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We'll describe six popular composters and help you determine which one is the right one for you.

Composting your organic waste at home is a “win-win-win” situation. You win by turning your kitchen scraps and yard waste into a great fertilizer for your garden. Your pocketbook wins, because that fertilizer is free. And most importantly, the planet wins because your organic waste doesn’t get transported to a landfill, where it will decompose anaerobically and release methane, a flammable greenhouse gas that’s 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Composting allows your organic waste to decompose with the help of oxygen-breathing aerobic microbes. Though aerobic decomposition produces some CO2, it still releases fewer greenhouse gas emissions than landfilling, even when methane capture systems are in place, says composting consultant Brian Jerose, co-owner of Waste Not Resource Solutions.

Perhaps one of the biggest reasons why many people don’t start composting is that they actually don’t know how to start. It’s hard to tell which of the many available compost bins is best for your household. Here’s a rundown on the different types, so you can begin composting today.

A Low-Maintenance Compost Pile

Good for: People who want something simple, don’t need to use the fertilizer quickly, and have space in their yard; average to large households with yard waste.

A compost pile is as easy as its name—you simply throw your organic yard and kitchen waste into a pile in your yard and let it decompose, no turning required. It might take anywhere from six months to two years, but eventually, all of that waste will turn into compost. This method won’t work for households that don’t generate yard waste, as a pile of only green waste will attract pests. To make your pile more pleasing to the eye, you can enclose it on three sides (so you don’t have to pole vault into it to collect the compost) with fencing, chicken wire, or concrete blocks.

Compost piles are great for households of any size, because they can be as small or large as you need them to be. About once a year, you can dig out the finished compost from the bottom.

Holding Bins

Good for: People who want something low-maintenance but more attractive than a pile; those who want to compost in cold weather; average to large households with yard waste.

Maybe the low-maintenance aspect of a compost pile appeals to you, but you don’t want an open heap of organic waste in your yard. A simple holding bin might be just the thing for you.

You can make your own holding bin out of wood, or you can purchase ready-made plastic compost bins. Holding bins come in all sizes, with the largest able to hold 75 gallons or more. Holding bins offer some flexibility in terms of how closely you manage your compost—you can turn your compost for quicker results, but waste will also decompose on its own inside. Since these bins tend to be large, you shouldn’t have overflow problems. Most holding bins have a small door at the bottom so you can access the finished compost.

If your bin has insulated sides, your compost may keep cooking even in winter, though the process will be slower. Stacking straw bales along the sides and putting it in the sun can help, too.

Tumbling Barrel Composters

Good for: People who want results quickly and don’t mind composting in batches with a careful mix of brown and green waste; small to average households with yard waste.

These are barrel-shaped containers that turn with a hand-crank, so you don’t have to aerate your compost with a fork or shovel. A couple good cranks a day will do the trick.
Because of their relatively small size, you have to pay a little more attention to getting the balance between brown and green waste right for optimal results. And since the barrels only hold so much waste, you’ll need to wait for one batch of compost to finish before you can start adding more organic waste. But this type of composter works relatively quickly. Some people even have two, to ensure they’ll always have space for organic waste.

Multi-tiered Composters

Good for: People who want something low-maintenance, but faster than a pile or bin; average to large households with yard waste.

Multi-tiered composters have a series of stacked boxes with removable panels that allow the organic waste to progress toward the bottom of the unit throughout the decomposition cycle. Finished compost comes out of a door in the very bottom.

Since the boxes are smaller and more contained than a large pile or holding bin, your compost will “cook” faster in a multi-tiered bin. And since collectively, the stacked boxes are often comparable in size to a large holding bin, you can also compost a lot of waste.

Worm Composters

Good for: People who want to compost indoors; apartment dwellers; small households that don’t generate yard waste.

For everyone who has wanted to compost but feels s/he can’t because of lack of yard space, a five- or ten-gallon bucket and a packet of red worms are the answer to your waste woes. Worm composting, or vermicomposting, is one of the fastest composting methods—each pound of worms will process half a pound of food scraps daily. And it’s so compact, you can put your bin under your kitchen sink. Since red worms are so efficient, you don’t need to aerate your compost, and your bin won’t smell or attract pests.

The worms won’t process brown waste, meat, dairy, or fattening foods. Find our how-to article on vermicomposting here.

The Green Cone

Good for: People who just want to dump their kitchen waste and be done with it; those who want to compost fish or meat; households that don’t generate yard waste.

The Green Cone system will handle up to two pounds of kitchen waste daily—and that includes meat, fish, and dairy products—without intervention from you. It will not compost brown waste.

The system looks like a green traffic cone sitting on top of a basket. You bury the basket in your yard, and the cone sticks up out of the ground. You put your green waste together with an “accelerator powder,” made up of cereal and helpful bacteria, into a hole in the top. The cone’s patented design circulates air throughout, keeping your compost aerated, and it uses solar heat to speed up the composting process.

According to Solarcone Inc., one Green Cone manufacturer, most of the waste turns into water—and the CO2 that all decomposition produces. Every few years, you’ll need to dig a small amount of residue out of the bottom, which can be added to your garden.

Composting Services

Good for: People who just want to dump food and other compostable wastes;households that don’t generate much yard waste; people who live in cities; people who don't mind a monthly fee.

In cities all over the country, composting services are popping up. These services let people pay a monthly fee for their household compost to be picked up each week. This often means you fill up a 5-gallon bucket or a larger curbside bin with your food waste or compostable household waste and iteach week. These services are generally for city-dwellers so services may provide a compostable lining, screw-top lid and other similar pest-deterring measures. Search "compost pickup sevice (city)" to see what options might be available where you are.

Give Composting a Try

Yard and food waste make up 25 percent of the waste destined for municipal landfills, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. Pick the right composter for you, and you can save money while doing your part for the Earth.

Every day, incarcerated and detained people in both US government and private prisons perform labor during their sentences, with few exceptions. Many provide services for the prison itself, such as cooking, laundry, and maintenance tasks, while others make goods or provide services for the government or private companies. The prisoners and organizations that advocate on their behalf say they’re being forced to work in intolerable conditions for virtually zero pay.

While there may be some benefits for prisoners who work while incarcerated, the prison system strips many of these workers of their fundamental rights. 

Header photo caption: Prisoners from the Jim Ferguson Unit, a state-owned prison in Midway, TX, bring in the harvest from the prison’s cotton fields. A former slave plantation, the Ferguson Unit is a maximum-security prison and a working farm. Andrew Lichtenstein / Getty Images

A History of Exploiting Prisoners

The use of prisoner labor has roots that go back to the system of slavery in the US. Passed three years after the 1862 Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in Confederate states after the Civil War, the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution outlawed any continuance of slavery, “except for punishment of a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”

The amendment created an incentive for the South to criminalize more people to replace the now-freed slaves on whose backs their entire economy once rested, say experts. Their main target: recently emancipated African Americans. 

The exploitation and dehumanization of antebellum slaves and modern-day prison workers aren’t that far apart, says Ashley Ragus, a member of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), a subgroup of the Industrial Workers of the World, one of the only labor unions fighting for incarcerated worker rights. 

“Imprisonment is total confinement, surveillance, loss of true physical autonomy, and lack of adequate food, shelter, and education within a completely toxic environment,” says Ragus, who was motivated to become involved in IWOC in part because she had an incarcerated parent. Ragus also notes, “slavery is not just about labor—it’s the total dehumanization and social isolation of an entire class of people.”  That kind of dehumanization continues to happen today to prison workers, she says. 

Cutting Costs with Prison Labor

In the US, many prisoners are assigned to labor programs run by either the local, state, or federal government, or by a private prison operator, the two largest being Core Civic (once known as Corrections Corporations of America) and GEO Group. Private prison operators are for-profit companies that receive government contracts to run prisons.

Public prisons, private prisons, and private companies lean on inmate labor as a cost-saving measure. Prisoners do not have the right to a minimum wage. The average wage for incarcerated workers is 86 cents an hour, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, and some prisons forgo a wage altogether.  

In federal prisons, incarcerated workers often produce goods including clothing, military garb, foods, electronics, and office furniture, or provide services like call-center staffing and warehousing through the UNICOR federal prison labor program, under the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Workers in private prisons often provide specialized industry services including electrical wiring, masonry, carpentry, and plumbing, which are hired out to other companies. But the bulk of the work inmates do in both types of prisons is in maintaining the prison itself, working as janitors and cooks, or doing laundry.

In 1979, Congress implemented the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification program (PIECP), which allows local and state prisoners to participate in work programs in the private sector. For the businesses involved in PIECP, the competitively cheap cost of inmate labor provides an enticing draw. Companies like Walmart, Victoria’s Secret, and Whole Foods have been outed by activists in recent years for ties to prison labor, which produces goods at a much lower rate than minimum-wage workers earn. 

Workers Without Rights

Incarcerated workers do not possess the same rights as non-incarcerated employees—and often suffer for it, according to nonprofits like the Prison Policy Initiative and Enlace. For example, prisoners do not have the right to unionize. Incarcerated workers don’t receive sick leave, nor do they have a human resources department to address concerns. 

Their working and overall conditions often leave a lot to be desired, as well. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2018, prisoners at eight Florida state prisons, operated by the Florida Department of Corrections, participated in a work stoppage known as Operation PUSH, in which incarcerated workers, who provide cooking, cleaning, and maintenance services in Florida prisons, protested longstanding grievances. Specifically, the prisoners called for payment for their labor, “rather than the current slave arrangement,” where they only receive a small amount of time deducted from their sentences. They also called for an end to “outrageous canteen prices,” noting that a $4 case of soup costs $17 in the canteen, a fact made more poignant when contrasted with their lack of earnings. 

“This is highway robbery without a gun. It’s not just us that they’re taking from. It’s our families who struggle to make ends meet and send us money—they are the real victims that the state of Florida is taking advantage of,” a group of prisoners said in a statement released by IWOC. “By sitting down and doing nothing, each institution will have the responsibility of feeding, cleaning, and all the maintenance. Do the math.”

The prisoners also called for an end to overcrowding and prison officer brutality, as well as to executions on death row. They also drew attention to the environmental conditions Florida prisoners face, “including extreme temperatures, mold, contaminated water, and being placed next to toxic sites such as landfills, military bases, and phosphate mines.”

Later in January, IWOC led a telephone and #OperationPUSH social media campaign in support of the strike, pressuring the Florida Department of Corrections to release an inmate pegged as an Operation PUSH leader from a freezing cell where he was being held in solitary confinement.

In fact, too often, incarcerated workers are forced to work under looming threats of solitary confinement and lost good behavior time, according to the Global Research Centre.

In addition, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which mandates that employers provide a workplace free from recognized hazards, does not cover federal and state prisoners. In 2010, a four-year investigation led by the Justice Department Inspector General found that incarcerated workers at ten federal prisons were exposed to toxic lead and cadmium while processing electronic waste. The New York Times reported that the investigation was prompted by complaints that the work made prisoners sick. 

Conditions like these, compounded with the fact that almost 600 US federal and state prisons are located within three miles of EPA Superfund Sites, make prisons dangerous places to work.

While prison labor programs can provide inmates with job skills and training, IWOC’s Ashley Ragus says, “It’s the low pay, exorbitant commissary pricing, forced restitution withholdings from prisoner paychecks, and arbitrary punitive measures within the prisons that make prison labor a problem.”

Private Prisons: Worst of All?

Private prisons hold eight percent of the US imprisoned population. To win contracts from the government, private prison companies offer their services for a cheaper price than what the government would pay to operate their own facilities. The inmates and staff who work in private prisons pay the biggest price, as cheaper costs usually means poorer safety and health standards. 

A 2016 report from the Justice Department found that private prisons have more safety and security incidents per capita than federal institutions. 

Unlike government prisons, private prisons are driven to increase profits, which gives them a perverse economic incentive to criminalize and incarcerate people, says Jamie Trinkle, research coordinator for Enlace.  

“Private prisons’ entire business model is based on the detention and incarceration and capture of Black and Brown people, and they lobby heavily to promote policies that encourage incarceration,” says Trinkle. 

She notes that cutting corners to save on operating costs also results in poor medical and psychological care for prisoners, human-rights abuses such as overcrowding or poor food and living conditions, and a lack of services that enable incarcerated people to re-enter society.

Undocumented Targets

Private prisons are profiting from the push under the Trump administration to incarcerate increasing numbers of undocumented immigrants. 

In 2010, Arizona passed SB 1070, a law that allowed police to ask anyone whom they suspected was an undocumented immigrant to provide proof of their legal status. SB 1070 targeted hundreds of Latin Americans in Arizona, and those who could not provide documentation were sent to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center—many operated by Core Civic.

“Core Civic ... was involved in the lobbying, promoting, and actual passage of Arizona’s SB 1070 law,” says Trinkle. “Core Civic already had many contracts with ICE for immigrant detention, so [the law] was a way to funnel more people directly into private prisons.”

Likewise, President Trump’s tough immigration policies are expected to increase the number of undocumented immigrants in the US—and thereby, increase the number of people in ICE-contracted detention facilities. 

For example, ICE under the Trump administration has been arresting and locking up those seeking asylum for prolonged periods, a violation of US and international law. In March, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit “to challenge the Trump administration’s arbitrary and illegal incarceration of thousands of asylum seekers who fled persecution, torture, or death in their countries of origin.”

Those in immigration detention centers aren’t immune to worker exploitation. Detained immigrants at an ICE detention facility in Aurora, CO, filed a lawsuit in February against the GEO Group for forcing detainees to clean the facility for free and throwing those who refused in solitary confinement, according to the American Bar Association. Another lawsuit alleged that GEO Group paid some detainees only $1 a day for cooking, laundering, and cleaning jobs.

In 2014, detained workers at the GEO Group-run Tacoma Northwest Detention Center organized a hunger strike to protest their labor conditions. 

“They were being forced to work for a dollar a day or for a candy bar, and if they didn’t work, they were put in solitary confinement,” says Trinkle. 

Divest, Break Up, and Vote

Activists are combating the unfair situation of prison workers through their investments. 

Enlace and other groups are calling for divestment from GEO Group, Core Civic, and the banks that fund them. A 2016 report from In the Public Interest found that six mega-banks are providing the bulk of financing to Core Civic and GEO Group: Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, BNP Paribas, SunTrust, and US Bancorp.

University students have racked up a couple of high-profile wins on this front. The entire University of California (UC) system divested $30 million from private prisons in 2015 in response to campaigns by the Afrikan Black Coalition, a racial-justice student group. The UC system also terminated more than $470 million in contracts with Wells Fargo over its financing of Core Civic in 2017. 

Perhaps the most beneficial part of prison divestment is being able to reinvest in communities, says Trinkle.

In 2016, Black students at California State University–Los Angeles got their school to divest from private prisons, and they also got the system to reinvest in Black students. 

“The Black Student Union there won prison divestment and immediately also got the promise of investment in retention and recruitment of Black scholars, a housing unit, as well as money for the multicultural center and psychological services for Black students,” says Trinkle. “That’s what we need to see, divestment as well as ties to concrete reinvestment in communities that are the most harmed by criminalization.”

Those wishing to divest from companies with prison labor in their supply chains will find it’s not always easy to tell which companies are involved. Even the research team at NorthStar Asset Management was shocked to discover via news reports that the socially responsible investments it made on behalf of clients included prison labor. 

“We pride ourselves on in-depth research to screen out a variety of exploitive companies and industries, yet when news broke that Whole Foods (a company in our portfolio at the time) had sourced products from suppliers using prison labor, we knew we needed to try to map exactly where prison labor might show up in the supply chains of our investee companies,” says NorthStar’s director of shareholder activism and engagement, Mari Schwartzer. 

Schwartzer notes that many companies do not have a clear picture of how they may be linked to inmate labor through suppliers, leaving them vulnerable to “an oncoming storm of bad press,” as happened with Whole Foods. 

Shortly after the news of the company’s ties to prison labor broke in 2015, consumers called for a boycott, and Whole Foods soon announced it would end its partnership with Colorado Correctional Industries. 

Schwartzer says that the company missed an opportunity to engage with suppliers on this issue: “We believe that Whole Foods could have advocated for improvements in the wages, working conditions, and benefits (such as job placement upon release) of the inmates.”

The Whole Foods news launched NorthStar into an investigation of the presence of prison labor in company supply chains. The resulting report, Prison Labor in the United States: An Investor Perspective, provides advice to help institutional investors avoid unwittingly supporting businesses using prison laborers. For individuals, the report recommends getting involved in shareholder advocacy. 

NorthStar filed one of the first shareholder proposals around prison labor this spring, asking Costco to “identify sources of prison labor in its supply chain and create a set of supplier guidelines for the use of prison labor.” The proposal received 4.8 percent of the shareholder vote, which Schwartzer calls “encouraging,” as it meets the threshold needed for NorthStar to refile the resolution next year.

NorthStar also filed a similar resolution at TJX, which owns TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and Home Goods. The TJX vote will occur on June 5th, as this issue of the Green American goes out to our members.

Schwartzer says NorthStar will continue to engage companies on prison labor: “Ethically, we are deeply concerned” about this issue, she says. From a financial perspective, she notes that “brands like Walmart, Victoria’s Secret, and Whole Foods have seen backlash and brand-name harm due to their connections to prison labor, and the negative associations can linger long-term.” 

Stop prisoner exploitation

The following action steps can help pressure prisons to stop exploiting incarcerated workers: 

• Divest: Enlace is calling for divestment from GEO Group and Core Civic private-prison companies, as well as the six mega-banks that fund them: Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, BNP Paribas, SunTrust, and US Bancorp.
• Break up with your mega-bank: Even if you don’t bank with one of the six banks, above, breaking up with your mega-bank and moving your money to a community development bank or credit union helps build communities. 
• Vote: Look for shareholder resolutions on prison labor in 2019, and vote in support of them if you hold stock in the targeted companies. Also, ask political candidates about their stands on prison labor as you prepare to vote in the midterm elections. 

Eco-friendly, green cleaners are a healthy alternative to have in your home. You likely have most of the ingredients in your cupboards already!

You’ll save money by not buying an array of expensive products, each targeted to clean only one type of surface in your home. And, in most cases, green cleaners work just as well as their commercial counterparts.

Perhaps the most compelling reason to use green cleaners is to keep potent toxins out of your home. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) notes that many household cleaners contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as formaldehyde and harsh acids.

“Some [VOCs] can cause cancer in animals; some are suspected or known to cause cancer in humans,” the agency says. Most modern chemical cleaners are, quite simply, overkill, notes the nonprofit Healthy Child Healthy World.

Just ten basic ingredients that are probably already in your home will tackle most cleaning jobs. Your home will sparkle, germs will still run in fear from your sponges and rags, and your indoor air will be better than ever.

10 Eco-Friendly Green Cleaners

Stock your cupboards with these ten products, and you can clean just about anything:

1. White vinegar: An antifungal that also kills germs and bacteria.
2. Baking soda: Eliminates odors and works as a gentle scouring powder.
3. Borax: This is the common name for the natural mineral compound sodium borate, eliminates odors, removes dirt, and acts as an antifungal and possible disinfectant. Use with care around children and pets, as it can be toxic if swallowed.
4. Hydrogen peroxide (3% concentration): A great nontoxic bleach and stain remover, as well as a proven disinfectant.
5. Club soda (fresh): A stain remover and polisher.
6. Lemon juice: A pleasant-smelling nontoxic bleach, grease-cutter, and stain remover.
7. Liquid castile soap: An all-purpose cleaner, grease-cutter, and disinfectant. “Castile” means the soap is vegetable-based, not animal-fat-based.
8. Corn meal: Great at absorbing carpet spills.
9. Olive oil: Makes a wonderful furniture polish.
10. Pure essential oils: Adding all-natural, organic essential oils to your cleaning concoctions can add wonderful scents to your housekeeping endeavors. Some—such as lavender, peppermint, eucalyptus, and lemongrass—also may have antibacterial, anti-fungal, or insect-repelling properties. Remember to use care with essential oils, as they can cause harmful reactions when ingested or put directly on the skin. Some are considered dangerous for pregnant women, as well as for dogs and cats. If you're unsure about an oil, consult a reliable source on its proper usage.

The Eco-Friendly Cleaners at Work

Now that you know what products you need, grab a few clean, empty spray bottles; some rags and sponges; and a bucket of water, and you’re ready to clean your house the green way.

• All-purpose cleaners: An all-purpose cleaner is just that—something you can use for just about every surface. Home Enlightenment author Annie B. Bond offers this recipe for an all-purpose spray cleaner: Put ½ tsp. washing soda and a dab of liquid soap (castile soap works) into a spray bottle with 2 cups very hot tap water. Shake to dissolve. The spray will keep indefinitely. For an even simpler solution, try cleaning with two cups of club soda in a spray bottle.
• Hard floor cleaner: Author and Care2.com healthy living editor Annie B. Bond recommends this solution for all hard floors (except when directed by the manufacturer to avoid even mild detergents): Combine 1/4 liquid castile soap, up to 1/2 cup white vinegar or lemon juice, and 2 gallons of warm water in a large plastic bucket. Use with a mop or sponge.
• Carpet cleaner: To clean and disinfect your carpet, try blending 1/2 cup baking soda, 1 cup borax, and 1 cup cornmeal. Sprinkle mixture over rug and rub with a cloth. Be sure to sprinkle, rather than dump, the mixture on your carpet. Large clumps of cornmeal could clog your vacuum. Let rest for several hours or overnight, then vacuum. To remove stains from your carpet, Logan advises mixing 1/4 cup liquid castile soap and 1/3 cup water in a blender until foamy. Spread the mixture on the carpet and let sit for a few minutes, then scrub the stain with a brush or clean rag. Also, club soda will remove many acidic stains, like coffee, wine, or juice. To deal with big carpet spills, pour cornmeal on the spill, wait 15 minutes, then vacuum.
• Glass cleaner: To make your windows shine, you can simply use club soda in a spray bottle. Add 1 tsp. of lemon juice to increase your window cleaner’s degreasing power. Logan recommends using a terry-cloth cotton rag for best results.
• Bathroom surface cleaners: You can use the all-purpose cleaners recommended above or, for even simpler bathroom cleaning, use baking soda or borax as a scouring powder. For a softer scrub, Bond says to combine 1/2 cup baking soda with enough liquid soap to achieve a frosting-like consistency. You may want to add 5-10 drops of an essential oil for fragrance. Club soda works wonders on plumbing fixtures.
• Toilet cleaner: Sprinkle baking soda or borax, or pour white vinegar into the toilet, and let sit for a few minutes. Scrub with a good toilet brush.
• Oven cleaner: Cover the oven floor with baking soda, spray with water until very damp, and let set overnight. Spray with water every few hours before you go to bed to keep damp. In the morning, clean out the baking soda, and the stuck-on gunk will be loosened and ready to scrub off.
• Mold remover: Bond recommends combining 1/2 cup hydrogen peroxide or white vinegar with 1 cup water. Spray on mold and do not rinse. She also recommends treating mold with a spray mixture of 2 tsp. tea tree oil and 2 cups water.
• Wood polish: To polish wood furniture, dab olive oil onto a soft cloth and rub.

The Germ Concern

You may be worried about do-it-yourself green cleaners not being able to kill germs effectively. Researchers at Tufts New England Medical Center, on the other hand, worry that we’re killing too many microorganisms, saying that disinfectants found in household cleaners may contribute to drug resistant bacteria. Healthy Child Healthy World says that ordinary soap and water do the job well enough to keep our families safe, barring someone with a seriously compromised immune system.

For most of us, the best way to prevent the spread of harmful microorganisms is to wash our hands frequently. Also, disinfect any sponges you’re using weekly by boiling them in water for three minutes and then microwaving them for a minute or two. Launder dish rags every week.

If you prefer over-the-counter products, look for green cleaners made with natural ingredients. Check your local health food store, or consult the Green Business Network directory for screened and certified green cleaning products.

Every few years, the Pew Research Center asks about 1,000 Americans what they think about various appliances. In 2006, 83 percent of respondents said a clothes dryer was a necessity.

Since then, something striking has happened—the people that Pew surveys have begun to think differently about energy- intensive appliances: in 2010, when the survey was re-done, only 59 percent of people found a clothes dryer to be a necessity.

About a third of Americans have figured out that it takes a huge commitment of energy to run a dryer—all to do something that our great-grandparents knew that the air, given a little more time, could do for free. In many other countries, this wisdom is more widely shared, and drying clothes on a line or a rack is the norm. Whereas 75 percent of households in the US own a clothes dryer, for example, only about half of households in Europe own one, according to the Netherlands Statistical Office.

Why ditch your clothes dryer?

• Save energy and curb emissions
  In many households, the dryer is the third-most energy-hungry appliance, after the refrigerator and washer. Air-drying your clothes can reduce the average household’s carbon footprint by a whopping 2,400 pounds a year.
• Save Money
  Not many people can afford to spend any more than necessary on energy bills, and many households pay more than $100 a year on the electricity claimed by their dryer. Most households will likely have less than a year of payback time for purchases that enable air drying.
• Save time
  Anyone who’s had to wait around the laundromat or delay an errand to fold clothes right when the dryer finished will appreciate the flexibility of air-drying clothes. While it may take longer for clothing to get dry, you don’t have to be present to fold them to prevent wrinkles. You can hang your laundry on the rack or line and go about your day, then come back to fold whenever you get around to it.
• Save your clothes
  The lint you find in your dryer is evidence of your wardrobe literally wearing away. When you stop using your dryer, you’re conserving your favorite clothes longer and saving the cost of replacing them before their time.
• It’s safer
  It eliminates the risk that your dryer could ever start a dangerous fire. According to a report by FEMA, clothes dryer vents can become clogged with lint, causing more than 15,000 house fires every year.

Air-Drying Clothing Outdoors

A natural option is to hang clothes out to dry outside, on a line or a rack. A clothesline enables you to spend some of your laundry time enjoying the outdoors, your clothes smell “sunny” when they come back in, and drying in the sunshine helps to naturally disinfect clothes, and to gently bleach whites.

You can purchase a variety of racks and lines for outdoor air-drying of clothes. Some fold out into a rotary umbrella shape; others stretch multiple lines between two “T” posts. The innovative Cord-O Clip is a time-saving clothesline with built-in clips that close automatically when people place clothes on the line and push, and open automatically as the line is pulled around once the clothes are dry. One Green America member gets her active family’s clothes—including cloth diapers for two young children—on or off the line in less than ten minutes with this device.

Air-Drying Clothing Indoors

If you have pollen allergies, don’t have an outdoor space for hanging up clothes to dry, or expect the weather in your area will be too rainy or cold, forego the outdoor approach and use an indoor drying rack instead.

Many online retail stores offer racks and other accessories for air-drying your clothes indoors. Many of these creative items store flat or retract to save space when not in use. Real Goods, for example, offers a pine drying rack made in Maine (Editor's Note 01/2020: No longer available) that can handle a full load of laundry, with 56 feet of drying space, and it folds flat between uses. Other drying racks perch over a bathtub, in a shower, or lower from the ceiling to which they’re bolted.

Large items like sheets and towels can dry draped over a door, banister, or a shower rod; and tablecloths generally dry happily right on the tables they cover. Socks and smaller items can air-dry using hangers lined with clips.

Nancy Hoffmann in New York City has been drying her clothes indoors in her apartment for years. To speed up the process, she turns a floor fan on a low setting facing her drying racks. She reports that “most of my clothes dry in a couple hours, max” with much less electricity use than a dryer would require.

Drying clothing indoors can also have an added perk when it helps to keep indoor winter air moist, a kind of low-tech humidifier.

Speak Out for the "Right to Dry"

Households that do commit to hanging laundry outside in a yard or on a balcony may discover an unlikely obstacle—their homeowners’ association. Unfortunately, many community associations prohibit clotheslines and other efforts to let the sunshine dry residents’ clothes. If yours is one of them, speak out to challenge the rule that doesn't put the environment first.

Fire That Clothes Dryer!

If you haven’t already, make this the year you fire your clothes dryer, and join the thousands of Americans whom the Pew Research Center found are thinking differently about clothes-drying.

“Simply putting up a clothesline in the back yard and hanging out clothes to dry on a sunny day has reduced our electric bill,” say Green America member Steve Breckheimer from Saluda, NC. “And the laundry smells fresh!”

Trying to eat more healthy foods? Great work! But watch out—many foods marketed as health foods are full of genetically engineered ingredients. To break down the jargon, GE stands for genetically engineered and GMO stands for genetically modified organism, but they mean the same thing. Why are we concerned about GE ingredients and GMO crops? Read about the issues here.

We rounded up nine products that you’d probably think are GMO-free, but aren’t, unless they’re labelled as such by the Non-GMO Project or certified USDA Organic (which can’t contain GMOs by law).
 

1. Yogurt. Though dairy cows are not genetically engineered, their soy- or corn-based feed could be. The recombinant bovine growth hormone (known to the public as rBGH or rBST) helps dairy cows grow and produce more milk, but the hormone itself is genetically engineered.
    
2. Salad Dressing. If you’re committed to organic greens, don’t pour GMOs over them. Dressings are filled with corn, soy, and canola oil, which are all GE in the US if not certified organic.
    
3. Granola bars. As natural and healthy as they may seem, granola and other bars probably has GE soy, corn, or sugar if it’s not labelled otherwise.  
    
4. Veggie burgers. Yes, eating less meat is good for the planet and good for your health. But soy grown in the US is largely GE.
    
5. Yellow Squash & Zucchini. One of your favorite summer vegetables is probably GMO unless you’re buying in the organic section.
    
6. Low-sugar foods that use the sweetener aspartame. Monsanto, the bio-engineering giant, created aspartame from genetically engineered bacteria. Foods that contain aspartame include many products marked low-sugar, sugar-free, and diet, including soda, ice cream, syrups, cookies, vitamins, and more.
    
7. Protein shakes. Your post-workout snack probably uses soy or whey (a dairy byproduct) and again, unless it’s marked organic, those products are probably GMO. 
    
8. Margarine. It’s made with canola and other vegetable oils. Look for organic butter instead.
    
9. Whole wheat breads. Look at the ingredients list and you will see they are laden with high fructose corn syrup, soybean oil and soy flour.  

Want to know more about food and what labels mean (and don’t mean)? Get our ABCs of food labels guide! 

Sources: 

https://www.nongmoproject.org/gmo-facts/high-risk/

https://responsibletechnology.org/gmo-education/gm-hormones-in-dairy-2/

At the close of 2015, the nation was reeling from news that residents of Flint, Michigan, had been drinking and bathing in water contaminated with lead, a potent neurotoxicant. Though the mostly Black community had long been voicing concerns about the troubling quality of their drinking water, government officials assured them time and again it was safe.

Two years and countless deferred complaints and organized protests later, it finally hit mainstream news that the residents of Flint have been drinking and bathing in water contaminated with lead levels several thousand times higher than the federal maximum, because local officials simply failed to use the legally mandated water treatments that would have kept them from being poisoned. As a result, all 9,000 children under six in Flint who have been exposed to the tainted water are at a high risk for neurological damage. The most recent data, as of March 2016, say the water still isn’t clean.

While the travesty in Flint isn’t connected to the climate crisis, it is a profound illustration of what happens to communities of color across the country. They’re more likely to have toxic facilities sited near them, less likely to receive adequate protection to prevent disasters, and less likely to get the kind of immediate response White communities get when emergencies occur, says Dr. Beverly Wright, a sociologist and CEO of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice (DSCEJ) at Dillard University.

If you’re a person of color, particularly Black or Latino, you’re more likely to live near toxic facilities. — Dr. Beverly Wright, CEO of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice at Dillard University

The poisoning of Flint is a familiar scenario for those working on environmental and climate justice issues. And as the effects of the climate crisis grow increasingly serious, they can turn deadly for people of color in ways that their White neighbors aren’t yet facing, says Dr. Wright.

“[Communities of color] are in double jeopardy” from the climate crisis,” she says. “First, if you’re a person of color, particularly Black or Latino, you’re more likely to live near toxic facilities, like petrochemical companies here in Louisiana, producing toxins that shorten and impact quality of life. And then, [our communities] are on the front line of impacts from climate change, living in places where there could be more floods and a higher incidence of different [climate-related] diseases. For poor communities, there’s also not having access to health insurance or medical services. Communities of color are disproportionately affected by all of these things.”

It’s beyond time to do something about it. That’s why it’s so important to expand the conversation around climate justice — ensuring that all people, regardless of race and ethnicity, get equal protection from the worst effects of climate change.

While suffering disproportionately from the climate crisis, communities of color are also leading the way toward change that works for all.

Living in Toxinland

Dr. Wright’s lifetime body of work shows a disturbing pattern — namely that people of color “are differently impacted by industrial pollution [and] can also expect different treatment from the government.”

She and her peers have expanded their definition of environmental justice in recent years to include the term “climate justice,” since they say the same is true when it comes to polluting fossil-fuel facilities — communities of color experience worse effects and receive fewer protections than White communities. 

Specifically, communities of color:

• Are more likely to breathe in polluted air. Communities of color breathe in 40 percent more polluted air than White communities across the US, according to the NAACP’s 2012 “Coal-Blooded” study.
  Fossil-fuel technology is directly to blame for some of this pollution. For example, a 2014 study out of the University of Minnesota confirmed that people of color in the US are 38 percent more likely to be exposed to the asthma-causing pollutant nitrogen oxide from climate-warming cars, construction equipment, and industrial sources like coal plants.
• Are more likely to live near coal plants. Though African-Americans make up 13 percent of the US population, a startling 68 percent live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant, compared to 56 percent of Whites. This zone is where residents breathe the most resultant pollutants — which can cause a range of health problems, from heart attacks to birth defects to asthma, states the NAACP. Although Latinos make up 17 percent of the US population, 39 percent live within a 30-mile radius from a coal plant. 
  Some Native American lands are home to large coal reserves, resulting in tribes across North America feeling the toxic effects from coal mines and plants.
• Are more likely to live near toxic sites, including those housing waste from fossil-fuel infrastructure. For example, Dr. Bullard, a professor at Texas Southern University known as the “father of environmental justice” for his pioneering work in the field, points to the aftermath of the 2010 BP oil spill.
  When a BP underwater oil well burst in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, it leaked a mind-boggling 94 to 184 million gallons of oil into Gulf. BP hired private contractors to clean up the oil-coated sand and refuse from the 120 miles of Gulf coastline the well had polluted.

While the spill and the environmental devastation it wreaked are well-known, what is less known is that the waste from the shoreline clean-up effort “was trucked to landfills mostly in Black communities in Louisiana and Alabama and Florida,” says Dr. Bullard.

It was a case of history repeating itself: In 2009, 3.9 million tons of coal ash spilled from a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant. In the aftermath, the toxic coal ash was actually shipped more than 300 miles from the power plant site by train, where it was dumped in a landfill located in “rural and mostly Black Perry County, Alabama,” he says. (See our piece It Doesn’t End with Flint for more on this disaster.)

Greater Environmental Impacts

The United Nations International Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 climate change science report states with “90 to 99 percent certainty” that more frequent and more severe weather events like droughts, intense heat waves, and “more frequent/ intense heavy rainfall events” are a consequence of the climate crisis. And it is communities of color that are bearing the brunt of those events, say many experts.

Indigenous nations around the world, for example, are already being affected by climate change, write Alan Parker and Zoltan Grossman of the Northwest Indian Applied Research Institute (NIARI), in Asserting Native Resilience (Oregon State University Press, 2012).

Several Alaskan and Pacific Northwest Native communities that have long subsisted on traditional hunting and fish efforts have seen an unprecedented drop in their food supply, because of rising temperatures wreaking havoc on fish and wildlife, write Parker and Grossman. And many Alaskan natives may have to relocate entire villages due to thawing permafrost caused by global warming.

“Native rights are primarily place-based rights, based on their longtime occupation of Indigenous territories,” they write. “Climate change shifts and disrupts plant and animal habitats, and in doing so, forces cultures to adapt to these conditions or die.”

Climate change can be a culture-killer for some tribes, as well. “The loss of culturally important species on which traditional knowledge depends will make it more difficult for elders to practice and pass their knowledge on to future generations,” note Parker and Grossman.

Other communities of color are also feeling the heat. In California, for example, record heat waves and droughts are affecting Latino communities hardest throughout the state, says Mario Santoyo of the California Latino Water Coalition.

As state farmers see their fruit and vegetable crops shrink from lack of water, it’s the state’s majority-Latino farmworkers who are struggling most as a result, as they scramble to get enough hours picking crops to earn a livable wage.

“Being a farmworker is a hard thing. Your average US citizen is nowhere near interested in doing that kind of work,” says Santoyo. “And when farmers don’t have enough water, they may adjust the number of acres they farm or the types of crops they harvest. In both cases, they need less labor.”

So, he says, Latinos are first to be displaced from jobs, and they’ll often be among the last to recover economically. “When you look at farmers and developers, [the water crisis] has an impact on them without question. But also, a good proportion have the financial resources to adjust. Their world doesn’t end — not the way it hurts the Latinos.”

Santoyo’s parents were farmworkers, and he worked in the fields himself as a youth. But many Latino parents, including his own, labor on farms so their children can have a better life. He and his siblings all went to college, and he says that’s the case for many farmworker families in California’s Central Valley.

Latinos are first to be displaced from jobs, and they’ll often be among the last to recover economically. — Mario Santoyo, California Water Coalition

However, even Latinos who may not be struggling economically still find the water crisis impacting them disproportionately, says Santoyo. “In 2006, when we formed [the center], if you looked who makes decisions [about water] in the state of California, the one thing you would not have found were brown faces.”

So the Coalition engaged with local and state legislators, drummed up community support, and regularly communicated with the state Latino Caucus. Today, thanks to these efforts, “there’s been some progress,” says Santoyo, “though it’s nowhere near where we want it to be.”

“We’re trying to wake up those who need to understand,” he says.

A Legacy of Unequal Protection

One of the most important elements of climate-justice movement is the effort to ensure that communities of color get equal protection from their government officials from the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Nearly every expert we talked to pointed to the fallout from Hurricane Katrina as the poster-child example of climate injustice.

It must be said that experts are uncertain just how much Katrina’s severity was tied to global warming. However, recent studies, including the IPCC’s 2013 climate change science report, have found that over the past 30 years, the intensity and duration of hurricanes have increased significantly, which may be due at least in part to the higher sea levels and warmer ocean temperatures caused by climate change.

Dr. Wright grew up in New Orleans, which has seen its share of stormy weather. But prior to Katrina, she says, hurricanes in her experience had just been synonymous with “heavy rain and a party” for her and her family.

Then Katrina struck. The Category 5 hurricane came in from the east, over Lake Ponchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico, and hit the primarily African-American neighborhoods of New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward the hardest. Over 80 percent of the homes lost in Katrina belonged to African-American residents.

And Dr. Wright points to a history of government neglect of Black residents as the cause.

To trace that history, you have to go back to 1965, the year the city experienced another devastating storm, Hurricane Betsy, which also swept through New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward, taking hundreds of lives, mostly Black.

Since the levee boards are mostly made up of people in wealthy areas, those people were always on top of trying to get their properties protected. — Dr. Beverly Wright

In the aftermath of Betsy, the city and state government naturally agreed that the levees protecting New Orleans from floodwaters needed to be shored up. But the money the federal government poured into post-Betsy recovery wasn’t distributed equitably.

In New Orleans, Dr. Wright explains, there were and still are levee boards who decide how federal funds to build or support levees are spent.

“Much of the money went to Lakeview, which is predominantly White, and not to areas where there were now no levees and would be flooded if there was another storm,” she says. “Since the levee boards are mostly made up of people in wealthy areas, those people were always on top of trying to get their properties protected.”

As a result, a new plan to protect New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward — the neighborhoods hardest hit by Betsy — wasn’t even launched until nearly 30 years later, says Dr. Wright.

People are saying we have to make our communities more
climate-resilient, but it has to be a resilience that cuts across
race, class, and geography. — Dr. Robert D. Bullard

Fast forward 40 years to 2005, when Hurricane Katrina was approaching the Crescent City, and the levees protecting White neighborhoods like Lakeview were “in place, extremely high, and supposed to withstand the storm,” she says.

But as Katrina hit those same Black neighborhoods that had been devastated by Betsy, the levees protecting them were the weak points in the system. And they broke. “Our legislators forever and always had been protecting White people first,” she says. “Had they done it for everyone, it would have been a strong levee. But because they didn’t, the storm washed away the part that was supposed to protect them, too.” And so she watched the waters rise around and into her beautiful home in the upscale African-American neighborhood of New Orleans East. When she returned after evacuating, she says her community looked like a bomb had gone off. Though her house was still standing, everything inside was damp and covered with mold. She had to use a breathing apparatus just to pick her way through the wreckage, since high levels of lead, arsenic, and the carcinogenic benzopyrene contaminated the air and soil. As the keeper of her family’s photo archives, she was devastated to find that all of her treasured pictures were gone.

Although Black residents had been hardest hit by the storm, they once again found themselves shunted to the back of the line for government disaster assistance. In fact, they actually found themselves further victimized by it.

“African-American New Orleanians watched with horror as the first rebuilding plans were presented to the city council,” she writes in The Wrong Complexion for Protection (New York Univ. Press, 2012). “The map clearly showed that the areas slated for immediate redevelopment were those that had received the least amount of water — areas where White citizens lived. The areas that were mostly inhabited by African Americans, specifically New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward, were not slated for redevelopment and were instead to be converted to green space.’ With one stroke of a pen, our land was being taken away and our inheritance lost.”

We’re trying to wake up those who need to understand. — Mario Santoyo, California Latino Water Coalition

Today, Dr. Wright and her colleagues at the DSCEJ provide legal assistance and run classes to help people learn their rights in dealing with climate and environmental disasters, and they also train people in skills needed to cope, such as mold and asbestos mitigation, weatherization, and green construction. While the center and other activists eventually helped funnel federal funds into and obtain local permission for rebuilding parts of the Lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans East, they continue to battle for equal protection from future Katrinas.

The good news, Dr. Wright says, is that the levees have finally been strengthened all around, and the most vulnerable areas of the city are better protected now. But Bob Jacobsen, an engineer who worked on the eastside levees post-Katrina, cautions that they’re only engineered to national flood-insurance standards —n ot to protect against another Katrina.

The city’s evacuation plan needs to be comprehensive and equitable — and whether it is remains to be seen.

Join the Conversation

Green America published an issue of Green American dedicated to amplifying the voices of those on the front lines of the climate crisis, working to protect the most vulnerable areas around the world. No matter what your background is, it’s vital to join the climate-justice conversation where you live — and work to ensure that everyone is included.

“People are saying we have to make sure that we make our communities more climate resilient, but it has to be a resilience that cuts across race, class, and geography,” says Dr. Bullard. “You can’t make one community resilient. If the weakest part breaks, then everyone is placed at risk.”

Leaked World Cocoa Foundation Strategy Documents Show Industry More Concerned About Messaging Than Ending Child Labor or Farmer Poverty; Initial Draft of Report Due Out Shortly Finds Children Still Laboring in West African Cocoa Fields, Often Under Hazardous Conditions.

Washington D.C.//October 13, 2020 – NGOs from the U.S., Europe, U.K., and Australia working towards a more sustainable chocolate industry are calling for a better future in combating two major related issues in the supply of cocoa from West Africa: child labor and environmental devastation. The NGOs (Mighty Earth, Be Slavery Free, Green America, Freedom United, and Fair World Project) question a forthcoming, watered-down report that is based on obsolete pre-COVID data, and demand urgent solutions for the unacceptably massive number of children in abusive and illegal labor conditions in cocoa, as well as forests being destroyed.

For close to 20 years the issue of child labor and slavery has been on the radar of the industry who source from West Africa which produces around 66% of the world’s cocoa. In that time the development of the cocoa industry and the world clamoring for chocolate and cocoa products has resulted in the devastation of forests and the widespread use of dangerous chemicals. Not enough has been done by industry to effectively change the situation - in fact, it is now evident it may have gotten worse because of the current pandemic.

The NGOs’ call for action comes in advance of the release of a new report by NORC at the University of Chicago examining the prevalence of child labor in cocoa in Ghana and the Ivory Coast. The elephant in the room is a leaked earlier version of the report which broke in April, and found that despite decades of hype and voluntary corporate efforts, child labor had increased to 2 million children. The leaked NORC report also revealed the number of child laborers being exposed to harmful pesticides had increased.

Since the earlier draft report was leaked, the final report release was delayed for NORC to rework the methodology, which may result in lowering the estimated number of child laborers. “No amount of tweaking or reworking the methodology can obscure that significant findings of children in hazardous, exploitative, or slavery-like conditions in cocoa demonstrates the twenty-year failure of industry and government to effectively act on the problem,” said Todd Larsen, Executive Co-Director of Green America.

Whatever the findings in the final report, the data obtained by NORC is obsolete. NORC’s data collection predates the COVID-19 epidemic, which is resulting in an estimated 15-20% increase in child labor in the Ivory Coast and Ghana, based on research from multiple sources. Cocoa producing countries’ overall economic situation has deteriorated significantly as the global economy ground to halt during the pandemic.

The NGOs received a leaked strategy document from the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), a trade organization with 100 member companies, which outlines industry plans and talking points to address the report findings. These talking points reveal how industry was given advance notice of the findings of the report. The document urges companies to play up industry efforts to address child labor, but fails to push companies to address farmer poverty, which is a key driver of child labor and deforestation in the impacted countries. Etelle Higonnet of Mighty Earth commented, “it seems that the cocoa industry is more interested in public relations than real solutions for kids, farmers, or forests.”

Chocolate is a $100 billion per year industry, and yet most cocoa farmers live on less than $1 per day. To this day, there is no industry-wide commitment to pay farmers a living income. WCF states that the industry has spent $215 million to address child labor over a 20-year time period. Carolyn Kitto from Be Slavery Free explained, “this amount is too little too late for many kids, and pales in comparison to the trillions of dollars in revenue from cocoa to governments, traders, processors, manufacturers, and retailers. Until companies step up and pay a living income for all cocoa farmers, the millions put into child labor remediation is just balderdash.”

Herrana Addisu, Advocacy Officer for Freedom United, underscored that “the harsh realities in cocoa which far outstrip the findings of the NORC report, must be a call-to-action for governments to pass mandatory human rights due diligence regulation and for a re-examination of the value of voluntary commitments, which again have failed to meaningfully reduce exploitative child labor in chocolate supply chains.”

The NGOs are calling on retailers, chocolate companies, and traders to

• Push for the enactment of mandatory human rights due diligence laws worldwide;
• Increase payments to cocoa farmers to attain a living income;
• Increase child labor monitoring and remediation programs to reach 100% of cocoa-growing communities and children; and
• Reduce toxic pesticide use and other environmental harms as part of a commitment to ending deforestation and instituting earth-friendly agroforestry practices.

Holistic solutions that are a win for farmers and forests need to be rolled out urgently. “As the COVID-19 crisis has made abundantly clear, the health of individuals around the world and the health of our planet are interconnected,” stated Anna Canning, Campaign Manager at Fair World Project. “We need an end to pesticide and other chemical use, with organic and regenerative agriculture targets for the whole industry, because the evidence is now clear: the industry is poisoning people, especially children, in order to increase profits.”

The NORC report is conducted as part of the Harkin-Engel Protocol, a non-binding agreement between some of the largest chocolate companies and the U.S. government where industry committed to ending child labor in cocoa a decade ago. This protocol is set to expire in the second half of 2021. In the twenty years since the Harkin-Engel Protocol was put into place, the children whose documented labor spurred the creation of the protocol have grown up, and their children may now be laborers in cocoa fields.

“How many generations of children must miss out on school and the opportunities to advance themselves before the cocoa industry finally takes the necessary actions to end the problem?” asked Charlotte Tate, Labor Campaigns Director for Green America.

The 5 NGOs expressing concern today are: Mighty Earth, Be Slavery Free, Green America, Freedom United, and Fair World Project.

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Max Karlin for Green America, +1 (703) 276-3255, mkarlin@hastingsgroup.com.

Etelle Higonnet, Mighty Earth Senior Campaign Director, +1 (202) 848 7792, etelle@mightyearth.org.

Anna Canning, Campaign Manager, Fair World Project, +1 (971) 208-5414, anna@fairworldproject.org.

Fuzz Kitto, Director, Be Slavery Free (Australia/New Zealand) +61 407 931 115, fuzz.kitto@beslaveryfree.com.

Following massive public pressure, JPMorgan Chase Bank, the largest funder of fossil fuels in the world by a wide margin, announced on October 6, 2020 that it will begin aligning its financing with the Paris climate agreement. This is an important start.

In the years after the Paris agreement, the bank escalated its funding of the fossil fuel sector, resulting in $268 billion in funding that has exacerbated the climate crisis. The new announcement is a welcome change in position while concerns remain about the pace, scope, and processes to achieve the transformation needed to avert climate catastrophe.

JPMorgan Chase states that it will align with the Paris agreement by supporting its clients in the energy and auto manufacturing sectors to transition to a low-carbon economy by 2030; by increasing investment in low and zero-carbon energy technology; and by creating a Center for Carbon Transition to help banks with access to sustainability data and strategies.

Green America has mobilized thousands of people to pressure JPMorgan Chase through petitions, calls, meetings in bank branches, and visibility actions. Green America’s Climate Safe Lending network is also helping to provide the tools needed to help all banks align their portfolios with the Paris agreement.

Working from home has benefits, but the challenges of turning your home into an office while your kids are in the room adds distractions to an already hectic day. Whether your kids are six or sixteen, here are ways that they can keep themselves busy in a green and enriching way so you can get back to work.

For Younger Kids

Christy Schwengel, director of major gifts at Green America, is no stranger to balancing her kids’ schedules with hers. As a mother of an 8- and 10-year-old, she says that balancing time during the pandemic is an “exhausting juggle” and requires lots of patience. Here is a list of activities that Schwengel uses to keep her young kids occupied.

Kids' Checklist:

• Do a free virtual exercise program (ex. Cosmic Kids Yoga on YouTube)
• Check out Scholastic’s at-home learning guide for independent education‰
• Find educational TV online, like nature shows or PBS kids ‰
• Do a puzzle or solo game, or create a puzzle by drawing a picture and cutting it up ‰
• Try a new STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) activity each week.
• Find a list at PlaydoughToPlato.com‰
• Play a board game with family members over a video-chat app‰
• Have a virtual story time—from stories on Spotify, YouTube, or read aloud over video chat‰
• Instead of getting rid of recycled materials, let creativity flow by seeing what your kids can create from them‰
• Involve your kids in daily tasks, like cooking dinner, to teach them how to help around the house ‰
• Write a card or draw a picture for a family member or friend‰
• Have journal time to write, draw, and get creative (check out Green Field Paper Company {GBN} for environmentally friendly journals) ‰
• Get outdoors and blow bubbles and do the messy crafting that can’t be done indoors

For Tweens/Teens

Even if your children are older and more independent, if they are at home, going stir-crazy is almost inevitable. As a parent of a 16-year-old, Fran Teplitz, director of the Green Business Network at Green America, contributed ideas to this checklist of fun ways that a teen could stay busy.

Teens' Checklist:

• Learn something new, like vocabulary, a fun fact, or even a new language ‰
• Listen to a podcast by and for teens like Teenager Therapy, or create your own‰
• Learn how to code with Codecademy.com's free lessons‰
• Take a physically distanced walk or bike ride with a friend ‰
• Get crafty with adult coloring books (green options include books from Amber Lotus Publishing {GBN})‰
• Get creative with cooking and tackle trickier recipes with unconventional ingredients.
• Good Choice Kitchen {GBN} offers cooking classes and tips ‰
• Depending on age, drive by friends' houses to visit them from a distance.
• For birthdays, decorate friends' yards or make a craft or sweet to drop off‰
• Catch up with relatives over video chat and reach out to someone you haven’t spoken to in a while ‰
• Join a virtual book club for young adults‰
• Look for online ways to help the community, like talking to seniors, collecting food, or texting to promote voter registration ‰
• Learn a dance routine on YouTube‰
• Do a virtual museum tour.
• Check Dunitz and Company {GBN}, a member of the Museum Store Association, for a list of museums that suit your interests

Grow your little ones’ love for literature with these eco-conscious, culturally rich reads.

The 2021 National Geographic Kids’ Infopedia

The 2021National Geographic Kids’ Infopedia ($13.18) is guaranteed to feed your child’s imagination. It’s packed with stories about animals, histo-ry-making explorers, and world-changing inventions, plus games and activities. Recommended for ages 5-9. Buy from Biblio {GBN}. 

Touch the Earth, by Julian Lennon

This interactive book teaches about global water issues such as plastic pollution and water scarcity. The reader is teleported to various regions dealing with these challenges and instructed to push page buttons and tilt the book at a certain points to simulate flying as they help find solutions. Recommended for ages 3-6. Find it for $9 at julianlennon.com

Freedom Soup, by Tami Charles

Tami Charles’ Freedom Soup is about how one tiny Caribbean island’s story shaped the world. Eight-year-old Belle tells how her grandmother taught her to make freedom soup—a New Year’s Eve tradition done in honor of the Haitian Revolution. Recommended for ages 5-9. Find it at Syracuse Cultural Workers {GBN}. 

Rachel Carson and Her Book That Changed the World, by Laurie Lawlor

Kids are likely to see their own passion mirrored in Laurie Lawlor’s illustrated biography of Rachel Carson, the trailblazing conservationist and author. Her story of leaving an indelible mark in the science field is especially empowering for girls. Recommended for ages 7-10. Order for pickup from your local independent bookstore.

The best children's books are the ones that spark imagination and inspiration. Use the power of storytelling to encourage your little eco-warrior with these reads and so many more from your local library or independent bookstore.

Intentionally supporting Black-owned businesses is one way we can do our part to promote racial justice, support entrepreneurs, and foster an inclusive green economy. We hope you’ll start with these stellar body care Green Business Network members who are creating products in a market that often ignores the needs of Black women and women of color.

4 Elements' Shampoo Bars

4 Elements {GBN} is a Chicago-based business specializing in hand-crafted bath products including soaps, scrubs, shampoos, oils, and grooming essentials. Founder Charise LeRoy’s motivation for starting the business was born out of her struggle to find soaps that wouldn’t aggravate her or her son’s skin allergies. Today, Charise serves as 4 Elements’ main artisan, creating soaps that are cold-processed, meaning they retain the nutrients of vitamins and minerals.

4 Elements’ Silk Clarifying Shampoo Bar ($15) contains silk amino acids and multiple oils, and makes a thoughtful gift for the eco-conscious friend on the go.

“The shampoo bars are one of my favorite new products. They’re made with a cold-processed soap that makes a tremendous amount of suds and gets the job done beautifully,” says LeRoy. “Our portable soaps also come in paper packaging so there’s no plastic.”

Plain Jane Beauty's Setting Mist

Skin, Mind, Body Essentials {GBN} is a wellness and beauty company founded by entrepreneur Lake Louise in 2002. Since then, Louise has developed four brands under her company. SMB Essentials includes flagship skin care line Lotus Moon, along with DetoxRx, Plain Jane, and SON for men. Gold-certified Green Business Network member SMB prides itself on its commitment to sourcing cruelty-free, plant-based ingredients and recyclable packaging materials.

Plain Jane Beauty is a purposefully inclusive eco-beauty line offering plant-based make-up foundations, and accessories. In 2019, fragrance-free Coconut Water Setting Mist ($28) was a Healing Lifestyles Earth Day Beauty Awards winner and contains the star ingredients of coconut water, calendula flower, and poppy seed oil.

“This is a must-have for anyone who wears makeup,” says Louise. “The mist instantly absorbs into the skin and adds a soft-focus finish. It also contains revitalizing coconut water electrolytes.”

NAIWBE's MENA Body Moisturizer

In 2011, Sylvia Walker, RN, became an “eco-preneur” when she launched the eco-friendly skin care line NAIWBE (Natural As I Wanna Be) {GBN}. The business offers cleaners and moisturizers, and the website transparently lists ingredients used in each NAIWBE product. Walker also hosts a wellness podcast which can also be found on her website. The Moisturizing Emollient Nourishing Agrarian body moisturizer ($24.99) is gluten-free and made with 95 percent organic ingredients including lemongrass, moringa, shea butter, lecithin, and multiple oils.

“This is our signature certified organic and dermatologist tested product for people with all skin types and dry skin issues,” says Walker. “Hand sanitizers can also be really rough on the skin and with people using them more diligently now, this moisturizer can be helpful.”

Walker is currently offering discount codes and encourages interested customers to reach her at info@naiwbellc.net.

Shop and support Black-owned businesses in your local community and online by visiting GreenPages.org.

Taking care of yourself is more important than ever. Anxiety, a lack of sleep, and other stressors can weaken the immune system. Maintaining a well-balanced diet and eating foods which support your immune system can help strengthen your body’s natural protections.

Bring the Vitamin C

If you’ve ever had a cold, you’ve have probably been told to increase your vitamin C intake. Citrus fruits are packed with it, and bell peppers, strawberries, and sweet potatoes can also help you meet your daily requirements. Vitamin C supports the production of white blood cells—which fight against illness—and is also transported to the skin, where it plays a role in wound-healing and protecting skin from ultraviolet light damage.

Have a Breath Mint Handy

A bonus for your immune system and your stir-fry, studies suggest that garlic has the potential to enhance the immune system and lower blood pressure. Garlic’s immune-boosting effects come from compounds containing sulfur, which also give it its notorious odor. Crushing garlic and letting it stand for 10 minutes before cooking with it can help preserve its health benefits.

Rock the Brocc

There’s a reason we tell kids to eat their broccoli. According to the National Institutes of Health, just half a cup of the cruciferous vegetable contains 43 percent of your daily vitamin C needs. Broccoli also contains sulforaphane, which has been shown to help repair your immune system as you age. Overall, steaming or sautéing your broccoli is the best way to retain the most nutrients.

Go Wild with Mushrooms

Mushrooms are the only type of produce with significant amounts of vitamin D. Plants produce vitamin D2 when exposed to sunlight, and studies show that wild mushrooms, which you can find at farmers markets, have higher levels than conventionally grown types. Vitamin D2 can also be found in dietary supplements and fortified foods. Salmon, egg yolks, cheese, and many other animal products contain vitamin D3, which is thought to be more effective in raising blood levels of calcifediol, the main form of vitamin D that circulates throughout the body. Vitamin D plays a role in activating the immune system and is known to strengthen the function of immune cells. Preliminary research also suggests that covid-19 has more severe health impacts on patients with a vitamin D deficiency—all
the more reason to get your daily dose!

Get Your Sweet Tooth Ready

It’s not only fruits and vegetables that are good for you. Studies have found that dark chocolate—in small doses—has the potential to help regulate blood pressure and support heart health. Experts recommend eating no more than one ounce a day, which could be a few squares of your favorite brand, depending on bar size. But before you treat yourself, check out Green America’s chocolate scorecard, which can help you find the most delicious—and ethically made—chocolate. ✺

Above: Liz Abunaw is the founder of Forty Acres Fresh Market, a pop-up market that brings produce to communities in Chicago’s West Side. Photo by Ofu Takor.

You may have heard of food deserts, which refer to areas void of fresh, affordable food, but the term “food desert” does not challenge systemic racism. This is why more people are using the term coined by food justice activist Karen Washington, “food apartheid.”

America's food system, like so many other systems, too often overlooks communities of color. The term "food apartheid" encompasses the systematic lack of access to healthy foods and takes into account race, geography, and economics. This intersectional approach to understanding America’s food system attributes a lack of access to healthy food, which disproportionately affects communities of color, to our country’s history of systemic racism.

Hanna Garth is a food systems-focused anthropology professor at the University of California, San Diego. Garth—who is headed to Princeton University in 2021—says it is important to recognize what has led to these racial disparities in food quality and access.

“The ways in which these neighborhoods have come about through racist policies of redlining and other forms of systematic discrimination have really bred the types of food apartheid that we see today,” Garth says.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Black farmers had acquired approximately 15 million acres of land. Now, those Black farmers have lost over 90 percent of that historically owned land, and fewer than nine percent of America’s farmers are African American, according to the 2017 USDA Census of Agriculture. A series of discriminatory practices—stemming from slavery—have criminalized Black people and forced Black farmers from the land.

Liz Abunaw founded Forty Acres Fresh Market in response to lack of fresh food in Chicago’s West Side. She sees firsthand how food apartheid has affected the Black community.

“I find it to be a cruel irony that the people who basically built this country, were our country’s first farmers who were so tied to the land, now live in land where they can get nothing that comes from the land,” Abunaw said in an interview with CBS News.

Food apartheid is an issue that needs to be addressed not only on a nationwide scale, but within every affected community. So where can you start?

Leah Penniman, food sovereignty activist and farmer, spoke to Green America for our summer 2020 article “Unearthing the Legacy of Black Farmers” about the steps that people can take to make the food system more equitable from production to people’s plates.

A customer at Forty Acres Fresh Market’s pop-up produce stand in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood. Photo by Ofu Takor.

Here’s what you can do to fight food apartheid in your community:

Fundraise Locally

Bring your community together to raise funds so that your local farmers can provide fresh food at accessible prices to those who are living in food apartheid. Corbin Hill Food Project in New York City and D-Town Farm in Detroit—two Black-led initiatives— both have models that outline ways to do this.

Push for Policy Change

To implement lasting change, policymakers need to have food justice on their agendas. Contact your elected officials and urge them to support H.R. 40, legislation which would establish a commission to study reparation proposals for African Americans and create a debt forgiveness program for Black farmers.

Advocate for legislation that will eliminate food apartheid by reforming labor laws and providing a living wage for farmers of color. You can also encourage farmers you know to join the Domestic Fair Trade Association, which works toward fair labor standards in agriculture.

Buy from Black-Owned Businesses

Supporting Black-owned farms and businesses is another way to help sustain change in the food system.

“If you’re someone that gets a CSA (community supported agriculture) box, you can make a concerted effort to get your CSA box from an urban garden or organization that is from one of these communities,” Garth says.

Volunteer Your Skills

Do you have passion for photography, or are you an accountant? Look for food justice organizations that need volunteers to perform specific duties. Garth has found that many organizations are saturated with unskilled volunteers, but she says organizations may have specific needs that you can fill.

Penniman says that many overburdened farmers could use help with the administrative parts of running a farm, such as marketing, web design, or grant writing.

A Green America supports both people and planet. By fighting against injustices, like food apartheid, we invest in the world we hope to see.

The skin care industry is heavily greenwashed, with claims of natural, organic, and clean products to help you achieve a healthy glow. This is especially pertinent in the time of covid-19, in which frequent hand washing and sanitizing can lead to skin irritation without proper care.

Unfortunately, only 11 ingredients are restricted from personal care products in the US, compared to nearly 600 in Canada and over 1400 in the EU. The Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep database helps fill in this gap by using the most recent data to rate thousands of personal care products and brands. The strict criteria analyzes transparency, data availability, and toxicity on a scale of 1-10, with ten corresponding to products of greatest concern and one as least concern.

We searched the database to find truly green alternatives to the array of greenwashed products found on store shelves so you can prevent the spread of germs without causing harm to your body or the planet. The following non-toxic hand soaps, lotions, and sanitizers are also certified businesses of Green America’s Green Business Network, meaning they have passed our rigorous standards for both social and environmental responsibility.

Hand Soap

Love Beauty and Planet certainly seems like it’s making the right statement, but it’s mediocre for healthy skincare, with a 5/10 from EWG. Dr. Bronner’s {GBN} bars got EWG’s best score and offers options for people who prefer unscented.

Hand Sanitizer

While Mrs. Meyer’s cute packaging may market cleanliness, this product’s score is just okay 5/10 from EWG. Spadét {GBN} hand sanitizer won’t dry out your skin and is made with healthy ingredients.

Hand Cream

J.R. Watkins hand cream has a long list of ingredients that are not all that great, only scoring 5/10 from EWG. Be Green Bath and Body {GBN} is also certified by EWG for it’s green-ness, so try this nourishing hand cream.
 

Finding Soaps and Sanitizer

During the covid-19 pandemic, businesses across the country are working hard to stay open while meeting the needs of the community. While hand sanitizer disappears off the shelves at big box stores, many small breweries and distilleries are making hand sanitizer using formulas recommended by the World Health Organization. Seek out small soap makers to support on the Green Pages or visit your local farmers market to find a local soap company.

Shop locally or online to support small businesses that treat your skin and planet like they deserve with non-toxic hand soaps and more.

The country has experienced dramatic changes amidst the pandemic: the mainstream revival of the Black Lives Matter movement and amplified calls for intersectional environmentalism. Regardless of what prompted your decision to start or deepen your activism, it’s possible to advocate for change in a multitude of ways. Read more about how to protest in the covid-19 era.

“When you advocate for change, no matter how small or large the action, you join a movement of people fighting for a more just world,” says Charlotte Tate, Green America’s labor justice campaigns director. While the playing field may have changed, the urgency of issues has not. Getting more involved as an activist is simple:

1. Study the Issue

Activists represent the values and agenda of that issue, so do research and keep up-to-date with news to ensure you thoroughly know and prevent misinformation in the movement. As an issue evolves, your understanding of that issue should, too. Engage with organizations run by the people who are affected by the fight to amplify their voices and avoid causing further harm.

2. Find Your People

Whether you’re concerned about wildlife protection, racial justice, or human rights, there is a flavor of organization that works on your issue. Ask your friends, seek networking events, or search Google for advocacy groups on your issue in your area. Many national organizations also run focused local chapters.

When you find a passion, stick with it: “The issues most worth being active on are often the ones that
take the longest to achieve,” says Todd Larsen, Green America’s executive co-director for consumer and
corporate engagement.

3. Vote with Your Dollar

With every penny you spend, you can support fair wages, environmental health, and social justice by voting with your dollar. You can boycott companies that conduct shady business practices by using money as leverage. Spending your dollars at small green businesses and minority-owned businesses pushes the economy to be equitable and circular. Find certified green businesses at greenpages.org.

4. Donate & Volunteer

Donating to advocacy and nonprofit organizations is another form of economic activism. Donations go to funding advocacy campaigns, developing research, scholarships, and other work. If you are short on funds but have plenty of time, try volunteering. Contact the organization or community activist group to find out what they need.

5. Check Off Your Slack-tivist To-Do List

• Follow social media accounts of organizations and activists fighting for the same causes as you. These groups are plugged into updates on the issues and some may serve food for thought to actively challenge your biases.
• Comment, sign, and share the actions of organizations and community activists. There is power in numbers and the more people you bring on board, the more pressure you can assert.
• Exercise caution when engaging the trolls. Unproductive confrontation will leave you drained and may cause you to burn out faster.
• Comment on posts from elected leaders. A study from the Congress Foundation demonstrated that policymakers pay attention to social media comments to keep a pulse on issues important to their constituents. This has the most potential impact when engaging with local leaders. 

How to Talk to Your Legislators

One of the most important tools in your advocacy kit is knowing how to talk to a policymaker. You don’t have to be an expert—what makes you powerful is your connection to the issue. Telling a legislator or staffer a personal story is more memorable than reciting copied text.

Often, calling is the simplest way to contact your legislator. For local officials, find contact information on city or county websites. For Congressional representatives, call the Congressional switchboard (202-224-3121) and share your zip code to be connected. You will most likely reach a staffer who keeps track of constituents’ positions and who will summarize your call to give to your legislator. You may also get a voicemail box where you should leave a message that a staffer will listen to later. If you’re calling about a bill, be sure to mention its number along with your opinion.

Letters are another tool to tell your story. A letter that looks and feels original is more likely to resonate with your legislator than one copied word for word; however, hundreds of signatures on a letter to a policymaker is also valuable, since it demonstrates that many people feel the same way.

Once the pandemic is over, meet your Congress member at their local office, where they tend to be more accessible.

Climate Questions to Ask at a Virtual Town Hall

The last few years have seen a surge of concern over climate change. Here are a few questions to ask candidates at your local town hall. Check townhallproject.com to see if your elected leaders are hosting virtual events and for contact information for your representatives.

• Where does the climate crisis fall under your list of priorities when you step into office?
• Nearly 60 percent of US voters support the Green New Deal, and it could stimulate a post-covid-19 economy by creating millions of clean energy jobs. Do you support it?
• What plan do you have to reduce carbon emissions?
• How do you plan to address racial inequity in climate infrastructure plans in our city/state/country?
• Many communities are on the frontlines of climate change: low-lying coastal cities, communities of color, and those at risk of losing existing energy jobs. How do you intend to include vulnerable communities in climate adaptation plans for a “just transition?”

In whatever way feels right—and safe—to you, advocate for change for a greener and more just planet.

Every September during Climate Week, corporations rush to make new commitments to address the climate crisis. But what do these corporate commitments really mean and stand for? The statements always sound big and impressive, but only some commitments are meaningful, while others give few specifics and action steps. 

Green America is urging corporations to move fast on climate solutions in the food, finance, energy, and materials sectors.  The science it clear, we only have ten years to act.  

Which corporate announcements are truly green and which are just greenwashed?  

Here’s how Green America ranks green corporate promises: 

The nation’s largest retailer and grocer committed to zero emissions, without carbon offsets, by 2040. Getting to zero emissions is an important goal, but 2040 is a long way off, especially considering the company has been working on improving its climate practices for over a decade. Within this commitment, Walmart says it will transition to low-impact refrigerants by 2040. This commitment on refrigerants is concerning, because they are Walmart’s single largest source of direct climate emissions–equal to the emissions of powering all the households in San Francisco. 2040 is too late for a phase down of potent hydroflourocarbons (HFCs), refrigerant gasses that have 9,000 times the global warming potential of CO2. And, Walmart isn’t addressing the significant leaks from current refrigerators in its statement at all.

That’s why Green America’s Cool It campaign and our allies, after mobilizing 100,000 consumers to reach out to Walmart, will continue to push Walmart on HFC super-pollutants until the company releases a much more aggressive timeline on shifting from HFCs, agrees to use substitutions with a low global warming potential, and enacts a plan to address current leaks.  

Take action with Green America to get Walmart to act faster on HFCs.

The telecom giant announced this week that it will be going carbon neutral by 2035 and listed several actions it will take to get there. However, the plan has significant gaps.  AT&T says it will increase its purchases of clean energy but doesn’t provide a timeline or goal of getting to 100 percent wind and solar to power its networks and servers. AT&T is currently using 25 percent clean energy and has a long way to go to get to 100 percent renewables, which is by far the most powerful action the company could take on climate change.   

AT&T also states that it will invest in carbon offsets to cover sources of emissions that can’t be eliminated. This is concerning because many carbon offsets take decades to drawdown carbon and will not be sufficient to addressing the climate crisis, others never materialize at all. AT&T is also reducing vehicle emissions but is not committing to 100 percent electric vehicles. 

Join Green America in urging AT&T to get to 100 percent clean energy by 2025. 

Verizon announced a $1 million grant to We Mean Business, a “global coalition of nonprofit organizations working with the world’s most influential businesses to take action on climate change” that will help small and medium-sized businesses track their carbon footprints. Since Verizon has over $130 billion in revenues, this donation, while helpful to We Mean Business, is not significant for the company.  

Like AT&T, Verizon has committed to being carbon neutral by 2035, which also includes the use of carbon offsets. It has committed to sourcing 50 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2025.  However, Verizon currently is sourcing less than 10 percent of its energy from wind or solar, which is even lower than AT&T, and 50 percent renewable energy is not enough to reduce the company’s massive emissions.  The 50 percent goal is much lower than that of T-Mobile/Sprint, which will reach 100 percent renewable energy by 2025. 

Join Green America in urging Verizon to get to 100 percent clean energy by 2025. 

Amazon announced a new Climate Friendly Pledge program for Climate Week 2020, promoting 25,000 products that have earned at least one of 18 third-party eco-certifications. Overall, the products are greener than most offerings on Amazon, but represent 0.2 percent of the estimated 12 million products offered on the site. The program also does not address Amazon’s considerable climate footprint from its own operations. 

While CEO Jeff Bezos’ wealth increased by over $73 billion since the start of the pandemic, so far he has not followed through on his pledge to make $10 billion in donations to charities to address climate changes, starting this summer. Amazon’s new $2 billion sustainability venture capital fund did make its first investments in startups, including automaker Rivian, but the amounts of the investments were not disclosed.  

While Amazon announced last year that it will be carbon neutral by 2040, it admits that it does not have a plan to get there. Amazon has committed to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030, but that makes it a laggard amongst tech companies, many of which are already at 100 percent renewable power.  Amazon continues to grow rapidly and is rapidly expanding its use of aircraft for delivery, recently leasing its 80th aircraft, which are passenger planes that were decommissioned due to the fact they no longer met the fuel efficiency standards of airlines. The Increased plane traffic creates pollution in communities surrounding airports as well.  

Amazon is continuing to offer the services of its massive servers to oil and gas companies to expand exploration and drilling. 

Take action with Green America to push Amazon to go greener. 

Since Chase (the name of JPMorgan Chase’s main consumer-facing bank) is the largest bank financer of fossil fuels, Climate Week would be the ideal time for the bank to finally announce meaningful steps to decarbonize its portfolio. But Chase was silent about climate change this week, even after massive wildfires raged in the West Coast, and storms created considerable damage in the Southeast, all made worse by climate change.  Chase did make the news, for being one of the largest funders of fracking (alongside Wells Fargo) 

Chase did issue its first green bond a couple of weeks ago, raising $1 billion for clean energy, green buildings, and other sustainable projects. This is a step forward, but with nearly $3 trillion in assets, $1 billion is only a third of a percent of its total assets. Clearly, Chase has a long way to go. 

Management at JPMorgan Chase received a strong message at this year’s annual general meeting from investors, urging the bank to align with the Paris Climate Agreement goals. JPMorgan Chase probably knows that the tide is turning on climate and they will have to change. The bank needs to be mobilize now on plans to get on the right side of climate history. 

Join Green America in urging Chase to act on climate change. 

Morgan Stanley made an announcement saying that the projects it finances would equal net-zero emissions by 2050, which is a first-of-its-kind announcement among major US banks. Morgan Stanley also agreed to join Partnership for Climate Accounting Financials (PCAF), which is a major step forward but now needs a strategy to underpin how it will make measurable progress in decarbonizing its balance sheet in the next 5-10 years; 2050 is simply too late to get to net zero 

To encourage all banks to decarbonize their lending Green America’s Climate Safe Lending Network has set out a pathway for banks so they can accelerate “Taking the Carbon Out of Credit”  and is working with senior managers in banks to help develop leadership and change within institutions. 

Todd Larsen

Executive Co-Director for Consumer & Corporate Engagement.

In “The Mattress Still Matters,” three Green America certified mattress companies stand above the rest: Naturepedic, White Lotus, Lullaby Baby. Naturepedic ranks number one!

Babies are exceptionally vulnerable to chemicals in their environment as they are undergoing rapid changes in their development. Therefore, the materials in their crib, room, and on their bodies should be chosen carefully to ensure the baby’s healthy development. 

Unfortunately, many baby products on store shelves do not disclose all the materials and their effects on infants. Chemicals of concern can be found in both baby and adult mattresses. Parents should not have to worry about exposing their babies to chemicals that could increase the likelihood of health challenges like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, asthma, and more. 

In a new report from Clean and Healthy New York and the Ecology Center, The Mattress Still Matters, researchers investigate baby mattresses from a number of companies on their materials and company disclosures. Since babies spend up to 17 hours a day sleeping, the components of their mattress can have an outsized effect on their development. 

The Mattress Still Matters is a follow-up report to the 2011 report, The Mattress Matters. In the newest report, researchers reviewed 227 product webpages from 37 crib mattress brands to determine the materials used. 13 mattresses were analyzed via laboratory testing to compare company disclosures with chemicals detected. The full report includes detailed analysis of potentially toxic chemicals, full laboratory results, and recommendations for parents.

Findings of The Mattress Still Matters

The report notes that there are five key chemicals to avoid in crib mattresses: PFAS, antimicrobials, vinyl, flame retardants, and heavy metals. Polyurethane foam is also a material the report recommends avoiding for the harm it does to the lungs of production workers and for its potential cancer-causing contaminants. Additionally, low VOC tests (volatile organic compounds, which can be found in adhesives, paints, and more) like GreenGuard and GreenGuard Gold does not mean a product is nontoxic.

Out of the companies tested, the report found that 65 percent of companies did not disclose full information and of that, 22 percent were missing significant information. Several of Green America’s Green Business Network members were investigated in the report—Naturepedic, White Lotus Home, and Lullaby Earth were all rated among the best for honesty in product materials and safety of those materials.

Of the mattresses that underwent lab testing, the Classic mattress from Naturepedic scored the best. All components matched Naturepedic's claims, and the mattress is composed of entirely safe materials. White Lotus Home and Lullaby Earth did not have mattresses tested by the Ecology Center’s Healthy Stuff Lab but were ranked among the best for material safety based on labeling. Many big name brands such as Serta, Sealy, and Ikea ranked poorly for company disclosure and material safety.

Unfortunately, the conflicts between what companies disclose and what unsafe materials are actually found in mattresses is troubling for families seeking healthy crib mattresses. When shopping for your baby, watch out for greenwashing claims such as “soy foam”, “infused with plant oil”, and “plant-based foam”, which can actually refer to polyurethane foam, since adding plant oils doesn’t change the other problematic chemicals potentially in the material. Other phrases, such as “nontoxic”, “eco-friendly”, and “organic” do not mean anything unless backed up with a certification logo from GOTS or GOLS—even organic cotton certified by the USDA can be processed with harmful chemicals. Therefore, families should seek companies like Naturepedic, White Lotus Home, and Lullaby Earth that have certifications and verifiably use the best materials in their products.

Additionally, parents can search our GreenPages.org for socially and environmentally responsible mattress manufacturers. It is home to brands like Naturepedic, White Lotus Home, Lullaby Earth, and many more mattress brands that have passed our rigorous certification standard for safe and healthy mattresses.

Along with helping you live green, for over 40 years, Green America has been working for safe food, a healthy climate, fair labor, responsible finance, and social justice. 

By Soyoung Ho, Thomson Reuters, September 25, 2020

Despite strong opposition from investor groups, a divided SEC on September 23, 2020, decided to finalize a rule that makes it more difficult for public company shareholders to bring proposals for vote during annual meetings.

Rule 14a-8 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as previously set, let investors put forth proposals if they own at least $2,000, or 1 percent, of a public company’s voting shares for at least one year.

Under the new threshold, a shareholder with at least $2,000 of a company’s securities must hold them for at least three years. If a shareholder holds more than $15,000, then the waiting period is two years, with $25,000 it is one year.

Rule 14a-8 was also amended to make it easier for a company to exclude a proposal from its proxy statement if it previously failed to receive support.

The levels of support a proposal must receive to be eligible for resubmission at future shareholder meetings were 3 percent, 6 percent, and 10 percent for matters previously voted on once, twice, or three or more times in the last five years, respectively. The new thresholds are 5 percent, 15 percent, and 25 percent, respectively.

For example, a proposal would need to get support from at least 5 percent of the shareholders in its first submission to be eligible for resubmission in the following three years. Proposals submitted two and three times in the previous five years would need to get 15 percent and 25 percent of the votes, to be eligible for resubmission in the following three years.

The commission said the changes take into consideration the interests of not only the shareholder who submits a proposal but also the rest of the shareholders who bear the costs associated with it.

“These amendments ensure there is an appropriate alignment of interests between shareholder-proponents and their fellow shareholders and illustrate again why retrospective review and, as appropriate, modernization of our rules is necessary,” SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said. “There have been many significant changes in communication methods and technology, as well as the methods investors, particularly retail investors, use to access our markets in the 20 years and 75 years since the initial and resubmission thresholds were last revised.”

But the SEC’s two Democratic commissioners, Allison Herren Lee and Caroline Crenshaw, voted against the revised rule as it curtails small, individual shareholders’ ability to exercise their voting rights.

“The implication of today’s rulemaking is that the wealthy are more likely to possess ideas worthy of corporate consideration,” Crenshaw said. “That is one way to reduce the burden on corporations, but I believe that that is a bad result.”

The final rule is in Release No. 34-89964, Procedural Requirements and Resubmission Thresholds under Exchange Act Rule 14a-8. It becomes effective 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.

The amendments will apply to any proposal submitted for an annual or special meeting to be held on or after January 1, 2022. It has a transition period with respect to the ownership thresholds that will allow shareholders meeting specified conditions to rely on the $2,000 and one-year ownership threshold for proposals submitted for an annual or special meeting to be held before January 1, 2023.

The rule responds to complaints by business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable. The groups believe that the rule allowed a handful of activist investors to easily put forward “idiosyncratic” proposals that relate to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) matters at the expense of the rest of the shareholders. The business organizations think ESG issues have nothing to do with a company’s financial performance. But it is an extra expense that companies have to address resolutions, for example, on disclosure of the amount spent on political activities or greenhouse gas emissions.

Moreover, businesses said that the rule should be tightened so that a small group of shareholders will be restricted from submitting losing proposals repeatedly.

Investor advocates wanted current rules left intact because, among other things, they believe ESG matters are increasingly material today. They also believe small retail investors will be disenfranchised if the thresholds were raised. Most of all, they believe the current process helps to hold corporations accountable.

“Corporate CEOs are rejoicing in reaction to Trump’s SEC vote to restrict the ability of investors to file shareholder proposals,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka tweeted. “As a result, working people’s retirement plans will be disenfranchised from having a voice in corporate accountability. This will not stand!”

Fran Teplitz, Green America’s executive co-director for business, investing & policy, said the SEC may face legal and legislative backlash and investor demand for repeal.

“It’s part of an overall strategy by Corporate America to weaken corporate responsibility and undercut progress on social and environmental issues,” she said in a statement.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce welcomed the SEC’s action, calling it long overdue.

The old rules “allowed special interest activists to push narrow agendas unrelated to the success of public companies and investor return,” Tom Quaadman, executive vice president for the U.S. Chamber’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, said in a statement.

In the meantime, Dave Brown, a partner with Alston & Bird LLP, said “it will be interesting to see what processes and procedures develop regarding the requirement for the shareholder making a proposal to meet with the company.”

“I suspect it will become a check the box exercise but hopefully it will result in meaningful engagement for both sides,” he said. “Given the focus, time and effort that is devoted to shareholder proposals these amendments will be a welcome update to the current system for the corporate community.”

The final rules are based on a proposal issued in November 2019 in Release No. 34-87458, Procedural Requirements and Resubmission Thresholds under Exchange Act Rule 14a-8.

WASHINGTON, D.C.//September 23, 2020//Today the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) voted to undermine the shareholder resolution process and thereby the ability of investors to pressure corporations to be accountable for their social and environmental impacts. Shareholder resolutions have been successfully filed for decades, leading to greater corporate accountability – benefitting all shareholders and stakeholders. The rule change benefits Corporate America at the expense of workers, consumers, communities, investors, and other stakeholders.

The SEC can expect the rule to face legal and legislative backlash and widespread investor and stakeholder condemnation demanding its repeal.

“This is another attack on the ability of shareholders to improve the companies in which they invest by limiting the resolutions put before corporate management – and limiting who can file resolutions. It’s part of an overall strategy by Corporate America to weaken corporate responsibility and undercut progress on social and environmental issues,” said Fran Teplitz, Green America’s executive co-director for business, investing & policy. “The rule remains unacceptable even with the elimination of the “momentum’ provision.”

Teplitz added: “Small, individual shareholders will be the most negatively impacted by the rule, including by no longer being permitted to band together to aggregate their shares to meet the required thresholds for submitting resolutions. The SEC is thereby working against its own mission to protect investors of all asset levels. And by raising the thresholds required to submit resolutions, and the number of resolutions allowed per investor representative, it’s clear the SEC wants to shield Corporate America from the resolutions that push companies to clean up their acts.”

SEC Commissioner Caroline A. Crenshaw said, “the implication of today’s rulemaking is that the wealthy are more likely to possess ideas worthy of corporate consideration. That is one way to reduce the burden on corporations, but I believe that that is a bad result.” 

The shareholder resolution process has been used successfully for decades to promote corporate transparency, accountability, and improved practices. No changes are needed to the shareholder resolution process which is strongly supported by individual and institutional investors. During the recent public comment period on the rule, an overwhelming majority condemned the proposed SEC changes. The SEC truncated the public comment period for this rule to a mere 30 days and has rushed to a vote before the November presidential election.

Shareholder resolutions address a wide array of issues affected by corporate conduct, including human rights, worker rights, the climate crisis, agricultural issues, gender and minority pay disparity at companies, corporate board diversity, CEO pay, corporate political contributions and lobbying, and more. Now more than ever, responsible investors need to be able to raise these crucial issues as they have been doing for decades. As our society deals with the scourge of racism, the COVID-19 pandemic, and our planet is imperiled by the climate crisis, any changes to the shareholder process should enhance, not weaken, the ability to urge corporations to address their impacts on people and the planet.

Green America recognizes that society and the economy are best served for the long-term when companies address their social, environmental, and corporate governance impacts. Investors, companies, the economy, and all corporate stakeholders will only be hurt by the new rule. The shareholder resolution process needs no “fixes” and should stand as is.

“This effort to ‘modernize’ the shareholder process actually is a sign of its effectiveness as it currently works,” stated Teplitz.“The SEC wants to let companies off the hook so they can ignore issues they’d prefer not to address, even to the detriment of companies’ long-term value.”

ABOUT GREEN AMERICA

Green America is the nation’s leading green economy organization. Founded in 1982, Green America provides the economic strategies, organizing power and practical tools for businesses, investors, and consumers to solve today’s social and environmental problems. http://www.GreenAmerica.org  

MEDIA CONTACT: Max Karlin for Green America, (703) 276-3255, or mkarlin@hastingsgroup.com.

At Green America, all year we say it’s important to “vote with your dollars” – to use your consumer and investor power to drive economic change that promotes social justice and environmental sustainability.

It's also important to vote in the traditional sense – to participate in our democracy on Election Day, November 3rd, or have a plan to vote by mail and make sure that mail-in ballot is received and counted.

We need every strategy available to us to protect people and the planet as never before. The economic strategies we champion can either be strengthened or undercut by the actions of our elected representatives. Let’s make sure we elect people who will truly advance a green economy for all people.

If you are a citizen, please make sure to vote.

And encourage your family and friends to vote as well. Democracy only works when we all participate.

Here are several resources to help you vote in November or enable you to help others with their voter registrations:

Vote.org: register to vote, request an absentee ballot, sign-up for election reminders, urge people too young to vote to pledge to register on their 18^th birthday.

When We All Vote:  Learn how to join the movement of those texting eligible voters to register and vote.

Black Voters Matter: Learn about text banking and access their Voting Toolkit.

Rock the Vote: Focus on mobilizing young voters.

League of Women Voters Educations Fund: Sign up as a poll worker; check your registration status; register to vote; find other voter resources.

US Vote Foundation: Find election dates and deadlines; state voting requirements; and voter registration including for overseas citizens.

Election Protection: Protect voters' rights, stop voter suppression, and sign up to be an Election Protection volunteer.

Power the Polls: Find out how to staff your local polling place.

Hip Hop Caucus: Register to vote and find voting information for your state and guidelines for previously incarcerated people.

American Sustainable Business Council:  Provides election resources for business leaders – and the public – including the location of polling places, registration deadlines, and other resources.

Spread the word to family and friends and make sure they know the voting requirements where they live. Voting procedures and deadlines vary!

And if you haven’t already taken our action to protect the US Postal Service, please do so now. The election and our democracy depend on a well-funded and functioning postal system.

- Fran Teplitz, Executive Co-Director for Business, Investing & Policy

In response to over 100,000 consumers demanding progress from Walmart on refrigerants, Walmart announced that it will be transitioning to low-impact refrigerants for cooling and electrified equipment for heating in its stores, clubs, and data and distribution centers by 2040.

This is an important first step and acknowledgement from Walmart that it needs to address refrigerants, but the timeline is too slow given the enormous impact refrigerants have on climate change, and Walmart is not addressing refrigerant leaks occurring in their thousands of store world wide.

Walmart currently uses hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a refrigerant that is a major contributor to climate change. This harmful, synthetic gas is the fastest increasing greenhouse gas entering our atmosphere and thousands of times more potent than CO2.  Refrigerants are the largest source of direct climate emissions from Walmart, and are equivalent to the emissions from powering all the households in San Francisco.

Green America will continue to put pressure on Walmart through our Cool It campaign until the company adopts an accelerated timeline for addressing emissions and addresses current HFC leaks from its stores.

New Announcement Waiting Until 2040 to Phase Out HFCs Leaves Walmart Way Behind Competitors – Including Aldi, Target, and Whole Foods – Who Already Have Taken Action

Washington, D.C. (September 21, 2020) – Green America and Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), along with other partners, are urging Walmart to move faster on climate-harming refrigerant hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). Today, the retail giant announced it would be transitioning to low-impact refrigerants for cooling and electrified equipment for heating in its stores, clubs, and data and distribution centers by 2040, a deadline that is decades after its major competitors, including Aldi, Target, and Whole Foods started making the switch. Walmart also failed to offer a plan to address current leaks of HFCs from its stores in its announcement.

Walmart's announcement comes after more than 100,000 consumers recently joined Green America, Daily Kos, Greenpeace USA, Friends of the Earth, LeftNet, Progressive Network Reform and additional environmental organizations, in calling on Walmart to reduce emissions from the refrigerants used in its 11,500 stores worldwide. The massive outpouring of petitions to the largest brick and mortar retailer and grocery chain in the US were delivered directly to Walmart over the past month. 

"After mounting consumer pressure and regulatory movement, Walmart has finally announced its new intent to address refrigerants, but offers no specifics on what refrigerants it will use and includes no public goals on its current refrigerant leaks that are fueling the climate crisis." said Beth Porter, Green America’s Climate Campaigns director. “Potent HFC gases make up nearly half of Walmart’s direct emissions and the company has known this for years. It’s past time for Walmart to take action and we need to see clearer details and a more aggressive timeline.”

Green America’s Cool It campaign addresses hydrofluorocarbons, a refrigerant that is a major contributor to climate change. This harmful, synthetic gas is the fastest increasing greenhouse gas entering our atmosphere and thousands of times more potent than CO2.

“It is shocking that despite several supermarkets already adopting HFC-free cooling across America, Walmart is backtracking on its previous commitment to "ultra-low GWP[1]" refrigerants after years of failing to implement that voluntary commitment.” said Avipsa Mahapatra, Climate Campaign Lead, EIA. “Without any measurable near-term targets to transition equipment completely away from HFCs or any strategy to address refrigerant leaks and disposal, today's announcement is grossly inadequate.”

Walmart received a failing grade on the Environmental Investigation Agency’s Climate-Friendly Supermarkets scorecard because the retail giant has failed to install HFC-free refrigerants in any of its stores or join the US EPA’s Green Chill program that works with food retailers to reduce refrigerant emissions. EIA initiated conversations with Walmart around the company’s refrigerant practices in 2015.

Consumers can continue to support the campaign to get Walmart to eliminate refrigerant emissions by joining  Green America’s campaign. They can also support supermarkets that are taking action on refrigerants through EIA’s Climate Friendly Supermarket Map and “thank you” action in partnership with Green America.

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MEDIA CONTACT: Max Karlin for Green America, (703) 276-3255, or mkarlin@hastingsgroup.com.

ABOUT GREEN AMERICA

Green America is the nation’s leading green economy organization. Founded in 1982, Green America provides the economic strategies, organizing power and practical tools for businesses and individuals to solve today’s social and environmental problems. http://www.GreenAmerica.org

ABOUT EIA

Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is an independent non-profit campaigning organization dedicated to identifying, investigating, and implementing solutions to protect endangered wildlife, forests, and the global climate. EIA Climate campaign is working to eliminate powerful greenhouse gases and improve energy efficiency in the cooling sector, and expose related illicit trade to campaign for new policies, improved governance, and more effective enforcement. www.eia-global.org.

Washington, DC (September 17, 2020)—Nearly 60 businesses from across the country issued a statement today calling on the US insurance industry to stop insuring and investing in the fossil fuels driving climate change. Signatories include Ben & Jerry’s, Aspen Skiing Company, Burton Snowboards, Patagonia, Bigelow Tea, and Seventh Generation.

This marks the first time that business policyholders have publicly called on US insurers to drop coal, oil, and gas. Amid growing attention to the role of global finance in the climate crisis, US insurers like Liberty Mutual and AIG have come under increased scrutiny from the public sector, Indigenous Peoples, and NGOs for underwriting damaging oil pipelines and coal mines. The statement comes in the lead-up to New York Climate Week during a year of record-breaking natural disasters in the US.

"When you're trying to put out the fires, you don't invest in lighter fluid--but that's exactly what insurance companies investing in fossil fuels are doing. They're accelerating risk, when businesses expect them to reduce it. And financial markets increasingly recognize the contradiction," said Thomas Oppel, Executive Vice President at American Sustainable Business Council, who organized the letter with Green America and Insure Our Future.

"In recent weeks the US has faced severe heat waves, deadly wildfires, and a hurricane bearing likely ‘un-survivable’ storm surges. The climate science is crystal clear: we MUST keep fossil fuels in the ground. US insurance companies must immediately stop underwriting and investing in fossil fuels," said Kate Ogden, Advocacy and Movement Building Manager at Seventh Generation, one of the letter’s signatories.

Coal, oil, and gas infrastructure can’t operate without insurance. While many European insurers have policies reducing or ending support for fossil fuels, US companies largely continue to support them, even though they make up only a small percentage of premiums. For example, coal—the single biggest contributor to global warming—accounted for less than 1% of AIG’s 2019 premiums. The UN has warned that we have less than 10 years to transition off fossil fuels if we are to prevent climate catastrophe, and a recent report from the US government finds that climate change poses a major risk to the stability of the US financial system.

“The decision to continue to support the fossil fuel sector is in direct contradiction to the action necessary to mitigate the climate crisis and to the economy’s long term financial stability,” the statement reads, citing government projections that global warming will shrink the US economy up to 10 percent by the end of the century.

“As insurance customers, we are therefore expressing our desire for insurance coverage in the US market that isn’t tied to supporting fossil fuels and actively supports renewable energy,” it continues. The companies committed to working to align their operations with their sustainability commitments—including through their choice of insurance companies.

“While the financial sector is increasingly aware of the profound risks inherent in the climate crisis, it hasn’t taken the necessary action. Insurance companies need to halt underwriting and investing in fossil fuels and support renewable energy now,” said Fran Teplitz, director of Green America’s Green Business Network.

Dropping fossil fuels makes both environmental and economic sense

“Solving climate change is about starting things and stopping others. We need to start up a clean energy economy. Simultaneously, we need to stop pulling fossil fuels out of the ground. And the way to do that is to restrict both financing and insurance,” said Auden Schendler, Senior Vice President of Sustainability at Aspen Skiing Company, one of the signatories. “This is not a radical argument, because fossil investments are proving to be financial and moral losers anyway." 

Renewables are increasingly cheaper than coal, and the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated losses already underway in the oil and gas industry, putting a growing number of installations at risk of becoming "stranded assets" as demand drops. Fossil fuels are also losing value fast: seven of the world’s top oil firms have downgraded assets by US$87 billion this year. 

Climate change-driven disasters also threaten insurer balance sheets. In 2018, disasters like floods, wildfires, and earthquakes caused over US$160 billion in damages; US$80 billion of this was insured. Cambridge University predicts that losses will triple over the next 30 years if climate change continues unabated.

Businesses call on US insurers to join their global peers in combating climate change 

The statement applauds the 19 major insurance companies, primarily in Europe and Australia, who have limited or ended coverage for fossil fuels, primarily coal and/or tar sands. While four major US companies have policies—Chubb, Axis Capital, the Hartford, and Liberty Mutual—all continue to underwrite fossil fuels. For example, Chubb and Liberty Mutual insure the environmentally disastrous Trans Mountain pipeline over the protests of Indigenous Peoples. 

“We recognize the opportunity this presents for the US insurance industry to join their global peers. We would therefore strongly support similar or stronger efforts from US insurers to address their own underwriting and investments in fossil fuels,” the statement reads.

One of the signatories of the statement is itself an insurance company—Lemonade Insurance—which committed at its founding to never invest in fossil fuels and has called on its industry peers to join them in their efforts to address climate change.

“Back in 2018, Lemonade was the first U.S. insurer to commit to not invest in fossil fuels. Beyond its impact on climate change, to be paying for the damages of wildfires, hurricanes, and other climate disasters while simultaneously funding the very industries that are responsible for some of the worst of those damages, simply didn’t make sense to us,” said Yael Wissner Levy, Vice President of Communications at Lemonade.

“We rely on the insurance industry to help bring about a better, more reliable future for us, lessening the impacts of devastating events, not increasing the incidence of such events and all the trauma and business closures that come with them, by underwriting or investing in fossil fuels,” said Marie Venner, President of Venner Consulting and one of the signatories. “It is utterly immoral and unethical to be underwriting or investing in fossil fuels, for people now or in the future. Our lives depend on stopping this.”

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The American Sustainable Business Council (ASBC) is the leading business organization serving the public policy interests of responsible companies, their customers and other stakeholders. Founded in 2009, ASBC’s membership represents over 250,000 businesses in a wide range of industries. ASBC advocates for policy change and informs business owners, policymakers and the public about the need and opportunities for building a vibrant, broadly prosperous, sustainable economy.

Green America is a national membership organization dedicated to harnessing economic power—the strength of consumers, investors, businesses, and the marketplace—to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society. Green America’s Green Business Network includes thousands of businesses s home to both rising social and eco enterprises and the most established green businesses around. We provide the tools, the information, and the consumer base to help you thrive in today’s competitive green marketplace.

Insure Our Future in the US is a campaign comprised of environmental, consumer protection, and grassroots organizations holding the US insurance industry accountable for its role in the climate crisis. We are part of the global Insure Our Future campaign, which promotes a rapid shift of the insurance industry away from supporting and financing fossil fuels to accelerating the transition to a clean energy economy.

Across the country, mutual aid networks have rapidly developed in response to the unique challenges posed by COVID-19.

What is Mutual Aid?

Although mutual aid takes many forms, it is defined by reciprocity. People support each other based on what others need and what they can provide, unlike charity and government assistance, which are one-sided giving. In many cases, mutual aid networks—which are often maintained digitally—have grown from an offer or request for assistance, such as help buying groceries.

The ways in which mutual networks function vary greatly depending on community need. South Boston Neighborhood Aid is driven by the work of the nonprofit South Boston Neighborhood Development Corporation and is focused primarily on connecting households with established community programs such as food pantries.

“What we find is that largely, the people that need help with food haven’t had this need before,” says Ami Campbell, community engagement director for the nonprofit.

The Recent Rise of Mutual Aid

Berkeley Mutual Aid Network in Berkeley, California, is a web of approximately 1,300 people which blossomed from a single post on neighborhood connection forum Nextdoor. Helen Marks, chief of operations for the network, says she has witnessed scores of people step up to help each other.

“Right now, as the social safety net is failing people, we are seeing that folks are coming together to shore up the safety net themselves,” Marks says.

Nathan Williams is the director of Town Hall Project: a nonprofit which provides a database of constituent events held by federal elected officials. Town Hall Project also put together MutualAidHub.org, a resource for and map of mutual aid networks nationwide, which Williams says is constantly growing.

Is Mutual Aid a New Phenomenon?

Mutual aid has been a practice of communities of color and Indigenous people for generations. One of the very first US organized efforts, The Free African Society (FAS), was a Philadelphia-based organization established in 1787 that provided monetary support, among other services, to recently freed African slaves in the US. FAS also played a key role in helping residents who fell sick from yellow fever in 1793.

Organizing around COVID-19, and the growing Black Lives Matter protest movement, communities of color have quickly banded together. In May, Raised Roots, a Black-owned urban farm, and Black Earth Farms, a Black and Indigenous farming collective, partnered to feed protesters in Oakland, California, shortly after George Floyd’s death.

Central Valley Mutual Aid & Collective Care Network began in California’s San Joaquin Valley in March and offers cash aid. One of the network’s guiding principles is “Solidarity, Not Charity.”

Tanisha McClain, a member of that network’s Outreach and Communications Committee, says mutual aid has always been a part of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities.

She says she was raised with the very same values.

“I grew up in a southern Black household, and it was the same principle,” she says. “It was, ‘You’re not going to come into my house and be hungry. You’re going to come into my house, and I’m going to feed you, but I’m not just going to feed your body. I’m going to feed your spirit. I’m going to feed your soul.’”

Get Involved

By entering your zip code on MutalAidHub.org, you can find networks near you. A Google or Facebook search with your city name and “mutual aid” can also help you track down networks that aren’t yet on the map.

At Green America, when we say “green,” we always mean both environmental sustainability and social justice. It especially means recognizing that systemic racism was a reality long before the Black Lives Matter era and that the climate emergency isn’t on hold because of COVID-19. History shows us that protesting has the power to pressure government and corporations into buckling to the people’s demands. In addition to taking to the streets, here are some other ways to prtest in a pandemic and stand up for liberty and justice for all. 

Join a Nonprofit  

Officially joining an organization and recruiting a friend or two is a meaningful way to directly support a cause and connect with a likeminded community. Taking action through volunteer work, supporting advocacy campaigns, and donating are all valuable contributions and ways to protest in a pandemic. Start today by signing on to one of our many campaigns.  

Contact Elected Leaders  

It’s our duty to hold elected leaders at all levels accountable to the people they serve. Organizations like the Grassroots Law Project, Color of Change, Action Network, and of course, Green America, provide calling scripts, email templates, and sample social media posts along with their petitions to leaders. Contact information for all US elected officials can be found at usa.gov/elected-officials. 

Express Yourself with Art  

Just wearing a simple t-shirt, mask, or putting up a yard or window sign can make a bold statement. Find an array of punchy protest material from Syracuse Cultural Workers {GBN}, including an “In Our 6 WAYS TO PROTEST IN A PANDEMIC America...” yard sign for $10, (also available in Spanish). Or make your own! 

Be a Resource for Protesters  

If you’re not able to physically join a demonstration, you can show protesters you have their back by donating essential supplies like masks and snacks, offering to drive, and being an emergency contact. The National Bail Fund Network keeps up-to-date lists of funds to support in each state. Be sure to confirm with the fund whether donations are still needed before you give. 

Volunteer Your Time  

Even if you only have a few hours, volunteering for a local grassroots organization can create bandwidth for those on the ground. Volunteering could be anything from writing social media posts, designing posters, providing medical care, organizing or delivering goods, or even legal counsel depending on your expertise. There are so many ways to contribute, even from home.  

Do a Social Distancing Caravan  

If marching or standing with a crowd isn’t an option, consider joining a car or bicycle caravan. You can tape signs, play music, honk horns, and make your presence felt while staying physically distant. 

WASHINGTON – Ten environmental, consumer, and pollinator protection organizations delivered signatures from 157,196 consumers to Home Depot (NYSE: HD) and Lowe’s (NYSE: LOW) today urging them to remove Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides from store shelves and online sales and to expand sales of organic and other safer alternatives. This follows a letter to the companies signed by 66 organizations with the same requests. Competitors Costco (NASDAQ: COST) and B&Q have already announced commitments to phase out glyphosate-based products. 

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is the most widely used weedkiller in the world. Glyphosate is classified as a probable human carcinogen by the World Health Organization and has been linked to high rates of kidney disease in farming communities and to shortened pregnancy in a cohort of women in the Midwest. Animal studies and bioassays link glyphosate and its formulations to Parkinson’s, endocrine disruption, DNA damage, decreased sperm function, disruption of the gut microbiome, and fatty liver disease.

In the environment, glyphosate is a primary driver of Monarch butterfly declines and has been associated with harm to honeybees including negative impacts on larval development, cognitive abilities, colony parasite load, and gut microbiota.

After a spate of high profile lawsuits linking plaintiffs’ cancer to glyphosate exposure, manufacturer Bayer agreed to pay $10 billion to settle an additional 95,000 cases out of court. However, Roundup will continue to be sold for use on yards, school grounds, public parks, and farms without any safety warning. 

The following organizations collaborated to collect petition signatures: Friends of the Earth, SumOfUs, Sierra Club, Center for Food Safety, Beyond Pesticides, Green America, Herbicide-Free Campus, Toxic Free North Carolina, People and Pollinators Protection Network, and the Ecology Center.

“Home and garden stores can make a significant difference in reducing the use of this toxic product,” said Kendra Klein, senior staff scientist at Friends of the Earth. “Research shows that homeowners use up to 10 times more chemical pesticides per acre on their lawns than farmers use on crops. It’s reckless to sell consumers products linked to cancer when safer organic alternatives exist. Home Depot and Lowe’s should build on their earlier commitments to phase out harmful neonicotinoid pesticides by taking decisive action on glyphosate.”  

“In the absence of adequate government protections, retailers should step up and act responsibly by ending the sale of products containing glyphosate that are known to have negative impacts on human health and the environment, including pollinators such as Monarch butterflies,” said Rebecca Spector, West Coast director at Center for Food Safety.

“Regulatory agencies have failed to protect us. Young people are taking their health into their own hands and demanding that Home Depot and Lowe’s remove glyphosate-based herbicides from the shelves. We have sufficient scientific evidence to know the adverse effects these products have on our own bodies, as well as on the environment. It is Home Depot and Lowe’s responsibility to protect the many people who still use these products and are unaware of the risks,” said Mackenzie Feldman, Executive Director at Herbicide-Free Campus. 

“The research is clear — glyphosate is harmful to people and the planet. Especially during a year when so many Americans turned to gardening during the pandemic, Home Depot and Lowe’s have a very real responsibility to keep this chemical out of our homes and communities,” said Jes Walton, Food Campaigns Director at Green America. 

“Most home gardeners don’t fully understand the potential dangers of spraying these chemicals on their lawns and in their gardens. And who knows when U.S. government officials will pass legislation banning products containing glyphosate,” said Lacey Kohlmoos, U.S. Campaign Manager at SumOfUs. “It is up to Home Depot and Lowe’s to do the right thing and take this cancer-linked poison off their shelves.”

“As leading retailers of garden pesticides, supplies, and equipment, Lowe’s and Home Depot can continue to contribute to the poisoning of people and environment, or they can help their customers take on the existential crises of pesticide-induced diseases, like cancer, climate change, and biodiversity decline through the sale of products compatible with organic land management,” said Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides.

Expert contact: Kendra Klein, 415-350-5957, Kklein@foe.org
Communications contact: 
Erin Jensen, Friends of the Earth (202) 222-0722, ejensen@foe.org 
Shireen Karimi, Green America (202) 872-5337, skarimi@greenamerica.org

Latinx Heritage Month is a month-long celebration to honor the cultures and heritages of peoples of Latin American origin and descent.

Historically, the celebration only included Hispanic origin and descent, but has since adopted language inclusive to non-Spanish peoples of Latin America. Mid-September marks the beginning of Latinx Heritage Month because it is the anniversary of independence for several Latin American countries; several more independence days occur through mid-October.

The Latinx demographic is the largest minority in the US and continues to grow.The peoples’ food, music, beliefs, language, and culture have shaped our country over the decades. Latinx-owned businesses contribute $700 billion to the economy each year, according the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and have grown at double the rate of all businesses across America.

The Green Business Network at Green America is proud to highlight Latinx-owned green businesses this month. We support businesses that adopt practices to protect people and the planet through goals of social and environmental justice, sustainability, and community health and development.

Here are some Green Business Network members that support Latinx Indigenous peoples or are Latinx-owned:

Minga Fair Trade Imports

Minga Fair Trade Imports is a small business out to help small businesses by promoting fair trade and intercultural communication. Minga sells all sorts of goods from artisans in Latin America.

INDIGENOUS

INDIGENOUS offers luxury apparel inspired by the ancient traditions of Peruvian textile design. The eco-fashion company makes organic and fair trade clothing, and pays workers a fair, living wage in safe working conditions. INDIGENOUS also reinvests in community with microloans and grants.

Mayan Hands

Mayan Hands is a fair trade organization that provides economic and educational opportunities to Mayan women, supporting them in their quest to lift their families out of extreme poverty and live within the culture they cherish.

Shamans Market

Shamans Market offers fair trade products that support Indigenous peoples. Their Latin American product offerings come from Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Central America. Shamans Market also supports Amazon rainforest preservation, medical support to Indigenous peoples and preserving Indigenous wisdom by supporting Camino Verde and Amazon Promise.

Verbio

Verbio is a multilingual communications and cross-cultural marketing company. Since 1996, Verbio has developed a full spectrum of services such as: translating written documents and technical training materials, interpreting on-site and remote conversations, plus customizing marketing campaigns, videos, and websites to target global markets in 200 languages.

Browse more certified green businesses that are Latinx-owned or support Hispanic and Latinx peoples by searching with the minority-owned filter on the National Green Pages.

Everyone can take meaningful action on the climate by growing a Climate Victory Garden. This toolkit for beginner gardeners is a jumping off point for learning the basics and starting on a path towards gardening for the planet.

(Too busy for a long article? This short video covers the same information in under 2 minutes!)

To be part of the climate solution, ask yourself these two questions anytime you’re making decisions in your garden.

Am I protecting my soils?  

Maximizing soil protection is important because this is where we’re capturing carbon—pulling the powerful greenhouse gas carbon dioxide out of the air and storing it underground where it feeds our plants and soil microbes.  

Avoiding tilling and keeping soils covered are examples of protecting the soil. 

Am I choosing climate-conscious products? 

This is all about minimizing our climate impacts beyond the boundaries of our gardens and making decisions that help reduce emissions. When possible, opt for natural and organic alternatives to store-bought and synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. Using sustainably harvested or repurposed materials also puts the planet first. 

For example, instead if using synthetic chemical fertilizers—and their associated pollution and emissions from production and transportation—fertilize your garden with compost that supports soil life and keeps food and other organic waste out of the landfill where they produce the potent greenhouse gas, methane.

Five easy steps for beginner gardeners - Start a Climate Victory Garden today! 

1. Set goals

Think about your dream garden. What do you see? What do you hear? Consider drawing or writing about it. Think about how much time you have to commit to your garden—be realistic and start small. If you have just a few minutes a day, consider a container. If it’s your first time ever gardening, consider a plot ten square feet or less, which requires around two to three hours per week. 

While it will take some time to achieve this dream garden, your vision and goals will guide you through the process. What does success mean to you? Maybe your top priority is growing delicious tomatoes to save money on groceries, getting your kids outside, or creating a habitat for pollinators. 

No matter what your goal, garden planning is essential for success and ensures you're making the right decisions for your Climate Victory Garden to have the greatest impact on the climate, local ecosystems, and the quality of food you grow.

2. Choose what you want to grow

First things first—grow what you love!  

Here are some additional considerations for deciding what to grow: 

• Look at your favorite recipes and grow the ingredients. 
• Plant veggies and herbs that are expensive and hard to find at your grocery store.
• Consider how much space you have and grow accordingly—herbs are great for small spaces, while squash need several square feet for each plant. 
• Be sure you’re growing plants that are suited to your climate—find your hardiness zone and match that to the zone to information on the back of your seed packet. 
• Consider perennial plants—like berry bushes—that don’t have to be replanted each season because they’re great for supporting soil heath and are less work for you. 

Choosing between seeds and transplants

Beginner gardeners will have the best luck with transplants, because they’ve been nurtured past their most vulnerable seedling stage. Transplants are also quicker to mature because they’re several weeks old by the time you get them. However, because of this, they’re also more expensive than starting from seed. When buying transplants from your local nursery or neighborhood farm, choose vibrant, pest-free plants that were grown without the use of chemical pesticides or fertilizers.  

If you’d like to try to start some plants from seed, opt for the easy-to-grow plants like peas, beans, radishes, leafy greens, and sunflowers. This resource will guide you through the steps.. 

3. Decide where to put your garden

Before you get too excited, be sure to check your zoning laws, any HOA requirements, and—if you’re a renter—talk to your landlord about starting a garden. If you don’t know the entire history of your property, consider getting your soil tested for toxins like lead paint. If your soil is permanently damaged, you can still grow food in raised beds and/or containers. 

The easier it is to see and access your garden, the more you’ll be reminded to care for it.

Try to choose a site that’s visible from your kitchen or other room you spend a lot of time in. It’s also helpful to have a nearby water source, like a hose or spigot to fill your watering can—or if you have an automated sprinkler system you might be able to take advantage of that (be sure the water pressure isn’t so strong that it could damage your seedlings). 

If you have strict landscaping rules where you live, experiment with including beautiful edible plants in with your ornamentals. 

Think you’ve found the ideal spot?

Take some time to observe the area to make sure it gets enough sun—most crops prefer 6-8 hours of direct sunlight every day. Look for other environmental factors like wind and drainage as well.  

The more ideal location you choose, the happier your plants will be and the less likely you’ll have to revert to chemicals that are bad for your local ecosystems and the climate.  

No yard? No worries! 

If you don’t have a lot (or any) outdoor growing space, it’s time to get creative. Maybe you can grow along fence lines; in the parkways between sidewalks and curbs; at family’s, friend’s, or neighbor’s house; or other open areas in your neighborhood. Or, you might be able to get a plot at a local farm or community garden.  

Have a balcony, sunny windowsill, or even just a little extra space on your countertop? You can grow a Climate Victory Garden in containers indoors or outdoors.  

• Find a big container—the bigger the better, and just about anything can be repurposed so long as you’re able to add drainage holes.  
• Choose your plants wisely—many veggies have varieties that are better suited for containers, look for those with dwarf and bush growing habits. Leafy greens and herbs are good for indoors. 
• Supplement with light if needed—if your location doesn’t get enough sunlight, look for a small, affordable, and efficient LED indoor growing light. 

4. Know when and how to plant

If you’ve purchased transplants, keep them indoors until the risk of frost has passed. When you’re ready to plant outside, help your seedlings adjust to their new home by hardening off—that is, placing them near their future planting site for a few hours each day and increasing the time gradually until they’ve spent a night outdoors in their pot.  

When planting, first water the ground thoroughly. Dig a hole twice as large as the pot, take the plant out of the pot and place in the ground, and lightly pack the soil around the roots. Water thoroughly again and maintain a consistent watering schedule to avoid shocking the plant. 

Planting from seed is more difficult, as they need regular watering and close attention. Look for seeds that can be direct seeded right in the dirt of your garden bed or container. This information is on the back of the seed packet, along with seed depth, row spacing, and dates to plant. 

No matter what you plant, make sure you incorporate pathways into your layout and beds that you can reach the middle of for weeding and harvesting.  

5. Protect soils 

Soils are rich with life that supports nutritious crops and carbon capture. There are many ways to protect and build soil health, and these are a lifelong part of the gardening process.  

• Avoid chemicals that reduce biodiversity 
• Add compost to support soil life 
• Mulch to protect soils from the elements 
• Allow weeds to cover uncultivated soils 
• Minimize digging to reduce disturbance of fungi and earthworms 
• Keep old plants in the ground over the winter for pollinator habitat and to anchor soils 
• When removing old plants to plant more, cut at the soil level, leaving the root underground 

Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned gardener, it’s all one big experiment. There will be ups and downs. 

Looking for more information about how to do any of the above steps? Check out these resources. 

This year has been a tough one for teachers and the many students and parents navigating the education system during the pandemic. Josh Mcguire, a program manager at the school gardening nonprofit Big Green, is familiar with this on both a personal and professional level—starting this fall semester with two young children at home and supporting the many schools he works with at varying levels of virtual and in-person learning. 

“This is a time to let our creative streak really shine and innovate right now,” he says. 

No matter whether you’re a teacher or parent or where you’re working with your students this semester—consider bringing a little creativity to your curriculum with gardening. It’s shown to stimulate hands-on learning, tune motor skills, and support stress release. It increases preference and knowledge of healthy foods and ultimately creates connections between kids and the natural world. 

Josh sees a lot of anecdotal proof of this in the communities he works with, “When the student takes a tomato off the vine or eats lettuce right out of the garden for the first time—this creates brand new neural connections, from nature to mouth to stomach, and that’s magic.”

And, Big Green has the data to back it up, with 91 percent of teachers and principals reporting that students who participate in Big Green Learning Gardens are more likely to eat their veggies.

But gardening can go so much farther than food literacy. You can use the garden to teach science, language arts, and even math and sciences. Climate Victory Gardening digs into topics like photosynthesis, ecology, and atmospheric sciences. (Fun fact: Big Green has over 550 Climate Victory Gardens across the country, capturing 53 tons of carbon over the next 10 years). 

“What’s really nice about gardening is that you can do it anywhere and just about any time—if you have a window, you can garden, and it’s so accessible for kids,” Josh reminds us. “Caring for a plant is a great introduction to your student’s first responsibility and taking care of something. Give them a little windowsill plant or have them grow a seed from scratch.” 

Activities to get Your Kids Excited about Gardening 

Looking for safe outdoor activities for students? Homeschooling or attending classes virtually this semester? Or just looking for activities to get your kids off their screens? As a garden educator, Josh has some tips for parents and teachers.

Experiment with Root Viewing Cups

Fill a clear cup with soil and plant a seed right along its side. Place the cup in a sunny window, water every day, and watch the root develop and grow into something you can eat. Peas are great for this activity because they’re fast growing, with large seeds and roots. You can eat pea shoots when they’re just a few inches tall. This is a great activity for all ages—Josh does this with his four-year-old.

Grow Easter Egg Radishes

When gardening with kids, choose plants that are quick and easy to grow. Think there’s no way your child will eat a radish? Josh says the magic of gardening is that kids will almost always try what they grew. He loves watching parents’ and teachers’ surprise at their child enjoying fresh produce straight from the garden. You can grow radishes indoors or outdoors in many places right now because they’re cold tolerant. Easter egg radishes are different colors, which adds an element of fun when picking them. Have your child pick, wash, and do a taste test. 

Plant the Pantry … or a Salad

Look for seeds on your spice rack. Poppy seeds, flax seeds, and coriander seeds might germinate, depending on how old they are—over plant to ensure success. Interested in planting a salad instead? Depending on where you live, it might not be too late to plant spinach, kale, and lettuces, all of which are easy to grow; it’s as simple as sprinkling the seeds on the soil, scratching them in, and watering.

No matter what you choose to plant, Josh says: start small and choose quick growers and hardy varietals—which just means plants that are tougher in the face of temperature fluctuations. And, be sure to create a schedule around watering. “Water is the make or break,” he says. “Be consistent and don’t over water. Moderation is everything. Watering is an opportunity for students to check in on their garden.”

Looking for more tips for kids? Check out Big Green At Home’s newsletter and online open-source curriculum for more great gardening content for students K through 12. 

Gardening with students? Add your garden to the Climate Victory Gardens map and learn more about gardening as a climate solution.

Manufacturer of plant-based bamboo toothbrushes. USDA Certified 100% Biobased bristles. FSC® certified bamboo.

The presidential election is just around the corner. With the COVID-19 pandemic, many Americans may opt to vote by mail. In a move to undercut our democracy, President Trump announced that his administration is deliberately withholding funding from the US Postal Service and is removing mailboxes and vital mail processing equipment to make it harder to vote by mail.

And, Senate Republicans are failing to act on legislation passed in the House of Representatives to provide $25 million for the USPS, while continuing to block the HEROES act, which would also provide $3.6 billion to states to implement mail-in voting and expanded early voting.

At the same time, voter suppression tactics, which impact Black, brown, and young voters the most, are surging across the country.

We all have an enormous stake in a full and fair vote in November. 

Here are 5 actions to take to ensure your vote is counted:

1. Vote early and encourage everyone you know to do so as well.

Make sure you are registered to vote and your registration information is up to date. 

If you want to vote by mail, Vote.org will help you determine the rules in your state. If you are voting by mail, make sure to carefully follow the rules on the ballot and envelope; otherwise your vote may not be counted. Some envelopes may say extra postage is necessary. In that case, add your own stamps.

With slowdowns at the post office, and depending on your state, it might be best to drop off your ballot at a ballot drop box in advance of election day.

Many states will have extended early in-person voting as well, where you vote while avoiding crowds. 

Check your state’s voting rules now. They may have changed since the primary, and make sure to follow them. Voting early can ensure that your vote is counted!

2. Ensure states and the Postal Service are funded to ensure voting by mail is possible.

Call your US Senators (you can reach them through the US Capitol switchboard:  202-224-3121) and tell them to pass the Delivering for Democracy Act to provide $25 billion to the Post Office and restore service to where it was on January 1, 2020.  This bill was passed in the House with bipartisan support.

And, you can tell your senators to also pass the HEROES act with funding for states and the US Postal Service. The HEROES Act, which passed in the House in May, includes $3.6 billion in funds to state and local governments to ensure their election systems are safe during the pandemic.  These funds are essential to ensure a fair election, the cornerstone of our democracy. 

Tell your senators that there is no excuse to withhold these funds and that you will be watching how they vote on these issues when you cast your vote in November.

Phone calls to Congress are working, and they are the reason that hearings regarding the USPS were held in both chambers.  So, make your calls today!

3. Urge the Board of Governors of the USPS to remove Louis DeJoy as postmaster general.  

Dejoy is undercutting the postal services’ ability to deliver ballots on time, which jeopardizes the integrity of the election.  You can take action with Green America and our allies through this Daily Kos petition.  

4. Fight voter suppression.  

The US cannot call itself a democracy when there are widespread practices designed to stop people of color from voting across the US. That’s why it is so important to take action with and financially support the work of The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Fair Fight, Respect My Vote, Black Voters Matter, Common Cause, and the ACLU – all organizations at the forefront of securing voting rights for all.

5. Volunteer -- Younger election volunteers are needed.

In most elections, poll workers are often older persons, who may be retired. Since the elderly are particularly susceptible to COVID-19, and many volunteers may choose not to work the polls this year, younger poll workers are needed. If you or someone you know would like to volunteer, go to Power the Polls to sign up. If you  need some convincing, the Daily Show’s Trevor Noah makes a powerful case for young people volunteering.

Fair Tribe is your online destination for artisan made home decor, jewelry and gifts designed to create cherished memories and special moments between friends and family.

My shop offers curated home decor that adds that special touch to the important moments in your life. Shop and discover perfect home accessories and gifts that add extra meaning to those celebratory moments in your life.

I believe in conscious consumerism and believe you should feel good about what you buy. Everything you find in our shop is artisan produced and sourced from Fair Trade certified members guaranteeing fair wages, safe working conditions and sustainable materials. Know that you can trust we are fairly supporting artisans and the putting environment sustainability first with everything I sell.

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Green America is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without discrimination regarding: actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, related medical conditions, breastfeeding, or reproductive health disorders), age (18 years of age or older), marital status (including domestic partnership and parenthood), personal appearance, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, family responsibilities, genetic information, disability, matriculation, political affiliation, citizenship status, credit information or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. Harassment on the basis of a protected characteristic is included as a form of discrimination and is strictly prohibited.

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Green America is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without discrimination regarding: actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, related medical conditions, breastfeeding, or reproductive health disorders), age (18 years of age or older), marital status (including domestic partnership and parenthood), personal appearance, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, family responsibilities, genetic information, disability, matriculation, political affiliation, citizenship status, credit information or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. Harassment on the basis of a protected characteristic is included as a form of discrimination and is strictly prohibited.

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Green America is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without discrimination regarding: actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, related medical conditions, breastfeeding, or reproductive health disorders), age (18 years of age or older), marital status (including domestic partnership and parenthood), personal appearance, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, family responsibilities, genetic information, disability, matriculation, political affiliation, citizenship status, credit information or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. Harassment on the basis of a protected characteristic is included as a form of discrimination and is strictly prohibited.

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Green America is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without discrimination regarding: actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, related medical conditions, breastfeeding, or reproductive health disorders), age (18 years of age or older), marital status (including domestic partnership and parenthood), personal appearance, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, family responsibilities, genetic information, disability, matriculation, political affiliation, citizenship status, credit information or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. Harassment on the basis of a protected characteristic is included as a form of discrimination and is strictly prohibited.

by Emma Loewe, mindybodygreen, August 19, 2020

Most of us are up to speed on the dangers of carbon dioxide, but we may not be as well-versed on another greenhouse gas that has the potential to trap hundreds of times more heat in the environment: hydrofluorocarbons. Hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, often fuel cooling systems like refrigerators and air conditioners and are powerful agents of global warming when they leak out into the atmosphere.

According to a new report by the U.N., replacing HFCs with more climate-friendly cooling alternatives could save the world up to 460 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions (the equivalent of eight years of global emissions at 2018 levels) and reduce global warming by as much as 0.4°C by 2100.

If HFCs are such an important piece of the climate puzzle, why don't we hear more about them?

Beth Porter, the climate campaign's director for environmental nonprofit Green America, suspects it has to do with the fact that HFC leakage is largely an invisible problem: "It's happening in supermarkets and in our home refrigerators, but it's kind of hidden from us," Porter tells mbg. To increase visibility for the issue, Green America just released the first public-facing campaign on how the average person can "cool it for the climate" and advocate for HFC reform. Here's what to know about phasing out this super pollutant in your own home and beyond.

How to manage HFCs at home:

1. Check your fridge and AC units for a refrigerant code.

Finding out if your home fridge runs on HFCs is as simple as opening it up and looking for a sticker on the inside of the door. Once you spot it, look at the code in the "refrigerant" section.

If it reads R600 or R290, your fridge is HFC-free; go ahead and close the door, do a happy dance, and skip ahead to point 3. If you see any other codes, your fridge more than likely contains HFCs. The same labeling applies to air conditioner units, so look out for stickers on those too.

2. If your fridge and/or AC contains HFCs, monitor them for leaks.

If you have HFC systems in your home, getting rid of them right away and buying new is not the move. Porter says that the more environmentally friendly choice would be to keep them until the end of their life span but monitor them closely for leaks in the meantime.

Your fridge might be leaking if it consistently makes a hissing sound or has a sudden temperature increase. If your AC is dishing out warm air, it might have a leak too. If you suspect a leak, call a technician to patch up the problem but do a little research first to make sure they are section 608 certified.

"It's a specific section from the Clean Air Act that focuses on reducing emissions from refrigerants," Porter explains, meaning that these folks will know how to fix the problem without inadvertently sending more HFCs into the environment.

3. If your fridge and/or AC is a goner, get rid of it responsibly.

When it does come time to dispose of your HFC system, you'll want to be careful who call to help out with that too, since 90% of refrigerant emissions happen at the end of a system's life. If you live in the U.S., you can look up a certified Responsible Appliance Disposal (RAD) option in your area using this EPA database.

If you're buying a new model to replace the old one, here's a list of HFC-free options to look into. Bonus: They also tend to be more energy-efficient and could save you money in the long run.

How to push for broader HFC reform:

1. Ask your local supermarkets and gas stations to eliminate HFCs.

Supermarkets lose an average of 25% of their HFCs to leaks every year—a pretty staggering amount when you consider the number of cooling units they tend to have. If the world is going to make a meaningful dent in HFC emissions, these stores need to lead the way. A few large chains like Aldi, Whole Foods Market, and Target have committed to phasing out their HFCs or making new stores completely HFC-free moving forward. It's a good start, but more public dialogue on the issue can continue to inspire change.

2. Advocate for policy reform.

Sixty countries have now signed the Kigali Amendment—a global treaty to phase out HFCs. The U.S. is not one of them. In absence of federal regulation on the issue, some states are taking matters into their own hands: California, Connecticut, Maryland, New York, Vermont, and Washington will prohibit HFCs beginning in 2023. Advocate for more progress if you live in the U.S. by letting your representatives know that you support the phasing out of HFCs.

While HFC regulation won't single-handedly solve the climate crisis, nixing the cooling compounds could cut a significant amount of warming.

Coming soon.

The fashion industry is the second largest polluter of water globally, produces more carbon emissions than all international flights and maritime shipping combined, and harms worker health with toxic chemicals. Green America works to reduce that impact by pushing companies to clean up their act through the voices of consumers like you.

Remember, before you do any shopping, look through your closet as maybe you forgot about something you already have that meets your needs! Or ask a friend or family member to borrow something if it's for a single occasion.

1. Shop second hand

The most sustainable clothing option is to NOT buy new and opt for secondhand whenever possible. Every year, Americans generate 16 million tons of textile waste, equaling just over six percent of total municipal waste.

While already popular but exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, shopping online is a main avenue. The great news is that there are more and more options to buy 2nd hand clothing online.

• Thredup: women’s and children’s clothing.
• Swap.com: men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing.
• ShopGoodWill: men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing, along with a whole host of other products.
• Poshmark: men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing.
• More and more name brand stores, like REI and Patagonia, are offering 2nd hand clothing.

Many of these companies will also buy your used clothing!

2. When ordering from a major retailer, double check any third-party vendor’s green cred

Big corporations, like Walmart, Target, and Amazon, have online marketplaces, which means other businesses can sell on their site. These other businesses are not held to the same standards that the big retailer holds their own products to – this can be a good and a bad thing, depending on the vendor.

Some vendors may have much higher standards than the retailer, but conversely, vendors may be doing less to protect people and the planet. So, be sure to do your research on the vendor before clicking buy!  If the vendor has no information about sustainability on their website, that’s a really bad sign.  If they are certified by Green America’s Green Business Network, B-Corp, or are a member of the Fair Trade Federation, that’s a positive sign.

Often times, you can order directly from the vendors listed in online marketplaces, cutting out the big retailer and making sure more money goes into the vendor’s pocket.  

3. Buying new? Look for clothing made with organic cotton

We get it – sometimes buying new seems like the best option. Traditional cotton is doused in pesticides and uses more water than organic cotton.

Bluesign, Oeko-tex 100, and GOTS are all good certifications to look for on clothing to ensure that harmful chemicals aren’t present.

Our magazine article unpacks the impact that harmful chemicals in textile manufacturing have on people and the planet. It also features our Toxic Textile Scorecard, which looks at the chemical management policies of leading US apparel brands and can be a useful tool when decided where to buy new clothes from.

4. Watch out for these bad actors

Unfortunately, apparel brands such as Walmart, Kohl's, The Children's Place, Ross, Sears, JC Penney, TJ Maxx, and Urban Outfitters used the pandemic as an excuse to cheat garment workers.

Recent research estimates garment workers have lost up to $5.8 billion in wages during the pandemic; our recent guest blog explains how COVID-19 has impacted garment workers. The Worker Rights Consortium is tracking which brands have and have not paid for cancelled orders.

5. Shop sustainable clothes from green, small businesses

Small businesses are an essential part of our economy and often lead the way in green, innovative business practices. Using your dollars to support green businesses sending signals to big corporations that consumer demand for ethical products and ethical business operations is growing.

In order to transform the clothing industry, we need brands integrating environmentally and socially responsible practices across their entire business model.

Businesses in our Green Business Network are doing just that, and Maven Women, for example, is showing how it's possible.

Our Certified Green Businesses offer a wide range of products, including clothing, and they sell sustainable clothes online.

Shop small and green for people, planet, and communities.

The biggest environmental area we are working on is the carbon footprint of our business air travel.  We participate in Carbon Offsets to Alleviate Poverty (COTAP) and we make an annual contribution based on our carbon footprint.  COTAP's calculator indicates that the vast majority of our impact is due to air travel.  We have clients in various CA cities and until March, we would travel to our clients offices (almost weekly) to conduct site visits.  The pandemic forced us to forego air travel and site visits and it has worked out surprisingly well.  We anticipate some client visits when the pandemic is over, but we are going to think about them sparingly and strategically.  In the meantime, we will continue to run our business entirely remotely.