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Are you stuck at home, sick of binge watching the latest sitcom? Or maybe you’re struggling to keep your now-homeschooled kids occupied and off their screens? Maybe you’re dealing with increased anxiety and concerns about making ends meet?

Wherever you find yourself today, now is the time to turn to gardening. Use this extra time at home to plan and start a garden that’s good for you and your family, your community, and the planet.

Gardening for Your Physical and Mental Health

Nobody likes being cooped up indoors all the time, and it’s not great for your health. But, social distancing and sheltering in place are absolutely imperative for slowing the pandemic, so we have to get creative about being outdoors. You can garden if you have a balcony, yard, or even just a sunny windowsill. (If not, research shows that even looking at photos of nature can be good for your health.)

In a time when your worries are likely elevated, gardening can support stress release. It’s fun for kids too and has a wide range of hands-on learning benefits from tuning motor skills to engaging in the creative process.

Gardening helps you stay physically fit, aiding in flexibility, strength, and cardiovascular health. And, if you’re looking for exercise to supplement all the yoga and workout videos you’re doing on YouTube, look no farther than a garden to feel productive and inspired.

Gardening to Support Yourself and Your Community

If you haven’t experienced it in person, you’ve surely seen it on the news: panic buying and empty shelves at the grocery store. While we’re being told right now that there’s no food shortage at this time, we may see changes in food imports, labor supply, and possibly even inflation or the increase of food prices in the near future.

During the World Wars, when farmers became soldiers and when food was needed at the front lines, gardens were a way for the country to feed itself and encourage home food security. Thanks to the Victory Gardening movement, people were growing around 40 percent of the country’s fresh fruits and vegetables. Many are turning to gardens again in this time of uncertainty, whether it’s food shortages or health concerns around visiting the grocery store.

In the face of social distancing and record-breaking unemployment rates, community is more important than ever. Before this novel coronavirus, 1 in 8 Americans faced food insecurity—that’s 41 million people—so it’s safe to assume that some members of your community don’t have adequate access to food. Gardening gives us a chance to provide for ourselves and our neighbors. The fresh produce you grow can help supplement a sparse dinner or help out those who lost their income during the pandemic.

If seed and garden supplies are looking as meager as your grocery store shelves, consider using Climate Victory Gardening methods that close the loop in your garden and build soils to grow healthy foods using what you have on hand. This is also an opportunity to support small and local businesses.[JW1] 

The Link Between Gardening, Pandemics, and the Climate Crisis

Our Climate Victory Gardening campaign is all about finding climate solutions that are good for people and the planet. The COVID-19 pandemic has come on with incredible speed and has overshadowed the climate crisis for many as the most pressing existential threat, but gardening is a solution to tackle both issues. And we can’t lose sight of the climate solutions that are critical for our long-term survival.

Coronavirus and the climate crisis are more closely tied than you might think. Unchecked destruction of natural environments contributes to both, which we can see in the food system. Trees are cut down for pastures; synthetic chemical pesticides and fertilizers pollute local ecosystems; and huge factory farms poison the air, land, and water of rural communities. The destruction of habitat and changing climate increase human and animal migration, often blurring the lines that allow safe coexistence—increasing zoonotic diseases that transfer from animals to humans, like Ebola, SARS, Lyme Disease, and possibly even this novel coronavirus.

Our food system emits over one third of greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to the very pandemic that has us worried about our health and food supply. It doesn’t have to be like that. We can garden and grow food in a way that supports our wellbeing during coronavirus and offsets the emissions that are warming our planet.

For the nearly 2,500 gardeners already committed to this outcome, they can rest easy knowing where their next meal is coming from and knowing that their gardens have the potential to offset the equivalent of taking over 70,000 cars off the road for a year. Join this movement of Climate Victory Gardeners to produce healthy foods, feed yourself and your community, and fight climate change and future pandemics.

WASHINGTON, DC – APRIL 2, 2020 – The coronavirus pandemic is changing life as we know it, and many Americans are using their sudden surplus of spare time at home to plant Climate Victory Gardens, which are being promoted by the nonprofit Green America. With already over 2,400 gardens taking part in the Climate Victory Garden movement, this number is rising as people turn towards gardening to supplement their pantries and support their mental health in these trying times.

Inspired by the “Victory Gardens” planted during WWI and WWII that drove the creation of nearly 20 million gardens that produced 40% of the fresh fruits and vegetables consumed in the U.S. at the time, Climate Victory Gardens empower Americans to grow their own produce while incorporating regenerative agriculture techniques that help fight climate change. Green America estimates that current gardens are offsetting the equivalent of taking over 70,000 cars off the road for a year.

Research shows that the climate crisis is contributing to epidemics and pandemics, so gardens are also part of the solution that might reduce future pandemics and other challenges associated with the climate crisis.

Jes Walton, food campaigns manager at Green America, said: “In this time of crisis and uncertainty, growing your own food can be empowering. Gardening provides Americans with a way to be more self-sufficient, and when the principles of regenerative agriculture are applied, it can be part of the climate solution. Let’s work together to support our communities and the planet.”

To plant your own Climate Victory Garden, start by following these five steps:

1. Ditch the Chemicals
2. Keep the Soil Covered
3. Encourage Biodiversity
4. Grow Food
5. Compost

You can find detailed instructions at https://www.greenamerica.org/climate-victory-gardening-101.

Thousands of Climate Victory Gardens are being tracked through Green America’s searchable map. For more information or to register your own Climate Victory Garden, visit: https://greenam.org/garden.

Green America’s how-to video, featuring actress/activist Rosario Dawson and the artist/activist Ron Finley, provides information for gardeners who want to take advantage of the spring growing season to plant their own Climate Victory Gardens.

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

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

Architecture, Development, and Energy Consulting Services

Since 2012, Green America's People and Planet Award has recognized outstanding small businesses with deep commitments to social justice and environmental sustainability. This project has been made possible thanks to a special donor committed to giving a boost to innovative entrepreneurs. The People and Planet Award has bestowed over $300,000 on green businesses since its inception.

The three winners of the Sustainable Food award in 2013 were The Chile Woman, Green City Growers, and Love & Carrots.

Where are they now?

At the conclusion of the People and Planet Award, we reached out to the winners to learn how the prize helped their business. Below are their answers. 

How did the People and Planet Award money help your business?

The Chile Woman: The publicity it generated locally and nationally was fantastic. Locally, it was a great example of community. The people of Bloomington and my customers really rallied around the contest and showed their support. A cash infusion of $5,000 is great for any small business. For a farmer, whose income is never guaranteed, this was an extra bonus.

Green City Growers: The money we received in 2013 allowed us to invest in re-branded our company and launching a new, more professional website. This has led to us getting more business. We also appreciated the recognition we received from receiving the award and gained additional visibility for our company.

Love & Carrots: It got me off the ground! The $5000 from GA was pivotal. At the time I was still boot strapping everything, pouring all my time into the company and living very cheaply with no cash to spare- pouring everything back into the company.

What did you use the prize money for?

The Chile Woman: Remodeling a space for our proposed chile product store onsite at the greenhouse. Now that space is full of a couple thousand chile plants pulled in anticipation of a hard freeze. I’ll be picking fresh peppers in there today to prep for tomorrow’s Eastside Farmers Market.

Green City Growers: The money we received in 2013 allowed us to invest in re-branded our company and launching a new, more professional website.

Love & Carrots: The prize money helped me buy a larger pickup truck.

What is your business up to now?

The Chile Woman: This was a challenging season weather wise. We also missed the protection of our treasured llama who passed away last year. Not only did he protect the sheep and the chickens, he kept deer out of the field and house gardens. But that’s farming! Our main business of shipping chile pepper plants continues to flourish. I continue to grow more and more chiles and have been the fortunate recipient of many non hybrid chile pepper seeds, expanding my chile seed bank to over 2100 varieties. I am more dedicated than ever to preserving chile pepper biodiversity.

Green City Growers: We're continuing to convert underutilized spaces into biodiverse food production landscapes throughout MA, and we have recently expanded to offer services throughout the Northeast US. We now run a rooftop farm on top of Fenway Park for the Boston Red Sox, and a kitchen garden for The Rainbow Room at 30 Rockefeller Center, along with our 100+ sites at schools, businesses, restaurants, and housing complexes. We employ 25 individuals and are continuing to grow.

Love & Carrots: Now I have a staff of 17, a 3-acre head quarters, and we've expanded into commercial and multi-family home markets including roof top farms. We are the gardeners behind dozens of top DC restaurants. We have installed close to 1,000 garden and counting.

• Plastic wrap safely seals food so you can save it for later, but like all single-use plastics, it’s bad for the environment.
• Bee’s Wrap is an eco-friendly alternative that’s made from organic cotton coated in bee’s wax, jojoba oil, and tree resin.
• It’s compostable and biodegradable, so when you can’t reuse it anymore, it’s safe to dispose of.
• I decided to try Bee’s Wrap even though it is expensive at $18 for three sheets, and I’m done with plastic wrap for good.
• Read more: The best food storage containers

I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, so needless to say, I’m constantly trying to figure out how to best store my produce. From glass and plastic containers to aluminum foil and Saran wrap, I thought I had tried just about everything until I heard about Bee’s Wrap.

I initially hesitated because of the cost: $18 for what are essentially three sheets of beeswax. But, knowing that it’s an environmentally friendly and sustainable option, I finally decided to give it a try. Here’s why I won’t go back.

What is Bee’s Wrap?

Think of it as a food wrapper that you can wash, reuse, and eventually recycle. Bee’s Wrap is made exclusively from sustainable products: beeswax, jojoba oil, tree resin, and organic cotton. The first and most important ingredient is sourced from sustainably managed hives, and Bee’s Wrap’s biodegradable packaging is made from 100% recycled paper.

Some more impressive credentials: The Global Organic Textile Standard has certified the company’s fabric and printing process, and Bee’s Wrap is a Green America certified corporation, as well as a B Corporation.

What really makes Bee’s Wrap eco-friendly is the fact that you can reuse the sheets for up to a year. They eventually start to lose their sticking power, but when that happens you can compost them or wrap them around kindling and use them as fire starters.

How big is each Bee’s Wrap sheet?

You can buy a variety pack that includes three sizes:

• Small (7″ x 8″)
• Medium (10″ x 11″)
• Large (13″ x 14″)

Bee’s Wrap offers special wraps for bread and sandwiches too. Plus, since the wraps are made of wax, you can easily cut them to suit your needs.

How does it work?

The wraps seal with the warmth of your hands as you press and wrap them around your food. It takes a few tries to get a feel for how much pressure to use and how many seconds to press down.

Bee’s Wrap sheets do get softer over time, and I have to admit I’m skeptical that mine will last for an entire year.

How produce looks after a week in Bee’s Wrap

I opted for a variety pack with three sheet sizes. I used my small pieces (7″ x 8″) to wrap half an avocado, half an onion, and half a lime. The medium pieces (10″ x 11″) were just the right size to wrap bigger vegetables like cucumbers and bell peppers. I didn’t have much use for the large pieces (13″ x 14″), so I cut them down to store produce like Serrano peppers and apples.

I was surprised at how well my avocado kept in the wrap after a few days; while it turned light brown, it didn’t go bad. I stored the lime and onion in Bee’s Wrap for about a week and though the lime was slightly dried out, it still had a significant amount of juice. The onion was in great condition, and the rest of my produce remained crisp days later.

How does it compare to other food storage methods?

I do think Bee’s Wrap keeps food fresher than plastic wrap or aluminum foil. I definitely noticed that my peppers lasted longer and were crisper when I stored them in Bee’s Wrap, and, as I mentioned earlier, I was surprised that my avocado only browned slightly after being in the fridge for a few days.

However, I don’t think Bee’s Wrap seals in freshness as well as glass containers. When I stored homemade fresh salsa in a bowl covered with Bee’s Wrap, it dried out faster than it does when I keep it in a tightly-sealed glass container. But, for the most part, I use glass containers for meal prep and Bee’s Wrap for storing cut produce that I want to use later.

I should note that the company doesn’t recommend using the wraps for raw meat. Apparently, you can freeze items with Bee’s Wrap, but I haven’t put this to the test yet.

How do you clean it?

Cleaning Bee’s Wrap is easy – I use a tiny bit of soap and wipe each sheet with a sponge before running it under cold water (hot water will melt the wax). While the company sells a special drying rack, I find that my dish rack works just fine.

You may run into some issues with staining; a red onion left little purple marks on one of my sheets, but it eventually disappeared after a few cleanings.

Let’s talk about the smell

When you first open a box of Bee’s Wrap, the smell is very strong. I’m sensitive to scents, so this did bother me; it took a week or two for me not to notice the smell every time I walked into my kitchen.

Even after a month or so of using and washing the wraps, you can still smell the wax – it’s just fainter. Thankfully, the smell doesn’t seem to rub off on food.

The verdict

I have been using Bee’s Wrap for a few months, and my sheets are still holding up. They are much softer because I use them a lot, so I am still skeptical that these will make it an entire year. For now, they still seal tightly.

I really don’t feel the need to use plastic wrap or aluminum foil for food storage, as Bee’s Wrap seems to keep produce fresher. I also love the fact that you can compost it when it wears out. I don’t think I’ll be tossing my glass containers just yet, though – while Bee’s Wrap is great for storing individual items, it’s not the best choice for large batches of leftovers or meal prep.

Written by Mike Brunt, a software developer who lives in Eugene, Oregon and uses technology to share the power of growing your own food. Mike is from the UK and also lived in New Zealand where he first became acquainted with permaculture. He went on to become a Permaculture Certified Designer and co-runs the Eugene Permaculture Meetup.

Almost all of our land-based food systems start and end with the same thing: seeds.

Since the beginning of plant life on earth, seeds have fallen onto the soil and grown without any help from humans. In fact, it’s human intervention over the centuries that has gotten us into our current climate emergency.

In many ways, industrial agriculture is the epitome of human intervention and its potential for terrible consequences. The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that industrial agriculture has contributed 70% of pollution to our waterways. It relies on chemical-based fertilizers that weaken important communities of soil microbes and generate fossil fuel emissions—both which have proven climate impacts. Food is grown on mega farms far from the places it’s consumed. Today’s farming is not only unrecognizable from the agriculture that shaped human life, it’s also putting that life at risk.

Seed Saving as a Climate Victory Gardener

These are important considerations for anyone who grows (or eats!) food, especially with the planet in mind. Humans, agriculture, and the environment are deeply intertwined, and exploring this relationship is a big part of Climate Victory Gardening. How do we garden in a way that supports our health and the health of our planet?

For me, the logical place to start is seeds. The abundance of growing your own food is so apparent in seed saving. I’ve been saving seeds for four years, and now any meal I eat becomes a potential provider of food through the saving and growing of seeds.

Here’s an example: I grew a butternut squash plant from a single seed, which yielded five squash. I made 40 meals and saved over 600 seeds, all from this one plant. If I assume just a 5% success rate from the seeds I saved (a conservative estimate), that means I could have 30 squash plants growing just a year later. Or, better yet, my neighbors, friends, and community could have these locally sourced plants and food to support their own health. Such is the power of saving seeds. And, while a lot of time and effort goes into the process from seed to plate, the self-reliance and climate change mitigation are worth it.

An Online Ledger for Seed Saving

As my understanding of the benefits of seed saving grew over the past few years, I wanted an efficient way to track seeds through germination, planting, harvesting, and saving. And, I wanted to include my neighbors and other food growers and seed savers in my home of Eugene, Oregon. Ideally, this tool could track all the successes of turning seeds into food, but the failures too.

I work in technology, so I began my search in that world. Eventually, I found a free, open-source web application called farmOS, which was designed to support management and record keeping for a single farm. I adapted the app for multi-location tracking, which created the potential for all farmers and gardeners in my area to take part. While technology has played a large role in industrial agriculture, I set out to use it for good. Thus, the Permaledger was born.

Permaledger is a tool for keeping track of all the important information associated with seed saving: planting guidelines, geographical location, and observations from germination to planting, harvest, and saving. Each seed is given an associated QR code (see photo above) that can be scanned to provide these details online.

The ledger helps me stay organized throughout the seed saving process, which has gotten increasingly complex as my efforts have grown to include more plant species and new locations. And, it’s become more important as more people become involved with local seed saving efforts.

This is an online and in-person community of food growers. When we share seeds, the Permaledger acts like a time capsule, providing a history of the seeds for anyone receiving them, giving insight into the grower’s process and decision making. Those who receive seeds from our collection are asked to share part of their yields later in the season, so we can keep our seed library well stocked and constantly adapting to our region’s climate.

Saving seeds is one of the lowest-cost and beneficial means we have to reduce our dependence on industrial agriculture. This saving and sharing is a form of community organizing and resistance, supporting the resilience of our local food systems, environments, and the health of those around us.

Want to Access Permaledger?

(Note, only those near Eugene, Oregon will be able to actually add their seeds.)

Log in: https://perma-ledger.com/user?destination=farm | Username: guest | Password: 123456789 | How To Video

Interested in Expanding Permaledger to your Area?

Contact Mike at 0718mbrunt [at] perma-ledger [dot] com

This is the third article in a series of three about seed saving. The first article is about Seed Saving at the Front Lines of the Climate Crisis and the second is about Adapting with Intention: A Lesson on Seed Saving.

Read more inspiring Climate Victory Garden stories and tips.

Written by Wendy Weiner, a gardener by trade who builds vegetable gardens and teaches the art of gardening to her clients. She is a graduate of Seed School and is one of the founding members of the Salida Seed Library in Salida, Colorado.

Fighting Climate Change with Intention in Our Gardens

What role does intention have in vegetable gardening?

For me, it starts with the seed. Seed saving is full of intention that has an impact both within and beyond the boundaries of our gardens. Every decision we make in the garden has an effect, some with hidden consequences and others with limitless benefits. As we learn the art of gardening, this awareness expands.

To garden with intention makes one fully aware of all decisions within that space. Starting with amendments, big business (think Home Depot) want us to believe that we need their inputs, from bagged compost to chemicals and seeds. When we think critically about this, we might ask: how far did these products travel? What pollution or emissions were generated during production? What impact does this product have on our gardens (and the world)? Could we somehow create these inputs ourselves? Seed saving has a role in all these inquiries.

Seed Saving to Adapt to Climate Change

Even though it seems like we have many choices, most of the seeds in this country are owned by a handful of huge seed companies. These seeds are grown thousands of miles away from where they’re finally purchased. We don’t know the details of how they’re grown or their impact on the place they’re grown. It’s likely the seeds aren’t adapted to the area they’re ultimately planted, and the diversity of available varieties is low.

Seed saving is the solution, both to the seed industry’s impact on the climate and to our gardens’ ability to adapt to climate change.

When we save seeds, we've allowed plants to fully mature beyond the eating stage, into their reproductive stage when they set their seeds. Seeds are then selected from plants that have desired traits such as drought and disease resistance, flavor, size, or abundance. It only takes one generation for seeds to be imbedded with this ecological and cultural knowledge. As climate change creates unpredictable weather, our gardens and farms become more vulnerable. The health of our gardens depends on saved seeds that have generations of coding specific to our local and changing weather patterns.

Communities are collaborating on seed saving by building seed libraries across the country, where gardeners check out seeds and return grown-out seeds at the end of the season. These libraries are a source of seeds specific to the region and its most current climate. This seed stewardship creates biodiversity and becomes a collaborative art that empowers the grower, the community, and the seeds that hold the future.

Climate Victory Gardening brings attention to the climate crisis but also our potential for nourishing communities with our intentions—and while there are many possible entry points, seeds and seed saving are a great place to start.

Seed Saving: Try These Foods First

Saving seeds is a powerful act, but it’s also simple to get started. Think of it as the final stage in a season of gardening, when we allow plants to grow to their mature stage and let seeds form. The following are easy, beginner-level vegetables for you to bring seed saving to your own Climate Victory Garden:

Lettuce

• Select a variety that prefers local precipitation levels, maintains good leaf growth, doesn't go to seed early, and has a desirable flavor.
• Pull out all the plants with undesirable traits.
• Allow the remaining plants to mature, and you'll notice that the leaves start to head up (get more elongated, pointed, and more vertical growth).
• Flowers will begin to form at the top of the stem. When a majority of the flowers are dry, pull the plant out of the ground and cut off the upper stem with the flowers. 
• Store this top of the stem in a cool dry place until you have the time to sort and clean the seeds. 
• Strip the flowers off the stems and crumble them. Then winnow (separate) the chaff from the seed.
• Store in glass, paper bags, or envelopes.

Tomatoes

• Select for flavor, size, color, water needs, and strength of the plant.
• Pick a tomato that is fully ripe. Cut in half and squeeze the juice and seeds into a small glass jar or cup. Make sure it's a juicy liquid. If it's a tomato that’s inherently not juicy, then add a small amount of water so that the seeds are suspended. 
• Allow this to sit at room temperature three to four days. A mold will likely form on the top.
• The viable seeds will sink to the bottom, and the protective gel around the seed will break down in this fermentation process.
• Skim off the mold first, then pour the rest into a strainer and run the seeds under water until they are clean. 
• Put the clean seeds on a dish to fully dry, then store in a glass jar, paper bag or envelope.

Always store your seeds in a cool, dark, dry space. Label with the name of the plant, date, location, and growing conditions. Consider adding any other pertinent information regarding the growing season that may be helpful to the future. And, if you have a special story that goes with those specific seeds you might want to include that as well.

Resources

• Looking for a seed library near you? This Seed Library Locator Map or The Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance may be helpful in your search.
• Ready to take the next step in seed saving? Check out this Seed Saving Guide from the Organic Seed Alliance.

This is the second article in a series of three about seed saving. The first article is about Seed Saving at the Front Line of the Climate Crisis, and the third article is about Developing Online Tools for Seed Saving and Sharing.

Read more inspiring Climate Victory Garden stories and tips.

Lawns are an American obsession. Since the mass proliferation of suburbs in the 1950s and '60s, these pristine carpets of green turf have been meticulously maintained by suburbanites, with grass length and other aesthetic considerations enforced with bylaws and by homeowner associations.

But for nature, lawns offer little. Their maintenance produces more greenhouse gases than they absorb, and they are biodiversity deserts that have contributed to vanishing insect populations. Residential lawns cover 2% of US land and require more irrigation than any agricultural crop grown in the country. Across California, more than half of household water is used outside of the house.

If attitudes toward lawn care are shifted, however, these grassy green patches represent a gigantic opportunity. In 2005, a NASA satellite study found that American residential lawns take up 49,000 square miles (128,000 square km) -- nearly equal in size to the entire country of Greece.

A small, shady garden at Kronish House, a villa by Ricahrd Neutra in Beverley Hills, California designed by Marmol Radzinerm, winner of the ASLA 2016 Professional Honor Award in Residential Design - Credit: Roger Davies

According to environmental scientists, transforming lawns into miniature modular bio-reserves could not only boost biodiversity, but could cut water and petrol consumption and reduce the use of dangerous lawn chemicals.

Yet the question for many homeowners remains: how?

In western states like California, Colorado and Arizona, droughts have led to restrictions on water usage, forcing many to reconsider their thirsty lawns. Some inventive families and landscape architects have transformed yards, producing oases of life for hummingbirds, bees and butterflies, by employing scientific insight, design and imagination.

While many residents across the US may want a traditional patch of green carpet, Jodie Cook, a landscape designer from San Clemente, California, explained over email that West Coast homeowners are growing increasingly aware of how innovative models for lawns can benefit natural ecosystems, while providing a new dimension to the family home.

"This new garden model is giving people permission to play," said Cook, who has redesigned home lawns across Orange County, with an emphasis on "ecosystem-centric" design. Ripping up a generic lawn can reveal a canvas for personal creativity -- to plant with food, flowering plants and herbs, or to shape into wildlife habitats that invite in local fauna.

Yard, by 2.ink Studio, winner of the ASLA 2018 Professional Honor Award in Residential Design Credit: Stephen Miller / ASLA

"It seems to me that they are yearning for an authentic experience of nature close to home," said Cook. There is increasing evidence that close contact with natural environments can reduce stress and anxiety, and even help maintain memory as we age.

According to Cook, the families she's worked with have been delighted to reconnect with eclectic natural processes, such as watching rain cascade down water-drainage swales. "They don't want to travel to a wilderness park to see ecosystem interactions."

Nationwide Trend

What Cook sees in California reflects an emerging trend across the country. In Minnesota, homeowners have been offered rebates to replace lawns with flowering plants beloved by bees. Cities and municipalities, such as Montgomery County in Maryland, have also offered to pay families and homeowner associations to design gardens that collect storm water in water features and underground rain barrels.

A contemporary remodel of a suburban ranch home in Portland, Oregon by Courtney Skybak from Samuel H. Williamson Associates Credit: Samuel H. Williamson Associates / shwa.net

Such policies can lead to big changes. Images of intensely irrigated lawns in Phoenix, ringed by the red sand of the Arizona Desert, were once a disturbing case study of America's lawn addiction. But in recent decades, the state has taken action, charging more for water in the summer and banning lawns on new developments. At the turn of the millennium, 80% of Phoenix had green lawns, now only 14% does.

Landscape architects are seeing families change their preferences, according to a recent poll by the National Wildlife Federation's (NWF) Garden for Wildlife initiative, which encourages Americans to design gardens with food, water and shelter for wild animals.

In a 2018 poll by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), 83% of landscape architects said they were increasingly being asked about native plants, which provide better support for local ecosystems and are more drought-resistant. Last year, NWF surpassed its goal to register a million gardens nationwide to support pollinators.

A graphic patterned garden in Portland, Oregon by Courtney Skybak from Samuel H. Williamson Associates Credit: Samuel H. Williamson Associates / shwa.net

Changing Tastes

Similarly, the nonprofit Green America has launched the Climate Victory Gardens initiative, which encourages people to plant "regenerative" food gardens. Inspired by the Home Victory Gardens that grew millions of tons of fresh fruits and vegetables during World War I and II. More than 2,300 families have started farming patches of garden to sequester carbon and increase soil fertility.

These gardens today represent around 3,600 acres. According to Green America, they have the potential over the next 10 years to capture the carbon equivalent to taking 70,000 cars off the road for an entire year.

San Diego-based landscape architect Katie Seidenwurm has documented a number of reasons behind the spike in interest in different types of gardens, including rising water costs and environmental responsibility.

Xeriscape Colorado, a program by non-profit Colorado WaterWise, promotes water-saving approaches to landscaping Credit: Kristen Vance

"A lot of homeowners are more environmentally aware," said Seidenwurm over the phone, and she co-presented an ASLA talk last fall on recent residential garden trends with architect Courtney Skybak, whose home city of Portland, Oregon, is another West Coast centre for experiments in environmental garden design. "There's certificates that homeowners can get that certify that a front yard is wildlife friendly, or attracts butterflies, or is certified by master gardeners."

"I think homeowners are trying to seek a higher sense of community, and so they want to be in their front yard, interacting with their neighbors," she added.

Faced with the choice between a wildlife garden or astroturf -- the latter has also become increasingly popular in drought-hit areas -- Mary Phillips, senior director of NWW, urges people to consider nature. She refers to recent research that shows wildlife gardens can support bee biodiversity comparable to natural parklands and, as a result, a greater number and diversity of birds, especially songbirds.

Yard, by 2.ink Studio, winner of the ASLA 2018 Professional Honor Award in Residential Design Credit: Stephen Miller / ASLA

"When we share those kinds of stories, that is what's motivating people," said Phillips. "Because they're actually seeing on the ground, visually, these bees and these butterflies and the birds visiting the property, and they see that they can make a significant difference."

A Few Simple Rules

Even small changes can make a difference to the environmental impact of lawns. The "entry-level option," according to Philips, for families that still want room for their kids to play, is to inject more wildflowers into the turf. That includes plants that are typically viewed as nuisances.

"The stuff that people are usually trying to get out of their lawn, we're saying 'No, that's good to have in your lawn!'" said Philips. "So reintroduce native violets -- and even dandelions -- certain clovers, low-growing thyme and things that flower, which provide pollinator benefits and are better for the soil."

Once a wasteland, Tessa Charnofsky planted hundreds of California native plants and built decks and stairways. "Within a couple of years, it was transformed into a wildlife paradise, and became a Certified Wildlife Habitat. So many species of bumble bee and sweat bee, butterflies and moths, lizards, migrating birds, birds of pray lived here, dined here, or just passed through." Credit: Tessa Charnofsky

The more advanced option means "taller meadow or prairie-like native plants," Phillips said. These types of plants have root systems that better manage storm water runoff, in addition to absorbing more carbon, she explained.

When one home commits to a wildlife-friendly lawn, others often follow. "(It's) an unspoken message to their neighbors, it is evidence that they care about the environment," Cook said. "In many areas, the first house on the block has set off a domino effect, as others take permission to experiment."

"Each small garden acts as a stepping stone for birds, pollinators and other wildlife, becoming something much larger, impacting whole watersheds," she added.

Pomegranate and Boston Ivy on the wall of a Bel Air home owned by TV writer-producers Amy Lippman and Rodman Flenders, designed by Naomi Sanders Credit: Jennifer Cheung

There are lessons to be learned from landscaping projects both grand and small. "There are no rules for what a garden should be," said LA landscape designer Naomi Sanders. In addition to being a beautiful space, gardens and lawns present opportunities for peaceful refuge, hosting and observing wildlife, learning and exploring, and connecting with neighbors and one's self. "Perhaps more now than ever, most of us understand the importance of plants and nature and that we function within a larger natural environment."

Written by Hannah Van Eendenburg (third from left), a graduate student at the University of Colorado, Boulder, studying cultural anthropology. She is an avid soccer player, gardener, and a co-founder of the S.A.V.E. (Seeds Adapted to Variable Ecosystems) Salida Seed Library in Salida, Colorado.

While seeds can naturally reproduce and grow on their own, humans have been freely collecting, growing, saving, exchanging, and sowing them for over 10,000 years. These seed savers have shaped agriculture by preserving crop diversity, increasing flavor and nutrition, and encouraging the seeds to adapt to where they’re grown. Seeds have also played an important cultural role for humans, carrying stories and connections to past generations. However, the context of seed saving has changed drastically in the last 200 years due to corporate control and the climate crisis.

Seed Saving in Recent History

After landing in the Americas, European colonizers realized that their crops were not adapted to the conditions of what would become the United States. As their crops failed in these drastically different climates and soil, the colonizers turned to native plants. Through forced exchanges with indigenous tribes, Europeans began seed saving to build a collection of crops that were successful.

From these crops, as well as countless others taken from around the world, the US government developed an agricultural-focused patent office. The USDA was formally established in 1862, strengthening the collection, propagation, and distribution of seeds. Over 1.1 billion packets of seeds were being distributed by the government throughout the US for farmers to grow and adapt in different climates.

The private sector saw the potential for growth, and seed distribution began to change. In 1883, the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) was established to build business alliances in the seed industry. This association convinced the federal government to discontinue the free seed distribution program in 1924. Intellectual property rights and patents were developed, further increasing corporate control in the seed world and making these companies economically and politically untouchable. It became illegal for individuals to save most seeds owned by corporations, and the rich history of traditional seed saving and the social and cultural role of seeds changed forever.

Today, power is consolidated in the hands of the four largest agricultural corporations in the world: Bayer (the company that acquired Monsanto in 2018), Corteva Agriscience, Sinochem, and BASF own more than 67% of seeds worldwide, grossing over $25 billion in 2019.

Seed Saving Today

Walking into a garden store today, the majority of seeds you see are most likely owned by one of these global companies. They are probably treated with insecticides, fungicides, and may even be genetically modified. These seeds might also be dependent on pesticides to grow. In the face of such limited choice, seed saving is the best decision you can make for your own health, the health of your garden, and the health of the climate.

Regionally-adapted seeds are those that have been grown and saved in your specific location for at least one season. These seeds learn from their environment, including specific weather patterns, soil type, season length, local pests, and more. These adaptations help your garden become more successful and eliminate the need for chemical inputs like pesticides and fertilizers.

By seed saving each year, plants become more dependable by adjusting to their surroundings. In contrast, purchased seeds do not have any genetic or biological familiarity with the ecosystem. Saving local seeds that flourish in your specific environment is key for food security and resilience. This is especially important today, in the face of the climate crisis, erratic weather conditions, and an increasingly unstable food system. 

The Community’s Role in Seed Saving

Food growing and seed saving are at the front lines of the climate crisis. Growing well adapted foods at the local level gives us the opportunity to reduce our climate impacts while also making our food system stronger in the face of uncertainty. The argument for regional seeds is parallel to that of local food in many ways, including fostering community relationships, strengthening economies, and increasing social justice.

A local seed movement cannot happen without community. One of the fundamental models of community seed saving and sharing is the seed library. Seed libraries are institutions that lend or share seeds with the public. Their collections are often acquired through donations from community members and local seed companies committed to sharing their knowledge. For this system to be successful, there needs to be a balance between taking seeds at the start of the season and returning seeds after the harvest. This furthers seed adaptation and solidifies community partnerships into the future.

Seed saving is one of the most efficient and beneficial ways to have a successful garden. It promotes environmental stewardship, community connection, and a way to step outside of the global economy. And, it’s something anyone can do!

Climate Victory Gardening puts the health of people, communities, and the planet first, and it all starts with seeds. Consider adding seed saving to your gardening toolkit and explore (or start!) a local seed library this season!

This is the first article in a series of three about seed saving. The second article is about Adapting with Intention: A Lesson on Seed Saving, and the third article is about Developing Online Tools for Seed Saving and Sharing. 

Read more inspiring Climate Victory Garden stories and tips.

If the label says "flushable," then wet wipes should be able to go down the toilet, right?

Unfortunately, no. Flushable wipes aren't as flushable as advertised.

But people are flushing wipes down toilets – and this is causing dangerous problems. 

Toilet paper is designed to disintegrate in our pipes and sewage systems, but flushable wipes are not. They’re typically made with synthetic materials, plastics or polyester, that won't break down. So even if they flush down your toilet, they end up clogging our sewers. This poses hazardous risks to sewage professionals that must break these clogs up as well as considerable costs. Some cities have spent millions of dollars a year to address damages and clear the pipes.

As wipes meet cooking fat in the sewage system, it builds up into a monstrous obstacle, a “fatberg.”

A fatberg is a huge mass of solid waste largely consisting of cooking fats, disposable wipes, tampons, and other sanitary items that get flushed down the commode. They’re unhygienic, expensive to fix, and incredibly gross (if you’re really curious, you can check out Museum of London’s Fatberg Autopsy). Clogs and fatbergs make jobs that are already hazardous and very difficult even more so.  

Thames Water utility in London dealt with a single fatberg weighing as much as 11 double-decker buses. Depending on the volume, fatbergs can take days or even weeks for teams of workers to clear out and send to landfills. In 2018, New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection had to clear over 2,000 fatbergs and reports that “flushable” wipes make up 90 percent of the clogs.

So, why are wipes advertised as “flushable”?

You can attempt to flush many things down a toilet (if you have a child, perhaps you've seen the random stuff someone may put down the drain...) but that doesn’t mean they’ll effectively move through our sewage system. Companies can currently label wipes as “flushable” simply because they aren’t restricted from doing so.

Companies aren't required to prove flushability before asserting this claim and it seems most would fail any such test. A study out of Canada tested 101 wipes on the market for flushability and not a single one passed. This marketing technique is misleading and we need provisions to keep companies from freely using it and sparking customer confusion.  

While there have been policy attempts to curtail deceptive “flushable” labels (California is debating a bill that would require products to be clearly labeled) these moves have been met by significant resistance from the industry.

Solutions to Keep the Pipes Clear

One of the last things we need during a serious global pandemic are clogged sewers overflowing into our streets. Utility departments are urging and pleading for us to stop flushing wipes and to only flush our bodily business and toilet paper. Wipes are also not recyclable, so they need to go to the trash bin.

To address this issue beyond our homes, we can urge our elected officials to hold companies making these wipes accountable for the costs to our municipal sewage systems. We can also contact companies by tagging them on social media and ask them to stop using “flushable” claims.

Please keep the pipes clear by not flushing wipes, wash your hands for 20 seconds, and take care of your health and your families.

This webinar is for you if:

• you are worried about the climate crisis and want to take action that matters.
• you are wondering how to start a garden that's good for the planet.
• you are an experienced gardener looking to fine tune your approach.
• you are just curious about the role gardens can have in climate solutions.

This webinar is about:

Get ready to cover everything from the tiny microbes in our soil all the way up to the earth’s atmosphere, with an extra focus on the climate and how we can affect positive change in our gardens. This webinar is all about Climate Victory Gardening: what it is, why it’s important, and how it works. 

Why the focus on climate? Seventy percent of Americans are worried about the climate, and half of Americans feel helpless in the face of a climate crisis. Our gardens can move the dial a little bit on this problem that can otherwise feel enormous and overwhelming. 

Also, in this time when COVID-19 is at the front of our minds, we can also look to gardening as a way to ease our stress and provide added food security for our families and communities. Gardening that also sequesters carbon takes some planning; a great thing if you find yourself with a little extra time on your hands right now.

Note: there’s no such thing as an exact Climate Victory Gardening template that’s going to work for everyone. We’re all gardening in different places, and under different conditions. The goal of this webinar is to give you an understanding of the concept, to inform the hundreds or even thousands of decisions you make in your garden each season. Think of this webinar as a diving board to launch into a new way of thinking about gardening rather than a prescription. 

Have questions? Reach out to us at ClimateVictoryGarden@GreenAmerica.org

View a transcript of the webinar.

Additional Q&A from the webinar.

Don't forget to register your garden!

Read more inspiring Climate Victory Garden stories and tips.

In the face of mounting public pressure, Amazon announced new plans to use more clean energy to power its computing subsidiary Amazon Web Services (AWS), which it says will keep the company on track to meet its goal of reaching 100% renewable energy use by 2030. The retailing giant announced plans for four new renewable energy projects to power its data centers – an announcement that came only after intense activism on the part of Green America, the nation’s leading green economy organization, and allied groups.

In 2014, Green America launched its Build a Cleaner Cloud campaign urging Amazon to shift to renewable energy to power its cloud computing services and protect workers in their warehouses and supply chain. Consumers involved in the campaign canceled their Amazon Prime subscriptions, stopped shopping on Amazon.com, and sent messages directly to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and the company.  More than 42,000 consumers joined in the Green America push, which was the largest of its kind.

WASHINGTON, DC – March 24, 2020 – In the face of mounting public pressure, Amazon announced new plans to use more clean energy to power its computing subsidiary Amazon Web Services (AWS), which it says will keep the company on track to meet its goal of reaching 100% renewable energy use by 2030. The retailing giant announced plans for four new renewable energy projects to power its data centers – an announcement that came only after intense activism on the part of Green America, the nation’s leading green economy organization, and allied groups.

In 2014, Green America launched its Build a Cleaner Cloud campaign urging Amazon to shift to renewable energy to power its cloud computing services and protect workers in their warehouses and supply chain. Consumers involved in the campaign canceled their Amazon Prime subscriptions, stopped shopping on Amazon.com, and sent messages directly to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and the company.  More than 42,000 consumers joined in the Green America push, which was the largest of its kind.

Historically, Amazon has not been a leader on climate change. After years of intense consumer pressure, Amazon finally reached 50% renewable energy use in 2018. Last year, Amazon adopted a 100% clean energy target for powering its widely used AWS cloud computing operation. Data centers require vast amounts of power to operate and are a major contributor to climate change. Amazon’s adoption of renewable energy, and use of unbundled RECs, means the company still trails competitors like Microsoft and Google.

Charlotte Tate, manager of Labor Justice Campaigns at Green America, said: “The new announcement is further evidence than when consumers, workers, and small businesses come together, we can hold even the largest corporations accountable. Green America is committed to maintaining pressure on Amazon until it addresses its practices that are harmful to both workers and the planet.”

Todd Larsen, executive co-director of Consumer and Corporate Engagement at Green America, said: “Despite AWS's prominence in the cloud computing space, the company has not kept pace with competitors in terms of renewable energy use. While Amazon has committed to 100% clean energy by 2030, other companies are getting there much faster. The climate crisis is impacting us now. While this announcement is a step in the right direction, ten years is too long to wait for one of the world’s richest companies to catch up on renewable energy.”

Last year, 4,500 Amazon employees signed an open letter to Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s Board calling for the company to address climate change by adding more clean energy and getting to its 100% clean energy goal, greening the company's delivery fleet, providing meaningful climate targets, and being more transparent in its climate and environmental reporting. The company has threatened to fire employees if they continue to speak out.

While Amazon has made progress on renewable energy use, worker safety remains a concern. In the current context, Amazon needs to meet its workers’ demands to protect their safety. Amazon should provide paid sick leave that is not limited to those that test positive for COVID-19 as testing within the US remain difficult to access. In addition, Amazon should cover the cost of health care and testing for any employee or contractor that has potentially been exposed. This week Amazon logistics workers scored a victory when the company agreed to provide paid time off to them.  The company needs to build on that action and fully protect all its workers.

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

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

Ethos Logos Investments works exclusively with individuals, institutions, employers, and family offices who seek to make an impact on the world through their investments. Integrating faith, morals, and ethics into an investment portfolio is a dynamic strategy for effecting both social and financial returns. We believe in the impact of conscientious people investing intentionally. We’ve witnessed its power and experienced its influence. Our passion is working with people who are serious about their mission. Ethos Logos provides the resources necessary to truly customize a portfolio that can insulate clients from activities they’d be morally opposed to profiting from or being complicit with, while also using investments to proactively effect positive change. We offer fee-based financial plans, fee-based advisory accounts, commission only brokerage accounts, life insurance and annuities (including products offered by Catholic Order of Foresters). We also offer an extremely robust SRI and faith-based 401k & 403b platform. Now, employers can empower their employees to honor their conscience with money that is locked up in their retirement plan.

In honor of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, we are taking a look at how investments are now being deployed to promote gender parity and women’s empowerment.  While there has historically been a lack of financial investments that benefit women and girls, change is underway with gender lens investing.

The good news is that there is increasing focus on how consideration of gender – the roles and numbers of women in the workforce and the increase in women’s economic empowerment – relates to financial portfolios and to investments that benefit women and girls. According to March 2020 research released by Veris Wealth Partners, assets in what is now called “gender lens investing” totaled $3.4 billion as of June 2019, up from $2.4 billion the previous year.

The challenge is that we have a long way yet to go to achieve economic equity for women. A new 2020 report from the USSIF Foundation, Investing to Advance Women: A Guide for Investors, documents that women in the U.S. still earn almost 20% less than their male counterparts, barely 27% of CEOs are women, and only 4% of c-level positions are held by women of color. Action to correct this inequality is needed across society – and the investment sector has an important role to play.

The origin of the phrase “gender lens investing” in 2009 is attributed to the Criterion Institute, a non-profit think tank that uses the finance sector to leverage social change. Criterion explains that “Investing with a gender lens is an extension of gender lens philanthropy. It builds on the networks, power, and experience of women’s funds [i.e., grant makers].”

Criterion’s 2017 Blueprint for Women’s Funds includes insight on “the need to bridge gender knowledge with investment knowledge” in order for finance with a gender lens to be as successful as needed over the long term. Criterion observes that gender lens investing needs to go beyond just counting women or viewing them solely as an economic opportunity, and to put investment decisions in the context of women’s economic empowerment. This means ensuring that investments actually improve women’s lives and set the stage for greater asset building and access to the resources and rights needed to thrive economically.

FAQs about Gender Lens Investing:

What does gender lens investing actually entail?

As with many aspects of socially and environmentally responsible investing, also known as impact investing, there is not just one definition or strategy. That said, in short, gender lens investing integrates gender analysis with investment decision-making. Common aspects of gender lens investing include the selection of companies for investment that have some mix of the following:

• Significant percentage of women on their boards of directors;
• Significant percentage of women at the executive level;
• Woman CEO
• Woman CFO
• Woman founder
• Strategies to give women access to capital
• Payment of a living wage
• Products and/or services for services that improve the lives of women and girls
• Responsible portrayals of women in advertising   

In addition, the Pax Global Women’s Leadership Index and Fund, a leader in gender lens investing, also reviews whether companies have signed the Women’s Empowerment Principles formulated by the U.N. Global Compact and U.N. Women. Other funds consider whether and how companies are addressing the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal on gender equality.

What are the desired outcomes of gender lens investing?

For most investors, the desired results will be multiple, including increased economic and educational opportunity for women and girls, stronger economies, better corporate management, and greater profit for companies and shareholders. Moreover, as the Veris report above notes, we now see connections between women in leadership and better outcomes across a range of social, environmental, and corporate governance issues.

Community development investments for women can also dramatically improve the quality of women’s lives. This happens by providing loans to women and access to needed products and services (from electricity to clean cook stoves). Customized mortgage pools from Community Capital Management, for example, give access to capital to low-to-moderate income female borrowers. Calvert Impact Capital’s Women Investing in Women initiative supports women as investors and uses investments to improve the well-being of women and girls.

Why choose a gender lens for investing?

Research from around the world demonstrates time and again that companies that value women’s leadership, and societies where women have economic opportunity, do better. The Pax Elevate Global Women’s Leadership Fund, for example, invests in companies with more gender diversity because they will have greater financial returns, more innovation, greater productivity, more satisfied employees and less employee-turnover. As the Investing to Advance Women report states: “A significant body of research suggests that companies that promote women to the most senior levels of business and appoint them to boards tend to perform better than those companies that do not.”

What is the role of shareholder action on gender equity?

Active shareholders file shareholder resolutions at companies seeking transparency and practices to close the gender gap between male and female employees across race and ethnicity. The 30 Percent Coalition, including asset owners and asset manager among others, is dedicated to having 30% of corporate board seats held by women, including women of color. This proxy season, Arjuna Capital, for example, has filed 13 resolutions on the need for median gender/racial pay equity disclosure. If you own company stock – be sure to check your proxy ballots and vote your values!

Is investing with a gender lens financially competitive?

Yes! While there are no guarantees with the stock market, funds with a gender lens have performed competitively over time. For example, the Pax Elevate Global Women’s Leadership Fund has outperformed the MSCI World Index, its benchmark, from its inception in 2014 to 2019.

Impax Asset Management, the advisor to Pax World Funds states: “Increasingly, analysts in both finance and academia are examining the relationship between financial performance and gender diversity, and there is abundant evidence that having more gender-diverse leadership is connected to better financial outcomes.” Gender Diversity Delivered: Results from 5 Years of Investing in Women explains the financial performance of the Pax Elevate Global Women’s Leadership Fund in detail.

What products and service providers can help me with gender lens investing?

For financial planners, products, and services dedicated to social and environmentally responsible visit GreenPages.org for members of Green America’s Green Business Network. Many of these options will include a focus on gender lens.

For example:

Mutual Funds: Domini, Green Century, Pax, Parnassus, and Calvert

Community Development Investments: Calvert Impact Capital’s Women Investing in Women initiative, Community Capital Management, and Shared Interest

Asset Managers/Larger Accounts: Miller/Howard, NorthStar Asset Management, Trillium Asset Management, Veris Wealth Partners

In closing, we need investors and investment professionals to continue to work for the day when all investing is socially and environmentally responsible -- and there is no longer any need for a gender lens. That will be a great announcement on an upcoming International Women’s Day!

The global shift — albeit, a slow shift — to renewable energy sources is starting to pay off. According to a new report, last year, CO2 power sector emissions dropped by 2 percent. This is the greatest reduction we've seen in about three decades, and it's largely thanks to a few key regions using more renewables and less coal in 2019.

The report was conducted by Ember (formerly known as Sandbag), an independent climate think tank. Ember has been reviewing Europe's power sector for years, but this report is its first review of the global power sector. For the report, researchers took into account data from 85 percent of the world, and made estimates for the remaining 15 percent.

According to the report, last year, as we saw coal use decreasing in the U.S. and the EU, coal-fired electricity generation dropped by 3 percent. This led to that 2 percent drop in CO2 power sector emissions. 

This fall was the biggest we've seen since 1990, which is when the International Energy Agency first reported on these trends.

How did we manage to do this? Well, instead of relying so much on coal, both the U.S. and the EU both increased their reliance on renewable energy as well as natural gas. Unfortunately, natural gas emits about half as much carbon as coal does, according to Green America. The various kinds of renewable energy produce significantly lower carbon than that, though the specific amounts vary greatly, as per Carbon Brief. Switching to renewable energy is much more effective in curbing emissions than switching to natural gas.

Even though the U.S. and the EU managed to cut back on coal last year, China's coal use actually increased for the first time, and China was responsible for half of the world's coal generation.

The report also noted that in 2019, global wind and solar energy increased by 15 percent, accounting for about 8 percent of global electricity. As Ember notes, to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, the planet needs a compound growth rate of 15 percent every year — which we achieved in 2019. If we want to maintain that rate and hold onto hope that we will keep the global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the whole world will have to work together to continue scaling up renewable energy so that it becomes more affordable, according to Ember. 

But despite all that, global coal generation still grew by 2 percent in 2019, Ember found. That's because the rise in clean energy was "not enough to meet electricity demand growth." Basically, even though we are replacing more and more coal with clean energy, humans are requiring more electricity every year (this likely has to do with our ever-growing global population).

“The global decline of coal and power sector emissions is good news for the climate but governments have to dramatically accelerate the electricity transition so that global coal generation collapses throughout the 2020s," Dave Jones, Electricity Analyst for Ember, said in a statement. "To switch from coal into gas is just swapping one fossil fuel for another. The cheapest and quickest way to end coal generation is through a rapid roll-out of wind and solar."

As Jones said — and as many climate activists have been saying for years — transitioning away from coal (and natural gas) and towards clean energy is key in fighting the climate crisis. As more nations continue to implement energy forms such as wind, solar, and hydro, the closer we may get to maintaining the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Green businesses adopt principles, policies, and practices that improve the quality of life for its customers, employees, communities, and planet. But just because a business claims it is “green” doesn’t mean it upholds the standards of social responsibility and sustainability. So how can you determine what is in fact a sustainable business, or how can your business achieve that high standard?

That’s where third-party certifications come in. A third-party certification serves to verify a business’s claims against their independently developed criterion. Such certifications reduce conflicts of interest and provide accountability to a business’s claims. Studies show that customers look for such things from businesses and are willing to pay more for high-quality products with safety and sustainability standards.

Green America's Green Business Certification is the leading trust mark for true green business practices. Our program recognizes businesses that excel in social and environmental responsibility, and the businesses found in our Green Pages directory have met or exceeded our certification standards to become leaders in the green economy.

The Green Business Network at Green America recommends businesses consider both environmental and social justice issues when making decisions. To earn our certification, businesses must meet both standards of social and environmental responsibility. If you are interested in becoming a green business, we’ve highlighted a few important steps—and if you’ve reached these steps, check out the full requirements of our Body and Personal Care standard. You may be ready to apply.

Environmental Responsibility 

"Green" or sustainable businesses make planet health a core part of their mission. The following steps are ways your personal care business can account for environmental responsibility in its operations.

Use clean ingredients.

No matter what your specialty, all body and personal care businesses must use the best possible ingredients in your products and services. This means we require your business to refrain from the following: chemicals containing “sulfate” or “sulfosuccinate,” parabens or paraben preservatives, petroleum variations, synthetic alcohols, fragrances, or dyes, and phthalates. If your business sells sunscreen, we prefer mineral ingredients. Bonus points if it is certified reef-safe. See a more detailed list of chemicals we do not accept at our Body and Personal Care standard.

Additionally, we do not accept businesses that use nanotechnology (particles below 100 nanometers) in their products. There is not enough research on nanotechnology to demonstrate their safety, therefore we use the Precautionary Principle—the principle that a product with disputed or unknown effects should be resisted—until further research is complete.

Treat animals safely and humanely.

If animals are in your supply chain, they must be treated humanely, and your business must be transparent with this treatment. Many of our certified members use vegan ingredients and while we prefer this, we will not refuse a business that uses animal-derived ingredients—such as lanolin, honey, milk, and beeswax—if you can prove these animals were treated humanely. We require all businesses to refrain from animal testing. Acquiring the Leaping Bunny cruelty-free certification is another way to demonstrate your commitment to humane animal treatment.

Operate a green facility.

Not only do we analyze the steps in your supply chain, we are also interested in your business’s operational and administrative fronts. Our definition of a green office or facility includes reusing resources, recyclability, and maximum water and energy efficiency. We require this from body and personal care businesses.

Additionally, we love to see businesses maximize recycling and recyclable packaging as well as opportunities for refills or reusing containers.

Social Responsibility

Triple bottom line businesses are not only kind to the planet, but kind to people—hence, social responsibility. The following points are a handful of ways your business can be an ethical one.

Friendly to sensitive skin and different skin types.

Body and personal care businesses must be attuned to the variations in skin, hair, and body types and sensitivities. Since these can be so wide-ranging, we only require businesses to refrain from chlorine bleaching, scent with only natural essential oils and use organic cotton balls, swabs, and tampons.

Uphold transparency.

While we value integrity at all points in the supply chain, transparency in your ingredients promotes trust between you and your customers. We expect a full list of ingredients on your products. This includes where they are sold and online marketplaces.

We love to see businesses source their ingredients locally whenever possible. However, if your ingredients must be shipped from elsewhere—such as shea butter, olive oil, sugar, and certain essential oils—we prefer to see a Fair Trade label. While this is not a requirement, it helps demonstrate to the certification board and to your customers that you are dedicated to social responsibility.

Why Certify?

In a sea of businesses claiming to be “conscious" or "natural," it’s hard for the average consumer to weed out the green from the greenwashed. Third-party certifications demonstrate that your business has withstood the vetting of an outside body and come out as a truly socially and environmentally responsible business. With certification, your customers will know your business has the credentials to back up claims of environmental and social responsibility.

While these requirements are comprehensive, they are not definite. We love seeing businesses exceed these standards and take steps beyond certification to be even greener. In addition, our certification analyzes business practices and not individual products. We believe a sustainable future is also an ethical one and ensure the businesses that earn our certification reflect that.

If you have met these criteria, you can view the full requirements for personal care businesses at our Body and Personal Care certification standard and begin the process of becoming a member and official sustainable business.
 

By: Ken Roseboro, The Organic Non-GMO Report 

Many Midwest farms are struggling with low grain prices and the trade war with China, among other challenges. But a small farm in Nebraska offers farmers hope that a focus on soil health can help their farms prosper, while delivering a range of environmental benefits and even a solution to climate change.

Scott Gonnerman’s farm in Waco, Nebraska has been in his family since 1918 when his great grandfather bought it. It is small by Midwest standards, just 160 acres. Gonnerman rents two other parcels, giving him a total of 250 acres.

He grows non-GMO corn, soybeans, and small grains such as wheat.

“We’re awfully small in today’s scale, but we seem to be able to make a living farming,” he says.

Switched to no-till and cover crops

Gonnerman’s journey as a regenerative farmer began in 2008 when he switched to no-till farming, which leaves the soil undisturbed.

“We went to a couple no-till meetings and decided that was what we needed to do,” he says.

A year later he started planting a cover crop after realizing the importance of crop diversity. He initially planted an annual ryegrass to improve soil health. In 2010, he planted multi-species cover crops.

Today, Gonnerman plants 14 to 17 different varieties of cover crops. These include hemp, crimson clover, Austrian winter peas, hairy vetch, pearl millet, sorghum sudangrass, oats, radishes, and others.

The cover crops perform different functions to build soil health. Oats build biomass to protect the soil, sorghum sudangrass promotes the growth of beneficial mycorrhizal fungi, tillage radish helps break up compacted soil, and Austrian winter peas add nitrogen, an essential nutrient.

Planting cover crops has delivered many benefits to Gonnerman’s farm. They prevent soil erosion, increase water infiltration, suppress weeds, and reduce the need for chemical inputs. Gonnerman has eliminated the use of insecticides and fungicides.

He still uses an herbicide to “burn down” a cover crop in the spring but has been trying to use a roller crimper to mow them down instead.

Gonnerman has also reduced his use of nitrogen fertilizer to 50% of the recommended amount for corn.

“They say it takes a pound of nitrogen to raise a bushel of corn, but our best year was 2.75 bushels of corn per pound of nitrogen applied. I’m raising 200 bushels of corn on 80 to 100 pounds of nitrogen,” he says.

Because of his success reducing chemical inputs, Gonnerman plans to take the next step, which is transitioning to organic production.

“This spring, I’m going to planting alfalfa and keep it for three to four years, then that ground will be organic. That’ll give me three to four years to figure out an (organic) crop rotation.”

The alfalfa will help control weeds and provide nitrogen for corn.

Better water infiltration

One of the biggest benefits Gonnerman has seen from cover crops is the ability of his soil to absorb water. In 2008, water was absorbed into his soil at a rate of one-half inch per hour. By 2019, that rate improved to two inches in less than two minutes. His soil soaks up water like a sponge.

Even with the heavy rains that Nebraska saw last year, Gonnerman’s farm was able to absorb it.

“We’ve had no runoff on our farm. I can soak it up,” he says.

Better water absorption also reduces the need for irrigation, which is common in Nebraska.

“With our water infiltration rates, our cover crops, and keeping the ground covered, we’ve basically eliminated a majority of our irrigation needs.”

Gonnerman grows only non-GMO corn and soybeans. “In 2013, we became 100% non-GMO with no insecticide, no fungicide, and no seed treatments.”

He grows non-GMO soybeans for a seed company and food-grade soybeans for Gavilon Grain, which are sold to the Japanese market. This year he will also grow non-GMO white corn for Gavilon.

A legacy of soil health

Gonnerman slashes his costs by buying non-GMO corn and soybean seed.

“I pay $85 a bag for corn. If you buy a Pioneer fully traited (GMO) corn, it’s probably $300 or more per bag.”

Soil health as the bottom line

By reducing seed and other input costs for pesticides and fertilizers, Gonnerman’s farm is profitable, unlike many other farms in the Midwest.

“My wife and I are pretty much making a living off of our farm,” he says. “Our input costs are down considerably. Our profitability per acre is up.”

But the bottom line for Gonnerman is soil health.

“Everything on our farm is based on what it will do for our soil. Will it benefit it, keep it the same, or degrade it? For all our farming decisions, soil health comes first,” he says.

Gonnerman’s soil health focus was recognized in 2018 when he received the Master Conservationist Award from the Omaha World-Herald.

He wants to leave a legacy of soil health to his future generations.

“I’m 59 years old, and my goal is to have my soils functioning the way they were when my great-grandfather bought the farm back in 1918. I’m trying to make it so that, some year down the road, my grandsons can make a living off my 160 acres.”

“Our philosophy is that a healthy, living soil produces healthy plants that are resilient to pest and disease.  We use the principles of permaculture and biodynamic agriculture, but we aren’t really about the labels, just growing the healthiest food possible without sacrificing our environment”.        

ECO City Farms is a nonprofit farm located in Prince Georges County Maryland, that is devoted to educating the youths and adults in the community about the importance of a healthy lifestyle and nutrition habits. In addition, ECO City seeks to enhance food security, safety and access amplifying community engagement to reinvigorate the Chesapeake foodshed with sustainable ways of making food and money while preserving ecological diversity.

Edmonston farm, is considered the heart of the ECO City Farms where they have on-site bee keeping and use various farming practices for growing organic produce. ECO City Farms focus on organic farming without the use of any chemical such as pesticides, fungicides, or herbicides as they hold the status as a Certified Naturally Grown farm.

There are four on-site hoop houses that allows ECO City Farms to produce mass amounts of vegetables year-round. Hoop houses are low-cost renewable energy system similar to greenhouses but is covered by greenhouse plastic. In addition, composting and vermiculture practice incorporated into ECO City Farm’s foundation for farming. Composting and vermiculture converts organic substance from waste to produce a more fertilized soil. Edmonston farms also have a Microgreens project funded by Maryland Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop Block Grant. ECO City Farms produce and sell buckwheat shoots, pea shoots, radish and cress microgreens at Riverdale Park farmers market. Edmonston farm also offers their own guidelines and practices for their customers to grow microgreens themselves. Another feature about the Edmonston farm is that they have developed an on-farm kitchen. The foodshed was built in a shipping container where cooking classes are taught and produce is stored.

Bladensburg Farm shares their 3.5 acres of land with three low-income multifamily apartment buildings.  ECO City Farms provides healthy produce for the residents at the apartment complex and the community.

ECO City Farms provides extensive outreach programs to educate youths and adults within the community.

Programs include:

• Farm-to-School
• Nutrition Education
• Tours/Field trips to the farm
• Summer Program - Seed to Feed.
• Growing Urban Farms and Farmers

What makes ECO City Farms so special is that they open their farm to the community for volunteer work. ECO City encourages their community to be involved in creating a sustainable environment and healthy lifestyle habits.

The future of farming is key to an environmentally sound future. You can help through volunteering and supporting the work of ECO City Farms and Green America, like the Soil Carbon Initiative's new 2022 Go-to-Market Pilots.

Green America is pleased to announce that at our first board meeting of 2020 in April we will welcome five newly elected board members: Bama Athreya, Eleanor Greene, Julie Lineberger, Carolyn Parrs, and Brady Quirk-Garvan. Green America’s board of directors draws representatives from each of our stakeholder groups—individual members, green business members, and our staff worker members—to help oversee and guide our economic action plans. 

Bama Athreya, based in Washington, DC, elected by our individual members, is a Fellow at Open Society Foundations. She has worked in the past with USAID with a focus on gender and social inclusion and with the International Labor Rights Forum during which she worked with Green America on the Ending Child Labor in Cocoa Campaign. Bama shared: “I’ve cared about ethical trade throughout my career and have long valued my affiliations with Green America going back about 20 years! I look forward to supporting Green America’s efforts to organize and build a grassroots movement for change.” 

Eleanor Greene, based in Washington, DC, elected by Green America’s worker member staff, joined the staff in 2016 and serves as Green America’s editor in chief. Prior to that, she worked in social media and communications at organizations focusing on sustainable innovation, regenerative agriculture, education, and the arts. She served as the editor in chief of AWOL Magazine at American University, where she also studied journalism. Eleanor states: "I've learned a lot about Green America in the past four years I've worked here and I'm excited to learn about the organization from a different perspective as a board member. I'm honored to serve the staff as a worker-member representative and be part of shaping Green America's future." 

Julie Lineberger, based in Vermont, was re-elected by Green America’s Worker member staff, and runs two green companies, Linesync Architecture and Wheelpad. Julie has served on Green America’s board as chair and is a long-standing member of Green America’s Green Business Network. Julie affirmed: “I am delighted to be re-elected to the Green America board, especially at this crucial time in our country when Green America’s commitments to clean energy, safe food, responsible finance and fair labor have never been more important.” 

Carolyn Parrs, based in Washington State, was elected by members of Green America’s Green Business Network. Carolyn leads Mind Over Markets which provides marketing and branding expertise for sustainable businesses, as well as Women of Green, an online community that “turns up the volume” on the feminine voice in the green movement. Carolyn has conducted webinars for Green Business Network members over the years to strengthen their public presentation. “We are entering a new era of sustainability (the global market for sustainability products hit $2.65 trillion) and it’s more important than ever for all of us to be as engaged as possible. Our time is now,” stated Carolyn.  

Brady Quirk-Garvan, based in South Carolina, was elected by worker member staff. He works with Natural Investments/Money with a Mission, a firm dedicated to socially and environmentally responsible investing. Brady is a member of Green America and of our Green Business Network. He was recognized last fall in Charleston Business’ 2019 Best & Brightest 35 and Under and expresses his commitment to serving on Green America’s board: “In these turbulent times, when larger institutions are failing to lead on the environment and social justice, it is up to us consumers, investors, businesses, and activists to push forward. I am honored to join Green America’s board.” 

Green America extends special thanks to outgoing board members Jeff Marcous (board chair), Scott Kitson, Adam Ortiz, and Meredith Sheperd. 

Horizon Organic, the largest USDA certified organic dairy brand in the world, today announced a commitment to become carbon positive by 2025. Horizon Organic’s goal is to be the first national dairy brand to become carbon positive across its full supply chain. The company plans to achieve carbon neutrality, and then go further to remove, reduce, and offset additional emissions from entering the atmosphere, becoming carbon positive.

The Horizon Organic path to carbon positive will start with its new Growing Years whole milk half gallons, which will be the brand’s first certified carbon neutral product by the end of 2021. Horizon Organic will continue to advance product certifications in direct partnership with family farms through 2025.  The brand has already begun the certification process with The Carbon Trust² and is working alongside many other friends on the journey, including The Organic Trade Association and Green America’s Center for Sustainability Solutions.

The brand is finalizing its full life-cycle assessment and a panel of independent experts will validate the results. The life-cycle assessment will guide specific milestones toward the carbon positive achievement. Goals include:

• To become carbon positive, Horizon Organic will also work collaboratively with its more than 600 direct farmer partners to ensure a farmable future for all.
• Horizon Organic’s on-farm actions will include energy efficiency, soil regeneration, and cow feed and diet management. These issues are all inter-connected and play a key role in the brand’s carbon positive commitment. A five-year partnership with EcoPractices is already in place to conduct in-depth sustainability and soil health analysis, helping track and inform our soil health efforts.
• The brand is investing in optimized transportation and distribution, renewables, emission reductions for its manufacturing facilities, and packaging improvements. 100% of Horizon Organic’s beverage cartons will be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council by the end of 2020.

To complement a full-scope carbon reduction strategy, the brand will co-create new projects that generate carbon offsets and removals, largely around US-based agriculture. Examples of these projects include restoring prairie lands and forestlands. The options available in the future to reduce, offset, and reverse emissions will likely look different than the options of today. Horizon Organic will evaluate and pursue new technology and partnerships on an ongoing basis across the environmental, scientific and financial space to understand innovation and break-through opportunities that could make a difference.

On February 25, 2020, JPMorgan Chase, the world’s largest bank funder of fossil fuels by a 29% margin, announced new restrictions on its financing of coal and Arctic oil and gas as well as new investment in clean energy and other environmentally sustainable projects. The announcement followed mobilizations around the world pressuring the bank to halt investment in fossil fuel expansion, phase out fossil fuel investment in line with the Paris Agreement, respect human rights and Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and support renewable energy.

In addition, just days before the announcement, a document was leaked from the bank affirming that the climate crisis has dire consequences for life on Earth.

As the largest financier of the climate crisis, the bank’s steps to address climate can play a major role in transitioning the financial sector as a whole away from fossil fuels and towards a clean energy economy.

Green America has generated over 10,000 emails to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, urging the bank to halt support for fossil fuels and to demonstrate leadership on the climate emergency. Because more is needed to reverse the climate crisis, the bank’s latest steps must be viewed as initial progress, not an end. Its steps should clearly signal to the financial sector that there’s no future in fossil fuel investment.

It’s officially been one year since Verizon issued a $1 billion green bond to, in part, help the company reach its goal of 50 percent clean energy by 2025. In 2019, its major competitors announced new clean energy projects, shifting their networks further from reliance on fossil fuels. But Verizon did not announce any new clean energy contracts – until now.

Verizon recently announced that $133 million of the green bond is allocated to a purchase agreement for up to 130 megawatts of capacity from a new wind energy facility that will begin operation at the end of 2020. This is a step in the right direction, but Verizon still has a long way to go to reach its goal. Its competitors have made impressive progress, with T-Mobile reporting 95 percent of its energy use is now renewables and AT&T announced it now uses 1.5 gigawatts of clean energy. Verizon will need to allocate more funds from its green bond to increase its use of clean energy rapidly in order to meet its goal.

AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint all made strong progress on renewable energy in the past two years, with $1 billion raised specifically for green initiatives, why isn’t Verizon moving faster?

What is Verizon's Green Bond?

A bond is an instrument for a company or government borrowing money from investors in the market with a commitment to repay in a certain timeline. A green bond means the money is lent in exchange for a commitment to repay on a fixed timeline and to use the funds for environmental initiatives in renewable energy, clean transportation, pollution prevention, water management, etc. On the business side, green bonds also provide tax incentives like exemption and credits.

Green bonds are rapidly growing worldwide, reaching an estimated $500 billion in value, but this is still just one percent of the larger global market. And their growth in North American markets is slower than in other regions. It was estimated that Verizon’s announcement would lead other US companies to follow suit, but that shift remains to be seen. In the past, there have been transparency issues in cases of green bonds around the world, such as the funding of "clean coal" projects in China. There are efforts underway to implement universal standards and expand the green bond market, but transparency from recipients of these funds remains a critical issue. 

In his State of the Union address on February 4, President Trump presented a rosy picture of energy in the US, touting America’s energy independence and the expansion of national gas. 

“Thanks to our bold regulatory reduction campaign,” Trump said. “The United States has become the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere ay in the world, by far.”

While President Trump correctly identifies that his administration has cut regulations, he should probably be more cautious about bragging about energy deregulation. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has tracked hundreds of gas pipeline explosions and leakage incidents during his administration. Over just three years, at least 13 people were killed, and dozens injured, all while millions of gallons of oil and natural gas spilled into our environment.

If we attempted to list every incident from 2017 to 2019, this article would probably be longer than the State of the Union itself, and even the most comprehensive lists don’t include incidents that resulted in smaller spills. In early 2017, Green America highlighted some of the most damaging incidents of the past few years, but pipeline accidents have continued to occur unimpeded.

From February 2017 to December 2019, these incidents stood out as some of the most impactful:

2017

May 25: A pipeline explosion in residential Mead, Colorado killed one maintenance worker and injured three. Mead is surrounded by gas pipelines and some homes are within 200 feet of the initial explosion.

October 18: In the largest spill off the Louisiana coast since the BP Oil Spill in 2010, 672,000 gallons of oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico for five days after a pipeline ruptured. The Coast Guard reported that 672,000 gallons had spilled after the company which owned the pipeline, LLOG Exploration, claimed that only 300,000 gallons had spilled.

November 16: The controversial Keystone Pipeline partially ruptured in South Dakota, leaking over 400,000 gallons of crude oil. The spill contaminated huge areas of land surrounding the spill, destroying the crops in the area’s farmland.

November 16: Near Denver, Colorado, a gas pipeline caught fire, killing one worker and injuring two others.

December 5: Two North Carolina farmers, a father and son trying to free their stuck tractor, were killed when a gas pipeline exploded under the tractor. 

2018

June 19: Near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a natural gas pipeline cracked, spilling over 33,000 gallons of natural gas liquid into a creek. Sunoco, which owned the pipeline, did not stop the leak or inform residents for more than a week after initial reports came in.

July 10: After a contractor failed to properly mark the location of a damaged natural gas pipeline, the pipeline exploded in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, killing a firefighter and destroying several buildings.

September 7: A pipeline cracked in Decatur, Indiana, releasing 8,195 gallons of jet fuel into the St. Mary’s river, making the river unsafe for swimming and boating. 

December 13: In Las Cruces, New Mexico, a gas pipeline exploded, spilling over 300,000 gallons of gas, over 50,000 gallons of which reached an irrigation ditch with direct contact with groundwater.

2019

March 4: A natural gas pipeline explosion killed two workers in Martin County, Texas, after gas pressure built up in the pipe. 

August 1: In a residential community in Stanford, Kentucky, a gas pipeline explosion killed one person, destroyed five homes, and damaged four other homes. Some residents told reporters that they’d been afraid of living by the pipeline for years. 

October 3: A brand-new pipeline in Miller Grove, Texas ruptured, spilling around 500,000 gallons of diesel directly into Turkey Creek, contaminating over a mile of the creek.

October 29: The Keystone Pipeline began leaking yet again, this time spilling 383,000 gallons into North Dakota.

Activists fought for years against the construction of massive pipelines like Keystone XL and the Dakota Access Pipeline, and these incidents have proven them right time and time again. The dangers of pipelines date back years, and fatal and environmentally disastrous accidents continue to happen at a steady pace. So, as President Trump boasts about our energy independence, don’t forget the people threatened by this shift, particularly the Native Americans whose land and safety are put at risk by high-profile pipelines and the people who may lose their lives and their families. 

When you're on Amazon, you can accomplish in a few clicks what it might take hours, days or weeks to find elsewhere. But its convenience comes at a high cost. Amazon continues to struggle with worker rights, clean energy, and a market monopoly that harms small businesses.

Green America launched our “Build a Cleaner Cloud” campaign in 2014 to pressure Amazon to use clean energy to power its servers for Amazon Web Services (AWS), a major branch of its business. In 2018, we amended our campaign to call it “Build a Cleaner and Fairer Cloud” as we push Amazon to treat its workers with dignity and pay them fairly.

Amazon has a lot of customers—the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) reports that about $1 out of every $2 spent on the internet is spent on Amazon. 105 million households have Amazon Prime memberships. Amazon’s platform is maximized to encourage the easiest and quickest shopping experience: one-click shopping, impulse buys, and easy returns are the direct enemies of the “buy less” and circular economies.

There’s a lot Amazon doesn’t want its customers to consider: like how sometimes, processing returns is too costly—so retailers may opt to trash those returns instead. Return logistics company Optoro reported that five billion pounds of returned items end up in landfills every year. Amazon makes a practice of incinerating its unsold merchandise as well, according to an undercover reporter in the UK.

Here’s why we should quit Amazon:

Worker Rights

Most companies push their employees to be as productive as possible. At the minimum, Amazon workers are being pushed too far, but at worst, the company violates its workers’ human rights.

In its warehouses, Amazon’s “pickers” reach high and squat low to grab orders from bins. Their speeds are tracked by wearable technology. Pickers often report repetitive stress injuries from squatting and lifting, but dizziness, vomiting, and heart attacks have also been reported by Amazon warehouse employees.

Some employees get fired for not meeting quotas when they get injured, or at best, leave with some workers’ compensation benefits. But others aren’t so lucky — 13 Amazon warehouse workers have died on the job in the last six years.

A report by the Center for Investigative Reporting showed that the injury rate in 23 of Amazon’s 110 warehouses is more than double the national average for the industry. Nearly 10 out of every hundred workers at Amazon’s warehouses sustained injuries in 2018, compared with a warehousing industry average of four per hundred.

Warehouse conditions aside, worker rights suffer in all parts of Amazon’s supply chains. Leaked documents from Foxconn, Amazon’s Chinese supplier of smart speakers and other tech items, show that more than 1,000 schoolchildren have been recruited to their factories as “interns.” The documents show these children have been required to work nights and overtime, going against Chinese labor laws.

A Wall Street Journal investigation from October 2019 showed that Amazon is still working with dangerous factories in Bangladesh that other apparel companies have agreed to not work with as part of 2013’s Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety.

“Amazon seemingly undermines workers’ safety and well-being at every opportunity. It isn’t a coincidence that Amazon sources products from countries with weak labor laws—they are able to get the lowest price and make the highest profit, at the expense of health and safety,” says Charlotte Tate, labor justice campaigns manager at Green America. “We can’t sit by while this corporation exploits people to increase profits.”

Clean Energy

Amazon’s AWS makes up a large portion of the energy Amazon uses— and it uses a lot throughout its supply chain: 44.4 MtCo2E (a measurement of greenhouse gas emissions), compared to 16 MtCO2E used by Microsoft and 1.5 MtCO2E by Google, the other top cloud computing companies, according to a 2020 report by Greenpeace.

Since 2014, Green America has pushed Amazon to use 100 percent renewable energy by 2020 and end the construction of new data centers that rely on fossil fuel or nuclear power. Amazon’s fossil fuel energy demands are comparable in size to a large power company, according to Bruno Sarda, president of the Carbon Disclosure Project. Before our campaign, Amazon was using zero percent renewable energy to power those operations.

Since then, Amazon has contracted construction of 66 renewable energy projects. By the end of 2020, those sites will have the capacity to deliver 3.9 million MWh of energy annually.

In September 2019, Amazon announced it would reach 100 percent renewables by 2030. Its peers Apple and Google have already reached 100 percent renewable energy as of 2014 and 2017, respectively.

In February 2020, Bezos committed $10 billion to fight climate change through a new fund. While we do need big investments in climate solutions, that money will eventually run out. When it does, if Amazon has not addressed its harmful impacts, people and the planet will continue to pay the price.

Monopolizing the Economy

Headlines are most likely to cover Amazon’s growth promises or its labor abuses. But there’s a lot going on behind the scenes that has scholars and legislators concerned.

In 2017 and 2018 Amazon sought bids for HQ2, its much-anticipated $5 billion high-tech hub. It promised 50,000 jobs to the chosen city and suggested cities should compete to give the best counteroffer to the company. Most cities offered free land and tax breaks despite the fact that Amazon paid $0 in taxes on its $10 billion income in 2018 and even collected $129 million back from the government, according to filings from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Amazon chose the suburbs of Washington, DC, for HQ2, perhaps due to its proximity to Capitol Hill. The company spent $14.2 million on lobbying in 2018, employing 28 in-house lobbyists and using 13 external lobbying firms, according to Bloomberg.

Stacy Mitchell, co-director of ILSR and Amazon expert, testified in July 2019 before the House Judiciary Committee on the monopoly power of dominant tech platforms.

“Amazon is a dangerous kind of monopoly. It doesn’t just dominate markets, it dominates the basic infrastructure for the economy,” says Mitchell.

Amazon is a monopoly because of the way it eliminates competitors and dictates prices. Amazon collects and analyzes data on its sellers. When it sees a seller has a popular product, it creates a similar product, and sells the product at a lower price even it’s at a loss to Amazon. Then, when the seller gives up and goes out of business, Amazon is free to reset its price.

What does lobbying have to do with beating the competition? In the 1970s, business regulations that had addressed monopolies were “redefined to focus on consumer welfare, which is to say, price,” according to New York Times reports. Since then, US regulators have ignored the growing power of Amazon as the European Union has moved to investigate and fine it for violating antitrust laws.

“What we’re moving to is a situation where we don’t really have a market anymore or any semblance of an open market where buyers and sellers can exchange goods on a fair playing field with rules that are set by democratic government,” says Mitchell. “More and more of our transactions are happening in an arena where there’s a kind of private government that controls things. And that private government is Amazon.”

The Bottom Line

Amazon takes away much of the work of shopping with delivery and easy-to-find low prices. But as it undercuts competitors, it eventually will raise its own prices and leave customers no other choices. 

In addition to skimping on worker rights, Amazon also slacks on climate progress—it could afford to make changes on all those fronts as it currently enriches its CEO, Jeff Bezos, to the tune of $215 million every day, estimated Business Insider in 2018. The median Amazon employee makes $28,000 per year. It’s easy for shoppers to ignore the problems with Amazon, but as Amazon enters homes through mailboxes, smart speakers, security cameras, and televisions, customer concern is rising.

The movement pushing back against Amazon is gaining momentum. From labor organizers to racial justice organizations and environmental nonprofits like Green America, we’re pushing back and working together as part of the Athena Coalition. Athena’s goal is to stop “Amazon’s growing, powerful grip over our society and economy.” The alliance aims to address community and environmental health, worker safety, surveillance, and threats to democracy that Amazon poses.

Kipchoge Spencer is the founder of Threshold, another nonprofit in Athena. Threshold’s CancelPrime.com educates people on the problems with Amazon and offers alternatives. The campaign aims to get one million people to pledge to stop using Amazon once the threshold is met, in order to have the power of the collective voice to negotiate demands with Amazon.

“Amazon needs us more than we need it and that gives us great power. We think 10-20 million people would be willing to quit Amazon today if they thought it would make a difference,” says Spencer. “Until now, there hasn’t been a way to turn that kind of potential consumer energy into real leverage.”

Take action to rein in Amazon’s greed at GreenAmerica.org, CancelPrime.com, and AthenaForAll.org. We can make progress pushing corporations, but only when we act together.

Specialized, the cycling company, likes to position itself as a green company, but there is nothing green about the fact that workers who make Specialized clothing are being cheated out of wages.

Clothing supply chains – from field to factory to store -- can be long, complex, and often seemingly opaque, and even in cases where brands promote their transparency or sustainability, they often fall short in sharing enough information with consumers so that they can make an informed decision.  As our toxic textiles campaign highlights, the clothing industry takes a huge toll on the environment and the health of workers. Vague corporate messaging about sustainability programs and corporate impacts can leave a green shopper at a loss for where to buy clothes.

Is it even possible to find a sustainable clothing company?

The Toxic Textiles report found that brands often have one ‘sustainable’ line of clothing, but a vast majority of their products aren’t made with people or the planet in mind. This puts the burden on consumers to research each piece of clothing they want to buy, which most people don’t have time to do.  In order to transform the clothing industry, we need brands integrating environmentally and socially responsible practices across their entire business model.

While it can be difficult, Maven Women, a Green Business Network member, has done just that. The founder, Rebecca Ballard, started her career working on human and labor rights issues, but she was having trouble finding clothing options that both were well-fitting and fit her values. So, Rebecca set out to make her own socially and environmentally conscious clothing brand – Maven Women. Maven Women is now a leader in responsibly-sourced clothing, but Rebecca found it challenging at times to find the right partners or suppliers, which resulted in a three year process of creating her supply chain.

For the clothes produced domestically, Maven Women works with Lefty Production Co., an LA based clothing production company. Lefty pays employees a living wage and provides a clean and safe work environment. Additionally, the cotton used in Maven Women’s clothing is GOTS certified, which lessens dangerous chemical exposure to both workers and consumers.

Maven Women’s clothing also is meant to last. It is the opposite of the fast fashion clothing that is the norm these days, and is accelerating the industry’s negative impacts on people and the planet. The high demand for cheap clothing, perpetuated by the fast fashion industry, creates a ripple effect of problems. High, unpredictable demands for clothing creates production stress for suppliers, which can result in labor abuses within clothing manufacturing facilities. On top of this, cheap clothes often do not last as long, resulting in increased waste.

Between 2000 and 2015, clothing production doubled, and during that same period, the clothing that Americans dispose of annually nearly tripled! The EPA estimates that Americans create 16 million tons of textile waste a year and 62% of this waste ends up in landfills.

In addition to making clothes built to last, Maven Women lessens their waste impact by donating clothing scraps to local foundations. In India, their scraps are donated to a foundation teaching women new skills; in the US, scraps are donated to several women-led businesses.

As noted in Green America’s From Fast to Fair Fashion, “choosing ethical and sustainable fashion goes beyond voting with your dollar—it manifests substantial change for disenfranchised women workers around the world. Clothing brands based on fair trade principles empower women on both sides of the supply chain.”

Maven Women also calculates the positive impact the shopper has by opting to buy new from Maven Women, rather than buying new from a traditional clothing brand. To read more about Maven Women’s environmental impact, check out this blog by Green Story.

What is the individual’s role in the sustainable clothing industry?

When Rebecca started her Maven Women journey, she realized she wasn’t alone in wanting socially and environmentally conscious clothing. The greater the demand for ethically made clothing and the level of transparency that Maven Women provides, the more sustainable clothing options there will be. While Green America recommends buying used clothing when you can to lower your impact on the planet, buying new can still help to move the industry forward. For those times, when you aren’t able to shop second hand, looking for and supporting brands similar to Maven Women is a great option. Maven Women and other Green Business Members, such as Sympatico Clothing, Natural Clothing Company, and Organic Attire, demonstrate that a business model that prioritizes the planet and people is possible.

For $40 off your first order from Maven Women, use the discount code "GreenAmerica" at check out.

Here are some tips to spot leaders in sustainable clothing:

Look to see if the brands:

• Are measuring their waste impacts; incorporating more recycling & recycled products into their supply chain.
• Are taking part in industry initiatives to help standardize information tracking.
• Have chemical management policies, such as public MRSLs and RSLs, and/or are a part of industry initiatives, such as ZDHC or Bluesign, to phase out the most dangerous chemicals.
• Have water treatment plans as well, to help clean up water that is discharged.
• Share goals and benchmarks to incorporate more sustainable textiles into their supply chains and are not limiting sustainable alternatives to one line of clothing or one type of clothing.
• Are transparent about labor practices and sourcing.

Additional resources:

• If you would like to learn more about what it takes for a clothing company to become a Green Business Member, check out How to be a Sustainable Apparel Business.
• If you would like to learn more about Maven Women and Rebecca’s story, I highly recommend their blog!
• For more examples of how to determine if a corporate led effort is green or greenwashing, in our last issue of The Green American Magazine, we took a deeper dive into three popular brands with “green options”.
• To take a deep dive into the fashion industry see our Winter 2019 issue of the Green American Magazine: Unraveling the Fashion Industry.

One person's trash is another person’s treasure, but with a little creativity, some of your waste may never have to make a trip to the landfill. Many items lying around the house can be repurposed into something new without needing to buy anything. Here is a short list of free zero-waste swaps that are kind to your wallet and to the planet.

Silverware

Wooden utensils are a favorite among zero waste bloggers—but they’re not a necessity, especially when cutlery already exists in our kitchen drawers. Also, many thrift stores such as Salvation Army and Goodwill sell cheap kitchenware. If you’re on the crafty side, try taking an old t-shirt and sewing a wrap for your cutlery to make it easy to-go. Or wrap them with a cloth napkin and slip them in your bag or glove box.

Old T-shirts

They’re not just the bottom-dwellers in our drawers. They can be cleaning rags and kitchen towels, too! Cut them up to the size you need, and you won’t have to purchase anything—just add them to your laundry routine and run them with hot water when dirty. If you’re crafty, you can turn old t-shirts into yarn for crocheting reusable facial rounds, potholders, and other neat things.

Brown Paper Bags

Even the most resolute Green Americans will forget a reusable grocery bag from time to time. While recycling and composting are both options, brown paper bags can also double as wrapping paper, book covers, or taped into a mailer for a small package.

Old Sheets

Do your bed sheets have tears, stains, or are generally not usable anymore? Like old t-shirts, bed sheets are a gold mine for cloth. YouTube and Pinterest have a plethora of how-to’s for cutting your bed sheet into yarn to crochet for rugs, baskets, and more. Check out this simple how-to from YouTube here

Grow Your Own Food

The industrial agricultural system creates mass amounts of food waste before it even makes it to our plates. Try asking your Buy Nothing group or Facebook Marketplace for seeds to start your own garden or try a locally owned garden shop. You’ll skip the entire agricultural supply chain when you do this and know exactly what’s in your food, too. Permaculture Gardens offers workshops to help urban gardeners make the most of their space. If you’ve got an organic garden going, register it as a Climate Victory Garden with us at greenamerica.org/cvg.

Using Up Your Food

On the same thread as growing your own food, we can also reduce food waste and save money by doing the mundane: eating leftovers and the long-time residents of our pantries before they spoil. Additionally, “sell by” and “best by” dates are not for the consumer—they’re
so the retailer knows how long they’ve been on the shelves. “Use by” dates just mark when the food is at peak quality, not that it has spoiled. The only food that has an actual expiration date—in other words, when the food should not be consumed—is infant formula because it loses nutrients. Therefore, most food past its date belongs on the table, not the trash. Read more about using up food at greenamerica.org/foodwaste.

Urban Foraging

While a little unorthodox, urban foraging —searching for wild food, like plants and berries—is entirely free. Join an urban foraging class near you or pick up Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons, a reliable guidebook, at the library. As long as you’re searching responsibly, not trespassing, and thoroughly washing what you pick, urban foraging is a low-impact way to add food to your plate without spending a penny.

Broken Mugs and Old Candle Containers

Candle containers that come with a lid can be repurposed as containers for DIY beauty products, like exfoliant made from used coffee grounds and honey. When a mug handle breaks or a crack develops, its not good at its intended purpose of holding hot drinks anymore; however, it does make a charming container for succulents or other small plants.

Gently Used Clothing

Organizing a clothing swap is simple: gather a group of friends or co-workers, ask them to bring gently used clothes they don’t wear anymore, and swap amongst yourselves. Clothing swaps are a great way to refresh your wardrobe without buying anything new and keeps perfectly good clothing in use. According to WRAP UK, keeping clothing in use for just nine extra months can reduce the related carbon, water, and waste footprint by 20-30 percent. Read more about the benefits of clothing swaps over donating in “Unraveling the Fashion Industry."

This short list is just the beginning—you will likely invent new ways to repurpose things as you go about reducing individual waste. Joining communities online and in-person can help spark creativity and the cross-pollination of zero waste ideas. Browsing the r/zerowaste subreddit, Facebook zero waste groups, and meeting with sustainability-minded people near you are all ways to learn more. Read
“What You Gain When You Buy Nothing” to learn more about community-based green living.

Over the last decade, podcasts have skyrocketed in popularity—over 100 million people listened to a podcast every week in 2019. Compared to conventional radio stations that have limited airtime and contracts, podcasts offer in-depth storytelling on topics ranging from the daily news to comedy, and true crime to sci-fi stories. Here are a few picks from the Green America staff that cover a wide array of environmental topics.

Sustainability Defined

Recommended by Beth Porter, Climate Campaigns Director

Beth Porter recommends Sustainability Defined, a podcast that explores all facets of sustainability, one topic—and one bad joke—at a time.

“I like this podcast because it explores climate solutions that also support communities, interviews experts, and encourages ways to take action,” says Porter. “I liked the August episode on advocacy [episode 42]—with Grist and the Sunrise Movement—and the October episode on biomimicry in nature [episode 44] and how to apply those learnings to organizations. It’s really interesting!”

Sustainability Defined brings together different experts for each episode to define sustainability under seven topics: energy, cities, natural environment, transportation, business, society, and policy. Co-hosts Jay Siegel and Scott Breen started the podcast out of their shared passions for the environment, good conversations, bad jokes, and communicating the big picture ideas of sustainability. Each episode is added to an organizational tree to categorize topics for listeners seeking specific themes, making it popular in school curricula. Sustainability Defined is available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Similar podcasts: Sustainababble, Living on Earth.

Bite

Recommended by Jes Walton, Food Campaigns Manager

Bite is a podcast for people who think hard about their food.

“Bite addresses food issues in a really current context and it shows the connectivity between issues,” says Walton. “It talks about food from lots of different perspectives and it includes controversial topics.”

Bite is co-hosted by Mother Jones editors Kiera Butler and Maddie Oatman, as well as acclaimed food journalist Tom Philpott. The informative show invites writers, farmers, scientists, and chefs to help the hosts dig into the politics and science of what we eat and why, revealing the stories behind the food on our plates. The show’s 100th episode featured a Green America Soil Superhero, Leah Penniman from Soul Fire Farm, who spoke about young Black farmers in America fighting the legacy of racism in agriculture.

Walton’s other favorite was episode 98, which addressed catering waste from tech company events and local entrepreneurs bringing this to those in need.

“Even as someone working in food, I hadn’t thought about this issue or solution,” says Walton.

Bite’s recent series, “Eating in Climate Chaos,” explores the role of food in a changing climate; from the newest technologies in lab-grown meat to the way each presidential candidate would influence our dinners. Listen to Bite with additional context on Mother Jones, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Similar podcast: Eating Matters.

Think 100%

Recommended by Sytonia Reid, Associate Editor

Nicknamed “The Coolest Show on Climate Change,” the Hip-Hop Caucus’s Think 100% podcast explores topics like environmental justice, job creation, voter mobilization, and diversity in the climate movement.

Instead of arguing the facts on climate change, the podcast focuses on solutions. The co-hosts, Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. and Antonique Smith, interview community leaders, elected officials, and entertainers who are using their platform to advocate for climate solutions and share action items with listeners who are eager to get involved. Rev. Yearwood is the president and CEO of the Hip-Hop Caucus and a community activist. Smith is a Grammy-nominated singer, actress, and activist—together, their style brings a realness and relatability to the climate conversation.

The theme for season two is “Young People Will Win,” focusing on youth climate heroes pushing climate change to the forefront of the political agenda. Think 100% is available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Similar podcasts: No Place Like Home, Mothers of Invention.

Drilled

Recommended by Mary Meade, Green Business Network & Editorial Fellow

Drilled is one of the most alarming environmental podcasts of 2019: as the first investigative true crime-style podcast on climate change, Drilled examines and uncovers the “propaganda campaign of the century—the creation of climate denial.” Season one traces the manufacturing and spread of climate denial, funded by corporations. Host Amy Westervelt is an award-winning climate journalist who pieces together primary source documents, uncovers the history of fossil fuel-funded influence campaigns, and interviews former Exxon scientists to get to the bottom of climate denial as we know it.

“I listen to podcasts mostly when I’m traveling,” says Meade, “so I like to get into mysteries to help pass the time. Drilled took that and added climate change to unravel the truth behind climate denial history.”

Drilled’s second season—called “Hot Water”—looks at West Coast crab fisherman who are experiencing the devastating impacts of the climate crisis first-hand. This industry has become the first to sue big oil. Listen to Drilled on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, and TuneIn.

Similar podcasts: Warm Regards, Hot Take.

HOPE Credit Union is a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) serving the Mississippi Delta region of the United States, which encompasses Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. With a mission to strengthen economically under-served communities, HOPE provides financial services and engages in policy analysis.

In 2019, HOPE authored the “HBCU-CDFI Economic Mobility Strategy Guide,” a pioneering framework for the ways that CDFIs and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) can work together to advance economic mobility, inclusion, and even justice. Since this report speaks to the heart of Green America’s work to harness economic action for social justice and the environment, we seized the opportunity to interview William J. Bynum. Bill is the CEO of HOPE, board member of several social justice organizations including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the William Winter Center for Racial Reconciliation, and a longtime friend of Green America. Bill spoke with associate editor Sytonia Reid about the report. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Green American/Sytonia Reid: HOPE serves lower-income communities in the Mississippi Delta. Can you give some background about the economic challenges in the region?

Bill Bynum: The Delta encompasses Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. One-third of the nation's persistent poverty counties are in the Mississippi Delta region and federal funds have not been invested in economic development of these towns. We’re not a reinvestment priority area for any of the national banks and don’t have megabanks that support community development in larger markets like New York, Boston, and Chicago. So, these are resource-constrained areas and we’ve decided to build on what we have and that’s the people. Through our HOPE Community Partnerships, we review the economic data of certain communities, ask residents and leaders what would most improve conditions there and from that, we develop strategic plans.

Green American/Sytonia Reid: How did the idea for the “HBCU-CDFI Economic Mobility Guide” come about?

Bill Bynum: In 2019, we expanded our HOPE Community Partnerships programs to engage HBCUs, which are the primary financial anchor in many low-income communities across the Deep South. We have more HBCUs per capita than most other parts of the country and the poverty rate in neighborhoods surrounding HBCUs is 10 percent higher than that of PWIs (Predominantly White Institutions).

[Editor’s note: HBCUs and PWIs aren’t the only types of colleges. There are 304 Hispanic Serving Institutions, which are colleges that have 25 percent or more full-time Hispanic undergraduate students, Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISI). The US has 107 HBCUs with 37 located in the Deep South.]

Since HOPE started over 25 years ago, we’ve known that we can’t fulfill our mission alone, and there are certain institutions that share our interests, HBCUs especially. Over the last three years, HOPE Community Partnerships has worked with seven neighborhoods in the city of Itta Bena, Mississippi, where Mississippi Valley State University (MVSU) is located. MVSU has produced brilliant minds in the heart of the Mississippi Delta but it is one of the least-funded public institutions in the state. Since MVSU is an anchor institution—one of the primary financial assets in Itta Bena with historical ties to the city—it was a natural partner. With our headquarters being in Jackson, Mississippi, working with Jackson State University was also a natural next step.

Green American/Sytonia Reid: What is it about HBCUs that empower them to put students of color on a path to economic mobility?

Bill Bynum: While we know that HBCUs are under-resourced, they outperform in their return to their communities and in the nation. Research shows that students who move from the bottom two percentile to the top two quintiles [60th to 100th percentiles] were twice as high at HBCUs compared to at PWIs. HBCUs only represent three percent of all US colleges but they enroll 10 percent of all African American students and produce 17 percent of all African American graduates, so they play a critical role in helping some of the most vulnerable members in society become prosperous and contribute to the economy.

Green American/Sytonia Reid: The report mentions that two of the major lessons gained from the partnership is the importance of 1) knowing the history of community development efforts near HBCU campuses and 2) building relationships. How did HOPE learn these lessons?

Bill Bynum: We did several focus groups and it became very clear that the residents know more about their community than anyone. We were privileged to have the opportunity to work with community leaders, elected leaders, and HBCU administrators to find common ground. Like other campus neighborhoods, there can be tension between “town and gown,” so intentionally creating a process for honest conversations was important. I think it was also helpful that we already had a presence in these communities with staff who’ve lived in these neighborhoods and attended these universities—that gave us credibility to play the role of facilitator.

Green American/Sytonia Reid: What are some of the top shared priorities between residents in Itta Bena, West Jackson, and the HBCU campuses?

Bill Bynum: The priorities are consistent across the Mississippi Delta. We recently met with the leadership of Alabama State University (ASU) in Montgomery and quality, affordable housing is a major need. In some of the neighborhoods surrounding HBCU campuses, there are blighted properties that bring undesirable elements like crime, and that is a priority that we’re working on.

Another is the need for jobs and one of the things we do is support small businesses. The gap between white and Black entrepreneurs is 3:1 and the average white American family's net-worth is almost ten times greater than that of an African American family. The more we can support Black-owned businesses, which you will likely find near HBCU campuses, the more we can create wealth.

Access to grocery stores is another issue, and we’ve heard stories of students who are on campus during seasonal breaks and can’t find healthy food because there are no nearby grocery stores that sell fresh produce. These are all areas that align with HOPE’s capabilities and that we have experience in.

Green American/Sytonia Reid: Does the HBCU-CDFI Economic Mobility Strategy Guide include a framework for how HBCU communities can access CDFI services?

Bill Bynum: We’re in a partnership with ASU to hire students and implement a financial education program that will address student debt, which is a significant issue on HBCU campuses, particularly for upperclassmen whose debt could prevent them from graduating. We want to restructure debt so that it’s not as much of a burden. 80 percent of the staff at ASU are members of HOPE and we’re looking to deepen that relationship by tailoring our services to meet campus needs.

Green American/Sytonia Reid: As we talk about community development and HBCUs, I wonder if there are strategies HOPE uses to ensure that development benefits longtime residents? Washington, DC, for example, is the most rapidly gentrifying US city and one of the areas where gentrification is most visible is near Howard University’s (an HBCU) campus.

Bill Bynum: I think we can do it by amplifying the voices of residents and equipping them to control their fate. Fostering agency is the root of why HOPE exists in the first place, and the more that people feel they have stake in their communities and can hold elected officials accountable, the more we’ll see outcomes that benefit their interests.

One calorie of food grown on a conventional farm takes 10 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce. That’s because industrial agriculture relies on energy-intensive chemical inputs and results in difficult-to-manage waste. This linear system is wreaking havoc on our planet and it just doesn’t make sense.

Conventional agriculture depends on the production, transportation and use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers that release enormous amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Even though these chemicals are expensive, they’re often used in excess in conventional systems, with waste polluting nearby ecosystems and waterways because yields take priority over environmental health. In industrial agriculture, imperfect produce is often wasted and animals are raised on concentrated lots where manure causes additional pollution concerns. The systems that once defined agricultural and nutrient cycles are broken.

Emissions from our global food system account for nearly one third of all climate change-causing greenhouse gases. But research by the Rodale Institute has shown that widespread adoption of regenerative growing methods could sequester a significant amount of the world’s current emissions.

There’s hope, and it can start at home.

With the right practices, your Climate Victory Garden has the potential to be an efficient, climate-friendly closed loop. Instead of relying on fossil fuels, you can harness the energy of the sun and soil for your food.

Tina Jacobs, owner of Devine Gardens, supplies gardeners with compost created on her 70-acre regenerative farm. For her, soil health, and nutrient cycling are key to closing the loop.

“When plants grow, they take up nutrients from the soil. They pass these nutrients to you when you eat them and it’s your job as a Climate Victory Gardener to return nutrients to the soil for future growing seasons,” says Jacobs. “Nourish your soil and your soil will nourish you.”

Acadia Tucker, author of Growing Good Food from Stone Pier Press, looks to healthy ecosystems for guidance.

“Think of a forest: Nutrient-rich leaves fall to the ground where insects, fungi, bacteria, and other critters incorporate the fallen material into the soil,” says Tucker. “This cycle builds topsoil packed with nutrients that support more plant growth. It’s a process that replenishes ecosystems the world over, from forests to grasslands.”

When you start looking for ways to reduce waste and close the loop in your garden, you’ll find that minor changes can have major impacts. Instead of raking, bagging, and discarding leaves, you can compost them on site, creating fodder for healthy soil microbes. It’s easier on the wallet and beneficial for your garden. Plus, it eliminates the pollution associated with single-use plastics, waste pickup services, and fertilizer production.

Dr. Sasha Kramer is the co-founder and executive director of SOIL, an organization that treats and transforms human waste into agricultural-grade compost in Haiti. She advocates for ditching commercial fertilizers and instead regenerating soil fertility with organic matter.

“By recycling waste into the soil, we are reestablishing the broken nutrient cycles that tie us to the land,” Kramer says. “Compost helps the soil sequester carbon and increase plant growth—a win for both climate and agriculture.”

Curious about “humanure” and safely composting human waste? Read more about Dr. Kramer’s work to transform a public health issue into an environmental solution on her Soil SuperHero profile. [Editor’s note: We don’t recommend composting human waste unless you’re an expert or working closely with one.]

Looking for more ways to close the loop in your garden? Seed saving, sharing excess harvest, and using graywater are all great ways to decrease your garden’s footprint and become even more self-sufficient. For Climate Victory Gardening tips, visit our guide.

Look around your home and think about all the ways you use this place where you spend much of your time. You’ve heard about the circular economy and zero waste, but have you considered how your space itself could be contributing to your environmental footprint?

Despite the fact that census surveys show that American families are shrinking, the same data show that our homes continue to get larger and larger. Living large seems quintessentially American; in fact, over the last forty years, the average size of a home in the US has increased by 1000 square feet.

But when houses grow, the effects go far beyond simply adding an extra room. Larger houses require significant energy usage, with the average American home using approximately 914 kWh per month. Additionally, the space required for large houses can reduce biodiversity by breaking up habitats. Living in a smaller place can have the added benefit of reducing your footprint in other ways, including some that we may not initially notice.

Downsizing for the Earth

People who have downsized prove you don’t need to sacrifice comfort for the Earth. By reducing the size of your home, you can save money, make more time for the things you truly love, and reduce your environmental footprint in the process.

Miranda Anderson, small-space blogger and host of the Live Free Creative podcast, recounted her experience moving from a 2500-square-foot home to a 1000-square-foot home with her family of five.

“It feels just right—it’s the just right amount of space and just right amount of furniture,” Anderson says. “We knew from a financial perspective how it would reduce our water, electrical, and gas, because when you’re in a big house, you don’t even realize how you’re putting energy in a corner of the house you never go in.”

Dr. Maria Saxton, a researcher focusing on the tiny house movement, found just this phenomenon when she conducted a study on the environmental footprints of tiny house residents. These people take downsizing to the next level by living in a space of 100 to 400 square feet. While there is not a cap on space to be considered a tiny house, residents who identify their homes as such generally live within this size.

Dr. Saxton’s study found that the average American has an ecological footprint of 8.4 global hectares, while those that have lived in tiny homes for over a year have a considerably lower footprint at 3.87 global hectares—about a 45 percent difference. The hectare measurement is a universal scale of carbon emissions and shows the amount of land that would be required to counter an individual’s ecological footprint, making a small change significant.

Enrich Your Life

People interested in downsizing don’t have to go straight into a tiny house to reduce their footprint. For Anderson, simply transitioning to a smaller house sparked lifestyle changes.

“Downsizing almost created a domino effect for the people in my study,” says Dr. Saxton. “Things like their diet, their transportation, especially the purchasing habits and recycling habits, there’s a myriad of things that downsizing influences in other parts of your lifestyle.”

Dr. Saxton found that respondents reduced the amount of meat in their diet, ate less food packaged in plastic, and even flew less. The full effects impacts of these trends aren’t entirely known, but these far-reaching effects are encouraging.

Tiny houses are part of a relatively new movement and represent the extremes of downsizing, but the positive impacts of transitioning into smaller homes shows that in addition to improving your environmental impact, downsizing influences all aspects of your life.

The tiny house residents Dr. Saxton interviewed said that their living situations left them better able to save and spend on what they care about most, like travel, children’s education, or other goals.

“They would say things like, ‘now I have more money to travel,’” Dr. Saxton says. “‘Now I have more money to set aside for my children’s college education or to save.’”

Anderson started downsizing at the same time as she decided to challenge herself and her family to not buy any non-consumable goods for a year.

“We started to spend our time and money in new ways,” Anderson says. “And that for us was experiences, adventures, and traveling, like going on picnics and taking my kids to the park more often. Our motto ended up being ‘less stuff; more adventure.’”

The Downsizers Community

Both Anderson and Dr. Saxton found that when you downsize, you may become engaged with the “buy less” community (see more here). The sharing economy is very important to the downsizing movement, as downsizers can find clothing, furniture, and other household items, all without contributing to further waste.

“This enables them to volunteer both in their communities, or spend more time with their family,” Dr. Saxton says. “They’re going out into their community and doing what they want to be doing.”

Anderson agrees with Dr. Saxton’s findings, saying that downsizing forced her to narrow her shopping to necessities. It was easier than she expected, because her smaller living space would have made it impossible to store more items than just what she needed.

Even after the year of not shopping ended, Anderson didn’t fall out of the habit of buying less.

“I realized really quickly that I was not shopping,” she says. “I opened up so much space, resources, and extra money in our budget every month because I hadn’t gone to Target to buy random things.”

The Path Forward

Although small apartments are permitted under zoning laws, many municipalities restrict the construction of residences under 400-500 square feet, making tiny houses effectively impossible to build. As a result, many residents take advantage of their mobility and use large vehicles to tow their homes to rural areas, friends’ properties, or RV parks.

Of course, tiny houses aren’t the only good options for downsizing; apartments feature benefits these freestanding residences can lack. Tiny houses can have external energy footprints from activities that may be impossible to fit inside, like showering at a gym or eating out for meals that can’t be made in micro-kitchens, while apartments are likely to contain the basics. Architectural researchers have found that apartment buildings also have very low embodied carbon levels, and the condensed living arrangements further reduce individual footprints.

Home-sharing and co-ops also allow for more traditional living styles while still having a positive impact on the environment. Green America partners with green housing organizations (find them by searching for housing at GreenPages.org) that help residents choose homes that reduce energy and space.

Additionally, living in a small apartment close to work would allow for even shorter commutes and access to mass transit, making it a practical option for young professionals.

For Thom Stanton and his family, downsizing seemed like the best way they could make a difference in their personal lives.

“I’m not going to be the person who invented the scrubber for the upper stratosphere,” says Stanton. “But with this home, the smaller the house, the less that goes into it from the start and the ongoing efficiency is incredible—we predominantly run off of a 400-watt space heater.”

Our growing houses have taken a toll on our environment. These stories show that downsizing can reduce your footprint and waste. It can even free up money and time for the people and activities you care about most.

When Cory Chow’s sister got married, Cory bought a bridesmaid’s dress. After the wedding, she put it in her closet, where it hung there for more than three years. Then, someone on her local Washington, DC, “Buy Nothing” Facebook group posted in search of a formal dress in her size.

“Being able to pass it along to a neighbor who would otherwise be buying a new dress gives me the little push I needed to let it go,” Chow says.

Across the country, groups are popping up where people can participate in burgeoning low-consumption and low-waste communities. These groups are both informal and formal and can be hyperlocal or part of municipal efforts. What makes them special is that they challenge American culture’s “buy more” messaging as they help people save money and engage with neighbors.

Zero Waste & Buy Nothing

The Zero Waste movement is not new. The idea goes across cultures over the centuries, back to the ideas of “waste not, want not,” and “use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without.”

But between the Great Depression and the beginning of the 1950s, that thinking changed in America. In 1955, Life Magazine published an article celebrating “throwaway society” which framed convenience food, paper towels, and disposable diapers as giving back time to housewives. Plastic did save people time, but now we see the societal and environmental costs of having an economy based on products that are designed to be thrown out.

All along, there have been people going against the grain to be thrifty and make do. It finally seems that those people are becoming part of the mainstream again. Many forward-thinking cities are starting to implement Zero Waste plans to encourage reducing consumption, composting, and recycling. Encouraging these ideas can save municipalities money for incineration and landfill space.

In 2013, Liesl Clark and Rebecca Rockefeller started “Buy Nothing Bainbridge” on Bainbridge Island, Washington, where they lived. Their project was founded on the principle of “give where you live” and encourages members to give freely and ask for what they need. Since 2013, Buy Nothing participants have grown to number over a million in at least 25 countries. While people may join groups as they declutter or to save money, the Project says “a gift economy’s real wealth is the people involved and the web of connections that forms to support them.”

Of course, social movements are only as strong as the people in them. Luckily, they’re everywhere.

Living with Less

Polly Barks cared about the planet but didn’t engage far beyond recycling in her home. She was (and still is) living in a low-income and food-insecure neighborhood in Lafayette, Indiana, and wasn’t making much money herself. Waiting for the bus one day, she couldn’t help but notice plastic trash sitting at her ankles. She realized if she wasn’t part of the solution of excess waste and litter, then she was part of the problem.

“I realized I always had the privilege of being away from trash. But I was in this neighborhood where I really had to confront it,” says Barks. “I didn’t have money and I didn’t really have connections in this new city. But the one thing I could control was my waste.”

Barks didn’t stop at curbing her own waste. She wanted to find a community to share tips, hold each other accountable, and take collective action, but realized she’d have to work at it. Her first meetup attracted only three people, but they enjoyed sharing tips and getting to know each other. Over time, she joined a Buy Nothing group, put a “Little Free Pantry” in her yard to give pantry staples and the bounty of her garden to her neighbors. Now, Barks is the co-organizer of a local climate action group. Its first goal is to get the city to instate a climate action plan.

“Zero waste as it’s often presented is insular. […] Sustainability needs to be community-oriented, but too often it isn’t,” says Barks. “What I always tell people is, ‘what is the point of you creating a mason jar of trash every year if all your neighbors are throwing out ten giant trash cans every week?’ Or, ‘what’s the point of a trash jar if your neighbors are hungry?’”

Two thousand miles away, in Lafayette, California, lives Nancy Hu, a self-identified “Zero Waste Mom.” She works as a dentist for the Department of Veterans Affairs and has accepted that hers is an inherently wasteful industry. Her spare time, though, is dedicated to creating less trash and helping others do the same.

It isn’t always easy, but it is rewarding to work with members of her community and figure out how to create less waste together. Hu got an idea from the City of Palo Alto’s Zero Waste team to put together a “zero waste party pack:” a set of reusable dishes, cups, and flatware to loan out to residents for parties. She took on the project herself and is eager to share the pack with community members, even when it means arriving early and staying late at her kids’ piano recital to collect the party pack.

“Reducing plastic waste is like a gateway drug to political action. If you can make positive steps in your own personal life, say, reducing plastic waste within your own circle of influence, you can feel pretty good,” Hu says. “You start realizing and seeing a bigger picture behind why it is you’re doing what you’re doing. Then you realize there are limitations of personal action, and that leads you to doing more in
your community and getting involved. At least, that’s has happened with me, and how I’ve seen it happen to those around me.”

Hu became the administrator of her local Buy Nothing group and hosts six TerraCycle bins in her backyard so neighbors can drop off hard-to-recycle waste, like cigarette butts and kids’ apple sauce pouches. When the bins fill up, she sends them to the company for recycling (read more about TerraCycle here). She also joined a 2018 training for climate activists put on by Al Gore’s nonprofit The Climate Reality Project, after which she got involved with her local chapter working on public comments and rallies in the Bay Area.

Putting the You in Community

Reducing demand for new items and reducing trash both have obvious benefits for the Earth and your wallet, but joining communities like these can boost your self-esteem, too. A 2012 study from Stanford psychologists showed that even small cues of social connection can boost personal motivation for shared goals (like getting a community to reduce its waste). A study from the University of North Carolina showed that positive social connections could improve your physical health as well as your mood.

Cory Chow, who finally donated her bridesmaid dress from her Buy Nothing Group, got something in return, too: a heavy-duty thermos to help reduce her use of disposable cups. She says she uses it every day.

Whether you’re giving or requesting, have something to teach about waste or a lot to learn, communities are out there. Find your local group by searching buy nothing, zero waste, or another term and your town name on Google, Facebook, or Meetup. Don’t forget to ask around on NextDoor, your local listserv, or at in-person community events, too. If you come up short, start your own group by registering with Buy Nothing or spread the word about a zero waste group on social media, local bulletin boards, and listservs.

Balled-up paper towels, plastic food containers and crumpled stationery: when Anamarie Shreeves did her first trash analysis back in 2013, these were some of the most common culprits she found in the pile, and it probably isn’t far off from what many of us would find if we perused our own.

The average American produces roughly 1,700 lbs of trash per year, which is almost three times the global average, according to a 2019 report by the research group Verisk Maplecroft. Though waste-prevention practices have always been around, “going zero waste” has gained momentum in recent years as advocates take to social media to model their lifestyle.

While everyone can produce less waste, we can’t all do it the same way. For this lifestyle switch to make a real impact on our planet, it is important to understand the ways that rigid zero-waste “rules” can exclude certain groups and find low-waste solutions that allow everybody to get involved.

But First, What is Zero Waste?

Zero waste encompasses a strict set of principles that lead to zero percent of personal waste going in the trash can. Some zero- and low waste advocates have expanded the Three Rs rule to include repair and refuse, so everyday habits include: refuse, reduce, reuse, repair, and recycle.

“[A trash analysis] turns on a visual lens that most of us have never exercised before, and once you become aware of your trash there’s no turning that off,” says Shreeves.

She’s the founder of Fort Negrita, an online community where she shares waste reduction tips and hosts a store that sells reusable cloth menstrual pads and upcycled products. Shreeves says the metaphorical “Fort Negrita” is where resilience, green spaces, and “Black girl magic” meet.

Trash analyses draw the connection between the waste we produce at home and what we see when we drive by a dump. It’s a literal deep dive people do by sorting through their trash bins and identifying items that could have been recycled, composted, or maybe didn’t need to be bought in the first place. Often these are single-use items like napkins, plastic bags, and food scraps.

Invite Only: Exclusivity in Zero Waste

While consciousness of our consumer habits is an important aspect to reducing waste, where a person lives and their socioeconomic circumstance are not as adjustable.

Shreeves, who lives in Atlanta, says she used to shop regularly at a natural foods market but had to cut back after she started grad school and stopped working full-time.

“If a zero-waste lifestyle is out of your means, you simply can’t do it. But that doesn’t mean that you’re less of an environmentalist,” says Shreeves. While she has incorporated these habits into her own life, Shreeves doesn’t call herself a “zero waster,” because of the barriers to inclusivity that everyday people face when it comes to pursuing a completely zero waste lifestyle.

For example, getting food from bulk and fresh produce sections of grocery stores is key to reducing plastic waste, but at least 23.5 million Americans live in communities where access to fresh produce is extremely limited. Eighteen million Americans also live in neighborhoods where water systems are in violation of EPA lead standards. While the plastic water bottle has become a symbol for unsustainability to some, it remains a reminder of a national environmental injustice for others.

Freweyni Asress has been living a low-waste lifestyle for four years and is the founder of the Zero Waste Habesha community (named so in homage to her Ethiopian roots). Her work focuses on the experiences of Black people and land sovereignty.

“I started doing low waste for similar reasons as many others who are in that mainstream culture—to reduce my impact,” Asress says. “But my intentions evolved as I learned more about environmental racism, environmental justice, indigenity, and eco-movements in Ethiopia.”

Food insecurity disproportionately harms African American and Latin American communities, according to the nonprofit Move for Hunger, and is one example of how constructs like race and class can intersect with a person’s environmentalism. What society considers “normal” ability is another: In 2018, when Starbucks announced that it would eliminate plastic straws, the news sparked debate about ableism within the environmental movement, since plastic straws are considered a necessity for many disabled individuals. Disability rights advocates recommended offering straws by request only, instead of creating outright bans.

Another way we can understand the role of privilege in zero waste spaces is by taking a closer look at who is most burdened by waste and who works hardest to reduce it. Married American mothers spend twice as much time on housework than fathers, according to a 2012 Oxford study. Since domestic activities like cooking and cleaning can generate preventable waste, many women find themselves taking on sustainability leadership roles in their households—and there are numerous zero-waste blogs, YouTube channels, and Instagram accounts
run by working moms to prove it.

A 2017 Scientific American study also found that some men perceive eco-friendly behaviors as feminine and may avoid them because of it.

“When it comes to gender, there may be a lack of interest among men and it’s up to them to get involved,” says activist Rob Greenfield.

Greenfield famously wore a suit made of trash around New York City for 30 days to bring attention to the waste crisis and in 2019, he completed one year of growing 100 percent of his own food while living in Orlando, Florida.

“Men need to overcome the idea of masculine versus feminine and that’s no easy task in a society that has ingrained these ideas about gender,” says Greenfield. “Carrying a pouch of reusable items, for example, is considered feminine but men have to overcome these stigmas.”

All of this is to say that where we live, what we buy, and how we use products are all indicative of the types of privilege each of us may have.

Will You Have This Dance?

It’s often said that inclusivity goes beyond inviting someone to a party; it’s asking them to dance. Here are a few actions you can take to foster inclusivity along your own low-waste journey:

• Celebrate Everyday Actions: Mundane habits like eating leftovers and sharing hand-me-downs may not seem like much, but they prevent a lot of waste. So does taking reusable items like tote bags, food containers, and silverware with you on-the-go.
• Don’t Eco-Shame: When we know the power of our everyday actions, it’s tempting to judge others who we don’t feel are exercising that power. Keep in mind that sustainability looks different across cultures and communities and the best way to inspire isn’t to be preachy, but lead by example.
• Learn From Others: Sustainability looks different across cultures and communities. Seek out low-wasters from different backgrounds and ask yourself what can you learn, support, and adapt for your own low-waste life. You can follow @FortNegrita, @ZeroWasteHabesha, and @RobGreenfield on social media for ideas.
• Embrace Low Waste: Everyone who starts their journey may not get to 100 percent zero waste, but appreciating the steps people are taking to radically reduce wastecreates a sense of empowerment and community.

Turning bike tires into bags, sugar cane waste into to-go boxes, and reclaimed wood to new flooring is what the circular economy looks like.

Each of these trash-to-treasure concepts are real practices by real businesses: Green Guru, which makes outdoor gear out of busted bike tubes and old climbing rope; Greenline Paper Company, which offers compostable to-go clamshells from bagasse (sugar cane waste fiber); and Pioneer Millworks which takes wood from dilapidated buildings for new home building projects. These are just a few examples of business leaders redefining capitalism as a mechanism to care for the planet instead of taking advantage of it.

While this concept is getting more press in recent years, it is not a new phenomenon—compassionate businesses have been coming together for decades under Green America’s Green Business Network® to demonstrate unity for a circular economy.

While there are several schools of thought that inform a circular economy—from cradle to cradle, to natural capitalism, to industrial ecology—at its most basic level, a circular economy is about rethinking supply chains to minimize waste. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation describes it in three parts: “designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems.” This economic model takes the principles of reduce, reuse, and recycle, and scales them throughout society. Read more about the various schools of thought at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s website.

Conversely, our country runs on a linear economy: we take resources, make products, and when we tire of them or they outlive their usefulness, throw them away. This take-make-toss model operates as if resources are infinite—whereas the circular economy makes the most of the planet’s resources while giving back. The following case studies from Wrangler, TerraCycle, and Green America’s Center for Sustainability Solutions demonstrate examples of each piece in the Ellen MacArthur Foundation definition of designing out waste, keeping things in use, and regeneration.

Design Out Waste

Most pollution and waste occur early in the supply chain, not from consumer purchasing. For example, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) states that about one-fifth of the world’s industrial water pollution occurs in textile mills, long before the finished clothing items make it to the hands of buyers. Green America’s winter 2019 issue, “Unraveling the Fashion Industry,” took a deep dive into the world of harmful fashion be an authoritative resource on issues and victories throughout the industry.

Jeans alone will go through several chemical-intensive washes to get that “lived in” look (unless you’re buying raw denim, yours have gone through this too), generating a significant amount of wastewater; however, by designing out waste at the beginning of the supply chain, businesses have the opportunity to generate industry- wide positive impacts.

Wrangler’s newest denim collection is one such example. In 2019, the brand released Indigood™, a collection that uses a foam-dyeing process to eliminate 100 percent of wastewater from the indigo dyeing process. Wrangler collaborated with Texas Tech University, Indigo Mill Designs and the Spanish fabric company Tejidos Royo to bring the foam-dyed denim to market.

Compared to conventional denim manufacturing, which uses around 1,500 to 2,000 liters of water by dipping denim yarn in 12 to 14 different dyeboxes—imagine bathtubs filled with dye—the foam dyeing processes uses almost no water.

“Instead of using water to carry the indigo dye, this process uses foam, which is comprised mostly of air. The foam is introduced via applicator brushes and the yarn runs over it,” says Roian Atwood, Wrangler’s director of sustainability, who states the technology is a totally different system than conventional methods.

The Indigood Collection was originally released in 2019 and is currently available in stores. Atwood says Wrangler intends to increase the amount of foam-dyed denim throughout their entire collection.

“We want to incorporate foam-dyed denim into our products as fast as possible, because without water, you eliminate wastewater,” says Atwood. “And a denim mill that isn’t producing wastewater as a result of its operations is almost unheard of.”

Additionally, Atwood states that Wrangler won’t monopolize the foam-dyed denim market. Wrangler has already shared the technology with competitors because of its potential to completely change the denim industry.

For a notoriously water-intensive item of clothing, the foam-dyeing process offers a clear solution to designing out waste near the beginning of the supply chain—the first piece in the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s definition of a circular economy.

Keep in Use

A linear economy turns a profit off waste: Americans threw away 4.51 pounds of trash per person per day in 2017, according to the EPA. Most of that discarded material comes from goods that are used briefly, such as food waste and packaging materials. As these items are replaced, they perpetuate the take-make-waste model of a linear economy.

Combating this model begins with re-imagining how these materials are wasted and is also the second part of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s circular economy definition: keeping items in use longer. In the Wrangler example, pollution and waste must be managed by businesses and therefore, are out of the average person’s control; however, we do have control over how often we buy items, how long we use them, and how we repurpose them. Food waste and some paper materials can be composted, which gives them a new life as fertilizer. Certain plastics, metals, and glass can be recycled in curbside bins, too.

But what about household items that can’t be composted, repaired, or recycled? Empty toothpaste tubes, dead car batteries, and dried out markers are a few examples of “unrecyclables”— in other words, items that are not accepted by municipal recycling and thus, landfilled. This is where TerraCycle comes in.

“TerraCycle’s mission has always been ‘to eliminate the idea of waste,’” says Sue Kauffman, the North American public relations manager of the recycling company, which has been in operation for over a decade.

TerraCycle is a leader in recycling the unrecyclable—the company partners with major consumer goods manufacturers to offer recycling programs. In 2019 alone, TerraCycle collected and diverted over 30 million pounds of post-consumer and post-industrial waste from landfills. The company won Green America’s People and Planet Award in 2015 for recycling innovation and has since won additional accolades and expanded to 21 countries.

The recycling company offers multiple programs for collecting unrecyclables, from the Zero Waste Box program for picking up nearly every type of waste, to the Regulated Waste program for items like fluorescent lamps and batteries that would be hazardous in a landfill.

To make these programs possible, TerraCycle works with a variety of third-party processing subcontractors that sort and reprocess the waste into usable raw materials for new product manufacturing. Whenever possible, these processing locations are located near where the collections take place.

TerraCycle’s newest project, Loop, follows the “milkman model”—like when the milkman came to the doorstep with a fresh delivery and picked up used containers. Loop expands on this concept with familiar consumer brands by delivering reusable and recyclable packaging of everyday products instead of single-use packaging.

“With the launch of Loop, a fully circular economy was our desired outcome,” says Kauffman. “Through all of the waste reduction programs offered by TerraCycle, we have redefined the concept of what truly is waste and encouraged consumers and the packaged goods industry alike to reconsider what can be given a second life through recycling.”

Regenerate Natural Systems

In nature, waste does not exist. When a leaf falls, it becomes food for microorganisms, then becomes part of the soil to feed the tree. While there are multiple schools of thought educating circular economy theory, the concept of ‘waste as food’ is an underlying theme. Thus, the third foundational pillar of a circular economy is regenerating natural systems; not only does this principle close the loop of a circular economy, it has the potential to protect and improve the environment by returning nutrients to ecosystems.

Vermicomposting (composting using live worms) is an example: in a household vermicompost system, earthworms are fed kitchen waste, from eggshells to orange peels. Their eliminated waste can be used as a nutrient-dense fertilizer. Now imagine that process on a much larger scale, considering increased biodiversity, soil health, and surrounding ecosystems. This is the idea of regenerative agriculture.

Mary Johnson, the Carbon Farming Innovation Network director at Green America, explains that regenerative agriculture is an approach to farming that mimics nature to create a healthy and symbiotic ecosystem.

“Over the last hundred years, conventional and tillage-based farming systems have not reflected how important living organisms are,” says Johnson. “Regenerative agriculture uses knowledge of how nature works on a deep, complex systems level to farm in harmony with those systems, rather than dumbing them down to the most reductionist, controlled approach that relies heavily on applications of toxic chemicals and sterilized soils.”

Regenerative agriculture also has the capacity to capture carbon and store it in the ground, reducing the effects of the climate crisis and sequestering global carbon emissions. Read more in “Planting Seeds of Climate Hope."

With this in mind, regenerative agriculture has the potential to not only protect natural ecosystems but improve deteriorated conditions caused by conventional agriculture. Project Drawdown ranks regenerative agriculture as its 11th highest-impact solution to climate change.

The practices of farming regeneratively are applicable to both small, worker-owned or family farms as well as large corporations are looking to incorporate regenerative methods in their supply chains. In 2018, Green America announced its collaboration with DanoneWave—a maker of dairy and plant-based products such as coffee creamer and yogurt—to implement regenerative agriculture practices in its supply chain, as well as to develop a certification for regenerative farms. If regenerative agriculture becomes widely adopted, it has the potential to drastically alter our economic relationship with food, the land, and the climate.

Closing the Loop

Collectively, each of these case studies offer a glimpse at what is possible in a circular economy. The shift would require all facets of society to participate—from government and business, to cities and individuals—but the momentum is already growing. Climate change has never mattered more to American voters. Businesses across the nation are increasingly taking the initiative to be greener. A circular economy is the only economic model that can support humanity on planet Earth—and it is more important than ever.

As the calendar shifted from 2019 to 2020, it felt like other shifts occurred too—with the US elections on the horizon and Australia on fire for the last few months, many are waking up to the reality of climate change and the growing need to act on it. Trying times are times for trying, right?

This is a moment when we can all look at our habits and challenge ourselves to make change. How can we make do with what we have? When it comes to things we must buy, like food, how can we get the greenest, cleanest food with the least plastic trash coming along with it? Learn how to take some simple steps for cutting down on your personal waste in “Go Green for Free”. And your food can get to you with the least chemical inputs if you’re able to grow it yourself—read how your garden can feed you and nourish itself with regenerative gardening techniques in “Planting Seeds of Climate Hope."

These are choices we can make for ourselves every day, but this is also a moment for inclusivity. As we stand up for the Earth, we have to also consider how we can welcome our friends and neighbors into our environmental and social justice communities, as Polly Barks and Nancy Hu do in “What You Get When You Buy Nothing."

While everyone can produce less waste, we can’t all do it the same way. In order for this lifestyle switch to make a real impact on our planet, it is important to understand the ways that rigid zero-waste “rules” can exclude certain groups and find low-waste solutions that create space for everybody to get involved. Read more about how privilege plays into this movement in “Come As You Are: Zero Waste for Everyone."

This work, like so much of our economic work, starts with individual action. Then we join hands with neighbors to form and improve communities. Our communities can work together around the world to hold companies accountable, because companies are responsible for most of the pollution— through high demand for dirty energy and pushing impulse purchases that lead to waste (the ubiquitous Amazon does both, unfortunately). Our communities join together to hold local and national governments accountable too, as they have the power to rein in corporate excess and allocate funds to clean up pollution or act in other ways to help those who have less means and privilege.

One of the ways you can stand up to corporations is, as always, visiting GreenAmerica.org and participating in our many corporate actions—like Cool It!, our new campaign telling Walmart to end the use of climate-polluting gases in its refrigeration, which make up half of the company’s emissions and rapidly escalate climate change.

Here at Green America, we also join hands in coalitions with allies to leverage change faster. For example, building on our campaigns to pressure Amazon on both environment and justice issues, we have joined the Athena coalition as a leading member. The coalition brings together nearly 50 nonprofits, unions, and community organizations to force Amazon to take accountability for its bad actions to the Earth, its workers, the communities it’s located in, and even to the country. Read more about Amazon and Athena.

What will you do as an individual and as part of the global community to reduce your waste this year, and to make the Earth happier for yourself and others—to consume less and live more?