will only hire people under the age of 35 or 30, because they need tremendous energy to toil at the necessary pace for such long shifts, says Li.

He held to this schedule for four weeks. “Working that intensely for a month was enough to convince me to do this work for life,” he says of China Labor Watch’s mission to improve pay and conditions for exploited workers in the country. “Chinese workers are treated like robots.”

But it’s not just the frenetic pace and the long hours that make life difficult for the people who labor in the factories that supply cell phones and other gadgets to major retailers. Many are being systematically poisoned, as well.

Danger in the Factories

Millions of workers toil in factories in China. Many on the production lines are exposed to toxic solvents and other chemicals, but they receive very little training in how to safely manage those substances. What investigators from non-governmental organizations on the ground in China have found is that workers in electronics supplier factories, in particular, are often exposed to thousands of undisclosed chemicals.

In fact, one 2010 study in the Journal of Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine showed that between 1991 and 2008, there were nearly 42,000 workplace poisonings in China. And these are only the poisonings that were serious enough not to be swept under the proverbial rug by employers.

Two that have been documented in Apple supplier factories are the potent toxins n-hexane and benzene.

Determined to be a known carcinogen by the US Department of Health and Human Services, benzene can cause leukemia, a blood cancer, and leukopenia, a life-threatening condition in which one has an abnormally low white blood cell count. Benzene is banned or restricted in many Western countries for industrial use and prohibited in the US in products intended for use inside the home.

The chemical n-hexane is a neurotoxicant that can cause nerve damage and paralysis when one is constantly exposed to it, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Workers at supplier factories for major electronics companies use both chemicals to clean smartphone and tablet touch screens. It dries faster than alcohol.

Consequently, many of these workers are succumbing to benzene and nhexane poisoning, as documented in the short film Who Pays the Price? The Human Cost of Electronics, created by Heather White.

Bad Apple Campaign protestesters outside New York City Apple store, April, 2014.

Apple isn’t alone. For example, activists in South Korea recently uncovered 58 cases of leukemia and other blood-related cancers in several Samsung plants in the country that they say is no coincidence, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

However, Green America’s newest campaign targets Apple with the aim of pressuring this industry titan to use some of its legendary innovation to lead the way in protecting workers in electronics supplier factories.

“Apple management has cared in the past about other environmental and social issues, and they care about the company’s reputation,” says Elizabeth O’Connell, Green America campaigns director. “We believe that Apple is likely to be the first company to change on this issue, and a change from Apple could have a huge effect on the entire industry.”

It wouldn’t cost much for Apple to shift, either. Industry experts told Green America that Apple could switch to safer alternatives to n-hexane and benzene for as little as $1 per iPhone. It’s a mere pittance compared to what Apple makes on each of these gadgets—the company’s profit margins per iPhone are close to 40 percent, which translates to several hundred dollars in profit per device.

Conducted in partnership with the activist arm of The Nation and China Labor Watch, Green America’s Bad Apple campaign is calling on the company to:

• Eliminate toxic chemicals. End the use of the most dangerous chemicals in Apple supplier factories and replace them with safer alternatives.
• Ensure adequate medical treatment. Create a fund to pay for the treatment of injured workers and ensure that all workers injured while making Apple products receive adequate treatment.
• Stop worker abuse. Ensure compliance with the International Labour Organization’s Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work; article 32 on the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child; and national laws regarding occupational health and safety, worker benefits, and minimum wage for all workers.

(Read our blog post on Why Apple?»)

One Worker’s Story

After Apple CEO Steve Jobs succumbed to pancreatic cancer in 2012, the Jobs family made it a priority to ensure that Apple employees in the US have a stateof- the-art medical plan.

In stark contrast, workers in Chinese supplier factories for Apple and other manufacturers are dying from preventable illnesses contracted on the job.

When Chen Qianqian was in the third grade, her mother left home to find work in the city. She’s one of 260 million migrant workers in China who must travel far from home to secure a job and earn enough money to support their families, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics.

When Chen was in the seventh grade, she stopped hearing from her mother. The disappearance haunted her throughout the rest of her childhood, so when she came of age, she, too, left home to find factory work in the city, clinging to the dream of also finding her mother.

“I wanted to find her, to rescue her. My mind was set on earning as much money as possible,” she relates in the film.

She started working at an electronics supplier factory China. Filmmaker Heather White says that typical days for the factory workers with whom she spoke started at 8 a.m. and ended at 11 p.m., with only one night off a month.

As another worker at a different electronics factory related to White and Zhang, “We sat there all day cleaning phone screens and using chemicals. When I wasn’t eating or sleeping, I would be wiping something. It was the only thing I did. There was no other ventilation, no windows. The smell was horrible at first, but I eventually got used to it.”

Exposed to benzene on a daily basis while cleaning smartphone and tablet components, Chen contracted leukemia and spent months trying to get compensation from the factory.

“They concluded that my cancer was not caused by working at the factory, and I was denied compensation,” she says. Despite the fact that she was working daily with a category 1 carcinogen linked to her type of cancer.

White says Chen had to pay for her chemotherapy and hospitalization out of pocket and by borrowing from family.

“Her mom is not in the picture, so there weren’t that many people to borrow from,” says White. “She didn’t get the level of treatment she deserved.”

Of her search to find her mother, Chen says, “Everything is over.”

WHO PAYS THE PRICE? All three of the people pictured above worked at supplier factories for electronics manufacturers. Right to left: Li (not her real name), who started working in a Foxconn supplier factory at age 14, suffered nerve damage and paralysis after being exposed to n-hexane. Ming Kunpeng committed suicide at 26 after years of dealing with leukemia caused by occupational benzene exposure. Chen Qianqian was hospitalized with leukemia from benzene poisoning. Learn more about their stories in the film Who Pays the Price?, available to watch free at Green America’s bad-apple.org.

Audits for What?

Before Green America and our allies launched the Bad Apple campaign, we reached out to Apple management with the demands listed on p. 15. Their response was that the company “meetsor exceeds” US safety standards in its supplier factories.

Via a statement about the campaign in Computer World magazine, the company added, “Last year, we conducted nearly 200 factory inspections which focused on hazardous chemicals, to make sure those facilities meet our strict standards. We also provide suppliers with training in hazardous chemical management, industrial hygiene, and personal protection equipment as part of the Apple Supplier EHS Academy in Suzhou, China.”

But a closer look into those claims reveals troubling gaps. Take, for instance, the inspections Apple says it provides.

Jack Linchuan Qiu, a professor at the Chinese University at Hong Kong and advisor for Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior, says that most corporate audits in China, Apple’s included, are simply not effective.

“Only a small proportion of a brand’s supplier factories are audited each year, and the vast majority of these facilities receive advance warning of such audits,” says Qiu. “This allows for management to prepare to ‘pass’ any inspector’s test, and allows brands like Apple to falsely claim vast compliance of their corporate codes of conduct.”

And Heather White reports that the Chinese workers she interviewed for "Who Pays the Price?" told her they’ve never seen an auditor on the floor who was looking into worker safety. However, they do report having quality-control auditors hang over their shoulders to ensure that the factory employees maintain Apple’s high product-quality standards.

White relates a conversation she had with a British engineer who was wholly employed by Apple and worked in an Apple supplier factory in China. “He told me there’s no sign of Apple on the labor standards front,” she says. “What he did see were at least 40 inspectors per week—and none were there for labor standards, just quality control. There’s a serious disconnect between what Apple would like us to believe and the reality for people in the factories.”

As for the hazardous chemical training Apple claims it provides, the company claimed in its 2014 “Supplier Responsibility Report” that “240 factory personnel” went through an 18-month curriculum aimed at raising the level of environment, health, and safety expertise in its supply chain.

Keep in mind that roughly 1.5 million people currently toil in Apple supplier factories in China—so each of those 240 people would have to pass their training on to hundreds or even thousands of others, especially given the high 20 percent monthly turnover in the factories.

“Chinese law requires that every worker receive 24 hours of occupational safety training, but at the Apple suppliers CLW has investigated, we’re still seeing workers trained for ten minutes before they’re put to work,” says Slaten. “The average is more like an hour, which is insufficient.” He adds that the “protection equipment” Apple says workers are provided is often inadequate: They often have to ask for said equipment, and it generally amounts to a paper mask and cotton gloves. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend a gas mask and a full-body, chemicalresistant suit when dealing with chronic occupational exposure to benzene.

A Lack of Enforcement

While some of the blame for worker poisonings rests on the factories, it’s the brands that hold the real power to change the system.

Chinese labor laws are quite strong in many ways—even including longer maternity leave and stronger overtime restrictions than in the US. The problem is a lack of enforcement. Ted Smith, coordinator of the International Campaign for Responsible Technology, notes that local officials have a strong interest in encouraging economic growth, so when workers dispute their treatment, local officials will often side with local factories in the interest of growth. And Western corporations move in to take advantage of the lax enforcement of labor and environmental laws in a troubling race to the bottom.

“Even if they wanted to, the Chinese factories would have trouble providing adequate hazardous-chemical training while also meeting the needs of Apple,” says Green America’s O’Connell. “Apple puts them under intense pressure to meet its high production quotas, especially during high-demand periods, such as the release of the latest iPhone. If Apple relaxed its timeline demands, that would make a difference for workers.”

The Financial Times reported in 2012 that iPhone supplier factory Foxconn earned a profit of $8 per iPhone, compared to Apple’s $319 per per iPhone. This discrepancy makes it very difficult for local suppliers to have power in negotiations, because companies like Apple can go to another factory to meet their price and time requirements. The combination of timeline and financial pressures is deadly for workers, as the factories cut corners on working conditions and employee benefits to remain in the black.

In short, it’s Apple and other brands that hold the power to improve conditions for workers. And it’s their customers who can make them wield that power.

Workers at electronics supplier factories in China are being subjected to toxins that cause problems ranging from skin rashes to leukemia.

Apple, Take the Lead

There is a precedent for Apple to make radical shifts. Two years ago, Greenpeace slammed Apple for using dirty energy from coal-fired plants to store its cloud data. Fast-forward to 2014, and Greenpeace is now lauding the company for its “aggressive” commitment to powering its data centers with renewables.

After the Dodd-Frank Act mandated that publicly traded companies must report as of 2015 on their use of potential “conflict minerals”—or minerals whose sale is used to fund wars—Apple published its results early and announced plans to cut conflict minerals completely out of its supply chain.

And it recently announced it would take back used Apple electronics at its retail stores worldwide for reuse, or recycling with e-Stewards-certified Sims Recycling Solutions.

In addition, says O’Connell, “Apple normally doesn’t acknowledge activist campaigns, so it’s a good sign that it responded to ours.” In other words, concerned citizens have influenced Apple to change in the past, and we can do it again.

“Green America isn’t asking you to give up your smartphone,” says O’Connell. “But it’s important to use your voice as a cell phone customer to stop worker poisonings in the factories.” Take action today. Together, we can push Apple to eliminate toxins from its supply chain, ensure adequate medical treatment for workers, and stop worker abuse. And where Apple goes, the other brands will follow.

Chemical-laden conventional sunscreens can include toxic ingredients that can be absorbed through the skin. Sunscreens from green companies are free from the most potent toxins, avoid problematic nanoparticles, and can still protect you from the sun.

The summer months are upon us, and for many people, that means more time outside in the sun. It also often means slathering on sunscreen to protect yourself from sunburn and other dangerous effects of too much sun exposure. Did you know that common sunscreen brands can contain toxins? So the more you slather, the more problematic ingredients your body absorbs.

Fortunately, following a few simple rules can help you easily pick a safe sunscreen for your skin.

Sun Exposure and Skin Cancer

According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), more than 2 million Americans develop skin cancer every year. Basal and squamous cell carcinomas, which are rarely fatal, make up most of those cases, but cases of melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer, are on the rise. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) state that melanoma incidents have increased by nearly two percent each year since 2000. 

Risk factors for melanoma include exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation, family history, the number of moles on a person’s skin, fair skin, and frequent sunburns, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation.

While a handful of studies have demonstrated increased rates of cancer possibly linked

5 safe sunscreens

These sunscreens all earned a 1 (least-toxic rating) on EWG’s cosmetic database (ewg.org/skindeep) and do not contain nanoparticles other than zinc oxide:

• Adorable Baby Clear Sunscreen Stick
• Jersey Shore Cosmetics Sans Tan Anti-Aging Mineral Sunscreen
• Loving Naturals Clear Body Sunscreen
• Aubrey Organics Natural Sun Sunscreen
• All Terrain AquaSport Sunscreen Lotion  

5 Sunscreens to avoid

The following brands received 7s, the most-toxic ranking on EWG’s cosmetic database.

• Yon-Ka Solar Care Sunscreen Cream
• Western Family Sunscreen Lotion
• Walgreens Sport Sunscreen
• Vichy Laboratories Capital Soleil Soft Sheer Sunscreen Lotion
• Up & Up (Target) Sport Sunscreen Spray
   

With sunscreen use, more studies show lower melanoma rates with daily sunscreen use. Consequently, the general scientific consensus is to use sunscreen to avoid sunburns.

“We recommend following a complete sun protection regimen that includes seeking shade and covering up with clothing, including a wide-brimmed hat and UV-blocking sunglasses, in addition to daily sunscreen use,” says Emily Prager of the Skin Cancer Foundation.

So how do you choose a sunscreen?

Don’t Use Conventional Sunscreens

Wearing sunscreen is important, yet some chemical sunscreens contain ingredients that may pose a health danger and even contribute to the development of skin cancer. Like many body care products in the US, ingredients in sunscreens are poorly regulated by the FDA. Most sunscreen ingredients were already in use in 1978 when the FDA started regulating sunscreens, so many have never been tested for safety.

For example, vitamin A (retinyl palmitate) is an additive typically included as an anti-aging ingredient. While vitamin A is an essential nutrient for your body, decades of studies have shown that absorbing it through the skin can be hazardous. The most potent evidence came in a 2010 study from the National Toxicology Project, which found that mice coated with retinyl palmitate cream more rapidly developed skin damage, including skin cancer, than mice without it.

Oxybenzone, added as a UV filter, is found in about 80 percent of chemical sunscreens. Research compiled by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group (EWG) indicates that oxybenzone can penetrate the skin, causing allergic skin reactions and possibly disrupting hormones; oxybenzone is also connected to low birth weight in newborn girls.

Do Shop Around

Before you shop, search the Environmental Working Group (EWG)’s Skin Deep cosmetic database, which rates body care products, including sunscreens, for toxicity. 

In addition, EWG releases a “Guide to Safer Sunscreens” annually, comparing sunscreens and citing the safest brands.

“We literally have people going from store to store each year to see what sunscreens are on the shelves to keep our guide relevant and useful,” says the EWG’s Paul Pestano.

Don’t Rely on SPF Alone
When we talk about protecting the skin from sun damage, we are generally talking about ultraviolet radiation, a spectrum of electromagnetic radiation that is invisible to the naked eye. Ultraviolet B, or UVB radiation, has a short wavelength and affects the surface of your skin, resulting in sunburns. Ultraviolet A, or UVA radiation, has a longer wavelength and penetrates more deeply into your skin; UVA radiation has long been linked to skin aging, and more recent research shows that UVA radiation damages skin cells in the layer of epidermis where most melanoma skin cancers occur. 

The sun protection factor, or SPF, number on sunscreens lets users know the level of protection they have from sunburns caused by UVB radiation. SPF numbers have nothing to do with protection offered from UVA radiation. 

Therefore, says Pestano, “a sunscreen with higher SPF gives the user misconception that they can stay outside for longer, and that can be dangerous.”

Do Use Broad-Spectrum Protection
Sunscreen that offers “broad-spectrum protection” can help keep you safe from both UVA and UVB radiation. However, don’t just trust any label that says “broad-” or “full-spectrum” without checking the ingredients. Although FDA regulates the “broad-spectrum” label, the FDA’s standards are much weaker than those in the European Union. In fact, half of the sunscreens labeled as offering broad-spectrum protection in the US could not be sold in Europe with that label due to insufficient UVA protection. 

To ensure true broad-spectrum protection, look for effective, less-toxic UVA filters like zinc oxide, avobenzone, and Mexoryl SX listed as “active ingredients” on the label. Some might also be labeled as “mineral sunscreens” because they are using minerals, like zinc oxide, as UV filters.

Don’t Go for Sprays

Though they can be fast and convenient, spray sunscreens can be inhaled into the lungs, potentially exposing users to even more toxins. Stick to sunscreen that you rub on the skin.

Don’t Ignore Nanoparticles
Nanoparticles are ultrafine particles between 1 and 100 nanometers in size. They are used in sunscreen to help the cream rub onto the skin clearly and smoothly. Some mineral sunscreens do contain nanoparticles of otherwise safe minerals like titanium dioxide or zinc oxide, to provide better UVB protection. The FDA doesn’t require labeling of nanoparticles. 

Sunscreen Resources
Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Cosmetic Database: Rates body care products, including sunscreen, for toxicity. Lists problematic ingredients and their potential health effects. EWG publishes an annual guide to sunscreens on the site as well.

Friends of the Earth (FoE) “Nanotechnology and Sunscreens” report: This report ranks sunscreen companies on their use of nanoparticles.

The Skin Cancer Foundation: Research and resources about skin cancer.
 

Some experts urge precaution with nanoparticles in any body care product, because there has not been a sufficient amount of study on their safety. 

The European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety recommended in 2013 that certain types of nano-titanium dioxide not be used in sunscreen because they react with sunlight to produce free radicals, which can cause skin-cell damage. It also recommended that nano-titanium dioxide and nano-zinc oxide not be used in powder or spray sunscreens because they could be toxic if inhaled.

Zinc-oxide in any sunscreen usually comes in the form of nanoparticles. So far, studies have shown no major health issues, and it still provides the best protection of any less-toxic ingredient. 

“While nanoparticles are a concern, [EWG doesn’t] believe that zinc oxide poses a large threat when applied to the skin,” says EWG’s Paul Pestano.
Green America recommends avoiding nanoparticles with the possible exception of zinc oxide. If you want to avoid all nano-materials, Friends of the Earth has published a guide to “Nanotechnology and Sunscreens” to help you find nano-free sunscreen. 
 

Do (Carefully) Have Fun in the Sun

Don’t be afraid to spend time in the sun. Just be vigilant about seeking out shade, avoid the most intense mid-day sun, and use a less-toxic, broad-spectrum sunscreen.

Even as science works to prove the safety, or lack thereof, of GMOs when it comes to human health, there are other issues at stake with biotechnology.

1. GMO Contamination --
Currently, GMO and non-GMO crops coexist side-by-side. But due to cross-pollination from insects, wind, and farmer error, some non-GMO and organic crops are being contaminated with GMOs. Such contamination can be a disaster for farmers, especially those who need to meet minimum standards to sell their products abroad or to Non-GMO Project certified sources.

George Naylor, an Iowa farmer, says he receives a much-needed premium for his non GMO corn and soy from European buyers, which helps him make ends meet. The shadow of being rejected for GMO contamination hangs over him each growing season. “If I’m going to continue to market products as non-GMO, I definitely have to worry about contamination from my neighbors,” he says. “I know farmers who have had their crops rejected by the people who buy my crops.”

Naylor says that contamination has made it difficult to even gain access to enough non-GMO seeds for the growing season.

“One year, I was going to raise non-GMO soy for a processor that sends to Japan for food products,” he says. “I had picked a variety I knew would do well. When I was supposed to get my seed delivered, the company said it couldn’t find enough seed that wasn’t already contaminated with Roundup Ready. I had to pick another, and my yield that year was terrible.”

Although USDA organic certifiers don’t test for the presence of GMOs, cross contamination does threaten the integrity of organic foods. And as more buyers start requiring a minimum threshold for GMOs, the results could be disastrous for organic farmers.

Even food processors are worrying about contamination from certain types of GMOs. In 2011, the USDA approved Syngenta’s Enogen corn, which is engineered to contain a gene from a bacteria that produces alpha amylase, an enzyme that breaks corn down into sugar. This enzyme makes the process of converting the corn to ethanol easier and cheaper.

News of the approval was met with objections from various corn processors, the Pet Food Institute, and the Snack Food Association, which issued a joint statement expressing “deep disappointment” with the decision. The trade groups worried that if food corn becomes contaminated with Enogen corn, it could result in “significant adverse impacts” to their corn products, including soggy, crumbling food items.

2. Corporate Control of Seeds --
Fifty-three percent of the global commercial seed supply is owned by three biotech companies: Monsanto, DuPont, and Syngenta. This corporate control has led to a dramatic rise in seed prices, putting a huge strain on farmers. “From 1995- 2011, the average cost to plant one acre of soybeans has risen 325 percent; for cotton, prices spiked 516 percent, and corn seed prices are up by 259 percent,” says a 2013 report from the Center for Food Safety, Seed Giants vs. US Farmers.

It’s led to lawsuits that pit farmers against biotech “seed police,” who sue when patented GMO traits are detected on fields, even through accidental contamination.

And it’s led to a reduction in seed diversity as well, particularly when it comes to GMOs. For centuries, humans have cultivated thousands of varieties of crops—fostering enough genetic diversity to forge crops that are resistant to weather conditions and diseases. However, we’re losing this heritage and replacing it with crops that are hybrids of a few limited genetic lines—many of which are now patented GM hybrids.

A mere handful of GM strains made up 90 percent of USgrown corn, 93 percent of soy, and 90 percent of cotton.

“The quality of our food and clothing depend on the quality of our seeds—and right now, most of the seeds being developed are optimized for chemically intensive agriculture,” says Matthew Dillon of Seed Matters, a nonprofit founded by the Clif Bar Foundation that works to conserve seed diversity.

“This is problematic because of the toll that this method of farming takes on our water quality, soil health, genetic diversity, and the health of farm workers and consumers.”

And now, what pure, heirloom seeds that remain are further endangered by cross pollination from GM plants.

“GMOs are part of an increasingly industrialized food system, with increasingly centralized control and profits,” says Nicole McCann, Green America food campaigns director. “This is the opposite direction we need to be taking.”

The 2011 film Bitter Seeds details how farmers in India have seen their costs rise in part due to GM seeds. See Green America’s review of the film here.

3. The Pesticide Treadmill --
GMO proponents like to note that thanks to Bt crops, “we’re running the pesticide treadmill in reverse.” A closer look reveals that not only is this not true, but GMOs are responsible for increased use of pesticides—and the water pollution, soil contamination, and risks to farmworker health associated with them.

Data from the USDA annual pesticide use surveys from 1996 to 2008, analyzed by the Organic Center, show that Bt corn and cotton did reduce insecticide use by 64.2 million pounds over that time. However, crops engineered to be glyphosate-resistant or Roundup Ready increased herbicide use by 382.6 million pounds in that same period. All told, GM crops resulted in a 318.4-million-pound increase in overall US pesticide use.

The reason? “When you use a product to control pests, either an herbicide or Bt crops that produce their own toxin, inevitably you’ll get resistance,” says Dr. Doug Gurian- Sherman, a molecular biologist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. “The response in our current industrialized agriculture system is to use more pesticides.”

Indeed, a January 2014 press release from Dow noted that “an astonishing 86 percent of corn, soybean, and cotton growers in the South have herbicide-resistant or hard tocontrol weeds on their farms.”

In response, Dow is seeking USDA approval of Enlist corn and soybeans, which are engineered to withstand a combination of glyphosate and 2, 4-D herbicide. 2, 4-D, the “less-toxic” half of Agent Orange, has been linked to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and Parkinson’s, says Gurian-Sherman. And the World Health Organization classifies it as a “possible human carcinogen.”

“2, 4-D is also known to travel considerable distances from the fields on which it is applied, making it one of the most destructive herbicides of neighboring vegetation,” says Gurian-Sherman. If dicamba- and 2, 4-D-resistant crops are approved, “weed scientists have predicted that herbicide use will more than double or even triple,” he says.

Also, studies indicate GM pesticides could be harming pollinators: A 2012 study by the Royal Society, for example, found that herbicide sprayed on herbicide-tolerant GM canola may have cut butterfly populations in the fields by two-thirds and bee numbers in half.

4. Failure to Feed the World --
Are GMOs necessary to feed the world? A comprehensive 2009 report, “Agriculture at a Crossroads,” examined that question, as part of a larger study into what kinds of agricultural systems can best meet future world needs, which was conducted by the United Nations’ International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). The report found that modern biotechnologies are far more likely to harm rather than help subsistence farmers in developing countries. In short, they are not helping to feed the hungry.

“Modern biotechnology has a poor track record of relevance to the poor and subsistence farmer, and its control by a relatively small number of large multinational companies means that adopting modern biotechnologies could also require accepting significant social changes and adopting agricultural models that may not result in poverty reduction or sustainable practices, while also increasing the dependency of local farmers on technological exports from the wealthy countries,” states the report.

In India, 90 percent of soy and 95 percent of cotton is controlled by Monsanto, which owns both Roundup-ready and Bt seed technology. Monsanto prevents even the poorest farmers from saving seed, so farmers must buy more seed from the company each year, in addition to Roundup herbicide for the glyphosate-resistant GM seeds.

Other GM seeds, like the Bt cotton commonly farmed in India, need more water and fertilizer than conventional seeds, applied according to precise timetables. But India’s subsistence farmers have no irrigation systems and are rain-dependent, and they have no extra money for increased fertilizer. As the Bt plants have succumbed to other pests that have moved in to replace those killed by the Bt toxin, and the Roundup-ready plants to superweeds, these farmers are losing entire fields.

The IAASTD report states that the use of biotech seed patents “may drive up costs ... while also potentially undermining local practices that enhance food security and economic sustainability.”

To actually feed the world, the report recommends an emphasis on agroecology farming techniques and a reliance on traditional knowledge combined with modern techniques, as well as a precautionary approach when it comes to GMOs and other new technologies.

“If we do persist with business as usual, the world’s people cannot be fed over the next half-century,” said Dr. Robert T. Watson, IAASTD director and the report’s chief scientist. “It will mean more environmental degradation, and the gap between the haves and havenots will expand.”

Monsanto’s “seed police” are notorious for traveling the country, inspecting farms for Monsanto-patented GM seeds or plants that were not purchased from the company. Since Monsanto forbids farmers from saving its seeds, the company then sues farmers for patent infringement, even if farmers claim the contamination was accidental.

A 2013 report from the Center for Food Safety details cases where farmers claim they were targeted by Monsanto, despite being victims of accidental contamination. The Center says the company has even gone after seed cleaners, whose services help farmers save their non-patented seeds.

In 2008, Monsanto sued Maurice Parr, a seed cleaner, for “aiding and abetting farmers” who illegallly saved its seeds.

“Mr. Parr made clear to his clients that he was not responsible for enforcing seed patent agreements to which he was not a party,” states the report. “Monsanto sued him ... claiming his statements encouraged flouting of their patents.”

Parr says the lawsuit cost him over $25,000 in legal fees and 90 percent of his former customers, who fear that association with him will lead to their being sued.

Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto filed 144 such lawsuits, and settled 700 more cases out of court, according to the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA).

In March 2011, a group of 83 farmers led by OSGATA filed a lawsuit against Monsanto to block the company from suing farmers, arguing that contamination is inevitable. The lawsuit made its way to the Supreme Court, which dismissed the case in January 2014. However, the farmers had achieved a partial victory in a June 2013 lower court appeal, when the justices deciding the case ruled that Monsanto could not sue farmers whose fields were contaminated with up to one percent GMO material.

“For farmers contaminated by more than one percent, perhaps a day will come to address whether Monsanto’s patents may be asserted against them,” says Daniel Ravicher, lead counsel to the plaintiffs. “We are confident that if the courts ever hear such a case, they will rule for the non-GMO farmers.”

For evidence that Big Biotech is working to suppress independent scientific research that links GMOs to health effects, you don’t have to look any further than the much-maligned 2012 study by Dr. Gilles-Eric Séralini, a professor of microbiology at the University of Caen in France.

In November 2012, he and his colleagues published a peer-reviewed study in Food & Chemical Toxicology that tested Monsanto’s NK603 maize for long-term toxicity. NK603 was engineered to tolerate Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide (generic name glyphosate) and is intended for both human and livestock consumption.

The study examined 200 rats that were fed either NK603 corn, NK603 corn cultivated with Roundup, or Roundup in their drinking water for a span of two years. It found evidence of liver and kidney toxicity in the rats exposed to GM corn and to Roundup alone. He also found that these rats had a higher incidence of tumors.

Séralini was lambasted in the media and taken to task by a chorus of scientists from around the world for the “flaws” in his study. The outcry caused Food & Chemical Toxicology to retract the study. Case closed, right?

A closer look reveals troubling evidence of pro-biotech bias.

To date, more than 1,000 scientists and scholars have signed a letter in support of Séralini, at IndependentScienceNews.com. They state: “A key pattern with risk-finding studies is that the criticisms voiced in the media are often red herrings, misleading, or untruthful. Thus, the use of common methodologies was portrayed as indicative of shoddy science when used by Séralini et al. but not when used by industry. The use of red herring arguments appears intended to sow doubt and confusion among non experts.”

The two main critiques of the study focus on the “small sample size” and the type of rats Séralini used.

What the critics don’t note is that Séralini was repeating a 2004 Monsanto study, but he used more control rats and conducted his tests over a period of two years instead of 90 days. Monsanto’s 90-day study “confirmed” NK603 corn as “safe and nutritious.”

“Séralini used the same sample size Monsanto used in its 2004 study, which concluded that NK603 was ‘safe,’” says Dr. Michael Hansen, a biologist and senior staff scientist at Consumers Union. Hansen notes that both Seralini and Monsanto used ten rats per study group. “If ten per group is too small to show an adverse effect, how come a 90- day feeding study that finds nothing is evidence of safety?” he asks.

One difference between the two studies is that Monsanto actually started with 20 rats per group but only took measurements on ten in each, meaning it could have “cherry picked the healthy ones on which to do the analysis,” notes Jeffrey Smith, executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology.

Séralini used Sprague-Dawley rats in his study, which some critics noted are “predisposed” to tumors, thus “muddying” his study results. However, Monsanto also used Sprague-Dawley rats in its 90-day feeding study.

“I can show you a number of papers that are in the public literature, including Food & Chemical Toxicology, that are carcinogenicity studies that have been conducted on Sprague-Dawley rats for two years, and they haven’t been retracted,” says Hansen.

Critics also stated that the results showing an increase in tumors weren’t statistically significant.

“That’s right, it wasn’t statistically significant for tumors, but that’s not the point,” says Hansen. “This was a chronic toxicity study, not intended to measure carcinogenicity. The word ‘cancer’ doesn’t even appear in the paper at all! But it’s normal to report anything you see, so Seralini reported the tumors.”

Dr. Gilles-Eric Seralini (second from right) with his research team. Photo from GMOSeralini.org.

Hansen also points out that Food & Chemical Toxicology is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics, which posits only three reasons that are valid for the retraction of a paper: 1) plagiarism, 2) fraud, and 3) bad data.

Dr. A. Wallace Hayes, the journal’s editor-in-chief, admits that he “found no evidence of fraud or intentional misrepresentation of the data” in Séralini’s study. Says Hansen, “Food & Chemical Toxicology retracted the study because ‘the results are inconclusive.’ But that’s the language of science. Most studies end with a call for more studies to be done. That isn’t justification for a retraction.”

“Inconclusive? Until a hypothesis is proven, all results are inconclusive,” Georgetown University Medical Center professors Adrienne Fugh-Berman, MD, and Thomas G. Sherman, Ph.D. concur in a January letter to Bioethics Forum.

In addition, six months after it published Séralini’s study, Food & Chemical Toxicology brought in a new editor to specialize in papers on biotech. Richard E. Goodman worked for Monsanto from 1997-2004 as a regulatory scientist who helped the company get federal approval for biotech crops. Goodman denies involvement with the retraction.

“There are hundreds of studies that should be permanently removed from the scientific literature, but the Séralini study is not one of them,” write Sherman and Fugh-Berman. “The retraction of the Séralini study is a black mark on medical publishing, a blow to science, and a win for corporate bullies.”

The expansion of the green economy is seen in the growth or green market segments, certifications, higher education programs, and industry associations. (Source: The Big Green Opportunity Report, 2013; click image for larger.)

UPDATE: March 2014...  There's still a chance to revive the Production Tax Credit! 

Though the Production Tax Credit (PTC) for wind energy expired at the end of the 2013, members of Congress are working to bring it back.  On March 21, 144 representatives and senators sent letters to their colleagues urging the PTC's renewal. 

“Like all businesses, the wind industry seeks certainty and predictability so that long-term project decisions and investments can be made,” wrote Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), along with 24 other senators. “Without that stability, we once again risk losing many of the jobs, infrastructure and investment that the wind industry has created.”

The renewable energy Production Tax Credit (PTC) has been a major driver of the growth of wind power in the United States. At the end of 2012, Congress almost let the program expire before extending it for just one year as part of the "fiscal cliff" negotiations. But last-minute saves and short-term extensions are ineffective in boosting clean energy. Wind farms require 18 to 24 months for project planning, and North American Wind Power reports that the 2012 delay and brief extension resulted in only 1.6 MW of wind power installed in the first six months of 2013 - the capacity equivalent of one turbine.

That's why this year we're asking you to join us in demanding that Congress implement a meaningful extension of the Production Tax Credit -- for ten years or more.  Keeping the PTC in place will protect American wind installation and manufacturing jobs, keep the US competitive in the worldwide clean energy market, reduce US greenhouse gas emissions, and prevent air and water pollution from coal and natural gas.

Tell Congress today that we need to renew the PTC.

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What if you could get what you need for free and make some really great friends in the process? That’s the concept behind what even the mainstream media has started to call “the sharing economy”—where people come together to pool time, talent, and treasure so everyone involved can get what they need. All around the world, people are sharing their extra time and stuff, saving resourcees and building community in the process.

Want to join in the sharing fun? Try one or more of these great ideas. ...
 

1. Hold a Permablitz

The brainchild of permaculturist Dan Palmer, permablitzes have become all the rage in Melbourne, Australia. During these oldfashioned “barn-raising” type events, strangers come together to turn someone’s yard into an edible garden—in one day.

To get their yard permablitzed, people join the Melbourne Permablitz Collective and agree to work on at least two other blitzes. Volunteer permaculturists will then design a garden plan specifically for their yard, which follows permaculture guidelines in that it mimics a natural ecosystem, requiring no artificial inputs. The whole group helps plan and promote the blitz, which as a rule includes permaculture design and gardening workshops, and the host provides food and drinks.

“Permablitzes are a lot of fun for both hosts and volunteers,” says Permablitz Melbourne’s Samantha Allemann. “Hosts receive free labor from keen volunteer blitzers, which allows for a lot of manual work to get done in a short space of time. The volunteer blitzers have the opportunity to learn new skills related to permaculture and sustainable living, eat delicious food, get some exercise, and meet new people.”

2. Make Your Home a Pop-up Restaurant

Make a little extra cash by turning your home into a temporary restaurant. Gusta.com allows amateur and pro chefs in 98 cities worldwide to post home-cooked meals they’re planning to prepare on the site; then, diners looking for a unique dining experience sign up for the meal. Each chef sets his/her own price—usually comparable to the average restaurant meal—and serves the food at home.

Green Business Network® director Alix Davidson regularly posts dinners—her specialty is vegetarian Indian food—on Feastly.com, which operates similar to Gusta and is still in beta-testing. She’s also dined at other Feastly homes, partaking in Korean bibimbap and “the best Thai food I’ve ever eaten.”

“I’m energized by Feastly—I get a reason to advance my cooking skills and a little extra cash, as well as the chance to eat some amazing food and meet interesting people,” she says.

3. Share a Yard

Have a yard but no time to garden? Visit hyperlocavore.ning.com or wepatch.org to loan out a section of your yard to a gardenless gardener, who will use it to grow produce to share between the two of you. It also works the other way around, so you can also use the sites if you’re the one looking for a little patch of earth to tend.

4. Bond with Booklovers

Hold a book swap with fellow bibliophiles—your local library might be willing to assist with making it a community event. You can also swap with others online at paperbackswap.com or bookmooch.com.

In

5. Need a Ride?

Getaround.com is a growing network of people willing to rent out their cars while they’re traveling or extra vehicles that are sitting idle in a garage. GetAround provides GPS tracking of your vehicle, insurance, regular inspections and maintenance, and post-rental cleaning. Currently available in San Francisco, Portland, Chicago, Austin, and San Diego, GetAround plans to expand to other cities in the near future.

6. Get Free Fruit

People who grow fruit in their yards often find that their trees runneth over. Find people willing to share their fruity bounty at neighborhoodfruit.com.

7. Honey Do Share

If you’re not afraid of bees and have a safe little corner of your yard where a hive could thrive, you can offer it up to local beekeepers in exchange for free local honey. Look up your area “beekeeper’s guild.”

8. Share Your Time

Local currency systems like Time Dollars (greenamerica.org/go/timedollars) allow you to formally trade your time and expertise with others in your community. People might trade Spanish lessons for the opportunity to learn to knit, for example, or babysitting hours for personal training sessions.

But if you don’t have a formal local currency, don’t despair. You can still trade your talent for someone else’s at ourgoods.org, barterquest.com, brightneighbor.com, ShareSomeSugar.com, and streetbank.com.

9. A Home Away from Home

Planning to travel? Find homeowners willing to share or loan out their house or apartment in more than 33,000 cities in 192 countries for cheaper than you can get a hotel room at Airbnb.com. If you aren’t traveling but could use some extra cash, you can apply at Airbnb.com to rent out your home as an instant hotel or bed and breakfast.

If you’re willing to work on your trip, GrowFood.org, HelpX.org, and WWOOF.org can help you find short-term work on an organic farm worldwide in exchange for room and board.

10. Share Your Knowledge

Start a “free school” in your community, where members teach regular, free classes on their knowledge and skill areas, from ballroom dancing to astronomy to gardening. Find a step-by-step guide on how to start one at shareable.net/blog/how-to-start-a-free-school.

What’s a fair amount of interest to pay on a loan?

Think of your answer, and then ask yourself another question: Could you do business with a bank that you know is charging some customers as much as 365 percent interest on a loan?

That’s exactly what is happening at some corporate mega-banks offering new loan products with names like “Checking Account Advance” or “Direct Deposit Advance.” These products offer a customer an “advance” on the next direct deposit into their checking account, which is then deducted automatically by the bank – at a hugely inflated interest rate – upon their customer’s direct deposit. These are nothing more than payday lending schemes by other names. They carry very little risk for the lending bank (which has control over the direct deposit) while keeping low-income borrowers in an endless cycle of debt and borrowing.

Can you take a moment to send a message to four mega-banks offering payday products, and tell them you don’t approve of their unfair practices?

Please sign on to our letter below, and visit BreakUpWithYourMegabank.org to find a community development bank or credit union with a commitment to treating borrowers fairly.

Most Americans are eating 122 grams of sugar per day or more, rather than the 30-45 grams most experts recommend.

With the sweet fructose that makes up 50% of sugar linked to increased rates of obesity, diabetes, stroke, heart disease, and even Alzheimer’s, it’s no wonder that many people are turning to alternative sweeteners to replace it. But are they any safer?
 

Download a printable poster [PDF] version of this chart »

Type of sugar: Sugar alcohols

• Other names: Erithrytol, glycerol, isomalt, lactitol, maltitol, mannitol, xylitol
• Origins: Refined from various plants, including corn, mushrooms, and plums.
• Health concerns: With the exception of erythritol, can cause bloating, diarrhea, and flatulence when consumed in large quantities. Xylitol is known for contributing to dental health, and some studies say it may help combat osteoporosis.
• Fructose Content: 0%
• Green America says: A best option in moderation (under 20 grams a day). Avoid if you have irritable bowel syndrome.

Type of Sugar: Honey 

• Other names: none
• Origins: Beehives. Can be purchased from local beekeepers or stores that import it from as far away as China.
• Health concerns: Because of its high fructose content, honey has the same health risks as sugar. It also contains trace minerals and has antibacterial properties. Honey from China may contain lead.
• Fructose content: 40%
• Green America says: Organic or local honey is a best option in moderation.

Type of Sugar: Agave Nectar 

• Other names: none
• Origins: Agave grows in Mexico, the Southwestern US, and parts of South America.
• Health concerns: Highly processed agave can contain fructose levels nearly twice that of table sugar. Raw agave has trace amounts of beneficial minerals and fiber. Its fructose level is only slightly higher than that in table sugar. There is no evidence that either processed or raw agave contains harmful components besides fructose.
• Fructose Content: Processed: up to 90% Raw: 55%
• Green America says: Raw, organic agave is a good option in moderation. With slightly higher fructose content than refined sugar, raw agave is linked to the same health issues.

Type of Sugar: Raw Cane Sugar

• Other names: Demerara, muscovado, turbinado
• Origins: Extracted from sugar cane.
• Health concerns: Contains the same amount of fructose as table sugar, but has trace minerals, vitamins, and fiber that have been refined out of table sugar.
• Fructose content: 50%
• Green America says: Only slightly preferable to refined sugar. With the same fructose content as refined cane sugar, raw sugar is linked to the same health problems. Consume in moderation.

Type of Sugar: Stevia

• Other names: Rebiana, rebaudioside A, PureVia, SweetLeaf, Truvia
• Origins: Refined into powder from the stevia rebaudiana plant. Also available in whole-leaf form.
• Health concerns: UCLA researchers raised concerns in 2008 about stevia’s possible ability to cause mutations in DNA at high levels. High amounts of stevia have resulted in reproductive harm to rodents. These results aren’t conclusive and haven’t yet been demonstrated in humans. Powdered stevia is highly processed.
• Fructose content: 0%
• Green America says: The FDA has not approved wholeleaf stevia for use in food. Given the lack of safety data on all types of stevia, avoid or at least limit it.

Type of Sugar: Luo Han Guo Extract

• Other names: Luo Han Kuo extract, monkfruit extract, mongrosides
• Origins: Refined from the luo han guo fruit, which grows in China.
• Health concerns: Several studies point to beneficial health effects of chemical compounds in the extract called “mongrosides,” such as the ability to inhibit hyperglycemia and tumor growth. Little research exists on the long-term safety of mongrosides.
• Fructose Concert: 0%
• Green America says: Probably not the most dangerous sweetener available, but given the lack of research, avoid it.

Type of Sugar: High Fructose Corn Syrup

• Other names: HFCS, corn sugar
• Origins: Processed from corn that is often genetically modified.
• Health concerns: Glucose molecules have been changed to fructose to increase sweetness. 5% more fructose than sugar, which is the compound of conern that's linked to health problems. Both HFCS and sugar from sugar beets are derived from genetically modified organisms.
• Fructose Content: 55%
• Green America says: Because of the high fructose levels and potential health risks of GMOs, avoid it.

Type of Sugar: Sucralose

• Other namesL Splenda
• Origins: A chemical formed by combining sugar with chlorine, so most of it passes through the body undigested.
• Health concerns: Most studies point to Splenda as fairly safe in moderation. A 2002 study in the Journal of Mutational Research found that extraordinarily high doses were linked to DNA damage in mice. However, Splenda is one of two artificial sweeteners which the CSPI lists as safe.
• Fructose content: 0%
• Green America says: The Center for Science in the Public Interest lists as safe. However, Green America recommends avoiding most artificial, chemically processed sweeteners.

Type of Sugar: Neotame 

• Other names: none
• Origins: A complex chemical process including many of the same components as aspartame.
• Health concerns: At this time, research points to it being safe in moderate doses. Consumers don’t always have a choice as to whether to avoid neotame or not: Due to the small doses needed to achieve sweetness, it doesn’t always have to be listed on the ingredient labels, even on organic food.
• Fructose content: 0%
• Green America says: The Center for Science in the Public Interest lists as safe. However, Green America recommend avoiding it due to the lack of independent safety testing.

Type of Sugar: Aspartame

• Other names: Equal, NutraSweet
• Origins: A complex chemical process involving amino acids and bacteria.
• Health concerns: A number of rodent studies have found that it may cause cancer, including a 2007 and a 2012 study from Brigham and Women’s Hospital of lifetime soda consumption in men and women found a small link between diet soda and cancer risk and recommended “further research.”
• Fructose content: 0%
• Green America says: Although the FDA considers aspartame to be safe, a link between aspartame and cancer is considered still possible by some scientists. Avoid it.

Type of Sugar: Saccharin

• Other names: Benzoic sulfilimine, Sweet & Low
• Origins: A complex chemical process.
• Health concerns: Saccharin has been established as a cause of bladder cancer in rats, but the link between it and cancer in humans hasn’t been proven.
• Fructose Content: 0%
• Green America says: Any evidence linking saccharin to cancer is cause for concern. Avoid.

Ninety-five percent of the US sugar supply made from sugar beets comes from Monsanto’s own genetically modified (GM) beets, engineered to be resistant to the company’s Roundup herbicide, which has been linked to birth defects, brain malformations, and DNA damage.

Also, most of the high-fructose corn syrup that sweetens many US processed foods comes from GM corn.

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) themselves have been linked in several studies to increased severity of allergic reactions, irritable bowels, organ damage, and tumor growth. (For more on these studies, see the “Frankenfood” issue of the
Green American.)

In late 2012, scientists from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) discovered that a very common genetic sequence in GMOs—including sugar beets and corn—includes a potentially dangerous virus gene.

The Cauliflower Mosaic Virus (CaMV) is a sequence of seven genes used in GMOs to force the newly introduced gene to increase production of its desired proteins. But overlapping with the CaMV is part of an actual virus gene, “gene VI.” The EFSA notes that many viral genes incapacitate the body’s antipathogen defenses so they can invade. Since plant and human viruses are often interchangeable, gene VI could result in suppressed immune systems in both plants and humans.

While there are plenty of reasons to avoid sugar, GMO sugar may significantly compound its health effects. Make any sugar you eat organic and Fair Trade to avoid GMOs, pesticides, and labor abuses.

—Tracy Fernandez Rysavy

Since Green America launched our “Break Up With Your Mega-Bank” campaign in 2008, we’ve heard from thousands of Green Americans who have broken up with their mega-banks, switching their bank accounts to community development banks or credit unions. And it’s no wonder why — for decades, mega-banks like Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and others have been engaging in predatory lending, investing in fossil fuels, and deceiving consumers with hidden charges and fees—and they were a central cause of the Great Recession.

But even if you’ve switched your bank account to a local credit union, you may still be linked to mega banks through credit cards. When you open a credit card account, your fees—annual fees, balance transfer fees, and any late fees, as well as the fees that the merchants pay and any interest you pay on your card balance—go to the issuing bank. The bank, in turn, makes loans to individuals and businesses.

“When you use a mega-bank’s card, you’re bolstering all the things the bank’s loans support, from clearcutting forests to new coal-fired power plants to predatory loans,” says Fran Teplitz, Green America’s director of social investing programs. “Community development banks and credit unions provide the best opportunity for cardholders to avoid supporting bad practices and to positively impact communities.”

The good news is that you can find a credit card issued by a community development bank or credit union, which will in turn use your fees to support operations you can feel good about. Using a responsible credit card, when combined with smart practices like minimizing debt and paying off your card on time, may change your relationship with that little piece of plastic in your wallet. If you use credit cards, you can put your money to work for change every time you make a charge.

What's Wrong with Mega-Banks?

You know those credit card offers that sometimes flood your mail or inbox? Odds are they are from a mega-bank, and odds are even better that the mega-bank has a history of engaging in unethical business practices and funding problematic projects.

• Foreclosure scandals: The economy continues to suffer from the downturn initiated by the wave of dishonest mortgages issued by mega-banks, and homeowners are still struggling through the foreclosure crisis. Early this year, Bank of America, Citi, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo all agreed to pay billions of dollars to the US government to settle accusations that they improperly reviewed foreclosures and mishandled loan modifications in 2009 and 2010.

• Contributing to climate change: Banks and the companies they fund continue to engage in mountaintop-removal coal mining and to build carbonspewing coal-fired power plants, despite the threat of climate change. Dirty Money, a 2012 report released by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), BankTrack, and the Sierra Club, grades US Banks based on their connections to mountaintop-removal mining and coal-fired power plants. Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citi, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo were found to be the five worst banks when it comes to coal financing, with Bank of America leading the pack.

• Harming the Earth: Many megabanks are also underwriting projects in the tar sands of Canada; a practice that is destroying Canada’s Boreal Forest, which provides critical habitat for several species and is one of the largest intact forests remaining on Earth. According to 2010 research by RAN, Canadian and American banks continue to provide financing and underwriting to companies involved in tar sands extraction, including Canadian bank RBC, JP Morgan Chase, Citi, and Bank of America.

And, says RAN, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, and Merrill Lynch provided loan capital for China’s notorious Three Gorges Dam, an electrification project completed in 2012 that displaced over 1.4 million people, submerged toxic facilities, and destroyed critical wetlands.

• Playing politics: Many mega-banks make large political donations to parties and causes that may or may not mesh with your values. JP Morgan Chase, Citi-Group, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and US Bancorp all gave primarily to Republican candidates in 2011-2012, with some money also going to Democrats.

“Banks and other organizations that make political contributions generally [do so hoping] they have earned the right to be heard,” says Viveca Novak at the Center for Responsive Politics (CFRP). “Any industry with as many issues before Congress as banks have will do whatever it can to make its arguments to the right people.”

For detailed information on campaign donations from these institutions, visit CFRP’s opensecrets.org.

• Predatory lending: In 2009, the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act was put into place to protect consumers from some of the worst predatory lending practices once common in the credit card industry. The CARD Act protects consumers from retroactive interest rate increases, while giving them greater notice of changes in terms, more time to pay monthly bills, and more. However, mega-banks continue to work around these laws, enacting predatory policies like Wells Fargo’s policy to charge $15/month on checking accounts holding less than $7,500.

Some mega-banks have started offering new loan products with names like “Checking Account Advance” or “Direct Deposit Advance.” These products offer a customer an “advance” on the next direct deposit into their checking account, which is then deducted automatically by the bank—at a hugely infl ated interest rate—upon their customer’s direct deposit.

“Some of these loans have interests rates of 365 percent,” says Teplitz. “These are nothing more than predatory payday lending schemes by other names.”

Get a Card from Better Banks

You can direct your credit card fees and interest away from the mega-banks by using a credit card issued by a community development bank or credit union. Community development institutions use your fees to help small businesses thrive, provide loans to inventive entrepreneurs, and help homeowners manage their existing loans or purchase houses that fit in their budgets.

Visit BreakUpWithYourMegaBank.org or download our free Guide to Community Investing to find a local community development bank or credit union near you that issues a card.

Here are some of our favorite credit cards.

What about Affinity Cards?

Affinity cards promise the ability to support select nonprofits through your credit card purchases. Each time you use an affinity card, the issuing bank donates a set amount to a partner nonprofit—averaging half a penny for every dollar you charge or transfer, according to Bankrate.com. Such cards are often connected with a mega-bank; therefore, most of the fees associated with the card support that bank and any of its problematic practices. Also, APR fees tend to be higher for affinity credit cards.

Break Up Today!

Cutting up that mega-bank credit card is another step to breaking up with your mega bank and starting a healthier relationship with a local community development bank or credit union. Visit Green America’s BreakUpWithYourMegaBank.org to find a directory of community development institutions and for more tips and resources.

Updated 2022

Back in the 1980s, photographer James Balog didn’t believe in global warming. Part of the reason was that he didn’t trust the veracity of the computer models that predicted the Earth’s temperature was rising. And part was that he simply couldn’t wrap his head around the idea.

“I didn’t think that humans were capable of changing the entire physics and chemistry of this entire huge planet. It didn’t seem probable. It didn’t seem possible,” he says in the new documentary, Chasing Ice.

But Balog is also a scientist, holding a master’s degree in geomorphology from the University of Colorado, and he soon realized that the scientific evidence was too overwhelming to ignore. Then he decided to “capture climate change in photographs.”

He traveled with a crew to the Solheim Glacier in Greenland, setting up cameras to track how the glacier changed within six months, from April to October. Normally, he says, glaciers demonstrate “a little bit of advance in the winter, and a little bit of retreat in the summer.” Solheim, however, was in full retreat, shrinking several hundred feet in length and deflating by two-thirds from its full height within the six months in which Balog observed it.

“That glacier had changed so much, that for three hours, we stood there looking at the prints from six months ago and looking at the glacier, going, ‘We must be wrong. We can’t be in the right place,’” Balog tells the camera.

That moment birthed a labor of love and concern called the Extreme Ice Survey (EIS), where Balog and his crew set up 25 cameras to take hourly photographs over three years, documenting changes in some of the world’s largest glaciers—12 in Greenland, five in Iceland, five in Alaska, and two in Montana.

Some of the most stunning footage captured by the EIS is on full display in Chasing Ice. Balog and his crew slog through mud and blizzards, crash through Arctic seas on ice-breakers, roll wagons of equipment across treacherous terrain, rappel down sheer ice cliffs, and even travel by dog sled to capture images that are arrestingly beautiful and profoundly shocking.

Perhaps the most poignant scene comes in the form of EIS footage from what is now known as the largest calving event (when a giant chunk of ice breaks off a glacier) ever caught on film. When the crew set up at Llulissat Glacier in Greenland—thought to be the glacier that birthed the iceberg that sank the Titanic—they witnessed a 75 minute spectacle as an enormous ice chunk the size of Lower Manhattan started to rumble and quake and tumble into the ocean, shooting ice chunks 600 feet into the air.

Watching Chasing Ice is as close as most of us will ever come to witnessing the miracle and the horror of a dying glacier. But it’s powerful enough. Footage from the film convinced Richard Ward, a former executive with Shell Oil, to quit his job and dedicate his life to get involved in combatting the climate crisis “in a much more profound way.” And it’s getting standing ovations from climate deniers in audiences across the country.

“The public doesn’t want to hear about more statistical studies, more computer models, more projections. What they need is a believable, understandable piece of visual evidence. Something that grabs them in the gut,” says Balog.

That’s exactly what Chasing Ice does.

—Tracy Fernandez Rysavy

Chasing Ice filmmaker James Balog.

The top 200 oil, gas, and coal companies around the world hold the vast majority of the world’s remaining fossil fuel reserves. Burn these reserves, and the world is on track to catapult past the two-degree rise in world temperatures that scientists say would result in the most catastrophic effects of climate change.

The fossil-fuel divestment movement aims to change that trajectory, by encouraging powerful institutions, as well as individuals, to remove those top 200 oil, gas, and coal companies from their portfolios. Instead, it’s time to invest in clean-energy and energy-efficiency solutions that can curb the climate crisis.

Consider these three examples of clean-energy progress:

The Cloverleaf School District near Cleveland, OH, is combating climate change. Last August, all schools in the district installed energy-efficient lighting, occupancy-sensing light switches, super-efficient hot-water boilers, and other energy-efficiency upgrades, saving Ohio taxpayers $122,000 in annual energy costs.

In September, Delta Electronics Inc. announced a new project to install high-efficiency electric vehicle charging stations along major highways in Norway, one of the first countries widely to adopt electric vehicles as a climate-change solution. Simultaneously, Delta Electronics is working on a three-year contract with the US Department of Energy to research how the US might jump-start electric car adoption in this country.

And in October, in Quebec, the Innergex Renewable Energy Co. opened Stardale, its first operating solar farm in Canada. Featuring 144,000 solar photovoltaic modules, Stardale produces enough electricity to power more than 3,200 Ontario homes a year. Six future Innergex solar projects totaling 59 megawatts of power generation await approval for construction in 2013.

What do these three examples have in common? Each of the projects described above was implemented by a company held by mutual funds in which you could invest. As of this writing, mutual funds managed by Portfolio 21, the New Alternatives Fund, and Pax World Funds hold shares in Ameresco, Delta Electronics, and Innergex respectively. When you invest in companies that make it their mission to support clean energy, your responsible saving and retirement planning could be paying dividends not only for you, but for us all—in reduced climate emissions.

The Solana Generating Station under construction in Gila Bend, Arizona is a project of the Spanish company Abengoa Solar, a holding of the New Alternatives Fund portfolio. Expected to be completed in 2013, the solar farm will have a total capacity of 280 MW, enough electricity to power 70,000 homes and eliminate 475,000 tons of carbon dioxide.

“Investing in fossil fuel today seems like investing in the whaling industry in the mid 1800s—old technology, still dominant but clearly not the future,” says John Streur, president of Portfolio 21. “Our ability to power the global economy beyond the current age of fossil fuels will be the most important and difficult transformation ever made by our industrial society,”

Streur points out that global investors like Portfolio 21 are able to search the planet for the most stable and forward-thinking companies possible to fill out a responsible portfolio, while excluding US companies that are “emphasizing hydro-fracturing [fracking] and other forms of oil, gas, and coal production.”

To put your investments to work for a clean-energy future, consider the following:
 

1. Choose a fossil-free mutual fund: Three socially responsible mutual funds
exclude all companies involved in the extraction or production of fossil fuels—oil,
coal, or gas. The Green Century Balanced Fund, in addition to investing fossil-free, in 2009 became the first mutual fund publicly to release a carbon-footprint report of its holdings—which was 66 percent smaller than that of the companies making up the S&P 500.

Pax World Global Environmental Markets Fund invests pollution control, waste management, and water infrastructure, in addition to its investments in clean-energy and energy efficiency.

And Portfolio 21 maintains a company-wide policy of avoiding fossil-fuel investing.

In addition, responsible mutual funds also work for increased clean-energy development in this country. For example, last October, the Green Century Funds sent representatives to Washington, DC, to encourage Congress to renew the nation’s
Production Tax Credit (PTC) for wind energy generation, which eventually passed as part of the “fiscal cliff” negotiations.
 

2. Choose a clean-energy mutual fund: A mutual fund may focus overwhelmingly on clean-energy companies while not guaranteeing all of its holdings to be 100-percent fossil-free. For example, The New Alternatives Fund invests in some natural gas distribution, though the list of public holdings on its Web site reveals overwhelming investment in solar, wind, hydro-power, and geothermal.

And Calvert’s Global Alternative Energy Fund requires 80 percent of its holdings to be invested in clean energy. According to Calvert’s Melinda Lovins, the remaining 20 percent of the fund currently excludes fossil-fuel companies, though this can change, according to the fund manager’s preferences.
 

3. Invest in communities: Invest in local sustainable businesses, some focused on clean energy and energy efficiency, by investing in community development mutual funds or loan funds—or by opening accounts in a community development bank or credit union. Click “find options” at Green America’s breakupwithyourmegabank.org to find investments.
 

4. Build your own fossil-free portfolio: Find an asset manager or financial planner willing to follow your fossil-free guidelines and help you create an investment portfolio without the 200 worst fossil-fuel companies. Find financial planners and asset management firms willing to help you build a fossil-free portfolio at greenamerica.org/fossilfree.

In fact, Natural Investments, a socially responsible investment management firm, launched a Fossil-Fuel-Free Portfolio in January 2013. It is available to investors who
want a conservative to a moderately aggressive portfolio.

“There are both moral and financial reasons for investors to reallocate their assets from oil and gas and into clean energy,” says Elizabeth Glenshaw, a portfolio manager for Clean Yield, a sustainable asset management firm. “While clean energy companies have struggled in recent years as a result of low natural gas prices, the financial crisis, and Chinese solar oversupply, there remains a compelling investment opportunity from this long-term shift. Both the science and recent weather-related disasters make it clear that we must move our economy off of fossil fuels as fast as possible.”

The Puna Geothermal Venture (PGV) on the Big Island in Hawaii was a holding of Portfolio 21 at the time of this writing. The PGV project sells its electrical output to Hawaii Electric Light Company under three long-term power purchase agreements, with a total generating capacity of 38 megawatts.

A year ago, as then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama took jabs at each other in the media over the war in Afghanistan, the American auto industry bailout, and the national debt, one critical issue remained conspicuously absent—global warming.

Intensely frustrated over the fact that neither candidate had the courage to discuss this looming crisis, Bill McKibben, renowned writer, activist, and founder of 350.org, set out to talk to the American people about the dire state of the climate. He commissioned a bus to take himself and his staff on a cross-country tour called “Do the Math,” where he has been stepping onto stages in 21 cities—including at our San Francisco Green Festival—to lay out the numbers behind climate change in stark clarity, all of which add up to the end of life on Earth as we know it, he says, unless the world takes meaningful action, soon.

“In short, new research from financial analysts makes clear that the fossil fuel industry now has five times the carbon in its coal, oil, and gas reserves than the most conservative scientists and governments think would be safe to burn,” says McKibben, describing “the math” in a nutshell. “It’s a massive overkill—but it’s going to get dug up and sold unless we figure out how to stop them.”

A large part of the tour has been aimed at launching 350.org’s new divestment campaign, where McKibben has been asking students to pressure their colleges and universities to divest their endowments from fossil fuels. That’s right—to pull the top 200 oil, gas, and coal stocks completely out of their massive portfolios.

“We can’t stop climate change, but maybe we can keep it from getting utterly out of control,” says McKibben. “That will depend on reining in the fossil fuel industry. That’s why we’ve launched our massive divestment campaign (gofossilfree.org). We’ve got to turn fossil fuels into the new tobacco industry,” he says—one where people know its products are producing a cancer on the planet that must be curbed.

In planning the fossil-fuel divestment campaign, McKibben looked to the past, to the 1980s South Africa divestment movement. Divestment helped turn the tide in ending the brutal apartheid regime in South Africa, and McKibben and Green America hope that it will do the same for the fossil fuel industry. Signs are pointing to the fact that a massive shift in public and political will to heal the climate may be possible.

Bill McKibben speaks during the "Do the Math" tour across the US.

A Change in the Weather
To grasp the seriousness of the climate crisis, says McKibben, “you just have to do a little math.” Namely, the math behind three figures: 2 degrees, 565 gigatons, and 2, 795 gigatons.

The scientists behind almost every government in the world say that any rise in the Earths’ temperature above 2°C (3.6°F) would result in catastrophic damage worldwide. We’ve already raised the temperature 0.8°C, says McKibben.

These scientists estimate that humans can pump only 565 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and have a reasonable hope of staying below 2°C.

“Computer models calculate that even if we stopped increasing CO2 levels now, the temperature would still rise another 0.8 degrees above the 0.8 we’ve already warmed, which means that we’re already three-fourths of the way to the two-degree target,” says McKibben.

The Carbon Tracker Initiative, a team of London financial analysts and environmentalists, estimates that the world’s proven oil, coal, and gas reserves equal 2,795 gigatons of CO2, or five times the amount the world can release and stay below the two-degree threshold of safety.

What do all of those numbers mean? We’re already seeing the effects of our march towards two degrees:

• July 2012 was the hottest month in recorded US history, reported the Associated Press, and 2012 is officially the warmest year on record in the US, with no record lows reached on any 2012 date. Nine of the ten warmest years on record worldwide have occurred since 2000, according to NASA.

• American farmers suffered catastrophic crop losses as 64 percent of the contiguous US experienced “moderate to severe drought” in 2012, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

• Despite 2012 being a La Niña year—a weather phenomenon that results in cooler than-normal ocean temperatures—January through October of this year was the warmest on record for the Arctic, states a report from the United Nations. In September, Arctic sea ice melted to its lowest point ever, having shed a total of 4.57 million square miles of ice, an area larger than the continental US.

• Perhaps nothing changed the conversation around climate change more than Typhoon Bopha and Hurricane Sandy. Typhon Bopha hit the Philippines shortly after Thanksgiving 2012, killing 800 people in the archipelago. This bizarre super-storm was the southernmost typhoon in recorded history. On the other side of the world, Hurricane Sandy decimated parts of Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba, and the US East Coast. Over 250 people died in the storm, and tens of thousands more were left homeless. Sandy was the strongest Atlantic storm to ever make landfall north of Cape Hatteras, NC.

Scientists have been linking increasingly violent storms to climate change for years, but it’s Hurricane Sandy that finally changed the conversation in the US.

A post-election survey by Penn Schoen Berland found that 60 percent of Americans who voted in the 2012 presidential election agree that “global warming made Hurricane Sandy worse,” and 73 percent agreed that “global warming is affecting extreme weather events in the US.”

“That debate is mostly over,” says McKibben. “Polling data show a huge upsurge in Americans believing in climate change. Our problem is not converting the last skeptics, its convincing the people who understand the problem to join in the fight.”

Time to Divest
As climate deniers become fewer in number and farther out on the fringe, the fossil fuel divestment movement is stepping in to increase the public will to catalyze meaningful action.

In under two months, the student bodies of over 210 campuses are solidly on board, from big state schools like the University of Michigan to small liberal arts colleges like Amherst. In comparison, 155 college campuses, together with churches, pension funds, and local governments, helped end apartheid through divestment.

Why divestment? As McKibben notes, “we can’t stop global warming one pipeline, coal plant, or fracking well at a time—the numbers just don’t add up.”

It’s time to go to the root of the problem, he says, and pull the financial rug out from under the fossil fuel companies themselves: “We’ll make sure they hear us in terms they might understand, like their share price.”

“Green America is throwing our full support behind the call for fossil fuel divestment, just as we played a leading role in the South African divestment movement in the 1980s,” says Alisa Gravitz, Green America president/CEO. “To me, what’s most powerful about divesting from fossil fuels is that it focuses on moving money from the worst planet-destroying companies to the green economy—reinvesting in companies that are involved in clean energy, clean water, sustainable agriculture, and restoring the health of the planet and communities.”

The roller coaster on Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, NJ, sits in the ocean in the aftermath of Hurrican Sandy.

–Tracy Fernandez Rysavy

Since 2006, more than 600 garment workers have died in sweatshop factory fires while sewing clothing for giant fashion companies, like Gap, H&M, JCPenney, and Abercrombie & Fitch.
 

These tragic deaths could be prevented these companies would follow the lead of competitors like Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein, by agreeing to a fire-safety program that includes worker input, transparency, and binding commitments to protect workers.

Six months ago Gap, publicly promised it would sign on to a worker safety program similar to the Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein agreement. Instead, this month Gap changed course. They announced their own, corporate-controlled, fire-safety program – one that includes no legal commitments to workers, no oversight by worker organizations, and no transparency. This is yet another instance of a giant corporation telling its customers: “Trust us; we care about our workers,” without actually implementing meaningful safety programs. Gap had already corporate-controlled programs in place when 29 workers were killed at their Bangladeshi supplier in December 2010.

Join Bangladeshi and international unions and labor groups that are calling on Gap to stop the public relations games and commit to a real fire-safety program that will save the lives of the company’s sweatshop workers.

1. Minimize Gifts

“In my family, we have to draw names to become a family member’s “Secret Santa,” so we limit our purchases to one gift each—especially good for big families.” — Elizabeth O’Connell, fair labor campaigns director

2. Make a Holiday Date

“Instead of exchanging gifts with my siblings, we have a Sibling Outing! In the past this has been as simple as going out to dinner or making dinner together ourselves, going to a hockey game, or pretty much doing anything together without spending too much money. It’s been working out really well, and it’s so much fun getting together!” —Kristin Brower, development manager

3. Eco-Helpful Ideas

“My brother and sister buy me carbon offsets from CarbonFund.org every year, because my parents live on the West Coast, so usually there's at least one cross-continental flight to take. And I bought my niece ten trees grown in the Amazon Rainforest through MyReforestation.com. After ten years, they are then sold, and you get a portion of the profit from the trees back. She was one year old at the time, so she wasn't going to miss getting "stuff." Maybe when she's 11, she'll appreciate the $200 it promises to return.” —Matt Grason, foundation fundraiser

4. Make Your Own Gifts

“You can transform recycled materials into unique gifts with super-low carbon footprints.
• Have some old jewelry and wine-corks? Check out this tutorial for making gorgeous tree ornaments.
• Cut out colorful little squares of used wrapping paper and holiday cards and write a few dozen things you appreciate about your loved one. Place the notes in a mason jar and decorate with recycled ribbon or a piece of colorful cloth.” —Martha van Gelder, associate editor

5. Gifts With Less Fuss

“A cookie swap is a great way to celebrate with friends—no gifts needed—and you only have to cook one batch of cookies, but you get a whole variety to take home! The few gifts I do give, I try to wrap in bags or carriers I can use again. My favorite is to go to Goodwill and find tins. And finally, many of your favorite nonprofits make e-holiday cards you can forward to friends and family. It saves on postage, paper and reminds people what to be thankful for.” —Dana Christianson, membership marketing director

6. Go For A Stroll

“My family has been taking a walk after the big holiday meal for my entire life. Depending on where we are, it’s a stroll on a country road or a quick drive/cab ride to a neighborhood with great lights, but it always gets us out of the house and bonding over more than presents.” —Alix Davidson, Green Business Network® director

9 More Tried and True Ideas

1. Stockings Stuffed With Sentiment

“In my family, each person writes a note to every other person, saying one thing they really love about that person. We put the notes in our family stockings, and we read them on Christmas day.” — Russ Gaskin, Green America Chief Business Officer
 

2. Secondhand Gifts

" My large family didn’t want to stop exchanging gifts, but we didn’t want Christmas to break the bank either—and we realized we were really losing the true Christmas spirit with all the stress of shopping. Probably 15 or 20 years ago, we decided to limit the amount spent to $5 per person and to encourage creativity. Many of us started resale shopping at places like Goodwill—or Value Village thrift stores, which support local nonprofits by paying them to collect used items.

"My family now spends one day shopping together in November, and we have lots of fun doing it. It has become a tradition that we all look forward to, and it has caused us to become resale shopping junkies. Now we buy most of our clothes at the resale shops as well. My sister and I have had numerous compliments on our outfits, and we often say Value Village is our clothing designer!" — Green America member Nancy Madsen, Oswego, IL
 

3. Reuse and Decorate

“When I was a kid, most of my family’s holiday decorations were made by hand by my mom, who was both frugal and creative. From holiday-themed tablecloths to centerpieces to seasonal throw pillows, my mom made it all, often from found objects, scraps of fabric, and recyclables. Better still, she found ways to engage us kids in the creative process, and we loved decorating the house with our own handiwork. — Green America member Corey Colwell-Lipson, co-author with Lynn Colwell of Celebrate Green! (The Green Year, LLC, 2008).

4. Holiday Free Stores

“This holiday season, I am organizing Free Stores in meeting rooms at local libraries. It is my request, although it is not mandatory, that everyone bring one or more items to give away. This is an opportunity for people to give away their unwanted items to others instead of throwing them away or giving them to all the overloaded thrift shops.” — Green America member Kim Loftness, Seattle, WA

[Editor’s note: Free stores are places where people assemble a selection of gently used items and everything is free for the taking.]
 

5. Homemade Food, Cleverly Packaged

“Every year, I give food items I make myself. This year, I’m giving organic spiced almonds and blueberry or peach jam. I package them in canning jars with pretty spoons I find at thrift and Fair Trade stores, tied with a ribbon made of scrap material.

“I also like to invite friends over every year to help me wrap my gifts. I set out some homemade salted caramels wrapped in parchment paper, put on a movie, and they get to eat as many caramels as they can in exchange for their help! The caramels make great gifts, too, packaged in canning jars, cloth bags, or random glassware I find in thrift stores." — Alix Davidson, Green America director of standards & Seal of Approval

6. Give the Gift of Time

“The best gift is time with family and friends. Extend your hands in invitation to have coffee, lunch, dinner at your home, a walk, a glass of wine. It’s so easy—pick up the phone, text, e-mail, Facebook, or even send a handwritten note. When you’re together, stay focused on your companions and the conversation; yes, put your phone away!

“My favorite yet has been our family’s four-generation holiday-cookie-making party. There is a great deal of laughter, creativity, and tasty treats. And the only technology allowed is a camera so we can savor and share the memories.” — Green America member Denise Hopkins, Wyoming, MI
 

7. A Book of Beloved Recipes

“My family has minimized exchanging gifts with extended family. We no longer want ‘stuff,’ since my sisters and I have purged our belongings and try to live simply. Therefore, when we give gifts, we only buy things that can be used up, like Fair Trade chocolate or tea, or things that are useful, like kitchen items.

“One of my sisters usually gives gifts from thrift stores. We also make our own gifts, such as herbal teas, body and hair oil blends, or poems. Last year, I made a book out of my grandmother’s recipes for my mother and aunt, with family photos and copies of the original recipes in her handwriting.” — Shireen Karimi, Green America Director of Digital Communications
 

8. Homemade Body Care -- “I like to make homemade personal care products for gifts, such as sugar and salt scrubs or body oil with organic essential oils. One of my favorites is this recipe from Mountain Rose Herbs:

Vanilla Apricot Sugar Scrub
3/4 cup Fair Trade granulated sugar or fine sea salt
1/4 cup plus 1 Tbsp. organic apricot kernel oil (or carrier oil of your choice)
1 Tbsp. honey
1 tsp. Fair Trade vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. powdered organic vanilla beans (optional)

Combine sugar and powdered vanilla beans in a bowl. Add oil, honey, and vanilla extract. Mix well. Package in jars, and enjoy! — Dana Christiansen, Green America membership marketing director
 

9. Help a Loved One Invest in Communities

“To get more people involved with community investing, I often give gift cards from Kiva.org, which helps lift up low-income communities in need through microloans. Through Kiva, you lend to individual borrowers via local community development nonprofits. These small, low-interest loans give impoverished people a hand up by helping them go back to school or start or improve a small business. Minimum investment is $25, and it’s returned to you (or the gift card recipient) as your borrower pays his/her loan back. In fact, you can watch that happen on the Kiva website.

“GlobalGiving.org has a similar gift card, except it’s a donation to a development project, rather than an investment in an individual, and the minimum is $10.” — Tracy Fernandez Rysavy, Green America editor-in-chief

Updated November 2022
Originally published in Nov/Dec 2012 issue

Peter Zoe (not his real name) thinks about water every day. For the past five years, he’s been hauling water to his home in a water truck.

Zoe moved into his property in the California foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains 21 years ago. Five years ago, his well water dropped to such an extent that it became undrinkable, even with heavy treatment.

“We had a neighbor who moved in, built a four-million-dollar house, and drilled two new wells and had a 40,000-square-foot lawn with two huge swimming pools and a huge pond—just pumping water every day, all day,” says Zoe. “He did that for about six weeks until he ran the aquifer dry. All of us got affected. These things have a limited ability to recover.”

As Zoe’s situation demonstrates, lack of clean water can affect nearly everything we do. Drought-related US agricultural losses were valued at $12 billion this year—and climate change is expected to increase water shortages worldwide.

“Water tables are falling in several of the world’s key farming regions, including under the North China Plain, which produces nearly one third of China’s grain harvest; in the Punjab, which is India’s breadbasket; and in the US southern Great Plains, a leading grain-producing region,” notes Earth Policy Institute president Lester Brown.

And the United Nations projects that by 2050, one in four people worldwide will “live in a country affected by chronic or recurring shortages of fresh water.”

A growing number of people are using their investment power to combat the scarcity of clean, fresh water. Investing with water issues in mind can have dual benefits: your investments will provide capital to companies working on solutions, while your portfolio may benefit from the growing demand for these solutions.

Investing for Water Security

Water-related socially responsible investing (SRI) generally takes one of two approaches to push for business solutions to the world water crisis.

First, investors can use their shareholder might to engage with companies that are wasting or polluting the world’s increasingly precious water resources, pushing them to act in a manner that preserves clean water for future generations.

Second, investors can put their money into vehicles that support water solutions, such as stock in companies that provide water sanitation technology and clean drinking water infrastructure. According to the World Health Organization, when it comes to drinking water sanitation and water resource management, “every dollar invested leads to up to eight dollars in [societal] benefits.”

In addition to delivering vital social and environmental solutions, good water practices just make good business sense—a 2011 report by investment research firm EIRIS suggests that water scarcity poses a “greater threat to business than the loss of any other natural resource, including oil.”

Invest in Targeted Mutual Funds

Investing in a socially responsible mutual fund can be a great way to put your money towards water solutions. Several mutual funds, including the New Alternatives Fund, Pax World Environmental Markets Fund, and Calvert Global Water Fund include investments in water-solution companies.

The New Alternatives Fund includes substantial investments in water utilities and sewage treatment.

“We invested in these utilities because we felt they were proactive in emphasizing water conservation and access to water in the communities they served,” says Murray Rosenblith, fund director.

Calvert’s Global Water Fund targets water-solution companies, and it also includes water solutions in its other funds.

“We see tremendous opportunity in the water market, given the limited supply of water and the increasing demands,” says Julie Frieder, senior sustainability analyst with Calvert.

In the past, the fund has included stock in companies like Kurita Water Industries, which is working on technoogy to reverse groundwater contamination, and Pentair Inc, which has worked in municipal desalination.

SRI mutual funds also use their shareholder power to engage with companies on water issues. For example, Calvert introduced a resolution at Fossil in 2012, asking the watch and clothing company to report on its risks associated with water scarcity and pollution.

“Leather sourcing and tanning are both water intensive, and Fossil had zero disclosure on how its operations affect water scarcity,” says Frieder. “Our hope is that by asking these questions, we would set in motion some internal action that ends up with improved water management, operation, and disclosure.”

The Fossil resolution received a 31 percent vote, a record amount of support.
 

Work With a Financial Advisor

As a socially responsible investor, you can invest with water issues in mind—in individual stocks, mutual funds, and more. For assistance, find several financial advisors who specialize in SRI in the “Financial—Advisors & Planners” category at GreenPages.org.

Larry Dohrs of Newground Social Investments in Seattle, WA, notes that an SRI advisor can help you avoid investing in companies with records of polluting or wasting water resources.

“Companies involved in natural gas fracking are probably the ones that are at the most severe risk of being screened out due to water use,” he says. Fracking involves fracturing layers of rock deep within the Earth’s surface, a process that uses millions of gallons of water and has been tied to severe groundwater pollution in nearby communities.

A good advisor can also help you “screen in” positive investments in companies that work on water security.

If you want to make more change, says Dohrs, finding an SRI advisor who helps you engage in shareholder activism is a great way to go. Your proxy ballots from individual stocks that you hold will go to your advisor, not to you. Let your advisor know that you want him/her to pass them on to you, so you can vote with your values. If you don’t vote your proxies, your votes default to management’s recommendations.

Water-Related Community Investments

“Land use is important for protecting and maintaining our water supply, says Charlotte Kaiser of the Nature Conservancy. “How the lands surrounding our rivers and lakes are used and developed affects quantity and quality of water.”

This nonprofit’s Conservation Note helps channel capital to high-priority conservation projects around the world. In exchange for a lower-than-average rate of return, you’ll maximize the environmental impact of your investment, helping to fund projects that conserve natural areas, restore drinking water supplies, and improve lives, says Kaiser.

High-net-worth individuals can invest in a Conservation Note for a minimum of $25,000 for one, three, or five years. Investors may select a rate of return between zero and two percent.

Last year, Oikocredit, a microfinance investing organization, began a $1 million project in India to boost sanitary facilities, water purification, and other infrastructure. With as little as $20, you can invest in projects through its international loan fund: oikocreditusa.org/invest/. Investments are for one, three, or five years and earn two percent interest.

Get Your Feet Wet!

By making a shift in your investments— choosing a water-conscious mutual fund, talking to your financial advisor about your water options, and voting your proxies for water rights—you help lay the groundwork the world needs to face the coming water challenges.

“Water is [one of] the biggest resource issues,” says Zoe. “It’s just a fact of life that we are dependent on a finite amount of water.”

—Martha van Gelder

Vote Your Proxies on Water Rights

2012 was a busy year for shareholder activists, with over 25 resolutions filed on water issues alone. For example, shareholders filed resolutions at Chevron, ExxonMobil, and UltraPetroleum, asking these companies to report on the water pollution and other environmental risks of natural gas “fracking.” All three resolutions received significant backing from shareholders—21.5 percent at Chevron, 29.6 percent at Exxon, and 35.4 percent at Ultra.

“These resolutions have moved companies to take action,” says Michael Passoff,
senior strategist at As You Sow, which filed the resolutions at Exxon and Ultra. “All three companies have improved water recycling for the most part, but they still have a long way to go.”

Look for water issues to keep appearing on proxy ballots in 2013. In fact, Newground Social Investments, a Seattle-based group of financial advisors, recently submitted a resolution to Nordstrom, asking the retailer to report on plans to reduce water use and pollution in its supply chain.

Newground’s Larry Dohrs says that instead of waiting for the resolution to come to a vote, Nordstrom contacted Newground right away. The clothing retailer agreed to improve how it measures the environmental impacts of its products and to join the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, a coalition of apparel companies and nonprofits working to reduce the environmental impact of clothing and footwear.

Dohrs encourages everyone to watch for proxy ballots to arrive in the mail next spring, and to vote for social and environmental resolutions, including those on water rights. “At Newground, we feel that if we want to make change, [engaging] with management and owners is an effective way to carry things forward,” he says.

When Tim O’Neil approached fellow Mt. Tabor Neighborhood Association member Stephanie Stewart in 2009 about starting a solar buying cooperative in their suburban Portland, Oregon, community, she loved the idea.

“Literally within a couple of days, Stephanie had created a Web site and a logo,” says O’Neil.

Then O’Neil and Stewart turned to Lizzie Rubado of the nonprofit Energy Trust of Oregon to help them put together workshops on installing solar panels. Originally, the new team expected to sign up 50 or so people, and they hoped that about 10-20 would go through with the installation. After all, 2008 saw only 38 solar panel installations across the entire city of Portland, Rubado says.

To their surprise, about 300 people signed up for what would become the Solarize Portland solar buying co-op. One-hundred and twenty homeowners installed solar panels that year.

“We were blown away at how many people came to the workshops,” says Rubado. “Tim and Stephanie and I realized that this concept really jibed with people.”

Solar buying cooperatives have sprung up across the country, as neighbors interested in going solar join together to share in the pre-purchase research and negotiate group discounts. With Energy Trust’s help, the Solarize Portland co-op obtained bids from contractors, eventually choosing one that gave a very competitive price, offered a group discount, and fit with the community’s values. In addition, the co op held workshops to help members take full advantage of local, state, and federal tax incentives for solar energy. So instead of paying $6,000 to $8,000 for each kilowatt of capacity (most systems are between one and three KWs), Solarize Portland members shave 70 to 80 percent off the cost of their solar systems.

Ed Lortz (right) with One Block Off the Grid's (1BOG) CEO David Llorens in front of Lortz's home, which features nine solar panels he purchased at a discount through 1BOG.

After Solarize Portland’s success, the city government stepped in to replicate the program in other areas. In total, the Solarize programs have installed 754 residential systems in Portland to date.

In the end, not only was going solar the environmental thing to do, but it also brought the community together. The model relies upon tried-and-true concepts of community organizing, O’Neil and Rubado say, with neighbors telling neighbors about the idea and helping each other through the process. Rubado likens the co-op to a “solar support group.”

“I feel like it gave the neighborhood an identity,” O’Neil says.

A Little Help from One Block Off the Grid

Solar buying co-ops are popping up all over, but if you don’t already have one in your area, Pure Solar (formerly One Block off the Grid, 1BOG) may be able to help you start one. This company does much of the work involved in forming a solar cooperative for you—from finding interested people in your area to vetting potential solar companies to negotiating with those companies for the lowest prices on solar home systems. The majority of 1BOG customers see a savings of 15-20 percent, before tax incentives.

Ed Lortz, a resident of San Francisco, had spent a couple of years conducting his own research on switching to solar power, but he was still unsure about which solar company to purchase from. “I received about five different proposals from companies, and they were all over the map in terms of price,” he says.

Then he attended a briefing about 1BOG, and he liked what he heard. 1BOG had already pre qualified the solar contractors and pre-negotiated a discounted group price for the briefing attendees. That price was significantly lower than what Lortz had been able to find on his own, and he was so pleased, he ended up getting nine solar panels through IBOG instead of the eight panels he’d originally planned.

Currently, 1BOG has hundreds of group deals in over 40 states throughout the US. If there’s one in your area, all you have to do is sign up to enjoy a group discount on solar. If there is not a 1BOG deal in your city, the company can set one up. 1BOG representatives will keep you updated on how close your area is to having a group deal. While 1BOG will assemble your group, it doesn’t hurt to spread the word to your neighbors. 1BOG also can help you hold a meeting to get people interested.

Once your area reaches a critical mass of around 100 potential participants, 1BOG will begin vetting and negotiating with solar installers. The more people who sign up for the program, the bigger and better the terms 1BOG can negotiate.

“Before we choose an installation company, we’ll meet with them, view their facility, and take a look at some of their work to make sure they are the best for the job,” says CEO David Llorens. “We want every customer to be satisfied.”

Once 1BOG chooses a company, it provides personal consultations to educate members about the solar systems, including how they will operate and whether customers will receive a credit on their energy bill if their panels produce more energy than they use.

In addition, 1BOG’s experts will help customers unearth all available federal, state, and local tax incentives. For Ed Lortz’s nine-panel, 1.8 kw system, the original price with tax was $17,244 after the group discount. However, after taking advantage of tax incentives, his total out-of-pocket cost was just $3,600.

In addition, Lortz sees an average of $40 per month in savings during the summer on his energy bill, and $15 in monthly savings during the winter. This past May also brought Lortz more savings, as California just passed a net-metering law requiring utilities to pay for excess energy generated by solar panels.

“I am unbelievably pleased,” says Lortz, who recommends 1BOG to anybody who asks him about going solar. 1BOG’s program is open to all who own a home. Not all homes are ideally suited for solar panels, but 1BOG will take care of your home evaluation for free. It also offers solar leases.

“I liked the people at 1BOG,” Lortz said. “I didn’t feel any pressure, and they give you a good product. If you can swing it, now is the time to do it.

Originally published in our 2011 magazine issue, Growing Community Solar.

• Regenerative, Organic Agriculture: Cool the Climate, Feed the World
Can organic farming feed the world and curb the climate crisis? The nonprofit Rodale Institute, PA, has one of the longest-running field trials showing that it can.

• INFOGRAPHIC: Living Soil vs. Dead Dirt
95% of our food is grown in soil. But one-third of the world’s soils have become degraded—turning them from living soil to degraded dirt.

• Upcycled Gifts for the Holidays
Looking for thoughtful green gift ideas for the holidays but worried about holiday-related resource use? Iif you want to find gifts that maximize recycling/upcycling and minimize waste, consider the green companies that made it into the list of top ten finalists for the Summer 2015 round of Green America’s People & Planet Award.

• Hasbro and Disney: Protect Toy Workers!
Toy companies like Hasbro and Disney that do business in China are hiding a dark secret—millions of workers toil in the Chinese factories in their supply chains under cruel, backbreaking conditions.

Dr. Vandana Shiva on how preserving healthy soil is key to curbing climate change, feeding the world, and lifting up the poor.
Read "Living Soil"

Creating clothes from field to factory can result in toxic chemicals being unleashed on workers, on the planet, and even on you and your family. Here’s how you can avoid fashion disasters and start your search for less toxic clothing
 

If you think you don’t have enough money to become a socially responsible investor, think again—for the health of our planet.
Read "Investing in Change" »

• The 5 Coolest Calculators for Financial Wellness
From Retirement, to saving for a child's education, to mortgages, find the calculators you need.

• Invest For Your Future and a Better World
Three strategies to help your money work for you and for social and environmental responsibility.

• 5 Green Ways to Save More Than $8,000 a Year
Part of making a difference with your money is ensuring that you save enough to put it into the saving and investing vehicles that can do the most good.

• Green Your Intimate Moments
You may have thought about greening your bedroom, but have you thought about greening what goes on in your bedroom?

• WEB EXCLUSIVE: NY Cracks Down on Toxic Nail Salons
On top of forced overtime, wage theft, and poverty-level wages, the workers are routinely exposed to toxic chemicals linked to skin and respiratory conditions, reproductive harm, and cancer. Read more »

21st century sweatshops produce goods for unsuspecting consumers. Here are 6 common things made with slave labor. Read "A World of Hurt"

This issue of the Green American marks our 100th issue. While we’ve had some terrific victories over the years since we published our first issue (then called Building Economic Alternatives) in 1985, we’ve been seeing more rapid results in recent years to our action campaigns, most markedly in 2014, where our campaigns enjoyed their most impactful year yet. Read "7 Green Reasons to Celebrate" »

Americans eat too much red meat—with tremendous impacts on our health, our environment, and the climate crisis. It’s time to tell everyone you know to eat less beef—or none at all. Read "Don't Have A Cow"

Workers who make smartphones and other electronics overseas are being poisoned by the toxins used inside supplier factories. You can end this. Read "Toxic Gadgets."

Whether it's GMOs, pesticides, or other experiments that affect our health, why don't we require corporations to wait for science to prove safety?

Aren't we better safe than sorry? Read "GMO's & the Case for Precaution" »

"Green" practices have spread from a few innovators to the business mainstream. Major shifts toward sustainability are not only possible -- they're happening. Are we reaching a "green-economy tipping point"?
 

You want to eat organic, buy what you need green and Fair Trade, and support renewable energy, but you worry that green living can be expensive.

Our latest Green American gives you tips and resources for living green on a budget.
 

Wage theft, sweatshop conditions, and slave labor happen in the US, especially to immigrant workers. But they aren't passive victims of exploitation, they're leading the movement for fair labor conditions for all.
 

You no doubt know about sugar's contribution to obesity and diabetes -- but new research tells the increasingly alarming story about how sugar is at the root of many major illnesses, from Alzheimer's to cancer to heart disease and stroke.

Researching this issue inspired our editorial team to detox from sugar. To join with us in giving sugar the boot, check out our "how to" entries at blog.greenamerica.org.
 

In the 1980s, the financial industry said that divesting from companies doing business in South Africa was unreasonable. But people of conscience who didn't want to profit from oppression divested anyway.

Fast forward to 2013. We have another issue of global impact where government is failing to lead, and where people of conscience may choose to divest -- the climate crisis.
 

Eco-friendly holiday celebrations are a great excuse to take another green stop in your life (think New Year's Resolutions) and also an excellent gateway to enticing your friends into greening their lives.

May your celebrations be filled with love, laughter, and all things green. Here's to less tinsel and more joy!

There’s a new generation of cooperatives taking action on serious problems in our economy.

This issue shows you how people are
cooperating to revitalize cities, create
affordable housing, scale up organic food
and clean transportation, and more. Plus,
7 DIY cooperative models for you to try at home.

In 2011, US clothing sales totaled more than $329 billion. That's 329 billion reasons to stop buying conventional clothing and turn to green fashion -- whether you take to the sewing machine to update the clothes you already have, buy used, organize clothing swaps, or choose from the beautiful collections of fashion-forward green companies.

Our latest Green American shows you more about what's at stake with your clothing choices, and points you toward the green businessess that are taking green fashion mainstream. 

Genetically modified foods are bad for our health, the environment, and farmers worldwide. In the US, more than 94 percent of the soy crop, 95 percent of the sugar-beet crop, and 88 percent of the corn crop are genetically modified.

Because of the prevalence of soy, corn, and sugar in processed foods, more than 30,000 GM food products sit on US grocery shelves unlabeled. This issue lays out the case against GMOs, and shows you how to keep them off your plate.

Not all plastic is bad. Plastics have made lifesaving surgical and water filtration equipment possible, and they've been molded into integral components for solar panels, personal computers, and other devices that make our lives possible.

But our use of "stupid plastic" (single-use items destined for our landfills) is out of control. Follow along on our blog as our editors challenge themselves to stop using "stupid plastic," and check out the Green American for more on the plastics problem -- and how to solve it.