Trade deal threatens jobs, communities, and climate.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – November 16, 2016 – Green America welcomes the news that Congress and the White House are unable to forge a path forward for the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). The roadblocks faced by the TPP are a direct result of members of Congress, labor, environmental, consumer, faith, human rights, health, family farm, civil rights, and progressive online organizations and activists working tirelessly over the last few years to stop an agreement that did not have the best interest of the American people and the environment in mind. The TPP favored the interests of big business over people and the planet.

Todd Larsen, co-executive director of Green America made the following statement today:

“To be clear, the current failure of the TPP is not a result of last week’s election. The stalling of the TPP is the result of the American public’s abilityto stand united to defend everyone’s rights to affordable medicines, fairwages, safe food, a clean environment and much more. This was a rejection, by the people, of a trade deal that solely represented the interests of corporations. Now more than ever it is imperative that U.S. trade policy defend workers’ rights and protect the environment.

“While the TPP may be stalled, it is certainly not dead and this is not the end of toxic trade agreements that fail to meet the needs of our country. Policy makers, with corporate interests in mind, will continue to push forward trade agreements that fail to address the needs of working people and a changing climate. Along with our members and allies, Green America willcontinue to push forward and stand up for trade policy that protects the environment, represents the rights of all people and does not give way tocorporate power and special interests.”

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ABOUT GREEN AMERICA 
Green America is the nation's leading green economy organization. Founded in 1982, Green America (formerly Co-op America) provides economic strategies and practical tools for businesses and individuals to solve today's social and environmental problems. http://www.GreenAmerica.org.

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

As she was starting to write her book, Plastics: A Love Story, Susan Freinkel decided to see if she could go plastic-free, without using plastic of any kind. A few minutes later, she headed to the bathroom, took one look at her plastic toilet seat, and decided to rethink her experiment. 

Instead, she wrote down everything plastic with which she came into contact over the course of one day. The list was staggering.

“Alarm clock, mattress, heating pad, eyeglasses, toilet seat, toothbrush, toothpaste tube and cap, wallpaper, Corian counter, light switch, tablecloth, Cuisinart, electric tea kettle, refrigerator handle, bag of frozen strawberries, scissor handle, yogurt container, lid for can of honey, juice pitcher ...,” she writes. 

And that was just before breakfast.

“We’ve produced nearly as much plastic in the last ten years as we have in all previous decades put together,” Freinkel writes. “Our annual global plastics production, if present trends hold, could reach nearly two trillion pounds by 2050. If it feels like we’re choking on plastics now, what will it feel like then, when we’re consuming nearly four times as much?” 

Not all of the plastic story is bad. Plastics have made lifesaving surgical and water filtration equipment possible, and they’ve been molded into integral components for solar panels, personal computers, bulletproof vests for police officers, and other devices that make life as we know it possible. 

But this pervasive plastic use has a dark side, as well.

The Real Plastic Garbage Patch

The plastic industry would have you believe that its products offer nothing but benefits. There’s some debate over whether plastics require less energy to produce than their reusable counterparts, thanks to a few studies conducted in the 1990s. And since conventional plastics are made of fossil fuel byproducts, the industry says it’s doing society a favor by finding a use for that waste.

What the industry doesn’t like to talk about are plastic’s external costs to human health and the environment, which are considerable. 

Americans generated 35.4 million tons of plastic waste in 2017, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Much of that plastic is only meant to be used once before it is thrown “away.” But there is no “away,” really. The resistance to decay that makes plastics so versatile means we’re stuck with them long after their useful lives are over. 

While the most common types of single-use plastics—those with #1 and #2 resin codes—are easily recyclable, US recycling rates are dismal, hovering around a scant seven percent, according to the EPA. In 2017, 8.4% of plastics were recycled, but that figure could see a dramatic drop if more Asian countries enact anti-import laws, which already caused the 2018 rate to drop to 4.4%. That figure includes bioplastics made from plant matter, rather than oil, which are only an environmental boon if they’re actually composted.

Consequently, much of the wasteful, single-use plastic consumed worldwide either ends up in landfills or as litter on land and in the streams and rivers that lead to the ocean. Around 0.2 to 0.3 percent of plastic production worldwide eventually ends up in the ocean, write Mike Neal and Dr. Anthony Andrady in a 2009 research paper published in the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transitions B. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but consider that more than 500 billion single-use plastic bags are given away worldwide each year, according to the Pacific Regional Environment Programme. Do the math, and you have hundreds of millions of plastic bags blowing into the ocean every day. Then add in the other types of plastic trash, and you end up with a mind-boggling amount of plastic floating out to sea.

This plastic comes from a variety of sources—dumped from ships, blown in from landfills and litterbugs, or washed away from trash-strewn beaches. But the effect it has is the same: So much plastic has now pooled in the oceans that birds and marine life are getting sick from it. 

Dr. Wallace J. Nichols has studied sea turtles since he was a kid. As a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences, and co-founder of the ecotourism nonprofit SEEtheWILD.org, Nichols spends a lot of time on the world’s beaches and in the oceans—and what he’s seen isn’t pretty. He calls sea turtles “the poster animal for the effects of plastic pollution.”

“They get hit with this stuff at every stage of their lives,” says Nichols. “[I’ve seen] turtles climbing over plastic to get to where they nest. When hatchlings come up, they are sometimes stuck in or behind plastics.”

The problem isn’t just on the beaches, but in the middle of the ocean, where plastics can float thousands of miles away from land. 

“They’ll eat plastic because they think it’s food,” he says. “If they come upon a big plastic bag, they bite it and use their flipper to try to rip pieces off, and so they get tangled in it. I’ve pulled turtles out of plastic bags that were slowly amputating their flippers.”

Turn to a news story on plastics in the ocean, and you’ll often find mention of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a system of rotating currents in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where alarmingly high concentrations of plastic trash have been trapped.
But while the Garbage Patch provides a troubling mental picture, Nichols would like everyone to focus instead on the plastic directly in front of them.

“The idea of this patch of trash in the middle of the ocean is provocative, but I don’t think people should be misled to think that’s where the problem is,” he says. “In the next ten minutes, I’ll walk past plastic on the side of the road that’s on its way to some body of water and could end up in the ocean. 

“The Plastic Garbage Patch isn’t some mystical patch far away: It’s all around us. It’s in your shopping cart.”

The Plastic Chemical Burden

It’s not just marine life that’s getting hit—plastics affect human health, too. Every type of plastic contains a host of chemicals to make them strong, malleable, and resistant to decay. 

“Plastics are rarely used by themselves; typically, the resins are mixed with other materials called ‘additives’ to enhance performance,” write Andrady and Neal. “These may include inorganic fillers (e.g. carbon or silica) to reinforce the plastic material, thermal stabilizers to allow the plastics to be processed at high temperatures, plasticizers to render the material pliable and flexible, fire retardants to discourage ignition and burning, and UV stabilizers to prevent degradation when exposed to sunlight. Colorants, matting agents, and [additives for opacity and lustre] might also be used ... .”

Several studies have found a link between just one of these additives—bisphenol-A (BPA)—and hormone disruption, which can lead to birth defects, obesity, diabetes, and cancer. But avoiding toxins like BPA may not be as simple as avoiding certain types of plastics. 

A study published in the July 2011 issue of Environment Health Perspectives looked at 500 diverse types of commercially available plastic products, from packaging to water and baby bottles to bags. The researchers found that particularly when the plastics were heated by sunlight, microwaved, or exposed to moist heat through boiling or dishwashing, they released estrogen-mimicking hormone disruptors—regardless of their resin code and even when labeled “BPA-free”. Even low doses of a hormone disruptor can adversely affect humans.

In other words, even the previously presumed “safe” #1, 2, 4, and 5 plastics can release toxins.

Also, write the study authors, “the exact chemical composition of almost any commercially available plastic part is proprietary and not known. A single part may consist of 5–30 chemicals, and a plastic item containing many parts (e.g., a baby bottle) may consist of [more than] 100 chemicals, almost all of which can leach from the product, especially when stressed.”

A Plastic-Free Life

Green America member Beth Terry knows that it’s not realistic to ask people to give up all plastics. But, she feels that if everyone could be more mindful about curbing wasteful, single-use plastic, we could create powerful, lasting change for the better. 

In 2007, shortly after seeing Al Gore’s climate-change film An Inconvenient Truth, Terry was feeling disheartened about worldwide environmental crises and looking for a way to take meaningful action. Then she stumbled upon a photo on the Internet of a dead albatross whose stomach was filled with bottlecaps and other plastic bits.

“It was the kind of stuff I use in my everyday life,” she says. “That really hit home, because I suddenly made this connection between my personal actions and harm to another creature.”

So she asked, would it be possible for someone to live without plastic?

She set up a spreadsheet to track her plastic waste—similar to one she’d used to track her miles while training for a marathon. (“Giving up plastic wasn’t all that different!” she says.) Like Freinkel, Terry was shocked by the amount of plastic she’d accumulated in a week. Then, she started taking steps to curb it.

She quickly realized that two small actions had a very big impact: replacing single-use plastic grocery bags with reusable bags, and giving up bottled water. 

Then, she started buying items in bulk, particularly from stores where she could bring her own reusable containers to get food from bulk bins. From there, the project spiraled into an ongoing challenge to live a plastic-free life. 

Today, if there’s a reusable alternative to plastic, Terry undoubtedly uses it. She’s stopped eating frozen convenience foods (almost always packaged in plastic), started an organic garden, makes her own cosmetics, and more. She shares her efforts with the thousands of people who visit her blog, and in spring 2012, she’ll publish a book called Plastic Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and You Can Too on the subject.

Terry still tracks her plastic waste on her blog, where she invites others to join her for at least a week. In 2010, her plastic trash was two percent of the US average, one small bagful over the entire year. 

“You can’t just replace one plastic thing with another thing; it also has to be about reducing consumption,” she advises.

A Challenge for Green Americans

The most efficient and cost-effective solution to the harm plastic does to human health and the environment is to refuse wasteful single-use plastic. 

Try removing one type of disposable plastic from your life every week, starting with grocery bags and water bottles. From there, be mindful about the plastics you allow into your life. On the pages that follow, you’ll get our best tips to help.

When you need reusable plastic items, purchase those that can be easily recycled by your municipal waste program or by companies that take back their products. 

Encourage recycling, and keep plastics away from heat and sunlight to prevent chemical leaching.

“If everybody cut their plastic use in half, it would be a big deal,” says Nichols. 

He notes that though it’s easy to get caught up in the bad news about plastic pollution, people should know that they have the power to directly change it. 

“We have better, reusable alternatives to most of the stuff that gets picked up on beach clean-ups all over the world,” he says. “We used to use many of them. We need to use them again.”

"Having students at historically black colleges and universities, and minority- serving institutions involved in a climate justice movement is crucial for that movement to succeed. The issue of climate change is too important to leave to a small segment of our population."

Known as the “father of environmental justice,” Dr. Robert Bullard is the dean of the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University.

Green America/Martha van Gelder: Why is climate change an environmental justice issue?

Dr. Robert Bullard: Climate change as an environmental issue is often presented in a way that glosses over the disparate impact on populations. Oftentimes, there are vulnerable populations that are hit the hardest and the worst and the longest by extreme weather.

The science presented oftentimes overshadows the vulnerability of people. This is not just unique to climate change; it also present in the dominant paradigm that was put forth in the conservation and environmental movement. And so we merge the social justice and the social equity part with the environmental part to get an environmental justice movement. If you do the same for global warming, you get a climate justice movement.

Green America/Martha: Why are historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) so vital to the climate change movement?

Dr. Bullard: If you look at the geographic location of HBCUs, you will see that many of our schools are located in areas that often have a history of being prone to flooding and severe weather events, heat waves, and all kinds of disasters.

Green America/Martha: What do you think it will take for real change on the climate?

Dr. Bullard: Having students at historically black colleges and universities, and minority- serving institutions involved in a climate justice movement is crucial for that movement to succeed. The issue of climate change is too important to leave to a small segment of our population.

“There are very big forces that need to be challenged.”

Chloe Maxmin is a sophomore at Harvard University, and co-coordinator for the student-led movement to get Harvard to divest from fossil fuels.

Header photo shows Chloe Maxmin (left) and Sima Atri at the final #HarvardHeatweek rally.Via 350.org.

Green America/Martha van Gelder: How has the divestment effort at Harvard been going?

Chloe Maxmin: We spent the whole first semester reaching out to different student groups, making pamphlets, and having educational events where students could learn about climate change and the role that divestment plays in the climate movement.

One of the really good things about the divestment movement is that while there is a lot of economic jargon behind it, and while it is helpful to know a little bit about socially responsible investing, all you really have to know is that this is a moral movement, so anyone can get involved. 

Green America/Martha: Why do you think that divestment is a powerful tool in this fight?

Maxmin:  It's powerful for a few reasons. One is that it's a very clear moral argument: we don't want our universities investing in companies that are threatening our future. It's counterproductive to everything they’re teaching us, and it is not in line with the values on our campus. So there's this very clear moral disparity, and we're calling Harvard out on that and trying to change it.
Another reason it’s powerful is that it’s very easy for anyone to get involved with the divestment movement. I’ve talked to many individuals who have gone on and divested their own personal portfolios from fossil fuel companies, and pension funds are getting involved too, so it’s something that anyone can grasp onto. Just being on campus, you can see how it’s engaged so many students. 

Green America/Martha: It sounds like you had some resistance from the University's president and from the administration.

Maxmin:  Harvard’s official position is that our endowment is not a tool for social change, but we know that’s not true because we partially divested from apartheid South Africa, and we divested from Big Tobacco, and we divested from genocide in Darfur. There’s this very strong history of Harvard using its money to send a message of social justice, so it makes sense that Harvard should do the same with climate change, because it’s the most urgent and serious issue of our time.
At the beginning of the semester, our president said that Harvard is not considering divestment, but after the referendum where 72 percent of voting Harvard undergraduates went on record supporting fossil fuel divestment, she said that it was not likely that Harvard would divest. So that’s an improvement. 

Green America/Martha: What has been the role of alumni in this campaign?

Maxmin:  We have many active alumni around the nation who are helping us draft an alumni resolutions and who are starting to work through their alumni networks and getting local Harvard Clubs to get involved as well.

Green America/Martha: What would be your advice to students or alumni who wanted to get something started at their school?

Maxmin: The divestment movement is about getting universities to divest, but it’s also about raising awareness about the urgency of climate change. So what I would say is you should focus on building student power and engaging students.  
Divesting is not radical; it’s very common sense. As Bill McKibben says, the radical ones are the fossil fuel companies who are burning fossil fuels without consequence and without understanding the ramifications of that action. A lot of people stigmatize environmentalism as being too radical and all these hippie tree-huggers, but I think that divestment really shows that this is a very practical issue that anyone can grab onto.
It is very disturbing that this is an industry that is literally threatening people's lives. There are very big forces that need to be challenged, and I turned to divestment as my way to continue to challenge Exxon and these other major fossil fuel corporations and to pressure Harvard to take a stand on this issue.

“This year is the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, and we’re celebrating that from the standpoint that slavery was an institution, just like Big Oil, that we were able to get rid of. It took a lot, but we were able to get rid of that."

The Reverend Lennox Yearwood is the president of the Hip Hop Caucus, and works to empower young people to become active in elections and policy. He regularly speaks about the history of the apartheid battle and the strength of the moral argument against fossil fuel companies.

Header photo via Hip Hop Caucus

Green America/Martha van Gelder: You recently called on historically black colleges and universities to lead the fight against climate change. What kind of response have you gotten since then?

The Rev. Lennox Yearwood:We have begun to get a good response. The most important thing is that the climate movement has moved from playing defense to playing offense. We are really making a number of black colleges aware of this campaign so that they understand the importance of the role that communities of color have played in the world of divestment, and also in regards to the climate movement.

It's a process, though. Communities of color have a number of issues that they're dealing with—education, healthcare, poverty. So the problem is that sometimes the climate component, while it's definitely on their radar, is sometimes seen as, "Hey, if we're not surviving in our communities, it's not going to matter what's happening to this planet down the road.”

And so, we first have to get them to understand the magnitude of the problem. They need to understand that while there is clearly a need to address poverty and education and issues of imbalance, if we don't correct the situation involving our planet, all those problems will cease to exist.

Also, Big Oil has a lot of resources, a lot of money. So what they've done in some cases is give institutions that are hurting a little bit of money. But we’ve begun to have these conversations. 

Green America/Martha: Why do you focus so much on empowering students in your work?

Yearwood:  Personally, I think the students are going to be a driving force in this campaign. Student populations are excited about it, and I guess that's true across all the schools. It doesn't matter if you're at a traditional college or a historically black college.

I think that there's a lot of excitement around issues ranging from environmental justice issues dealing with air quality and health concerns, to the basics of recognizing issues of utility bills and the magnitude of how that can have an impact.

I think that there’s an idealistic viewpoint that this world can be something better. I think there’s a hope, there’s an energy. But most importantly, for students everywhere, it’s about their future.

We’re already seeing climate change clearly, even now. From the horrific cold in China to the terrible firestorms in Australia to the droughts here in this country. The economic disaster from climate change has already arrived in this country, and it is quite a tremendous problem.

We’re having too many people being put into coffins simply because we’re not willing to get off of our dependency and our addiction to fossil fuels. That must change. I think students get that, they understand that. They want a world that’s better.

This year is the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, and we’re celebrating that from the standpoint that slavery was an institution, just like Big Oil, that we were able to get rid of. It took a lot, but we were able to get rid of that.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for jobs and justice, where Dr. King gave his I Have a Dream speech. Young people have always been at the core of every single movement that has created change in this country, and it cannot stop now. They must again pick up the mantle for the largest challenge that our world has ever seen.

“We want to make sure the solution is robust and encapsulates a lot of alternatives.”

Lauren Ressler is a National Organizer for the Responsible Endowments Coalition, which helps students encourage their colleges and universities to invest their endowments responsibly. She’s been especially active in using endowment activism to fight climate change during the past year and a half.

Green America/Martha van Gelder: It seems like the fossil-fuel divestment campaign is taking off. Is that your impression as well?

Lauren Ressler: Definitely. By the beginning of January this last year, there were still only between ten and 20 campuses that were working on the campaign to varying degrees.

However, since the coalition of organizations that were working on divestment in conjunction with the students at Swarthmore began working with 350.org, we have gone from about 40 campuses in September to more than 234 campuses that have started petitions online and are beginning the divestment campaign on their campuses. I would definitely say that it’s taking off.

Green America/Martha: Why do you think that this is resonating so strongly with students?

Divestment is a very clear ask, and it’s really building student power on campuses. One of the things we’ve been trying to bring out in our narrative in working with students is that many of the people who are responsible for the current ecological crisis also played a role in the economic crisis through various trading schemes, and this is really resonating.

After a year of the Occupy movement, divestment is reaching a broad swath of students that we’ve never really seen before; from the radical end to the more conservative end, they want to play a role in where their money’s invested.

Ressler:  The Responsible Endowment Coalition has been working on the fossil-fuel divestment campaign for about a year and a half. It's really great to have 350.org as an ally, which happened in October. They've been able to amplify and project these methods across the country in a way that our organization with four people hadn't quite been able to do.Green America/Martha: What has Responsible Endowment Coalition’s role been?

Right now, were trying to focus on the reinvestment side of the campaign as well. Investment is a very clear ask; it's very clearly saying no to something that causes harm. But we want to make sure that the solution is robust. We want to see community investing, and reinvestment in wind and solar and the technologies that currently need a lot of financing and aren't getting it. 

Green America/Martha: How are people responding to the reinvestment message?

Ressler:  There's a lot of interest from the students I work with personally. The reinvestment piece is important because the schools I work with have very different endowment structures and very different asset allocations.

If you're talking about a school like Harvard with $32 billion, and inevitably a much larger portion in the fossil fuel industry, the scale of the reinvestment is going to be quite different from a community college in California that may have a very small endowment. We're trying to make sure that we have scalable options for different types of universities.

The students I work with have loved talking about these [green-economy] ideas and are looking to integrate a lot of solutions into their campaign. This helps them come across as a little more credible with their universities, since it becomes a statement of positive change, instead of a negatively framed idea.

Green America/Martha: What has the role of alumni been in this campaign?

Ressler: Alumni are taking a more and more active role. Many, many alumni, particularly at schools that had more established campaigns, have been writing letters to their college or university board. Some alumni have been withholding donations from universities until there is a fossil-free endowment for them to invest their money in. 
Some students have been working really closely to try to cultivate that base and make a more unified student-and-alumni ask of the University. That strategy ties the power of the dollars that some older alumni have with the clear messaging from the students that are working on the ground. 

We are calling on Smithsonian to practice what it prints by using recycled paper.

The Paper Problem

Forests are essential to the life and health of our planet, but they are disappearing at a rate of 20 football fields per second because of pulp and paper production. Every day, natural and biodiverse forests are either completely decimated, or converted to monoculture plantations.

Paper products, including magazines, account for over 30% of solid waste in US landfills. After being used once, paper that ends up in the trash releases methane during its long decomposition. However for each ton of recycled paper used to produce a magazine, up to eighteen trees can be spared.

Smithsonian’s Footprint

Smithsonian Magazine has stated that it “leads the conversation” on a wide range of issues, including science and the natural world. It should be in the ranks of leaders setting standards across many industries.

Despite these statements, Smithsonian Magazine is actually a major culprit in the destruction of forests. Smithsonian produces 19 million copies annually on virgin paper. This means that 65,000 trees, enough to cover the National Mall five times, are cut down each year to produce the magazine.

Smithsonian Institution has set sustainability goals to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and energy use. Printing its primary publication, Smithsonian Magazine, on recycled paper would be an obvious way to meet these goals. Unfortunately, Smithsonian has made no moves to incorporate recycled paper into its product, and has no intention of doing so anytime soon. Smithsonian Magazine uses Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) certified wood for its paper…unfortunately, SFI is currently the weakest certification in the United States and has no limits on clear-cutting trees. SFI also disregards the need for any protection of old growth forests and has no specific requirements in place for maintaining nearby water quality.

Campaign Goals

Green America asks the Smithsonian to do the following:  
 

Switch to Better Paper - begin using recycled fiber

Commit to switch to 30% recycled content paper in its magazines by 2017.
 

Be a Better Paper leader for the long-term

Adopt and implement a “best in class” environmental stewardship policy that guides continual improvement of paper use practices.
 

For virgin paper, commit to the most sustainable option

For any virgin paper needed, only use paper fiber from sustainably managed Forest Stewardship Council certified forests.

As consumers, we interact with Amazon through the cloud.  We make orders on Amazon's website and stream videos through Amazon Prime.  Many other company and government websites, including Netflix and US government sites, are hosted by Amazon as well.  It all seems so clean and efficient.  But, the truth behind Amazon's cloud is disturbing, working against climate justice by polluting the planet and treating people unfairly.

A Dirty Cloud

“The cloud” is a physical network of many computer servers housed in warehouses all over the world. The servers in these data centers rely on massive amounts of energy to operate. This energy is generated by coal, natural gas, nuclear, or—in best-case scenarios—renewable energy like wind or solar.

Globally, temperatures, droughts, storms, and floods are increasing largely due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal and natural gas. While climate change can have widely varying implications depending on the region, it’s clear that the continued use of dirty energy—including by powerful cloud data centers—exacerbates the problem.

There are now more than 3 billion Internet users worldwide, with more than 7 billion predicted by 2020. Data usage is growing by more than 20% per year. A cloud powered by renewable energy is possible. It’s time to build a cleaner cloud.

Amazon Loves Coal

Amazon.com’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the single largest provider of cloud computing services, host to companies such as Netflix, Pinterest, the New York Times, and many more.  However, in terms of renewable energy use, AWS lags behind almost every other company that operates data centers on a large scale. After years of consumer and investor pressure, AWS is only getting 50% of its energy from renewables.

AWS has disclosed virtually no useful information about its energy use and its impacts on the climate. Additionally, while the company has pledged to shift to 100% renewable energy, it has no plan or deadline to achieve this goal.

While companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google have committed to running on 100% renewables and are investing in facilities powered by renewable energy, Amazon continues to build data centers that run on coal or natural gas.  And AWS has been marketing its services to the fossil fuel industry to boost oil and gas drilling, which will accelerate the climate crisis and actively work against climate justice.

Demand for cloud computing is growing rapidly. Now is the time for AWS to build a greener, cleaner cloud—powered by renewable energy. Join us in taking action!

Workers Are Not Feeling the Love

While Amazon made $11 billion in profits in 2018 (for which they paid $0 in taxes), and Jeff Bezos nets $8,961,187 per hour, Amazon warehouse employees are only paid $15 per hour.  And, when Amazon increased their pay to $15 an hour in 2018, they cut stock awards and incentive pay, which means some workers are earning less. Workers also complain of long hours and harsh conditions.

Employees overseas, who make Amazon electronics like Kindle and Alexa, likely fair much worse.  Amazon provides minimal information about its overseas factories and any steps the company is taking to protect workers from chemical exposures and other hazards. In 2018, China Labor Watch published a report detailing extensive labor violations at Hengyang Foxconn, an Amazon supplier factory that manufactures Amazon Kindles and Echo Dots.

Read more about labor issues at Amazon here.

Our Demands of Amazon

Making Progress

Thanks to Green Americans taking action with us, since we launched our campaign, Amazon has reached 50% clean energy for its AWS servers, including announcing its largest new wind farm yet in Texas, a solar facility in Virginia, and wind farm in North Carolina!

Take Action

Tell Amazon to stop exploiting workers, using dirty energy, and ruining local economies.

Take Action

Mayonnaise is ubiquitous in American cuisine. So much so that in 1957 the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) set a legal definition for mayonnaise. While not technically mayo, according to the FDA, Kraft Miracle Whip is one of the most popular condiments in the US and is frequently used in potato salad, coleslaw, deviled eggs, and even the more refined Waldorf salad. Most mayonnaises, including Kraft Miracle Whip, contain genetically engineered ingredients, specifically oil and vinegar made from genetically engineered crops, and eggs from factory farmed chickens raised on genetically engineered feed.

Genetically modified ingredients, referred to as GMOs or GE, have never been proven safe for consumption. GMOs are designed to go hand-in-hand with harmful pesticides, such as glyphosate (Roundup), 2,4-D, and dicamba. This has created superbugs and superweeds, immune to these chemicals, that in turn need heavier and more toxic herbicide application, polluting vital soil and water resources. Additionally, the World Health Organization recently designated glyphosate and 2,4-D as probable carcinogens.

That’s why GMO Inside has been calling on the biggest mayonnaise brands to phase out GMOs. Thanks to pressure from consumers, Hellmann’s recently launched three mayo options made without genetically engineered ingredients—one is even certified organic. But Kraft has been dragging its feet.

We are now asking Kraft to remove all GMOs from Miracle Whip, and listen to consumers who demand more organic and certified humane products. 

How can Miracle Whip improve? 

By phasing out all genetically engineered ingredients. We would also like to see Kraft source eggs with the highest humane certification, provide consumers with organic products, and work with suppliers to reduce toxic synthetic pesticides throughout the supply chain over the next five to eight years.
Wondering how Miracle Whip compares to other mayo brands? Check out the mayo scorecard!

What are the problems with Miracle Whip’s ingredients?

GMO Ingredients – The actual ingredients in Kraft Miracle Whip are: water, soybean oil, water, high fructose corn syrup, vinegar, modified cornstarch, eggs, salt, natural flavor, mustard flour, potassium sorbate as a preservative, paprika, spice, dried garlic. All items in bold are likely genetically engineered, or produced with GE ingredients.

Factory Farms and Animal Welfare – Kraft sources eggs from confined animal factories where abuse runs rampant, including debeaking young female chicks, feeding them mostly genetically engineered crops, depriving them of natural habits, not allowing them enough floor space or access to pasture, and killing male chicks upon hatching.

Public and Environmental Impact – Large-scale factory farm operations produce more than just eggs; they are also breeding grounds for disease and pollution. Large hen facilities house hundreds of thousands of animals in each structure which can result in salmonella. As seen in other concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) for pigs and cows, chicken CAFOs produce high levels of ammonia and higher levels of waste than can be disposed of in a timely and environmentally responsible manner. These operations pollute the air and water and harm the health of the animals and farmworkers.

Ask Kraft to step up and commit to transitioning Miracle Whip to non-GMO ingredients and organic, pasture-raised eggs »

* For our purposes, the term mayonnaise includes mayonnaise and mayonnaise-like products known as salad dressings that contain either whole or powdered eggs.

Campaign Update!

Thanks to pressure from over 150,000 consumers, Starbucks is taking action to address its impacts from milk by offering more plant milks and reducing the climate and water impacts of dairy production.

Easily one of the world’s most popular and widespread coffee brands, Starbucks has paved the way for the modern mass coffeehouse industry with its promotion of corporate social responsibility and consistently strong branding.

One area of improvement for the coffee giant? Starbucks dairy milk. 

While not genetically modified themselves, dairy products are not immune to the insidious impacts of GMOs. Cows living in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are fed a grain diet comprised almost entirely of genetically modified corn, soy, alfalfa, and cotton seed. These crops degrade the quality of our land and water, perpetuate corporate-controlled agriculture, and have potentially negative health impacts on livestock. Additionally, the overuse of antibiotics in industrialized farming is contributing to the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, putting us all at risk. Starbucks milk is an environmental issue. 

With biotech giants Monsanto, Dow Chemical, and Syngenta lending power to industrialized agriculture, the future of our food system rests in the hands of profit-driven corporations, while people and the planet come last on the list of priorities.

Starbucks boasts nearly 20,000 retail stores in over 60 countries. With its global presence, Starbucks must prove its true dedication to sustainability and provide organic dairy milk at all of its locations to support a sustainable future for all. 

Starbucks is already a leader in the coffee shop industry by serving rBGH-free dairy and using only USDA-certified organic soy milk. By setting the same organic standard for dairy milk, Starbucks can demonstrate a serious commitment to providing environmentally and socially conscious products.

Dean Foods. You might not have heard their name, but as one of the largest processors and direct distributors of dairy products in the U.S., you just might have bought one of their products before. Land O’Lakes, Garelick Farms, Alta Dena, Country Fresh, Berkeley Farms, Mayfield Dairy – all brands owned by Dean Foods.

The other thing that all of these brands have in common? GMOs. 
While not genetically modified themselves, dairy products are not immune to the insidious impacts of GMOs.  Cows living on industrialized farms, or concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), are fed almost entirely GMO crops like corn, soy, alfalfa, cotton seed, and/or sugar beets.  In fact, 98% of GM soy and 49% of GM corn goes to feeding livestock and poultry.

Animals, like humans, are deeply impacted by the quality of their diets. A recent study showed that pigs fed an entirely GMO diet suffered from severe stomach inflammation when compared to pigs given non-GMO feed. Additionally, while the dairy industry claims that genetically modified particles are broken down in the digestive tracts of the animals that eat them, these GM particles have shown up in the organs and milk of animals fed GMOs, the same milk and meat that humans then eat.

Dean Foods claims that their white milk does not contain GMOs, while sourcing their dairy from cows raised on genetically modified feed. To quote Dean Foods from their website: “Pure and simple, we ensure Mother Nature’s most perfect food finds a place in every home.”
Considering Dean Foods’ use of genetically modified animal feed in their dairy operations, their products don’t seem so “pure and simple” to us. And as for Mother Nature? CAFOs and genetic engineering were probably not what she had in mind.

It’s time to hold Dean Foods accountable. Join us in calling on Dean Foods to shift to non-GMO feed for their cows, and help us accelerate the shift to a non-GMO food system!

Chocolate is a delicious treat that countless Americans enjoy. But in West Africa, the world's largest cocoa-growing region, 60% of cocoa farmers earn less than $2 a day, the international poverty line. Millions of children work on cocoa farms instead of going to school or enjoying a childhood. Despite the growth of Fair Trade, as well as the enormous resources the cocoa industry has invested in combating this issue for the past decade, the level of child labor has not gone down.

Problems in the Chocolate Industry

• Millions of small-scale cocoa farmers in the Global South take in only 6% of the profit from each bar of chocolate sold, earning under the poverty line of $1.90 per day. 
• While the worldwide chocolate market is expected to grow from US$137.599 billion in 2019 to US$182.090 billion by 2025, one research shows cocoa farmers actually experience a decreased in their income due to the impact of COVID-19.  
• 1.56 million children engage in child labor in cocoa production, with many involved in hazardous labor.  
• Children exposed to agrochemical products, such as highly hazardous herbicides and pesticides, increased from 5% to 24% between 2008-2019. 
• In 2020, 47,000 hectares of forest was lost in cocoa growing areas of Côte d'Ivoire. 
• Lead and Cadmium: 285 of 469 chocolate products tested in a recent study by As You Sow contained lead and/or cadmium above California’s Maximum Allowable Dose Levels

Consumers Pressure Chocolate Companies to End Child Labor

In 2010, Green America launched the Raise the Bar! Hershey campaign with allies, demanding that Hershey take steps to address the issue of child labor in their supply chain. Thanks to sustained pressure from Green Americans and Hershey consumers, the two-year campaign culminated with a commitment from Hershey to move to 100% ethically sourced cocoa by 2020.

The Raise the Bar! Hershey campaign demonstrates how powerful a united consumer voice is. We must continue to build on the success of the Hershey campaign, and pressure other leaders in the cocoa industry to make serious commitments to end child labor. 

Most major chocolate companies have commitments to source more sustainable cocoa. In fact, many of them have plans to have 100% certified cocoa in their supply chain by 2020. Although this is an important step in the right direction, certification programs alone are not enough to solve the underlying issues that contribute to child labor in cocoa, including farmer poverty and a lack of infrastructure.

What Can You Do

• Use this chocolate scorecard when buying chocolate to see which chocolate companies are taking care of people and planet and which are not.
• Take action: Tell chocolate companies that you believe that children deserve to have healthy and safe childhoods away from cocoa fields.

Genetic engineering (GE), or genetic modification, is the process of manipulating an organism’s DNA to display specific traits. Gene splicing introduces new genetic material into an organism’s DNA, resulting in a genetically modified organism (GMO). More recently developed methodologies of genetic engineering include gene-editing. This technology allows scientists to target specific traits and either remove or rearrange them. In most cases, none of these modifications would be possible under natural circumstances and are only obtained through intensive research and experimentation in a laboratory.

The Problem with Genetic Engineering: It's Poorly Regulated and Harmful to Environmental Health 

Biased Research and Lack of Government Regulation 

Uncertainties around the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and related herbicides can be attributed to lax regulation by the FDA, USDA, and EPA and the lack of unbiased scientific research on the long-term human and environmental health impacts. For example, Monsanto marketed glyphosate (the chemical found in RoundUp that is the most frequently used herbicide with GMOs) as safe, but in recent years, the World Health Organization found that glyphosate is a probable carcinogen and a jury ordered Monsanto to pay $289 million to a school groundskeeper who got terminal cancer after using RoundUp.

Much of the current research around GMOs has been conducted by major companies in the industry, calling into question the legitimacy of their findings and possible conflict of interest. Many studies conducted by scientists not affiliated with the industrial agricultural complex have called into question the safety of consuming GE crops.

Further unbiased research regarding health and safety issues is needed. And, the government entities responsible for the wellbeing of farmers, consumers, and the environment must pursue regulations to protect these stakeholders.

Engineered to Withstand Chemicals that Negatively Affect Ecosystems, Farm Workers, and Consumers 

The most common GMOs are crops developed to be resistant to herbicides, such as glyphosate, 2,4-D, and/or dicamaba, and engineered with the pesticide Bt to protect against pests (the plant itself contains the Bt toxin). Since the crops are engineered to resist the effects of pesticides and herbicides, most commonly glyphosate, these chemicals are sprayed freely and extensively on the farm, negatively impacting surrounding communities and destroying ecosystems.

These effects are seen in the decline of key pollinator species, including honeybees and monarch butterflies.

Farm soils are degraded from monocropping, a method required in GE crop growing. In turn, poor soil health requires farmers to rely on additional synthetic inputs, including nitrogen fertilizers, which further perpetuates dependence on fossil fuels and pollutes waterways.

Excessive use of pesticides and herbicides in conjunction with GE crops has led to superweeds and pests that have developed resistance to the most commonly used chemicals, forcing farmers to turn to much more toxic chemicals. In turn, these chemicals pollute and poison the soil, waterways, and human that come into contact with them. Both glyphosate and 2,4-D—herbicides used extensively on GE crops—have been deemed probable carcinogens by the World Health Organization.

The Solution to Genetic Engineering: Regenerative Agriculture and Sustainable Farming Practices

GMOs have no place in a sustainable agricultural system.

In order to sustain our soil and food supply, we must move to a regenerative system of agriculture, with its basis in the principles of organic agriculture. This means moving away from destructive chemical inputs such as synthetic pesticides and fertilizers and moving towards systems that compliment the natural biology in the soils and surrounding environment, including rotation of diverse cropos, use of on-farm mulching materials, composting, and many others.

Green America actively engages with members of Congress, federal regulating agencies, and companies to create dialogue around the necessary steps towards a more sustainable food system. We are committed to educating consumers on the impacts of genetic engineering, GMOs, industrial agriculture and the steps that we can all take to protect and improve our food and the environment.

Kamut International (KI) has been a sponsor of GMO Inside for the last three years. We chatted with Bob Quinn, KI founder and organic farmer from Montana, to discuss the history of the company and what differentiates KAMUT khorasan wheat from other grains.

What is an ancient grain?

Ancient grains are those that are derived from ancient society and have been left practically unaltered by human interference since that time. Ancient grains are gaining in popularity, with grains such as spelt, khorasan, emmer, and einkorn becoming more common to consumers. These grains are vastly different from the modern wheat that most people consume on a daily basis.

KAMUT^® is a brand name for  an ancient grain (khorasan) and its history has a bit of folklore behind it. When Bob’s father originally received a few grains they came with a story that they were found in King Tut’s tomb. Eventually Bob traveled to Egypt to track the history of these seeds in an attempt to find their true origin. He was disappointed to find among the wheat recovered from ancient tombs and on display in the Cairo museum, nothing looking like giant seeds of khorasan. A few years later he traveled to Turkey where local farmers called the grain the prophet’s wheat. The local legend was that the wheat traveled in the Arc with Noah. While the exact history of KAMUT^® khorasan is still unknown, scientists believe it originated from Mesopotamia.

Not all wheat is created equal.

It is important to remember that not all wheat is created equal. The most common forms of wheat today, the white flour that is used in so many processed goods and baked goods is vastly different than the stone ground whole grain wheat flour from 150 years ago and even further removed from ancient grains. These differentiations matter not only in how the grains can be used but also in how our bodies react to the grain. While only a small percentage of the population has celiac disease or a wheat allergy more and more people are noticing sensitivities to modern wheat.

What makes modern wheat so different? The vast majority of the wheat we consume today has been drastically altered from its original form. While wheat has yet to be commercially produced and sold as a genetically engineered crop it has still been altered through intensive conventional breeding. According to Bob “what is inherent and drives modern wheat breeding programs are higher yields and being able to produce more loaves of bread from the same amount of wheat, which is linked with the national drive to sell cheap food in this country. Cheap food is the main food policy these days. With that being the main goal many things have been changed.  To make higher yields, plants were made shorter and more uniform, they were made more disease resistant, and more resistant to insects.” But all of these changes plus others have had many unintended consequences. “What is probably even more significant is the change in the proteins and starches in the kernel to make more loaves of bread with less wheat.  This is significant because this is the part we actually eat,” says Bob.

The cheap wheat most often consumed today is stripped of many of its nutrients and removes the health benefits that can be found in ancient grains. All of this is done to lower costs. Research shows that it is how we have altered modern wheat that is resulting in so many health complications linked to wheat. The health implications of modern compared to ancient grains are a major focus area for KI. Bob thinks, “recent changes made to modern wheat is probably at the heart of the troubles that people are having eating wheat, these are unintended consequences that people are struggling with.”

Beyond the drastic changes caused by breeding, the ways our bodies react to modern wheat is a result of the conventional growing methods which use high levels of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. Research in Canada has shown that our bodies’ response to glyphosate can be very similar to the response of wheat sensitivity. Oftentimes glyphosate is used as a desiccant to dry out the wheat in preparation for harvest, meaning that there is frequently glyphosate residue on the wheat kernels that are processed into food for human consumption.

This is why KI’s trademark and requirement of organic growing methods is so important. It ensures the integrity of the grain and limits the chemicals that the wheat crop is exposed to and in turn what consumers are exposed to.

Why a trademark?

One very unique thing you might notice about KAMUT^® is that it is a registered trademark and carries the ® afterwards. Here is Quinn’s explanation of the reasoning behind this and why the trademark matters:

“Because I own the trademark I get to make the rules, the rules are that it always has to be organic and you have to tell truth about it. In our trademark rules, the wheat can never be changed from what we started with, so it can never be crossed with modern wheat. For example, they have cross bred spelt with modern wheat in order to get higher yields and they can still call it spelt. The common name for the variety sold under the KAMUT^® trademark is khorasan and the same thing could technically be done with khorasan wheat and you could still call it khorasan. But with the trademark it guarantees that it is an ancient grain that has never been mixed with modern wheat or hybridized in any way. This is important because with modern wheat they have changed so much in the last 100 years.”

Are other farmers catching on to ancient grains?

As consumer demand continues to grow and conventional growing methods prove to be unsustainable for the land and famer income, more and more farmers are shifting to using organic methods and growing ancient grains. According to Bob, economics alone is enough of a reason for farmers to transition to organic. KI and their partners work with 200 organic farms in Montana, Alberta, and Saskatchewan totaling over 80,000 acres of organic agriculture this year alone.

Where can you find KAMUT?

KAMUT^® Brand grain is used in a number of product’s that can be purchased at your local grocery store. While specialty natural food stores, like Whole Foods or your local food co-op, are going to have more of a variety, your local mainstream grocery store likely carries products such as baking mixes and flour that contain KAMUT^® wheat. You can find a full listing of products at http://www.kamut.com/en/product.

This interview has been edited for length. All photos are courtesy of Kamut International. 

This post is sponsored by Kamut International. Thank you for supporting the brands that support us. GMO Inside is a non-profit campaign and we are thankful for the brands that support our work to change the food system.

When it comes to Halloween spending, each year seems to break more records. In 2019, the National Retail Federation expected the 172 million people who celebrate Halloween to spend a whopping $86.79 per person, mostly on costumes and candy. That money adds up to a staggering $8.8 billion across the nation.

While you’re searching Pinterest and Buzzfeed for costume inspiration, don’t forget about what your Halloween budget is supporting. Making the holiday more sustainable for you and the Earth could mean joining 10% of Halloween shoppers at thrift stores, or hitting up local businesses like seven percent of shoppers. Here are a few more ideas to make your Halloween more green.

Swap Out Your Halloween Costumes 

Unless you’ve got your cat ears on repeat, part of the fun of Halloween is the novelty of finding or making the perfect costume. Consider swapping costumes to reduce and reuse this Oct. 31st.

Costume swaps cut back on waste and reduce the resources used for making, packaging, and transporting new costumes. Plus, hosting a swap is easy, fun, and saves money. National Costume Swap day is officially the second Saturday of October, but the idea is easy enough no matter which day you pick.

You can swap with a few family members and friends, or, better yet, hold a community swap!

If you choose to do the latter, book your swap at a school, community center, park, or host at home. Publicize! The more people come, the better the pickings will be as far as sizes and variety. Invite neighborhood families and friends, and share on social media and through local public bulletin boards or listservs. The host or a volunteer can bring unwanted costumes to a local thrift store at the end of the event. Families can also promote reuse and save money by making costumes by hand from items you have at home.

Candy’s Not So Sweet

Washington mom Corey Colwell-Lipson founded a movement called Green Halloween in 2006 to revolutionize the holiday to make families healthier and greener. One of her ideas was to deemphasize the tradition of handing out candy, because it encourages unhealthy eating habits and often supports bad labor practices in the chocolate industry.

Colwell-Lipson encourages families to give out healthier treats and non-food treasures to trick-or-treaters. Ideally, treasures are recycled, natural, or sustainably sourced, and can be enjoyed year-round. During the first year of Green Halloween events, Colewell-Lipson introduced thousands of kids to treats like polished stones, temporary tattoos, and friendship bracelets—and asked them what they thought.

“We were floored—absolutely shocked—that first season when at [Green Halloween] events, thousands and thousands of kids came by, and not one single child of any age, toddler to teen, said that they would rather have candy when they saw the alternatives. Not one,” Colwell-Lipson says. “What was interesting was that it was the parents who had the harder time making the leap.”

For those who want to give out more traditional treats, there are many organic and all natural options—from organic and fair trade chocolate to sustainable chewing gum. If you’re buying chocolate, it’s particularly important to choose fair trade chocolate, as many conventional chocolate companies have ties to child labor. 

Nontoxic Face Paint 

A 2009 study by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics found that ten out of ten children’s face paints tested contained at least trace levels of lead. Exposure to lead is unsafe at any level, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Children exposed to lead can later develop hyperactivity and aggression and are at risk for fertility problems, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s disease.

In the same study, six out of the ten products also contained at least one of the toxic heavy metals nickel, cobalt, and chromium in quantities much greater than the levels that scientists recommend. Exposure to these heavy metals has been linked to cancer.

When dressing up little ghouls and goblins on Halloween, parents can either make or purchase healthier face paints. Check out our ideas for better face paint.

Green Halloween Treats

GreenHalloween.org is a resource to green your Halloween. The project started by Colwell-Lipson is now dormant, but the website still includes a guide to hosting your own Green Halloween party, toolkits for holding a community event or Costume Swap, treat and treasure ideas for trick-or-treaters, homemade costume hints, DIY face paint instructions, arts and crafts ideas, energy conservation tips, downloadable posters, kids’ activities, and more!

Bite-sized Chocolates
These sustainably sourced chocolate companies offer mini pieces perfect for trick-or-treaters, using all-natural, fair trade, and/or organic ingredients:
Alter-Eco Chocolate
Divine Chocolate
Endangered Species Chocolate
Equal Exchange Organic Chocolate
Unreal Candy

Healthier Treats
Cascadian Farm Chewy Granola Bars: Organic bars.
Glee Gum: All-natural, Fair Trade chewing gum.
Honest Tea Honest Kids Juice Pouches:  Organic fruit juice.
Plum Organics Kids Yo’ Drops: Fruit bars and snacks
Surf Sweets: Organic gummy bears and jelly beans.

Treasures
Greenline Paper Company: Pencils made from recycled money or cast-off blue jeans.
Education and More: Fair Trade friendship bracelets.

Nontoxic Face Paint
Campaign for Safe Cosmetics: Recipes for homemade face paint.
Green Halloween DIY face paint video
Natural Earth Paint: handmade, eco-friendly, and nontoxic paint.
Aveda: brightly colored lipstick and dramatic eye pencils, which can later be used as day-to-day makeup in addition to face paint.

Other Items
ChicoBag Company:  Reusable, collapsible trick-or-treat bags.
Sarah’s Silks: Handmade, eco-friendly silk cloths in a variety of colors, easily transformed into capes, skirts, belts, and robes. Also carries other dress-up items.

Updated October 2023

After 34 years, Green Business Network Director Denise Hamler has retired from Green America.

Whether you’ve met Denise once or have worked with her for a lifetime, you know she is a force for good and makes real change happen. Her joy for life—and bubbly laughter—always leave you energized.

Green America (then Co-op America) first opened its office on September 25, 1982, in Washington, DC. From the beginning, Denise gave 34 years to the organization, working hard to grow the green economy. She has enjoyed working with so many innovative green business leaders and change-makers over the years.

Denise tells the story of first starting at Green America, working from a shoebox full of index cards with members’ names and addresses. She adds, “I thought I was only going to have this job for 6 months!”

Three decades later, Green America engages with millions of people, from every background, who share our vision for environmental sustainability and social justice. Denise’s fearless spirit has helped lead us every step of the way.

When Green America began, Denise had a two-year-old son. Now, she has a two-year-old grandson.

View highlights from the retirement party for Denise Hamler:

Green America’s Board of Directors invites you to make a gift in honor of Denise’s many contributions to social justice and environmental sustainability. Gifts will be placed in a special Denise Hamler Endearment Fund that will support our powerful green economy programs.

Our goal is to raise $1,000 for every year she has served our mission — $34,000! The fund will remain open until December 31, 2016. Please celebrate Denise’s extraordinary legacy by making a tax-deductible donation today.

For the last few years we have been educating consumers about the impacts of GMOs. While GMOs are still deeply concerning and we are continuing to push manufacturers to remove them, companies are developing and using nanoparticles, a new technology that is equally concerning. Nanotechnology allows scientists to engineer nature at the atomic and molecular level, creating nanoparticles. Similar to GMOs, these new technologies are being released into our environment and our food without regulations and adequate safety testing. Nanoparticles are cause for concern and it is important that we let companies know we don’t want nanoparticles in our food, clothing, health care products, or cosmetics.

Here are the top 5 things you need to know about nanoparticles:

1. They are unregulated. The use of nanotechnology is currently unregulated by the FDA, meaning it does not go through an approval process or adequate safety testing before entering our food system.

2. They are really really small. Nanoparticles are 1000 times thinner than a human hair. The size of the particles means that they interact with our bodies and the environment differently than normal particles.

3. They pose a threat to human health. These tiny particles can flow freely through our bodies, potentially getting into places that they aren’t mean to, such as the gut wall, bloodstream, organs, and cells. Recent research shows that these tiny particles are a potential toxin and the long-term impacts of ingesting them or putting them on our skin are unknown.
4. They pose a threat to the environment. Just as the implications for humans aren’t fully known these tiny particles post a great risk to the environment. They have the ability to enter into our waterways and environment, damaging helpful microbes and moving up the food chain from smaller to larger organisms.

5. They aren’t labeled. Nanoparticles are not required to be labeled, making it difficult for consumers to avoid purchasing products that contain them. There are however ingredients that are more likely to be in nano form and should therefore be avoided. Products such as sunscreen, toothpaste, cosmetics, and infant formula are all likely to contain nanoparticles but they can also be found in toys and clothing.

Want to know more? Here are some resources to learn more about nano and its environmental and health implications.

• Tiny Ingredients Big Risks
• Nanoparticles in Baby Formula
• Manufactured Nanomaterials and Sunscreen

Take action by signing GMO Inside’s petition to get nano out of infant formula!

Green America Calls On Magazine to Spare Tens of Thousands of Trees a Year by Switching to Recycled Paper; Seed-Paper Fliers to Be Distributed During Mall Action.

WASHINGTON, DC – October 25, 2016 – Green America rallied today on the National Mall to raise awareness of its "Practice What You Print" campaign. The organization is calling on Smithsonian to move its magazine to recycled-content paper in order to save impacted forests and reduce landfill waste. The campaign looks to build on its success persuading National Geographic to begin printing on recycled-content paper in 2014, and its success in helping over 200 publications move to recycled fiber papers. 

Campaigners today greeted guests to the Natural History Museum, facing the historic Smithsonian Castle on the National Mall, from 11:00 AM-1:00 PM. A banner featuring a photo of the National Mall devoid of trees was displayed, highlighting the impacts that Smithsonian Magazine has on the environment by not using recycled paper. Green America collected signatures for their petition to be delivered to Smithsonian's headquarters, asking the institution to live up to its environmental commitments by using recycled paper for its flagship publication. Green America also distributed fliers with campaign details printed on seed paper, which can be planted to grow into non-invasive pollinator-friendly wildflowers.

Photos from the rally can be found here: http://greenam.org/2f0PDwE.

The campaign calls on Smithsonian Magazine to transition to better paper, starting with 30 percent recycled content paper by 2017. For the remainder of its fiber, the campaign urges Smithsonian to use only virgin paper fiber from sustainably-managed Forest Stewardship Council certified forests. More on the campaign’s goals here: https://greenamerica.org/Smithsonian-Practice-What-You-Print/about.cfm.  

“Smithsonian has made symbolic commitments to sustainability, but when it comes to producing its magazines, the organization is falling short,” said Beth Porter, director of Green America's Better Paper Project. "We want to raise awareness that a leader in the publishing industry is not practicing what it prints, and we did that today in Smithsonian's front yard on the National Mall."

Smithsonian requires almost 65,000 trees for its 19 million magazine copies every year. By incorporating just 30% of recycled paper into its production, Smithsonian would:

• Lower its annual wood use by the equivalent of more than 19,000 trees.
• Reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 2 million pounds of carbon dioxide each year.
• Lower its annual water consumption by about 14 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
• Keep 354 tons of solid waste from going to the landfill each year, reducing methane emissions. (When paper ends up in a landfill the decomposition of that paper produces methane, which has over 20 times the heat trapping power of carbon dioxide, according to the EPA.)

"Hundreds of magazines already print on recycled paper, and readers are increasingly concerned about sustainability," said Todd Larsen, co-executive director on Consumer Engagement for Green America. “With a switch to readily available 30 percent recycled fiber paper, Smithsonian could be keeping 19,000 trees in the ground and 2 million pounds of CO2 out of the air every year.”

A transition at Smithsonian Magazine to recycled paper would initiate the conversation within Time Inc. to move more of its publications to recycled paper. Smithsonian Magazine acquires its paper through a partnership with Time Inc., which publishes 90 magazines, producing hundreds of millions of copies every month, all using virgin fiber paper.

Consumers interested in supporting the campaign to move Smithsonian to recycled paper can sign the petition here: http://greenam.org/1XcptSZ

ABOUT GREEN AMERICA 
Green America is the nation's leading green economy organization. Founded in 1982, Green America (formerly Co-op America) provides economic strategies and practical tools for businesses and individuals to solve today's social and environmental problems. http://www.GreenAmerica.org.

Green America’s Better Paper Project has 15 years of experience guiding publishers to more sustainable paper choices for magazines. This goal of increasing the demand for recycled paper offers huge relief to endangered forest areas, curbs the publishing industry's climate change impacts, and lessens pollution of nearby communities through new paper production.

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

EDITOR’S NOTE
Environmental impact estimates were made using the Environmental Paper Network Paper Calculator Version 3.2.1. For more information visit www.papercalculator.org.

Gene Lee’s record on environmental, health, animal welfare and worker issues at odds with “Golden Chain” accolade

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a letter sent today to Nation’s Restaurant News, a coalition of 15 environmental, animal welfare and worker justice organizations with over ten million supporters expressed dismay over the publication’s decision to honor Gene Lee, CEO of Darden Restaurants, as one of the recipients of its Golden Chain Award. The award, which will be presented on October 24 during the Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators (MUFSO) conference, “celebrates industry veterans for their outstanding leadership, solid company performance and dedication to giving back.”

“Darden Restaurants CEO Gene Lee deserves the ‘Golden Greenwashing’ award, not the Golden Chain award,” said Kari Hamerschlag, deputy director of the Food and Technology program at Friends of the Earth. “Darden consistently misleads the public and the media with its empty rhetoric on responsible business practices. There is nothing responsible about serving meat and dairy produced in polluting factory farms with routine antibiotics or paying paltry wages to the majority of its restaurant staff.”

Within the letter, the groups stated that “Lee is undeserving of this award” and “has failed to show excellence in leadership in terms of improving conditions for employees, protecting the environment, fostering humane treatment of farm animals or promoting the health of Darden Restaurants’ customers.” The letter detailed reasons why Lee should not be given the award. Among these reasons include:

• Darden undermines public health by buying meat from suppliers that routinely use antibiotics for nontherapeutic purposes in order to compensate for unsanitary practices. Darden subsidiary Olive Garden recently received an “F” grade for its weak antibiotics policies in “Chain Reaction II,” a report released last month by a number of public interest groups.
• Approximately 20 percent of Darden’s hourly workforce is paid a paltry $2.13 per hour. Tens of thousands of Darden workers are paid only the minimum wage and are employed part-time with no sick leave, while Lee reportedly received a 46 percent boost in salary to $6.1 million per year.
• There is a major gulf between Darden’s rhetoric on environmental and animal welfare stewardship and the actual impacts of its food sourcing practices. For instance, Darden purchases poultry products from Simmons Foods and Sanderson Farms, companies which have numerous U.S. Environmental Protection Agency violations. Additionally, both companies have multiple citations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for egregious acts of cruelty, such as boiling birds alive and improperly desensitizing them before cutting their throats.

“In an era when corporate social responsibility is on the rise, Nation’s Restaurant News’ award committee should consider more than just profits when evaluating corporate excellence, said Michelle Pawliger, farm animal policy associate with the Animal Welfare Institute. “Rewarding Mr. Lee’s false rhetoric gives a silent nod to Darden’s problematic practices—which include a continued reliance on suppliers that abuse animals. It also ignores the thousands of consumers who have spoken out against Darden for not implementing real improvements."

“Instead of marking progress, Nation’s Restaurant News’ honor encourages more restaurant chains to use misleading rhetoric instead of meaningful action to address the serious social and environmental issues facing our food system,” added Anna Meyer, food campaigns manager at Green America.

Additional details on the gaps between Darden’s promises to be a good corporate citizen and its actual practices were identified in a January 2016 letter sent to Lee from members of the Good Food Now! campaign. In May 2016, the Good Food Now! campaign and allies delivered 130,000 petition signatures calling on Darden to improve its labor and sourcing practices.

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The Good Food Now! campaign is a partnership of Friends of the Earth, Restaurant Opportunities Center-United, the Food Chain Workers Alliance, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, Green America and the Animal Welfare Institute. For more information, visit www.good-food-now.org.

Chobani, maker of America’s #1 selling Greek Yogurt brand, and Green America, the nation’s leading green economy organization, announced today that they have partnered together in an effort to improve cattle feed in the U.S., including options for non-genetically modified and organic grains.

“Institutions of higher education should have been leading the way and they haven't. They've been complacent, and they've been mired in the status quo. And yet, there's incredible opportunity in this crisis.”

Dr. Stephen Mulkey is a climate scientist and the president of Unity College in Unity, ME. Last November, he proposed to the school's board of trustees that they divest their endowment from fossil fuels. After a lively discussion, the board voted unanimously in favor of the proposal.

Header photo by Unity College.

Green America/Martha van Gelder: Why do you believe that universities need to take action on climate change?

Dr. Stephen Mulkey: I absolutely think that universities and colleges across the board have a special responsibility to take action. Our charge is to renew civilization. That being the case, it is ethically inconsistent to invest in its destruction.

My own personal perspective is very simple: This generation of college students is facing an incredible series of sustainability challenges that will force them to live on a very different planet from the one that I grew up on. Unavoidably, the warming and the climate change that's in the pipeline will create a dangerously disruptive climate for the second half of their lives, and increasingly so.

The real question in play right now is whether my grandchildren and their children will have a civilization. Because warming of 6°C or even 4°C is not consistent with civilization as it's currently configured.

Green America/Martha: Your school has moved in incredibly quickly to divest from fossil fuels. How have you been able to do that?

Mulkey: Well, that is just who we are. We looked at our portfolio and said, “This is the right thing to do.” This was an ethical decision on the part of the board. Like any good board of trustees, they insisted that we dig into the details to find out just what the financial implications of this were. And the answers in our case, and I think the answers with any institution, are favorable.

There are a number of considerations from a strictly financial perspective. Number one is, “Are you likely to harm long-term investment by taking the 200 industries that are directly involved in fossil fuels out of your portfolio?” There's a rich body of literature in the investment research area that asks the question, "Does social screening hurt your portfolio in terms of return?" And the answer is, not necessarily. We don't just simply drop out the fossil fuel companies. What you do is strategically replace them with other investments.

We are very comfortable with this approach. The one objection that's frequently raised is that someone will say, "Wait, you know that fossil fuels are going to be worth a whole lot at some point. They are really going to become lucrative." And our response to that is, “So what if they’re lucrative? We don't buy tobacco stock.”

Having a mission to renew civilization while at the same time investing in its destruction is ethically incompatible. I don't think that that's an option for an institution of higher learning.
 

Green America/Martha: I've heard the argument from university administrations that an endowment only exists to fund the university and shouldn't be swayed by whatever social or environmental issue is important to the students. Is there any specific response you'd have to that argument?

Mulkey: It's reprehensible, period. And the reason that I would use such a strong word is that it goes beyond the particular desires of students. I guess I agree with the statement in the sense that whatever issue students may have as their agenda du jour should not drive the colleges’ investment policies, per se. But this has to do with the survival of civilization and the viability of their future. So, while in general we can't make our investment policies responsive to the agenda of the students, on this issue, to not do so is indefensible.

Green America/Martha: Why do you think other universities have been so resistant to fossil-fuel divestment?

Mulkey: I think there’s a number of things going on. Number one, they may have been influenced by the heavily funded denial industry whose entire purpose is to insinuate doubt. So, they feel less of a sense of urgency than we do.

Number two, making this change goes against the inertia of the system. The inertia is to keep the investments managed the way they have been, and it's painful to make that kind of change. You have to challenge a lot of peoples’ assumptions, and you have to have somebody who has the courage to lead it. That's hard to do.

Number three, right now the ground is shifting under colleges and universities in a massive way. There is a whole suite of new constraints that are coming to bear, and at the same time we have disruptive innovations in higher education. University administration and boards are panicking. They're looking at new ways of configuring their operations to save money, and for the first time since the 1950s, the students are not lining up at the door. These are issues affecting many institutions, the elites excepted. There are issues related to maintaining enrollment, to the financial viability of the institution. So, with that kind of foment shaking the foundations of higher education, it's hard to take on this kind of issue right now.

I would submit, however, that I actually believe that the solution to both is doing the right thing in respect to the environment and climate change. There is no higher value proposition for higher education then giving the students the tools to deal with sustainability challenges. So if you have the courage to put your institution on a firm foundation of financial sustainability and academically sustainable education, you will stand out, and students will come to your doors. I absolutely am certain that there is a whole generation of students in high school that are coming out of the chute right now looking for alternatives [to a destructive economy]. And those institutions that are offering alternatives will find that their financial issues will be significantly assuaged, if not abolished.

Green America/Martha: How do you want to equip your students at Unity for their life after graduation?

Mulkey: If you are a student in college today, and you're not an activist, I wonder what's wrong with you. Frankly, how can you be complacent in the face of the challenges your generation is facing? If you think that you can sit comfortably through your four years of undergraduate education and [global warming] will somehow be solved, you are wrong.

We encourage our students to be activists; we want them out and engaged in the political process. We want them talking to their legislators; we want them debating what is the right way forward.

Friends don't let friends deny climate change. You get in their face about it, and you say that that's absolutely not true, it is real, and it is incredibly dangerous. And so I encourage all the students to carry the message home to the parents and their family and to be a guiding light.

The truth is, institutions of higher education should have been leading the way and they haven't. They've been complacent, and they've been mired in the status quo. And yet, there's incredible opportunity in this crisis. The opportunity is so rich.

I don't know if you've ever had a course in evolution, but there’s a term called an “adaptive zone.” The invention of wings in birds and the convergent evolution in the wings of insects represented an adaptive  zone, meaning that there are now multiple new niches that these winged organisms can then occupy. Think about all the different kinds of birds there are, and all that became possible because of the natural selection for organisms that could fly. So that's the concept of an adaptive zone.

If you look at our economy, it has been entirely built on the diversification of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels have provided us plastics, they've provided us integrated circuits, they've given us the ability to span the globe in our travel. Well, that represents  all of those niches in an adaptive zone based on the fossil fuel industry.

If we now turn our attention full-bore to building a civilization and an economy based built on non-fossil-fuel energy sources, you will see a whole new adaptive suite of economic opportunities. There will be a new adaptive zone. We don't have to worry about the viability of our economy. I think there will be an incredible opportunity to restructure our economy with all of these new set of ways to make a living that have nothing to do with burning carbon for energy. So I see a clean economy, a green economy as a new adaptive zone for the economy that will result in its diversification.

There are plenty of pieces of evidence to point to this. If you go to the McKinsey and Company studies, and you see the different tools that they recommend for the mitigation of climate change, every one of those represents a new niche in the economy. If you go to the recent study at the Brookings Institute that was published

in 2011, you see that during the recession, the overall economy faltered, and employment dropped significantly and very painfully. But the green economy within and without the public-sector jobs, or with and without tax payers' support, actually continued to grow. I think that that is indicative of the fact that there are new niches and new opportunities that are just waiting to be taken advantage of.

Green America/Martha: Anything else you’d like to add?

Mulkey: One final thing is that I am very frustrated with the scientific and academic community at large. They're quiet, they're sitting in their labs, and they're doing their fieldwork, and they're training their graduate students for business-as-usual when they’re the ones who really know what's happening here and what the challenges are.

I think that it's reprehensible and inexcusable for them not to use tenure for the reason that it was invented: to protect us when we speak out. I was silenced and dismissed by a select committee of legislators while giving an invited talk about climate and energy. A conservative legislator called me a liar and demanded that I be dismissed, and I was. But I had tenure at the time, and that's what tenure is for, to allow me to be that kind of activist and to make statements based on my work as a climate scientist, and to stand by it and not be intimidated and not lose my job. I am extremely frustrated with the academic community for being quiet in the face of this crisis.

Green America/Martha: What do you think it will take for the academic community to start taking real action around climate?

Mulkey: I do think that if the students will speak with one voice, ultimately they hold the key to the future of higher education. They don't know it; they often think that they are powerless. But I am sitting in the president's chair, and I happen to know where the power is, and it's with the students and their parents. And the students in particular… if they will speak with one voice, they will be heard.

Where you bank matters. Your checking and savings account, credit cards, and investments can support the real economy, including affordable housing, small business financing, and economic opportunity in urban and rural communities that are often underserved by conventional big banks. Switching from a conventional Big Bank (Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America) also ensures your deposits are not at the forefront of financing the global climate crisis.

Get a Better Bank or Credit Card

Better Banking Criteria

The banks and credit unions included in our Get A Better Bank Map meet at least one of the following criteria:

• Federal certification by the CDFI (Community Development Financial Institution) Fund
• Certification by Green America’s Green Business Network
• Membership in Inclusiv
• Membership in the Global Alliance for Banking on Values (US members)
• FDIC-identified Minority Depository Institutions (The scope of this designation indicates minority ownership and/or having a majority of board directors who are minority and a customer base that is predominantly minority.)

Consider Online Banking

In addition to seeking out better banking options above, consider online financial institutions:

1. For any bank or credit union that interests you, ask if they offer paperless and online services.
2. Clean Energy Credit Union offers membership to Green America members, their family members, and those in the same household. All are  eligible to join! (online only)

The Social Venture Network (SVN) is hosting its Fall Conference in Philadelphia, PA from November 2-5. Attendees will learn about social entrepreneurship and hear from experts about the importance of making an impact through social ventures.For 29 years, high-impact business leaders, social entrepreneurs, and impact investors have convened at SVN conferences to have conversations with values-aligned peers. This unique conference experience creates a space where the true challenges of leading a mission-driven organization can be addressed, and where long-time SVN members and first-time attendees find the people, resources, and ideas they need to succeed and grow.

Hear from speakers like Seth Goldman (co-founder of Honest Tea) as he shares his story of ups and downs on his road of social entrepreneurship during the “True Confessions of Entrepreneurs” panel.

Other speakers include Meghan French Dunbar (Conscious Company), David Levine (American Sustainable Business Council), and Uri Berliner (NPR News).

View the full list of speakers here.

Registration rates are $,1299 for SVN Members and SVN Affiliates (before October 11, 2016), and $1,799 for Non-Members (before October 11, 2016). Prices will increase in the weeks leading up to the event, so register today.

Learn more about the Social Venture Network and how they empower diverse, innovative business leaders.

Bumble Bee tuna is now non-GMO project verified. The company has transitioned away from genetically modified ingredients (GMOs) in its solid white albacore canned tuna, a flagship product.

Green America's GMO Inside campaign has called on its supporters to encourage Bumble Bee to drop GMOs for several years.

Dressed to Impress and Impact Less: Clothing Companies in NY, AZ and WI Awarded for Being Environmentally and Socially Conscious

WASHINGTON, D.C.— September 8, 2016 —Three small green businesses offering ethical apparel in New York, Arizona and Wisconsin, today were announced as the winners of Green America’s “People & Planet Award.” The winners of the $5,000 prizes are: Themis and Thread of Hector, NY; Fed By Threads of Tucson, AZ; and Fair Indigo of Madison, WI. The winners were selected by the public during a month-long online voting period.

The Award recognizes innovative U.S. small businesses that integrate environmental and social considerations into their strategies and operations.

Fran Teplitz, Green America’s executive co-director, said: “Choosing clothing made ethically and with consideration to the environment is one of the best ways to support social and ecological responsibility in your day-to-day life – by literally wearing it on your sleeve. We at Green America applaud these small businesses for their work to help people and the planet with each garment they produce.”

The winning companies are:

• Themis and Thread, Hector, NY. http://www.greenamerica.org/green-business-people-and-planet-award/Summer2016/Themis-Thread.cfm. Themis and Thread creates clothing while taking great care not to adversely affect the environment, humanity or the economy. It offers a fully customizable fashion line of organic cotton and upcycled material, and uses exclusively American-made components.

• Fed By Threads, Tucson, AZ. http://www.greenamerica.org/green-business-people-and-planet-award/Summer2016/Fed-by-Threads.cfm. Fed By Threads is the first American-made "Supply Chain Aware" organic, sweatshop-free, boutique clothing store and custom print apparel business that only carries certified responsibly manufactured products. It also provides emergency meals through the purchase of its garments.

• Fair Indigo, Madison, WI. http://www.greenamerica.org/green-business-people-and-planet-award/Summer2016/Fair-Indigo.cfm. Fair Indigo Label garments are made with organic Peruvian pima cotton and dyed with Oeko-tex certified dyes. Its cooperative members and small business employees in Peru are paid fairly and treated with dignity and respect.

Jesse Beardslee, founder of Themis and Thread, said, “Themis and Thread will use the prize money to purchase vintage and American-made sewing equipment to complement the current machine, a 1940's Singer Featherweight 221. Other plans include deepening our commitments to alternative energy, carbon neutrality and American- produced, organic and recycled fiber innovations.  We will expand our current projects with recycled paper hang tags, posters and packaging, and our natural non-toxic dye method.”

Alok Appadurai, co-founder and CEO of Fed By Threads, said, "It’s an honor to be recognized for our commitment to ending hunger in America, supporting living wage garment jobs nationwide, reducing food waste, and increasing demand for organic sustainable sweatshop-free apparel. We will use a portion of these funds to jumpstart our pilot program to donate organic Fed By Threads hoodies to kids battling cancer in America. It's all about love."

Robert Behnke, co-founder and president of Fair Indigo, said, “We strongly believe the best way we can contribute to a cleaner, greener apparel industry is to grow the market for fairly traded and earth-friendly clothing, which supports organic farmers and small-scale humane production. In this era of viral video clips, we feel the best way we can use this prize money is to connect consumers to the farmers and workers who benefit from fairly traded ethical apparel by making a mini-documentary. We will show consumers how their purchases directly help grow the green economy and shrink the more toxic economy.”

The next round of Green America’s award will be announced in early 2017 and for the first time one of the three winning companies will receive $10,000 and two will each receive $5,000. The award will be given to three green small businesses that focus on green products and services for pets and animals. The next companies nominated could be overall green pet stores, help raise chickens or bees, or responsibly produce items for pets and other animals.

The businesses that the public vote on are determined by public nominations and an expert panel of judges: Gigi Abbadie, Aveda; Justin Conway, Calvert Foundation; Tess O’Brien, Clean Power Perks, Jennifer Snyder, Clif Bar; Erlene Howard, Collective Resource, Inc., Dale Luckwitz, Naturepedic;  Jonathan Reinbold, Organic Valley; Martin Wolf, Seventh Generation; and Andrew Korfhage and Fran Teplitz, both of Green America.
 

ABOUT GREEN AMERICA

Green America is the nation’s leading green economy organization. Founded in 1982, Green America (formerly Co-op 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, (703) 276-3255 or mkarlin@hastingsgroup.com

After a year with their solar hot water heater, homeowners Bob Allen and Lyle Rudensey say they’ll never go back to relying on a conventional water heater. Even in gloomy, rainy Seattle, they are saving money and energy by heating all of their water with the power of the sun.

“With a lack of leadership at the federal level, I feel it’s very important that we all do what we can to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gases,” says Rudensey. “Solar hot water systems are a great place to start. They’re not as expensive as solar photovoltaics, and they’ll save you substantial amounts of energy and money.”

Looking at his household energy bills, Lyle notes that it’s hard to quantify the exact dollar amount the new water heater has saved, because he and Bob also installed energy-efficient appliances and a solar photovoltaic system last year, as part of an overall strategy to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. Still, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), water heating uses more household energy than any activity other than heating and cooling, so replacing your household’s water-heating energy with free power from the sun will have a significant effect on your bottom line. With all their savings combined, Lyle points out that his and Bob’s electric bills have dropped to a low of $5.

“Plus, the water heater increased the value of the house,” Allen adds. “And it’s a hedge against future energy cost increases.”

Allen and Rudensey installed an active solar water heater with evacuated tube collectors, which they say works great in the Pacific Northwest, because the heater keeps working even on overcast days or when temperatures are freezing outside.

“I can’t think of anything negative to say about it,” says Rudensey. “It never ceases to amaze me to see our solar hot water system still pumping 80- to 100-degree water late into the evening on a day when it isn’t even sunny.”

Active Versus Passive Solar Water Heaters

When you select a solar water heater for your home, you can choose between an active system (like Bob and Lyle’s), or a passive system.

• ACTIVE SYSTEMS use a pump to move water through their heating system, and this requires a source of energy (often a solar photovoltaic panel).
  
  An active system stores water in a tank inside your house, and uses its pump to move either water or a “heat exchange” fluid through a “collector” on your roof. Collectors are the components of your solar water heating system it to heat your water. Used in freezing climates, the heat-exchange fluid is a non-freezing liquid that carries the sun’s heat from the roof to your tank, where it transfers the heat to your water. The fluid re-circulates to the roof to be heated again, while the water flows on to your tap. (This fluid is usually propylene glycol, which the FDA has approved as an additive in food and medicine. However, it is a suspected neuro- and respiratory toxin, according to the National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety.)Although active systems are more expensive but more reliable than passive ones, you may still wish to keep your conventional water heater for a back-up. In fact, in many areas, local building codes require conventional back-ups, so be sure to check with your contractor or local government. Active systems using the “heat exchange” method are best for areas where freezing temperatures are likely.
• PASSIVE SYSTEMS use no pumps or electrical components.
  
  Because of their design, passive systems are the simpler of the two. They work essentially like a garden hose left in the sun, except the container for the water is much, much larger. The sun directly heats the water in a large, rooftop tank, which then flows down into your plumbing system. If the water has not yet reached the temperature you’ve selected on your thermostat, your conventional water heater will need to kick in to finish the job. Passive systems are best suited for warm climates where your rooftop storage tank is in no danger of freezing.
  
  Because of their simplicity, passive systems are usually cheaper and can last longer than active systems. The drawbacks are that they can be less reliable, and require a heavy water tank, or collector, to be mounted on your roof. (Depending on your roof’s design, this may require structural support.)

Keep in mind that solar water heaters also work great for your outdoor hot water needs, like pools and hot tubs.

Two Types of Collectors

If you choose an active system, you’ll need to consider two types of collectors:

1. FLAT-PLATE COLLECTORS: These are metal boxes with glass or plastic covers (called glazings) on top and a dark-colored “absorber plate” covering a system of pipes on the bottom. Sunlight passes through the glazing and is collected by the absorber plate, which converts the sunlight into heat that is passed on to the liquid (either water or a heat-transfer fluid) in the system of pipes. The advantage of this type of collector is the price—it’s cheaper than evacuated-tube collectors.
2. EVACUATED-TUBE COLLECTORS: Best visualized as a series of small, connected thermoses, these collectors consist of individual glass vacuum tubes surrounding a secondary inner tube, through which the liquid or heat-transfer fluid flows. The most efficient (and most costly) collector, the evacuated-tube model works somewhat better than the flat-plate model in cold climates.

Depending on the type of system you choose, a solar water heater can cost from $2,000 to $6,000, and begins paying for itself right away with your reduced energy bills. The amount you save will depend on many factors, including how much hot water you use, your system’s performance, sunlight in your area, and the local cost of conventional fuels, but the US Department of Energy estimates than on average, your bill should decrease by between 50 and 80 percent.

The Tax Incentives for Solar Water Heaters

Federal income tax credits for solar energy have been in place for over a decade. A credit of up to 30 percent was available until the end of 2019. Unfortunately, despite the success of the program at encouraging solar use, the tax credit will decrease year by year until the end of 2021 when it will go away. For 2020, the tax credit remains at 26%.

Be sure to save documentation of all costs associated with the system’s installation (including the labor of any installers, plumbers, or electricians you use), and note that to claim the credit your system must be certified by the Solar Rating Certification Corporation. To claim the credit, file form 5695 as part of your taxes.

To find additional state-level tax incentives, including rebates, property tax credits, sales tax exemptions, and more, visit the Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy.

Remember that no matter where you live or what your climate, a solar water heater can be a great way to reduce our country’s dependence on fossil fuels, and position you to not only start saving money today, but to save a lot more money in the future as the cost of fuels like natural gas and heating oil continue to rise.

“Some people might think that solar water heaters aren’t worth installing in a climate like the Pacific Northwest, but that’s not true,” says Lyle. “Germany gets about 70 percent as much sunlight as Seattle does, and they are the biggest users of solar power in the world. This is something everyone can do that really makes a huge difference.”

Updated February 2023

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It’s no secret that sweatshops are behind much of the clothing sold today. The media and nonprofits overseas report on factory bosses paying starvation wages, forcing employees to work unpaid overtime, denying bathroom breaks and sick leave, and retaliating against workers who seek better treatment. Such practices may lead to cheap clothing on the consumer end, but more shoppers are saying that they don’t want low prices to come at the expense of workers—in the US and around the world.

Here are ways to steer your clothing dollars toward companies with fair labor practices, avoid some of the worst sweatshop-labor-using companies, and create a system that respects workers’ rights.

6 Steps to Sweatshop-Free Clothing

1. Reduce and Reuse

One way to keep your clothing dollars from enriching companies that use sweatshops is simply to buy less clothing overall. When you’re considering a clothing purchase, ask yourself whether you really need the item.

Secondhand clothing is a great option for people who want to avoid supporting sweatshops—and for people who are budget-minded and eco-conscious, too. Check your local Yellow Pages or Google Maps for thrift or consignment stores, and check your local paper for listings of yard sales featuring clothing. You can also organize a clothing swap in your office or community.

When purchasing necessary, new items, look for clothing that you’ll be able to wear over and over again. Choose high-quality items that fit your personal style, and then care for them properly so they last.

2. Buy Fair Trade

When you buy a hand-knit sweater or shawl from a conventional retailer, chances are that it passed through several middlemen and left the person who made it with a small fraction of the purchase price. Under the Fair Trade system, artisans sell directly to wholesalers or retailers and earn fair payment for their products. When you buy Fair Trade clothing, you’re supporting a system that provides fair wages and healthy working conditions to economically disadvantaged artisans worldwide. You’ll also get unique and high-quality items, such as hand-crocheted, organic cotton sweaters from Indigenous, made by artisan cooperatives in Peru and Ecuador.

There is currently no US Fair Trade label for clothing, as there is for items such as tea and coffee, but there may be in the future. Fair Trade textiles, labeled and certified by the European organization Max Havelaar, became available in Europe last year.

Article continues after the video...

3. Beyond "Made in the USA"

Another way to find clothing that hasn't been made in sweatshops is to look for the UNITE label, which means the garment was made by members of UNITE HERE (the union created from the merger of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union).

“When something has a union label, it means the workers who made it have a voice—a way to deal with problems on the job without fear of getting fired, reprimanded, or retaliated against,” says Amanda Cooper of UNITE HERE. “They’ve negotiated an enforceable contract with their company that covers wages and benefits, safety on the job, and production standards.”

The union label is a much better indicator of fair labor conditions than the “Made in the USA” label is. First, explains Trina Tocco of the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF), there are many illegal sweatshops operating within the US and in US territories; also, it’s likely that a non-union “US-made” garment was produced overseas and only had the finishing touches, like buttons or embroidery, applied in the US.

UNITE’s website includes a “Union-Made Apparel Directory” that lists companies selling union-made clothing and specifies which of their items are union-made.

4. Check the Source

You can also look for clothing from companies that operate responsibly. Some companies are, or source from, cooperatives, which allow workers to organize themselves democratically and have ownership in their businesses. Cooperatives may also benefit disadvantaged individuals.

Companies like Patagonia are starting to include sourcing on the individual item's page. It's a step in the right direction for accountability, and normalizes transparency for buyers.

Many cooperatives also demonstrate concern for the environment as well as their workers, using organic materials and low-impact manufacturing methods. For instance, Esperanza Threads is a Bedford, Ohio, cooperative that employs low-income individuals in manufacturing organic-cotton clothing.

Maggie’s Organics is a Michigan-based business that buys much of its organic-cotton clothing from the Nicaraguan cooperative Maquiladora Mujeres.

5. Do a Little Digging

Keep in mind that large clothing companies often work through dozens of subcontractors and can change suppliers from one month to the next in search of lower prices or faster turnaround times—which often come at the expense of workers’ rights. If digging results in a long history of news reports linking a retailer to sweatshop violations, you can assume that the company puts profit before fair labor standards.

“It’s hard to find companies producing completely responsible garments,” explains Tocco, “because there are so many stages in the supply chain: gathering raw material, spinning it into cloth, dyeing the cloth, and cutting and sewing the garments. You could have a union-made garment made of cotton picked by a child laborer.”

The better companies will have codes of conduct ensuring worker rights (including freedom of association and freedom of harassment as well as fair safety, wage, and hour standards); use independent monitors to check factories’ compliance with the code; report publicly on the monitors’ findings; and work with factories found in violation of the code to get into compliance. It’s also a good sign if a company is purchasing from supplier factories where workers are represented by an independent union and have collective bargaining arrangements in place, and if the company stays with these factories for a long time.

The better companies will be able to answer your questions about sweatshops, codes of conduct, and related issues with specifics if you call or write to them.

6. Change the System

While good clothing options do exist, there are far too few; we’ll need to work together to create more. Green America challenges shoppers to buy five responsible clothing items (Fair-Trade, union-made, or cooperative-made) this year, and to make sure any clothing gift purchases are responsible, too.

Let companies know you're concerned about labor practices. If you're replacing old jeans with a union-made pair, tell the company you used to buy from why you're making a switch, and what they need to do to win you back.

If companies hear enough consumers questioning their labor practices or taking their business elsewhere because of labor violations, they’ll know they need to address these concerns.

You can also pressure clothing companies to become more responsible by getting large institutional purchasers to demand sweatshop-free clothing made under fair labor conditions. Thanks to the work of student activists, more than 100 colleges and universities have joined the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), a nonprofit that helps the schools ensure that the suppliers making products that bear the school’s logo are respecting workers’ rights. Contact the WRC or United Students Against Sweatshops to learn about getting your college or university involved.

Sweatshops are a deep-rooted global problem, but solutions are emerging as workers and consumers demand a better system. Buy the best, sweatshop-free clothing you can today, and act to create a better future for garment workers around the world.

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Smucker’s Called on to Produce Non-GMO and Organic Peanut Butter and Jelly and Stop Jamming Americans Full of GMOs: Urged to Follow Lead of Hershey’s, Campbell’s, General Mills, Gerber and Other Iconic American Brands.

WASHINGTON, D.C.//AUGUST 25, 2016 – Today, Green America’s GMO Inside campaign launched a major push – “Smucker’s: Make PB&J Great Again” – to get The J.M. Smucker Company, America’s iconic producer of Smucker’s jams, jellies, and Jif peanut butter, to phase out the use of genetically engineered ingredients (GMOs) and transition towards organic products.

The new campaign website (http://www.gmoinside.org/smuckers) and Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/GmoInside) call on Smucker’s to stop sourcing GMO ingredients for their products, and to use a third-party verifier to ensure that fruit spreads and peanut butters produced by Smucker’s are all non-GMO.

The new push comes as Smucker’s this week posted a 7 percent decline in net revenue, and non-GMO products continue to see strong growth. Polls show that half of all Americans seek to avoid GMOs. 

“Millions of people enjoy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” said Michael Stein, Food Campaign Manager at Green America. “Yet they may unwittingly be consuming GMOs produced with toxic inputs. Smucker’s should be clearly labeling products that contain GMOs to provide the transparency demanded by American consumers. As Americans increasingly seek out organic and non-GMO products, Smucker’s must transition away from GMOs and increase organic offerings.  Smucker’s can’t afford to alienate more than half of its customers.”

The J.M. Smucker Company has been working hard to keep consumers in the dark about GMOs in food products. The company spent over $1 million to fight against various state and federal mandatory GMO labeling initiatives. 

Green America’s GMO Inside campaign has called out The J.M. Smucker Company in the past for the company’s funding of opposition to GMO labeling ballot initiatives. With the passage of the Dark Act, a federally mandated GMO labeling bill, GMO Inside is now working hard to pressure Smucker’s to remove GMOs from its products, seek third party non-GMO verification, and transition to more organic and sustainable products. Additionally, GMO Inside is pushing Smucker’s for clear on-package GMO labeling until the company can transition away from GMOs.

“The days when a global company like Smucker’s can hide GMOs from the customer are over. Consumers demand clean and safe non-GMO products,” said GMO Inside Co-Chair John W. Roulac. “It is time for Smucker’s to commit to transparency, and sourcing the highest quality organic ingredients for its customers.”

Multinational food companies like Smucker’s are increasingly hearing the demands from consumers for clear on-package GMO labeling, and to transition to sustainable non-GMO organic ingredients in their foods. Companies including General Mills, Hershey’s, Campbell’s, and Gerber have taken steps to remove GMOs from products as a result. Green America will continue to pressure Smucker’s to remove GMOs, provide clear on-package labeling of genetically engineered ingredients, and transition towards producing more certified organic and non-GMO verified products.

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:  Natalie Watson, (703) 276-3256, or nwatson@hastingsgroup.com.

Click to view this list as an illustrated infographic.

Whether you're looking to save money or save the environment, there are many ways you can save energy around the house. Learn how to cut your energy bill by 50% with these 10 easy, energy-saving tips.

Save 2%: Turn Off the Lights

Be mindful about shutting lights off when you leave a room. If you have a forgetful family member or roommate, place reminders on the switchplates or consider installing motion-detector switches.

ADVANCED: Replace your bulbs with CFLs or LEDs.

Save 19%: Install Ceiling Fans

Install Energy Star ceiling fans in the rooms you use most often. They’ll help keep you cool in the summer while your AC works less or not at all. In the winter, switch them to turn clockwise to circulate the warm air rising up to the ceiling back down into the room.

ADVANCED: Go with a white roof or install a green roof, which will prevent heat loss through the roof in winter and cool your home down in the summer.

Save 4%: Show Your Fridge Some Love

The refrigerator is one of the biggest energy-users in your home, and if it was built before 1993, it’s a huge energy hog. Clean the coils on your fridge every six months to keep it running efficiently, and take up unused space with jugs of water, which will hold in the cold better. Eliminate a second refrigerator, if you have one.

ADVANCED: Replace or recycle your older appliances wisely. Buy energy-efficient new appliances when possible.

Save 9%: Wash Your Clothes in Cold Water, Let them Air Dry

Washing clothes in cold water gets them just as clean as hot, and cuts your washer’s energy use in half. Drying your clothes on an outdoor line or indoor rack can save around $100 in energy costs every year.

ADVANCED: Water and energy use are intertwined: producing energy uses water, and providing clean drinking water requires energy. Take steps to conserve water everywhere in your home.

Save 12+%: Upgrade Appliances

Appliances use 20 percent of the energy in the average US home. When it’s time to buy new appliances, look for the most efficient Energy Star model you can find. The biggest energy hogs in a home are usually the refrigerator (particularly if it was built before 1993) and clothes dryer.

Save 1-3%: Give Your Water Heater A Blanket

Adding an insulating cover to your water heater can reduce heat loss by 24-45 percent. Also, turn your water heater down by ten degrees, if possible. If half of US households did so, it would prevent 239 tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

ADVANCED: Upgrade to a tankless or solar water heater, and save 14% off your energy bill. And while you’re in your garage, consider buying a super-efficient car or, better yet, a bike.

Save 12%: Plug Air Leaks

Replacing windows is often the least cost-effective step you can take to save energy, so seal air leaks around doors and windows instead with caulk and weatherstripping. Also, consider putting up insulating curtains, pasting low-e film to the window glass, and installing storm windows or plastic window films to further cut down on heat loss in winter.

ADVANCED: Get a RESNET or Home Performance with Energy Star audit to help pinpoint your biggest energy losses.

Save 10%: Use Your Programmable Thermostat

Nearly half of US homes already have a programmable thermostat. Dig out that owner’s manual and learn how to use yours to maximize the efficiency of your heating and cooling systems. Program your thermostat to turn itself down or off when you’re sleeping or are at work or school.

ADVANCED: Set a winter target of 68°F when you’re at home and 55°F when you’re away. Set a summer target of 78°F when you’re at home and 82°F when you’re away.

Save 3%: Air Dry Dishes

Using your dishwasher instead of washing dishes by hand can save water, but if you let the drying cycle run, you’re wasting energy and money. Skip the drying cycle and let your dishes air dry. Newer, more effective and efficient dishwashers allow you to skip the step of pre-rinsing your dishes before you load them in the dishwasher.

ADVANCED: Run your dishwasher (and your clothes washer, for that matter) at night, during off-peak hours. It’s our country’s peak demand that determines the expansion of dirty coal-fired power plants.

Save 5%: Eliminate "Phantom Load"

Many electronics still suck energy even when they’re turned off--such as powering that little clock on your microwave when it’s not in use. Unplug your electronics or plug them into a power strip and switch it off to save on this “phantom load.”

ADVANCED: Use a Kill-A-Watt meter to measure the energy use of appliances and gadgets, even when they’re turned off. You can also keep track of your home’s entire energy use with a whole-house energy monitor.

Save More Money on Energy!

The following incentives can help you save money on efficiency retrofits:

• FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL INCENTIVES: Search the database of state incentives to find tax incentives and rebates for your renewable and energy efficiency home improvements.
• HOME STAR: Proposed legislation would create a “Home Star” program, providing rebate incentives to the American public to encourage Home Performance with Energy Star audits, energy-efficient retrofits, and the purchase of efficient appliances. At press time, Home Star legislation was included in the July 2010 Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Company Accountability Act.

If we don’t take widespread, systemic action to reduce our energy use, the impacts of climate change will be severe. Fortunately, we have existing solutions to address climate change right at home. Learn how to cut your carbon use at home even further, and green your energy use whenever possible.

Inspired by our Summer 2016 issue of the Green American on recycling, editorial fellow Ilana Berger investigated why and how to buy recycled eyeglasses. Here's what she discovered....

A few weeks ago, I went to LensCrafters with my mom to help her pick out a new pair of glasses. Having been blessed with 20/20 vision, I had never been glasses shopping before.

I must have picked out around 15 different frames for her to try on, but none of them stuck. Mom would try a pair on, consult a mirror, usually with a dissatisfied expression, then glance at the brutally honest saleswoman who would shake her head.

It wasn't until right before we were about to leave that I noticed some frames in the glass desk we were sitting at. They were tasteful, inexpensive, and best of all, had an eco-friendly label. By that time, mom had already decided on a pair and didn't have the patience to try on another. And I didn't blame her! That was when I began to understand why many people don't wear eco-friendly frames.

Flaws of Metal Frames

Choosing glasses frames seems like it can be such a stressful process, that when you find something you like, you are likely to buy it regardless of its material. But before you walk out of Lenscrafters, or another store, consider what goes into traditional metal frame making. What you learn might make you want to take the extra few minutes to find a pair of eco-friendly frames.

According to the Ecologist, an environmental affairs magazine, most metal frames are made out of titanium, silver, or stainless steel. Titanium itself is thought to be safe for humans, but its production creates hazardous waste. There are two processes that are used to manufacture titanium: the sulfate process and the chlorine process.

The sulfate process creates sulfuric acid waste, which gets dumped into surrounding bodies of water. The increased acidity then lowers the PH of the water, which lowers oxygen levels and suffocates marine life. It is also very corrosive, and burns plants and animals that it comes into contact with. Crude titanium dioxide is purified using the chlorine process, during which titanium is fed with carbon and chlorine gas. If the gas escapes into the atmosphere, it can cause skin, nose and throat irritation, chest tightness, and difficulty breathing.

Silver can be equally as damaging. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, nickel, and gold mining, which is one of the most destructive industries in the world. Open-pit mines, which are created by blasting soil and rock away to bring the ore to the surface, destroys habitats. They also creates tons of solid waste.

According to Oxfam America and Earthworks’ joint 2010 report Dirty Metals: Mining, Communities and the Environment, in 2001, 96 percent of arsenic emissions and 78 percent of lead emissions came from metal mining. Mining also exposes rocks that contain sulfide to the elements for the first time, because the metals are often found within them. This can be a problem because when the rocks are dumped as waste, the sulfides react with air and water to create an extremely high concentration of sulfuric acid.

The mining industry is also infamous for violating worker rights by turning a blind eye to dangerous working conditions. In the mines, rock falls, tunnel collapses, fires, and heat exhaustion are all common causes of injury and death. Deep shaft miners spend hours working in temperatures as high at 140 degrees F. Anyone remember the 33 Chilean miners who were stuck 2,300 feet underground for 69 days in 2010? That was a gold and copper mine. All the while, they were inhaling toxic methane gas and dust, which causes tuberculosis, bronchitis, and lung cancer in the long term.

In China, around six million miners have been afflicted with silicosis from inhaling quartz dust. The disease causes the lungs to scar and harden so that lose their flexibility, and the afflicted person can no longer breathe in and out. It is irreversible but completely preventable with proper gear and ventilation. To make matters worse, according to Reuters, an international news agency, management and authorities often try to cover up mining accidents and avoid covering medical bills that miners cannot afford to pay.

Investing in Recycled Eyeglasses

I could go on and on about the harmful effects of metal mining and manufacturing, but the important thing is that there is something you can do to reduce the demand for these processes. Consider investing in frames that are made out of recycled plastic, plant-based acetate (from a green company), or sustainably harvested wood. Unlike most other plastics, acetate is not petroleum-based but is made from cotton and wood fibers instead.

Companies are coming up with creative ways to offer recycled and biodegradable frames that are just as stylish as ordinary ones.

Look for eco-friendly or recycled eyeglasses at your local store, or check out one of the websites below: 

• Modo: Eyewear design, manufacturing, and distributing company whose brand, ECO, is made of 95 percent recycled plastics and steel. Modo is the first consumer company in the world to receive an Environmental Claims Validation (ECV) on recycled content, from UL (Underwriter Laboratory) Environment, a company that certifies electronics. Modo also plants a tree in Cameroon for each pair of ECO frames you buy, in a partnership with Trees for the Future. 
• Nature Eyes: Designs several brands of eyewear, including models made from at least 75 percent recycled wood, titanium, and acetate. One of their collections is made from 100 percent recycled materials including the packaging, and has a hinge-lock or buckle-lock instead of traditional screws, so they're super durable. 
• Solo Eyewear: Creates a selection of sustainable, reasonably priced frame designs that are 20 percent recycled plastic, or repurposed bamboo and acetate. Every pair of glasses you buy helps to fund eyeglass prescriptions and eye surgeries for people in developing countries. 
• Readers.com: This website sells a selection of lightweight frames made with recycled bamboo, bark, and wood. 
• Dick Moby: Dick Moby works with Mazzucchelli, a leading acetate producer, to make its black optical and sunglasses frames using 97 percent acetate waste. According the website, the remaining 3 percent is black ink. Other colors are made from biodegradable acetate certified as being free from crude oil and toxic plasticizers, and all frames come in a recycled leather case with a cleaning cloth made from recycled PET bottles. 
• Homes Eyewear: This company makes sunglasses frames using old-growth wooden boards repurposed from old houses in Detroit. They get the boards from Reclaim Detroit, a social enterprise that creates jobs for people in the area dismantling parts of buildings instead of destroying them. 
• Vinylize: A Budapest-based company that makes eyewear from high-quality recycled vinyl records to increase durability. Fun fact: many of its frames are made from minimal techo vinyls. 

Another great way to get the most out of a pair of glasses is to recycle them when you're finished with them. Instead throwing your gently used frames away, bring them to one of these organization's drop-off centers to help someone who may not have access to proper eye care. 

• Respectacle Inc.: This organization enters its donated glasses into a database so that people all over the world, or their eye care professionals, can view their options and choose a pair of glasses that is the right style and prescription for them. Glasses can be shipped to Respectacle's main location in Minnesota if there is no drop-off location near you. 
• Lions Clubs International: As part of its Recycle for Sight program, Lions Clubs collects used glasses at regional Lions Eyeglass Recycling Centers. The glasses are then sorted by hand and given to low-income people. You can also ship glasses to any Recycling Center, or the Lions Clubs headquarters in Illinois. 
• Saving Sight: A nonprofit organization that takes recycled eyeglasses from Lions Clubs and other organizations and makes sure that they get to the people who need them by distributing them to humanitarian groups and to Respectacle to be entered into its database. Saving Sight also has six office locations where you can directly donate glasses.

—Ilana Berger, editorial fellow

Amazon’s web services hold the company back, despite its attempts to promote the innovations of others.

A row of servers in a data center.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced its second City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge today, but key changes must be made within the company before it can truly lead the innovation charge.

The City on a Cloud program, designed to recognize local and regional governments for technological developments that greatly contributed to their communities, comes at a time when its influential business clients are pressuring the tech giant to be more transparent in its energy portfolio.

“The cloud can be a powerful force to help our companies and our customers reach their greatest potential,” noted AWS clients, including The Huffington Post and tumblr in a letter to Amazon’s Senior VP of Web Services, Andrew Jassy. “But given the threat of climate change and the significant amount of electricity needed to power the cloud, we are increasingly concerned about our responsibility as companies who value sustainability and share concerns about climate change.”

By powering its data centers with unsustainable fuel sources, Amazon is missing out on key innovations in the field of renewable energy–innovations that have the potential to create thousands of new jobs, reduce healthcare costs, and improve the health of our environment.

Handing out information on AWS’ energy use at it’s GovCloud conference in Washington, DC.

As a part of Green America’s Amazon: Build a Cleaner Cloud campaign, we teamed up with representatives from Greenpeace to talk to attendees of AWS’ June 25th GovCloud conference in Washington, DC.

Representing governmental, educational, and nonprofit fields, these GovCloud clients have the perfect opportunity to demand greater transparency in Amazon’s renewable commitment. In refusing to be transparent about its energy usage and plans, AWS deprives these influential groups of the ability to make responsible, informed decisions about where to invest public money.

Merely committing to using 100% renewable energy, as AWS has done, is meaningless without a clear plan to achieve this goal. We’re calling on AWS customers to reach out to their AWS representatives to demand greater transparency in Amazon’s energy future and cease the construction of new data centers that rely on non-renewable energy.

Companies like Google and Apple, whose data centers are powered by renewables, have demonstrated that such a business model is profitable, and Amazon must keep up in order to remain competitive.

Help encourage AWS to deliver on its responsibility to build a cloud that works for both our communities and our environment. Take action with us by signing our petition at buildacleanercloud.com.

$1.32 an Hour and Forced Overtime: Major Labor Abuses Documented in Factories Making Disney Products; Consumers Urged to Speak Out and Opt to Purchase Green, Sustainable Toys.

WASHINGTON, D.C.— August 17, 2016 — With holiday shopping less than three months away, Green America is calling on consumers nationwide to send a message to Disney CEO Robert Iger asking him to address significant labor abuses in Disney factories that make Disney toys, including popular Frozen dolls. The campaign is calling on Disney to ensure living wages for workers and improved working and living conditions overall.

The campaign petition can be found here. Consumers looking for toys made by workers who were treated well, and made without deadly toxins, can go to Green America’s www.SafeGreenToys.org to find options.

“Americans purchasing Frozen toys for their kids this Holiday season need to know the truth behind the toys: Disney is using factories in China that engage in exploitative practices,” said Todd Larsen, executive co-director of consumer and corporate engagement at Green America. “We’re asking all consumers to put pressure on Disney to address labor abuses in its factories, and we encourage consumers to purchase sustainable green toys this Holiday season.”

"The beautiful world of Disney is merely a fairytale,” said Li Qiang, founder and executive director of China Labor Watch. “The real world is one where evil has triumphed over good, and where profits triumph over conscience. We need those who seek justice to come together and fight the villains in the world of Disney, to create a world where Disney is wholeheartedly kind and just."

"Disney has a lot of suppliers in China. It claims to regulate these suppliers with a Manufacturer Code of Conduct, which we doubt is effective,” said Au Lap Hang, China officer at Worker Empowerment. “We observed serious violations of local labor law in Disney supplier factories, which include long working hours without proper overtime salary and not providing the mandatory state pension for workers. In recent years, the Disney Company even required suppliers to relocate their factories to Southeast Asia in order to reduce production cost. As a result, the Mizutani Factory in Shenzhen was shut down and 196 workers lost their job, without getting the compensation required by law."

The campaign asks Disney to take the following actions to address labor abuses:

1. Living wages for workers, so that workers need not rely on excessive overtime just to make ends meet.
2. Strictly voluntary overtime work and payment for all overtime hours worked.
3. Payment for all mandatory job-related activities including group meetings, training and on-boarding, including back pay for workers who were denied payments in the past.
4. Hygienic and safe housing for workers.
5. Pre-job safety training that adequately prepares workers and informs them of risks to their short-term and long-term health, and how to reduce these risks.
6. A safe work environment, including free and easy access to safety equipment, and health screenings/exams, and clear and unlocked fire escapes.
7. Allow workers to elect enterprise level union representatives and allow workers to elect their occupational health and safety representatives.
8. Pay workers the full amount of social insurance they are owed and ensure severance payments for workers who lose their jobs when Disney supplier factories close.

A recent report from China Labor Watch entitled “The Dark World of Disney” found significant labor violations at two Disney supplier factories in China (Lam Sun Plastic Products Co. Ltd and Dongguan Zhenyang Toy Limited Company, both in Dongguan, Guangdong province), including workers laboring 12 hours per day with brief rest breaks, cramped dormitories with unhygienic facilities, low pay ($1.32 per hour), and forced overtime. The report is just the latest investigation by China Labor Watch which has documented similar labor abuses in dozens of Disney factories. In addition, Worker Empowerment, a non-profit labor rights group based in Hong Kong has documented similar abuses at Disney factories and the failure to provide severance pay for workers at a closed Disney supplier factory (Mizutani Toy Factory Co. Ltd in Shenzhen), and is helping workers to obtain the severance owed to them.

ABOUT GREEN AMERICA

Green America is the nation’s leading green economy organization. Founded in 1982, Green America (formerly Co-op 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, (703) 276-3255 or mkarlin@hastingsgroup.com.

You can use socially responsible investing (SRI) to help you meet your financial goals, like growing your savings while ensuring your money has a positive impact on people and the planet.

Socially-concerned investors generally seek to own shares of profitable companies that are transparent about their operations, have strong records of community involvement, positive environmental impact policies and practices, respect for human rights around the world, and create safe and useful products. They will also try to avoid investments in those firms that fall short in these areas.

Green America is pleased to partner with our Green Business Network member, Natural Investments LLC, a leader in environmentally and socially responsible investing, to bring you the mutual fund Heart Rating. The Heart Rating evaluates mutual funds selected by Natural Investments based on their environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) performance, their degree of community development investing, and the fund companies’ engagement in shareholder activism.

The Socially Responsible Investing Heart Rating

You, or your financial advisor or asset management firm if you have one, can screen stocks, mutual funds, and other investments on the issues that matter to you.

For additional information on socially responsible mutual funds, including financial performance, visit USSIF's Mutual Fund Performance Chart.

Myth: Socially responsible investments make less money than conventional ones.

Fact: The evidence, amassed through hundreds of studies, shows that historically, SRI products have performed as well as or better than their conventional counterparts.

Before buying shares, read the prospectus (document with details about the fund) to understand the risks.

Need help investing? Consider using a financial planner or advisor who is dedicated to socially and environmentally responsible investing. Find financial planners and advisors who are certified members of our Green Business Network here.

Divestment

Divestment is when investors drop their shares in a company or remove funds from a bank in order to make a statement and to re-align their investments with their values for longer-term benefit. Divestment campaigns launched against a company can make corporate management take notice and change company policy since divestment represents a potential drop in share prices and loss of revenue. 

In the 1990s, activists convinced companies to divest from business in South Africa to put pressure on that government to abolish apartheid. That campaign was hugely successful and gave rise to modern divestment movements. In recent years, university students in the US and internationally have demanded their schools divest from fossil fuels in a variety of ongoing campaigns, resulting 220 educational institutions committed to divesting their endowments in 2021, according to the 2021 Invest Divest Report. Some cities and countries, as well as philanthropies and other institutions, have also committed to divesting their assets from fossil fuels companies. Beginning in 2016, divestment was used by protesters of the Dakota Access Pipeline, who asked individuals and cities to remove their investments from the 17 national and international banks giving loans to the building company.

Beyond your own investments

Every organization, faith congregation, school, or workplace needs a bank account. You can help steer more money into underserved communities, and into local economies, by encouraging any of the organizations you're a part of to switch to a better bank and shift investment funds into community investing options. 

Or, you may be able to become involved with the larger holdings of your religious denomination if it belongs to the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR). Bringing together socially responsible investors across many faiths (Catholic, Episcopalian, Jewish, Mennonite, and more), ICCR members leverage the combined $100 billion of their investment portfolios to sponsor shareholder resolutions on climate change, the use of sweatshops, human rights, and other crucial issues. To check whether your denomination is a part of ICCR, visit its website. 

Want your retirement to work for the world? Here are tools on how to encourage your workplace to adopt socially responsible investing options into regular retirement contribution accounts.

Green America is not an investment adviser nor do we provide financial planning, legal, or tax advice. Nothing in our communications or materials shall constitute or be construed as an offering of financial instruments or as investment advice or investment recommendations.

On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the country’s first labeling legislation for genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). President Barack Obama is expected to sign it into law this week.

Advocates were quick to express dissatisfaction with the bill when it hit the Senate floor. Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety, called it a “sham” and a “legislative embarrassment.” Food Democracy Now called it a “corrupt bargain.” And multiple groups said it included backdoor dealings with organic food companies and Monsanto, the biotech giant behind the bulk of GMO crops planted in the U.S. as well as the herbicide glyphosate (Roundup).

The final bill represented something of a compromise, and many in the advocacy space were surprised it passed.

Gary Hirshberg, chairman of the Just Label It initiative and co-founder of Stonyfield, called the bill “inadequate.” And the initiative officially opposed it. (Its gripes, like many of its cohorts’, center around the bill’s loose definition of GMOs and its focus on QR codes rather than on-pack messaging.) But the news isn’t all bad, he told a group of journalists last week. “In the big picture, coming from 2011 when zero consumers had any knowledge” of GMOs, “this is progress.”

“But what this law really shines the light on,” Hirshberg continued, “is the critical importance of responsible companies now to do the right thing.”

And one leading consumer company is out to do just that. Ahead of the bill’s passage on Thursday, the nation’s leading yogurt maker announced a policy that blows past any federal or state requirements for GMO labeling.

Dannon’s big plans

New York-based Dannon plans to adopt an “all-natural approach” for its three flagship brands, Dannon, Oikos and Danimals, president and CEO Mariano Lozano said at a press briefing on Thursday.

Depending on your background, that sentence either made you smile or cringe. While studies continue to show that American shoppers seek out “natural” foods, advocates have longstanding beef with the ambiguity of the term. But for its part, Dannon set a clear internal definition for its “natural” approach — and its scope may surprise you.

“For us, ‘all natural’ means fewer ingredients that are closer to nature, clearer labels, that they are ingredients that we can pronounce, that they are not synthetic and are non-GMO,” Lozano explained.

Dannon’s first round of non-GMO yogurts represent around 10 percent of the company’s product portfolio. But that’s just the beginning of what industry experts say is a pioneering strategy. Here’s the gist:

• Dannon plans to continue evolving its flagship brands to pivot toward non-GMO ingredients, with the ultimate goal of placing the Non-GMO Project’s Butterfly Seal on all Dannon, Oikos and Danimals products. These brands represent half of the milk the company uses and half of its on-shelf turnover.
• Dannon will label all products containing GMO ingredients nationwide by the end of this year.
• Starting in 2017, the company will go one step further to ensure the cows in its supply chain are fed non-GMO feed, a first for a leading non-organic yogurt maker.

This is a former Green America campaign, and progress was made! In 2018, Samsung signed a binding arbitration framework that ensured victims of chemicals exposure are properly taken care of, and Samsung published a list of 11 substances that are regulated within its supply chain.

Roughly half the world's smartphones are made in China, where tens of millions work in the electronics-manufacturing sector. Workers in China and other countries that manufacture electronics are regularly exposed to dangerous chemicals without protective gear or adequate training, and some are developing serious illnesses such as leukemia and nerve damage. Sick workers do not always receive sufficient treatment. 

Our Demands for Smartphone Sweatshops

Eliminate Toxic Chemicals

Stop the use of the most dangerous, toxic chemicals in smartphone supplier factories and replace them with safer alternatives.

Factories making smartphone products use toxic chemicals that cause cancer (carcinogens such as benzene), chemicals that cause birth defects and miscarriages (reproductive toxins such as the chemical toluene), and chemicals that cause nerve damage (neurotoxins such as n-hexane). Brands, starting with Apple and Samsung must identify and disclose all chemicals used in supplier factories as well as those in all their products. In situations where the danger of a chemical is unknown, brands must require proper testing. Apple and Samsung must institute and enforce appropriate exposure monitoring, medical monitoring, and effective training and management systems to ensure worker health and safety. Supplier factories must provide workers with adequate safety training and protective gear free of charge.

In response to Green America's Bad Apple campaign, in 2014, Apple agreed to ban benzene and n-hexane from supplier factories and is now engaging in a comprehensive approach to address toxins in its supply chain.  However, Samsung has failed to take actions that address worker safety in its factories. Green America continues to mobilize consumers to put pressure on Samsung.

Ensure Adequate Medical Treatment

Create a fund to pay for the treatment of injured workers and ensure that all workers injured while making Apple and Samsung products receive adequate treatment. For workers struggling to access care, Apple, Samsung, and their supplier factories must institute a safe and rapid mechanism for workers to report illnesses.

End Worker Abuse

Apple, Samsung and their supplier factories must ensure compliance with the ILO’s eight Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, article 32 on the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, and national laws regarding occupational health and safety, worker benefits, and minimum wage for all workers, including young, migrant workers. Apple, Samsung and their suppliers must ensure worker empowerment to effectively oversee and enforce these rights without interference or retaliation from management.