Episode 203: Conversations about the State of Green Business
Plus, an interview with John Schulz, director of sustainability integration at AT&T, and outtakes from the State of Green Business webcast.
Week in Review
Commentary of some of this week's stories begins at 11:38.
- It’s time for Silicon Valley to start buying electric commuter buses
- Could abandoned agricultural lands help save the planet?
- New tool from Ellen MacArthur Foundation seeks to help companies with circularity
Features
Inside the State of Green Business 2020 (21:34)
Our 13th annual State of Green Business report (free download) examines key trends and metrics about corporate sustainability: how, and how well, companies are making progress in assessing and minimizing their impacts and embracing a range of strategies that move them forward in significant ways. This episode features conversations with six GreenBiz contributing writers, riffing on the following topics:
The shipping industry sails toward decarbonization — Heather Clancy, editorial director (21:34)
- The bots are coming (to ratings and reporting — John Davies, vice president and senior analyst (23:39)
- Last-mile transportation inches closer to home — Katie Fehrenbacher, senior writer and transportation analyst (27:08)
- Carbon markets get real on removal — Jim Giles, carbon analyst (32:33)
- Commercial buildings go all-electric — Sarah Golden, senior energy analyst (37:10)
- Companies look to nature-based solutions — Joel Makower, executive editor (41:04)
Carbon offsets, green loans and how CSOs should talk about risk (44:39)
Tune in for outtakes from this week's State of Green Business webcast, with Richard Mattison, chief executive of Trucost, a division of S&P Global. In these highlights, Mattison addresses why investors are scrutinizing the use of carbon offsets more closely, and how lending is shifting to reward carbon removal and other sustainable business initiatives. Plus, some advice on how sustainability professionals should talk about climate risks with senior leaders at their company.
AT&T's sustainability mantra: Help customers meet their carbon savings goals (53:48)
John Schulz, director of sustainability integration at AT&T, talks about progress toward his company's 10x Carbon Reduction Goal — which challenges AT&T to help its customers reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 10 times its own carbon footprint by 2025. "It gives us an incentive to reduce our own footprint and it also gives us an incentive, and really puts us on the hook to work with our customers and develop ways that our technologies can help them reduce theirs," he said. Tune in for an intriguing example involving food waste.
*Music in this episode by Lee Rosevere: "Trying Anything Once," "Southside," "Thinking It Over," Curiousity" and "As I Was Saying"
What's new at GreenBiz?
Make better use of your water data. New technologies such as machine learning can help utilities and wastewater facilities parse more information from SCADA control systems — predicting potential outages and averting other risks. Join subject matter experts from Atonix, a Black & Veatch company, for this interactive discussion at 10 a.m. Pacific/1 p.m. Eastern Jan. 28.
How does your community garden grow? Learn how to create a purpose-driven initiative that weaves together corporate, employee engagement and philanthropic ambitions. Register for this interactive session at 10 a.m. Pacific/1 p.m. Eastern Feb. 18.
Do we have a newsletter for you! We produce five weekly newsletters: GreenBuzz by Executive Editor Joel Makower (Monday), Transport Weekly by Senior Writer and Analyst Katie Fehrenbacher (Tuesday), VERGE Weekly by Executive Director Shana Rappaport and Editorial Director Heather Clancy (Wednesday), Energy Weekly by Senior Energy Analyst Sarah Golden (Thursday) and Circular Weekly by Director and Senior Analyst Lauren Phipps (Friday). You must subscribe to each newsletter in order to receive it. Please visit this page to choose the newsletters you want to receive.
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