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Edelman’s climate problem
Last summer, the big PR company Edelman faced a problem that no amount of spin could resolve. Kert Davies, the former head of research for Greenpeace who now leads the Climate Investigations Center,...
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Hershey’s, and the limits of certified chocolate
Silly me. I thought the world’s cocoa farmers, most of whom are poor, would surely benefit when global chocolate companies, including Hershey’s, Mars and Nestle, made major commitments to buy certified...
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We’re losing the climate battle. So we may need to harvest CO2 from the sky.
Carbon Engineering’s new plant in Squamish, BC The Guardian this week published my latest story about direct air capture of CO2, a topic that has fascinated me since the late 2000s. My 2012 Amazon...
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The fossil fuel divestment movement is failing. Except it’s not.
Harvard divestment activists sit in Despite all of the sound and fury set off by the campaign to divest fossil fuels — and there has been plenty — Bill McKibben, 350.org and their allies have persuaded...
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I’m sorry to inform you that your pet is bad for the planet
Aside from, perhaps, GMOs, few topics in the sustainable business arena are as emotional as pets. When my friend Erik Assadourian wrote a well-researched story for the Guardian last year asking whether...
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Amazon, Best Buy and the free rider problem
Gap, Nike and Walmart can police their global supply chains to outlaw child labor but what about discount retailers and no-name brands? McDonald’s can become a leader around animal health and welfare...
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Goldman Sachs, and the evolution of sustainable investing
Will socially-responsible investing (SRI) ever grow up? With roots in religious communities and the anti-war movement of the 1960s, SRI funds have long shunned investments in tobacco, alcohol, guns and...
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Turning CO2 from waste into an asset
It’d be nice if the world could be powered with zero-carbon energy but wishing it so doesn’t make it so. We’re going to be burning fossil fuels, for better or worse–actually, for better and worse–for...
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OS Fund: A venture fund that embraces big risks
A company that makes drones for humanitarian purposes, another that makes plant-based egg substitutes and still another that wants to mine asteroids for precious minerals would not seem to have much...
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How to divest fossil fuels, for the 99 percent
I’m all for the fossil-fuel divestment movement, at least as a way to start a conversation about climate change and build a movement. I’m undecided about whether it makes sense as an investment...
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COP out
I wish I could be optimistic about COP21, the climate negotiations coming to an end in Paris. I can’t. Even if the world’s countries keep their promises — known, in the mind-numbing argot of the UN as...
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Monsanto, and its critics
Have you heard? Monsanto is going on trial in The Hague for “crimes against nature and humanity, and ecocide.” The Organic Consumers Association had the story: The Organic Consumers Association (OCA),...
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The egg industry, scrambling
Hens are being freed from these cages If you, like me, have puzzled over the many labels on egg cartons — natural, organic, cage-free, pastured, free range — you might want to read my story about the...
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Goodbye to this blog
Nine and a half years ago, I started this blog with a post titled, simply, This blog. One thousand, two hundred and forty-three posts later — roughly two per week — I’m ending it. It has been a great...
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Please follow my writing about philanthropy, nonprofits and global development at Nonprofit Chronicles. Nonprofit Chronicles also has a Facebook page. You can also find me on Twitter.
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