Currently ALEC is pushing a “model” bill among its legislatures that has the power to disenfranchise more than 5 million people in upcoming elections. The bill supports new voter ID laws that require proof of identity, such as a driver’s license, in the polls. Those who don’t have an ID can obtain a free ID from designated offices in their communities.

It doesn’t sound too terrible does it?

Well think about this: Low-income, minority, elderly and students who do not have a driver’s licenses.

But the bill provides free IDs right?

Are the offices providing these IDs going to be in the communities with the greatest need? Probably not. Will they be accessible and have accommodating hours for the people who will need them? Probably not.

Going to get one of these free IDs is burdensome and will discourage individuals who might vote otherwise. It requires awareness and planning.

More than 100,000 CREDO activists, along with 85,000 ColorOfChange members have called on corporations to stop supporting ALEC because of its role in voter suppression. Last week, corporations including Coca-Cola, Pepsi, McDonalds, Mars, Kraft Foods and Intuit ended their relationship with ALEC, but many other large corporations continue to fund ALEC. AT&T is one of them.

ColorOfChange has repeatedly contacted AT&T by phone and email to make sure they know what their membership in ALEC funds. They have yet to respond.

AT&T’s financial support of ALEC must end. Tell AT&T to stop supporting ALEC and voter suppression. Sign the petition here.

While many are asking if consumers and investors will notice and reward Unilever for its sustainability efforts, I already know the answer: Yes, they will – if Unilever has the gumption to stick with its plan for the next 5–10 years and not abandon its commitments as others, like Wal-Mart, have recently done.

But it’s an uphill battle. Polman recently noted that the financial markets still don’t understand that the company has moved beyond old-style corporate social responsibility. “With Unilever, the Sustainable Living Plan is our business model. So we spend an enormous amount of time explaining it to our investors.” Polman also noted recently that climate change is costing the company €200 million per year.

Marc Gunther, a journalist who reviewed the update in detail concluded:

“It’s obviously too soon to say whether sustainability will drive growth at Unilever, but the early evidence appears mixed. Eco-efficiency efforts in factories have reduced waste and saved money. Unilever revenues have grown nicely, to $46.5 billion in 2001, up from $44.2 billion in 2010 and $39.8 billion in 2009. But the company’s share price is up by less than 2 percent in the last year in the U.S. market, slightly trailing the Standard & Poor’s 500. (Its stock is doing better in European markets, where currency factors don’t come into play.) Meanwhile, Unilever’s corporate identity is all but hidden behind consumers brands like Lipton, Skippy, Ragu, Bertolli, Hellmann’s, Suave, Dove, Ben & Jerry’s and Breyers, at least here in the U.S. That makes it hard to win over those consumers who care about companies that do good.”

Gunther also reported on Unilever’s president for North America, Kees Kruythoff, who commented at a Washington DC event on the company’s progress. “Broadly speaking, we feel like we’ve made good progress,” he said, citing gains around agricultural sourcing, waste reduction and energy efficiency, among other things.

Some highlights:

• 24 percent of the company’s agricultural raw materials, including palm oil, soybeans and soy oil, paper and wood, tea, fruits and vegetables, were sustainably-sourced last year.
• 48 million people in poor countries were reached with Lifebuoy soap’s hand washing program aimed at curbing disease.
• 100 percent of the electricity that Unilever buys in Europe comes from renewable sources.
• Pure-it, a water-purification technology, is expanding from India, where it already has reached 35 million people, to Bangladesh, Mexico and Brazil.

Pretty encouraging if you ask me!

This week, Unilever also announced the construction of a $100 million palm-oil processing plant in Indonesia to accelerate its commitment to buy sustainable palm oil. This is an issue that Greenpeace, where I am a US Co-Chair, and Seventh Generation have both considered as critical to sustainability.

Because palm oil is used in many personal care and household cleaning products, including soaps, detergents, shampoo, and even food products like potato chips and ice cream, and traditional palm oil plantations wipe out forests releasing huge amounts of C02 and destroy biodiversity, the commitment to this new factory is extremely noteworthy and should receive very positive recognition.

So far, I quite cautiously optimistic.

May 2012 —  Social Venture Network (SVN) just announced the second group of inductees into the SVN Hall of Fame. Five “Environmental Evangelists” will be presented with the SVN Impact Award in a ceremony that recognizes outstanding leaders who have transformed the way the world does business.  

Gary Hirshberg, co-founder and chairman of Stonyfield Farm; George Siemon, founding farmer and “CEIEIO” (pronounced C-EI-EI-O) of Organic Valley; Myra & Drew Goodman, co-founders of Earthbound Farm; Jeffrey Hollender, co-founder of Seventh Generation, will all be honored in person at the Social Venture Network Hall of Fame celebration taking place at Gotham Hall in Midtown Manhattan on November 13th, 2012. These dynamic entrepreneurs set the bar for sustainability, and built industry-leading companies that operate as if every day is Earth Day.

When Social Venture Network (SVN) was founded twenty-five years ago, it presented a new vision of business to the world – one that would simultaneously profit investors, employees, local communities, and the planet. SVN became the premiere force for cultivating entrepreneurs dedicated to “profit with a purpose.”

Now, upon the 25th Anniversary of the founding of SVN, the most influential values-driven business executives and impact investors will gather at the Social Venture Network Hall of Fame gala to pay tribute to the leaders that pioneered the new economy. “SVN members proved that businesses would be more responsible and successful if they focused on a triple bottom line: people, planet, and profit. ” says Deb Nelson, Executive Director. “These extraordinary entrepreneurs have all done well while doing good.”

“Environmental Evangelists are innovative entrepreneurs who care about all of their stakeholders, not just their shareholders, and created companies that respect and care for the earth and future generations.” says Nelson. Each of the honorees has created an enterprise of over $50 million in annual revenue and positively impacted the environment. Their passion and business leadership planted the seeds that have now grown into the modern organic foods and sustainable business movements.

Every SVN Impact Award winner was rigorously vetted by a panel of 20 judges representing corporate peers, industry experts, and business and organizational leaders.

There are five categories of inductees, and the results will be announced in stages building up to the final Hall of Fame awards ceremony on November 13th.

Hirshberg, Siemon, Hollender, and the Goodmans won in the category of Environmental Evangelists. Previously announced were the “Workplace Champions” category winners which inlcuded Eileen Fisher of EILEEN FISHER, Inc., Margo Fraser of Birkenstock USA, Gary Erikson of Clif Bar, Chip Conley of Joie de Vivre, and Bruce Poon Tip of G Adventures.

For more updates on the SVN Hall of Fame celebration and to buy tickets, visit http://svn.org/HoF.

Environmental Evangelists: SVN Impact Award Winners 

Gary Hirshberg, co-founder and chairman of Stonyfield Farm
Gary Hirshberg started out as an environmentalist who studied climate change and renewable energy, not a yogurt maker. He co-founded Stonyfield Farm to be “yogurt with a purpose,” perpetually looking for more environmentally responsible ways to do things. In 1997 Stonyfield Farm became the first US manufacturer to offset all greenhouse gas emissions from facility energy use, it has continually reduced the weight of its packaging, and where possible transport its products by rail or trucks fueled with biodiesel. And since starting Profits for the Planet (PFP) in 1993, Stonyfield Farm has gifted $15 million in support of thousands of organizations that care for the earth.

George Siemon, founding farmer of Organic Valley and “C-EI-EI-O” 
When George Siemon invited his fellow farmers in Southwestern Wisconsin’s coulee region to join a co-op dedicated to a new, sustainable approach to agriculture, family farms were on the brink of extinction. The brand they created, Organic Valley, soon became the number one source of organic milk in America. To this day, Organic Valley bases every decision on the health and welfare of people, animals, and the earth. Organic Valley promotes regional farm diversity and economic stability by means of organic agricultural methods, and is committed to consumer education and helping mission aligned organizations through grants, cash and food donations, and fundraising tools.

Myra & Drew Goodman, co-founders of Earthbound Farm
The Goodmans founded Earthbound Farm with the guiding principle that how we care for our planet is how we care for ourselves. Earthbound is constantly working to reduce its impact on the planet in every area of their business. In 2012 alone, Earthbound’s organic farming operations, set on nearly 40,000 acres, will keep over 14 million pounds of synthetic fertilizers and toxic pesticides out of the environment, absorb the equivalent carbon dioxide of taking more than 9,200 cars off the road annually, and save 74,165 gallons of water by using 100% recycled plastics (PCR PET) for packaging. Earthbound funds academic scholarships for the next generation of environmentalists, delivers farm-fresh organic products to local schools, supports local food banks, and each month the company gives to an employee nominated charity.

Jeffrey Hollender, co-founder of Seventh Generation 
Jeffrey Hollender created Seventh Generation to deliver healthy solutions for the air, surfaces, fabrics, pets, and people within each home – and for the community and environment outside of it. A pioneer in corporate responsibility, Seventh Generation under Hollender’s leadership innovated ways to reduce its environmental impact, increase performance and safety, and create a more sustainable supply chain.

About SVN
Since 1987, Social Venture Network (www.svn.org) has been at the forefront of the socially responsible business movement, connecting, leveraging, and promoting a world-class community of more than 550 innovative entrepreneurs working to change the way the world does business and the way that business affects the world. SVN connects the leaders of socially responsible enterprises to share lessons and resources, form strategic alliances, and explore new solutions that build a more just and sustainable economy.

“I’m thrilled to be here today to celebrate the announcement of this project, the wonderful team of people who’ve come together to make it happen, and most importantly, from my perspective, the two amazing social entrepreneurs behind Encore Redevelopment, Chad Farrell and Nick Richardson.

Twenty-five years ago, a group of social entrepreneurs launched a number of Vermont businesses committed to changing the role and impact that the corporation has on community, the environment and our economy.

Their goal was to create a business community that had more than one bottom line – one that was committed to saving our environment and creating a country that epitomized equity and justice.

Those pioneers included:

• Will Raap of Gardener’s Supply
• Ben Cohen & Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry’s
• My partner and co-founder at Seventh Generation, Alan Newman

They did significantly impact the way business is done in America and what we’ve expected of companies. They broke new ground and created a movement that today has touched every Fortune 500 company.

Corporate responsibility is today an essential part of the business landscape and will play a critical role in which companies succeed and which fail.

Yet, while we raised the bar on business and sparked others to follow our lead, we face today deeper and more complex challenges than any of us could have imagined at the end of the 1980s:

• Profits at American companies are higher then they have ever been in 60 years
• Yet, corporate tax receipts as a share of profits are at their lowest level in at least 40 years
• Just 1% of Americans own 40 -50% of the wealth
• Inequality in America is worse than Egypt, Tunisia or Yemen
• 1 out of every 7 Americans now rely on food stamps
• 25 million children are homeless
• Global climate change is wreaking havoc on our planet
• Fresh water & top soil are disappearing at alarming rates

We face huge challenges to our economy, our society and to our planet.

And in the face of today’s celebration, let me voice a note of caution: In most respects we are still loosing ground against saving our planet and building a just and equitable society.

And while we must build upon and scale today’s success, many challenges and obstacles lie ahead, specifically in the field of alternative energy.

We have a visionary energy policy in the State of Vermont, and we must make sure that we fight for and protect the progress it calls for. There is simply too much at stake. We owe it to our children. And we must do our best to clean up the mess we’ve made of our world.

To face this challenge, we’ll need a new generation of entrepreneurs working in collaboration with public agencies and non-for-profit organizations.

Encore Redevelopment and their partners in this project are both an example of the leadership that is essential and positive vision of the type of future we must leave to our children.

The Burlington City Schools project represents a holistic and systemic approach to the challenges we face. It shows that, once again, Vermont represents a positive vision for our nation’s future. And it highlights the amazing sustainable innovation that emanates from our small state. The Burlington City Schools project represents the next generation of business and collaboration, beyond what my generation of entrepreneurs envisioned or believed possible.

This project is unique because it touches upon and strengthens the entire system that our world depends upon.

• It strengthens our local community
• Represents a new approach to economic development
• It supports education, most importantly about renewable energy
• It improves our environment
• It strengthens our economy
• It creates jobs
• It builds resilience
• It models cooperation through a public-private partnership
• It represents a collaboration between a number of Vermont Businesses
• And highlights the values that must guide us as we move into the future

There is much to celebrate about this project.

And I want to express my thanks and appreciation to Chad, Nick, Encore and all of their terrific partners.”

How can Charles O. Prince III, the former chief executive of Citigroup, who resigned under pressure in 2007 amid huge write-downs at the bank, be an acceptable director to the shareholders of Xerox and Johnson & Johnson?

What about E. Stanley O’Neal, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch who stood by while his firm bought up so much subprime debt that it almost bankrupted the company? He is now a director of the aluminum giant Alcoa.

Andrew Sorkin of The New York Times raises questions that should make us all wonder about the moral guidance and credibility these disgraced leaders can bring to the companies on whose boards they sit.

At least Eduardo Castro-Wright, vice chairman at Wal-Mart, who oversaw the company’s $25 million bribery campaign, resigned last week from the MetLife board.

But, when might he also resign from the Wal-Mart board?

Andrea Jung, who stepped down as the CEO of Avon, in part as the result of a bribery investigation, remains a director at Apple and chairwoman at Avon.

A recent pole by Edelman on what profession was the least trusted identified corporate CEOs. I guess they didn’t ask about board members.

This is no way to run America’s largest companies. We live in an age where business barely sticks to the letter of the law, and often behaves with moral bankruptcy. It’s time to clean up corporate boards.

Good corporate governance starts with:

1. Diversity. Electing more women (who currently hold less than 16% of all board seats) and racially-diverse board members.
2. Employee Inclusion. Employees should elect at least one board member. Employees are critical stakeholders, but they rarely have a voice.
3. Fiduciary Responsibility. Board members must determine what’s in the best interest of the company and its shareholders in terms of long-term prospects and interests as well as social, environmental and economic effects of any action.

I don’t see disgrace and unethical behavior on that list.

That’s impressive.

Intel Corp. tops the list as the largest single user of green power, followed by Kohl’s Department Stores and Microsoft Corp. Intel has ranked No. 1 on the list since 2008 and uses more than 2.5 terrawatts annually, which translates to 88% of the company’s nationwide electricity use. Microsoft, which holds the No. 3 spot, and McDonald’s USA LLC, which ranks 11th, are new to the list.
The top 20 green power users are as follows:

1. Intel Corp.
2. Kohl’s Department Stores
3. Microsoft Corp.
4. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (California and Texas facilities)
5. Whole Foods Market
6. Staples
7. City of Houston, Texas
8. Starbucks
9. City of Austin, Texas
10. Hilton Worldwide
11. McDonald’s USA LLC
12. HSBC North America
13. U.S. Department of Energy
14. City of Dallas, Texas
15. Lockheed Martin Corp.
16. Cisco Systems Inc.
17. U.S. Air Force
18. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
19. District of Columbia
20. TD Bank N.A.

Though these companies are to be lauded for their clean energy efforts, let’s not forget how important it is to systemically implement sustainability into a business’ DNA. I wonder if any of these companies would be on the Top 20 list for that accomplishment?

For now, this is a great vote of confidence for renewable energy.

If you’re unfamiliar with Grantham, check out his thoughts on resource limitation in The New York Times, or read his Q4 2011 newsletter, the widely-circulated “Longest Quarterly Letter Ever.”

In his talk at MIT, Grantham noted numerous critically important and counterintuitive ideas:

• “Volatility is far more profitable for financial markets than steady growth.”
• “The energy industry is an industry with no grandchildren, so the implications for future generations simply don’t matter to them. The next quarter is all that counts.”
• “We are moving backwards on global climate change – the enemy is winning.”
• “Scientists are really wimpy when it comes to climate change, they simply don’t take the bold positions that are warranted by the data.”
• “In the last 10 years, a 100-year decline in the average commodity price for 33 commodities has been reversed.”
• “China uses an average of 50% of all the cement, iron ore, and coal used in the world.”
• “In agriculture, phosphorus and potassium, two essential inputs for which there are no substitutes, are running out. Morocco and Western Sahara have 40% of the worlds phosphorus supply.”

Grantham is exactly the type of visionary leader the financial world is so sorely lacking.

Jim Hanna, director of environmental impact at Starbucks spoke right after Grantham. Hanna joined Starbucks in November 2005, leading initiatives to minimize the company’s environmental footprint through green building, energy conservation, international procurement, waste minimization and collaboration with partner corporations and NGOs.

For Starbucks, climate change and the reduction of CO2 is the chief metric for sustainability progress and success. Quite simply, sustainability at Starbucks = climate mitigation, because coffee growing is critically put at risk by global climate change.

When calculating Starbucks environmental and carbon footprint, the impacts associated with growing coffee aren’t yet included in the calculations, a significant, yet acknowledged omission. Within the scope of what they do measure, 75% of Starbucks’ emissions come from store operations.

Every time I get an update on Starbucks’ progress, I feel a little less guilty about my Starbucks addiction.

Eric Holt-Gimenez, Executive Director, FoodFirst Institute for Food and Development Policy, says that of the one billion people who are chronically hungry, 70% are farmers!

Now in the world of counterintuitive facts, that’s astounding.

Why? Among other reasons cited by Eric Holt-Gimenez, food grown in developed countries that heavily subsidize costs creates such a distorted market that small-scale farmers in developing countries can’t sell the food they grow for what it costs them to grow it.

He notes that: “70% of the food grown never crosses outside the borders of the country it was grown in, but the 30% that does gets exported ends up controlling the prices for the other 70% of locally-grown food.” These prices are set at levels that are devastatingly low for local growers.

FoodFirst research notes that: “While 91% of the planet’s 1.5 billion hectares of agricultural land are increasingly being devoted to agro-export crops, biofuels and transgenic soybean to feed cars and cattle, millions of small farmers in the Global South still produce the majority of staple crops needed to feed the planet’s rural and urban populations.”

Despite the onslaught of industrial farming, the persistence of thousands of hectares under traditional agricultural management documents a successful indigenous agricultural strategy of adaptability and resiliency. These pockets of traditional, small-scale agriculture have stood the test of time, and can still be found, almost untouched over a period of four thousand years, in the Andes, Meso-America, Southeast Asia and parts of Africa. They offer promising models of sustainability that promote biodiversity that thrive without agrochemicals and sustain year-round yields even under marginal environmental conditions.Contrast that to the state of food and food consumption in America.

Nicolette Hahn Niman, livestock rancher and author of Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Good Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farming, notes that:

“2/3 of Americans are overweight, we consume 500 more calories a day more than we did a just a decade ago, 40% of the food grown in the US is never consumed because it spoils, is wasted or fails to meet our aesthetic requirements.  Forty percent of the energy used in food production goes to fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, 20% of that energy is used in equipment. Eighty percent of antibiotics sold in America are used for animals.”

When Michael Pollan was asked about why local, organic, healthy food was so expensive he answered: “You either pay your grocer now or your doctor later.”

In Houston, the cost of water over the last five years has skyrocketed from  $.50-$1 to $5–$6. That’s a 500% to 600% increase.

Joe Rozza, Global Water Resource Sustainability Manager for The Coca-Cola Company, projects that globally the cost of water will increase 200–300% over the next decade. Fortunately for Coke, it pays nothing for the water it extracts in many parts of the world. When asked why that was fair to local citizens whose aquifer gets depleted as Coke turns their water into an expensive sugary drink, Rozza answered that, in many cases, there was simply no one around to collect a fee. Hey, all you communities hosting a local bottling plant and not getting paid for the water Coke is using, it’s time to show up with a bill!

I asked Rozza what he thought it might cost if Coke had to pay for all the water it uses. He answered that it would be a small part of Coke’s costs of goods and, in fact, that he had no idea.

Yesterday, at the airport I paid $4.00 for a little of bottled water. More than I pay for a gallon of gas.

Wars have and will increasingly be fought over access to fresh water.

According to The New York Times, The National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top-level state planning agency, is drafting plans to invest of as much as $31 billion in desalination equipment and technology. I bet Coke doesn’t get any free water in China.

Coke says that: “Our goal is to ensure the water we use in our manufacturing processes, everywhere in the world, will be returned to the environment at a level that supports aquatic life by 2010 through comprehensive wastewater treatment.”

That’s a good idea.

Coke also says that: “We have a role to play in helping the communities we rely upon. We know that to make a meaningful difference, we must focus our efforts beyond the confines of our own bottling plants. Today, nearly one-sixth of the world’s population – more than 1 billion people – don’t have access to safe drinking water. Approximately 2.6 billion don’t have adequate sanitation. Due to the issues surrounding water, billions of people are vulnerable to disease and food insecurity.”

That says to me that there’s a good reason for Coke to pay for the water it consumes.

What do you think?

Last week I was in Houston to attend an intimate gathering of about 50 people to participate in The New York Times/Shell Oil 2012 Energy Summit titled Earth 2050: The Food Water Energy Nexus.

The gathering included a robust participation of Shell’s senior management, including Simon Henry, CFO and Executive Director and Marvin Odum, President, as well as a host of other corporate managers, NGO experts and thought leaders, including Michael Shellenberger, author and political strategist, Ted Norquist, Chairman of the Breakthrough Institute, and Steven Levitt and Steven Dubner, co-authors of Freakonomics.

One could not possibly listen to the abundance of facts and figures without thinking of how desperately we’ve abused our planet.

Shell’s Stance

Equally noteworthy was Shell’s commitment to subject itself to questions from who some might consider “radical environmentalists” – people like me. For this feat of bravery, they deserve great credit.

Central to the conversation, and most challenging, is the pace at which large companies should change their business models to reduce the negative externalities of their operations. This will most likely reduce short-term revenue and profits, even if the long-term financial benefits provide significant gains.

When I asked Russ Ford, Executive Vice President, Shell, Onshore Gas Americas, to quantify Shell’s capital investments in renewables as compared to oil and gas, I could not get an answer. But he unequivocally stated that “it’s small.” When I pressed him on why Shell didn’t invest more, given the negative impact of burning oil and gas, the answer was that Shell needed to meet its obligations to shareholders.

Russ is an exceptionally bright and articulate promoter of the ways in which natural gas will make the world a better place, despite the reality that, as it burns, it sends us ever closer to the perils of global climate change. Is natural gas better than oil? Probably. Yes,  uncertainties surround the health and environmental externalities associated with fracking.

What Restrains Radical Progress?

First, a pattern of belief that it’s more dangerous to disappoint shareholders than to face the consequences of climate change and the balance sheet. Globally, oil and gas companies have trillions of dollars of oil and gas reserves on their balance sheet. They make money by moving those reserves off the balance sheet and using them to generate revenue.

There’s so much oil and gas on the balance sheets of energy companies that Paul Gilding, author of The Great Disruption, estimates that if we really want to prevent the earth from warming an average of two degrees, we must leave 90% of those reserves in the ground – and write off their value, resulting in a huge loss for those oil and gas companies.

What We Need

We need braver managers like Paul Polman, Unilever CEO, who declare unequivocally that if your concern is short-term profits, invest your money in another company.

I give Shell a lot of credit for facilitating the conversation we had. Dialogue always precedes change. At the end of the day I am fearful that history will judge them and us quite harshly. We know there’s a brick wall in front of our car. We devote endless hours debating how to apply the brakes. Do we tap them? Do we ease off the gas while we tap on the breaks? As the wall approaches, there remains certainty that we will crash. The only question is how fast we’ll be going when we hit the wall. Collectively, we just don’t seem to have the will to turn the car around.