Today’s energy system has become a liability we can no longer afford. As dependence on oil and gas restrains the response to Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine, scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this week issued yet another urgent warning that society is running out of time to avoid dangerous climate change caused […]

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MOM DETECTIVE answers a question from a member in Maine: "What is currently being done at the federal and state level to outlaw PFAS (forever chemicals)?"

When you think about harmful chemicals, you might imagine a hazardous waste site or contamination in water. But toxic chemicals also lurk in the food we eat and products we use every day. The issue of toxic chemicals in products, namely beauty and personal care products, is particularly personal for me. I grew up getting […]

When you think about harmful chemicals, you might imagine a hazardous waste site or contamination in water. But toxic chemicals also lurk in the food we eat and products we use every day. The issue of toxic chemicals in products, namely beauty and personal care products, is particularly personal for me. I grew up getting […]

Safer beauty products aren’t reaching everyone. We need clean beauty justice.

When you think about harmful chemicals, you might imagine a hazardous waste site or contamination in water. But toxic chemicals also lurk in the food we eat and products we use every day.

The issue of toxic chemicals in products, namely beauty and personal care products, is particularly personal for me. I grew up getting hair straightening treatments, starting at the age of 12.

I didn’t know then that this routine was putting my health on the line: Beauty and personal care products marketed to women of color often contain more toxic chemicals than those marketed to white women.

What these ingredients do to our bodies

Consider this:

• In one study, Latina women who used skin lightening creams had up to 30 times higher levels of mercury in their bodies.
• The levels of diethyl phthalate, a common fragrance ingredient, and methyl paraben, a preservative, are 1.8 times and two times higher in African Americans, respectively.
• Ingredients in some hair care products commonly used by Black women, such as hair lotion, leave-in conditioners, root stimulators and hair oil, have been found to contain ingredients that disrupt hormonal activity.
• There is a 40% greater risk of early onset periods — an indicator for heightened breast cancer risk — for women who used hair oil or hair perm treatments as children.

The color of your skin or the texture of your hair shouldn’t put you at greater risk of exposure to toxic chemicals.

Bringing attention to what beauty justice means

The toxic beauty inequity has flown under the radar for far too long, which is why educators, community advocates and clean beauty influencers are speaking out.

Public health researchers are expanding the body of knowledge around the links between certain toxic chemical exposures and disease, as well as root causes.

For instance, one recently published article explains how one’s exposure to toxic chemicals through personal care products can be driven by where you live, where you work and cultural norms.

Organizations like the Resilient Sisterhood Project are helping Black women understand reproductive diseases that disproportionately affect them, the links to chemical exposures and opportunities for action. And beauty influencers are leveraging their platforms to build awareness among beauty enthusiasts.

But to achieve clean beauty justice, we need policymakers and companies to respond to this pressure and drive real change in the beauty industry.

‘Clean beauty’ efforts neglect women of color

The law regulating the safety of cosmetic products in the U.S. hasn’t had a major update since 1938.

Efforts to overhaul cosmetics safety legislation continue, but in this vacuum, some companies like Credo, Sephora and Target have committed to sell beauty products without harmful ingredients and with lower environmental footprints — what publicly has been referred to as “clean beauty.”

While these efforts are definitely a step in the right direction when it comes to cleaning up the beauty aisle, they are not inclusive: The majority of clean beauty products are currently geared toward affluent white women even though women of color are bearing the brunt of toxic exposure in beauty products.

Here’s what companies can do right now

Putting an end to this toxic reality requires getting brands and retailers to put racial equity front and center in their clean beauty efforts.

Companies can and must ensure that their “clean” claims describe beauty and personal care products that are made with the safest possible ingredients and have the lowest possible environmental impacts that the market can offer today.

And, they need to ensure that clean beauty products are available, accessible and affordable for every single customer, regardless of race.

Companies can do this by ensuring their chemicals policies target common products marketed to women of color for faster safety improvements and more ingredient transparency, educating their suppliers on how to create safer products and directing retailers and brands to safer ingredients.

Beauty should not cost us our health. We need clean beauty justice.

 

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Donate to support this work $35 $50 mmelendez April 6, 2022 - 01:06

Last week, I spoke among tech, business and environmental leaders who are bringing bold solutions to the forefront of the climate crisis. Katharine Hayhoe, a leading climate scientist, kicked off Techonomy Climate with a clear directive: “Every bit of warming matters. And every action matters.” Here’s my view of the state of climate tech. 1. This is […]

Written by Elizabeth Bechard

Indigenous communities and communities of color are disproportionately affected by the harms of air pollution, and often excluded from the health benefits of environmental progress.

5 takes on the future of climate tech

Last week, I spoke among tech, business and environmental leaders who are bringing bold solutions to the forefront of the climate crisis. Katharine Hayhoe, a leading climate scientist, kicked off Techonomy Climate with a clear directive: “Every bit of warming matters. And every action matters.”

Here’s my view of the state of climate tech.

1. This is the era of climate innovation. A decade ago, one of our greatest challenges was collecting data to make the economic, social and environmental case for climate action. Today, the challenge is getting stakeholders — business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors and policymakers — to act on the data and put forth solutions that drive down carbon pollution and build resilience. As Ryan Panchadsaram, co-author of Speed & Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now, put it: “We don’t need more science or more reports. We need the now and the new.” Many of the solutions needed to tackle our climate crisis already exist. We need to deploy them at scale, while investing capital into those areas where innovation is still needed.

2. We need to transform entire systems collaboratively. Reducing the climate footprints of individual companies and people is insufficient to drive change at scale. Delivering net zero carbon pollution by midcentury requires transforming entire systems. Hayhoe refers to this as taking into account our “carbon shadows,” advising individuals and companies to use their voices to advocate change in communities, across global supply chains and entire industries. The biggest environmental challenges can’t be conquered alone. Private-public sector partnerships and non-traditional collaborations are key to delivering impact at a transformative scale.

3. Equity must be at the heart of climate action. “Climate justice is the social justice issue of our time,” my colleague Heather McTeer Toney, VP of community engagement at EDF, told the audience. Devising inclusive and equitable solutions is imperative. But for those solutions to be effective, we need the voices of those who have experienced climate inequities represented. “Where are all the people who are being impacted in the room?” Suzanne DiBianca, Chief Impact Officer & EVP of Corporate Relations at Salesforce recalled asking. Entrepreneurship happens at the local level, creating opportunities for community-led solutions. Native Renewables, for example, provides clean power to homes on Navajo and Hopi reservations.

4. Good policy drives innovation. Strong public policy can help deliver emission reductions at the speed and scale needed to avoid catastrophic consequences of climate change. “You need smart policies and courage if you're going to tackle climate change ambitiously…. Smart policy works to accelerate clean solutions,” said Catherine McKenna, former Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Canada, and founder of Climate and Nature Solutions. The climate crisis has been, and will continue to be, confronted by policy obstacles. But there are also a lot of opportunities, like the new bipartisan infrastructure law, which includes funding to pilot new clean energy technologies, and the major clean energy tax credits Congress is considering right now. EPA is taking aggressive action on methane regulations and fuel standards. Meanwhile, businesses can use their political influence to accelerate climate policy.

5. Climate tech investment is booming. More than 600 climate tech startups raised over $60 billion in the first half of 2021 alone — a 210% increase from the prior year. That influx of capital is having two impacts: It’s driving down the green tech cost curve and making investments in climate tech look less risky. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s new rules for how publicly traded companies need to report the risks to their businesses from climate change could accelerate climate tech investing further. Looking ahead, investors can provide more opportunities for companies to unlock, test and deliver breakthrough solutions.

Energy transition is the biggest business opportunity we have today. As climate continues to propel the innovation agenda, we can reinvent business models, disrupt the status quo and drive solutions at scale.

 

Act when it matters most

Every day more than 60 people sign up for news and alerts, to find out when their support helps most. Will you join them? (Read our privacy statement.)

Donate to support this work $35 $50 jbrown April 5, 2022 - 11:49

5 takes on the future of climate tech

Last week, I spoke among tech, business and environmental leaders who are bringing bold solutions to the forefront of the climate crisis. Katharine Hayhoe, a leading climate scientist, kicked off Techonomy Climate with a clear directive: “Every bit of warming matters. And every action matters.”

Here’s my view of the state of climate tech.

1. This is the era of climate innovation. A decade ago, one of our greatest challenges was collecting data to make the economic, social and environmental case for climate action. Today, the challenge is getting stakeholders — business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors and policymakers — to act on the data and put forth solutions that drive down carbon pollution and build resilience. As Ryan Panchadsaram, co-author of Speed & Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now, put it: “We don’t need more science or more reports. We need the now and the new.” Many of the solutions needed to tackle our climate crisis already exist. We need to deploy them at scale, while investing capital into those areas where innovation is still needed.

2. We need to transform entire systems collaboratively. Reducing the climate footprints of individual companies and people is insufficient to drive change at scale. Delivering net zero carbon pollution by midcentury requires transforming entire systems. Hayhoe refers to this as taking into account our “carbon shadows,” advising individuals and companies to use their voices to advocate change in communities, across global supply chains and entire industries. The biggest environmental challenges can’t be conquered alone. Private-public sector partnerships and non-traditional collaborations are key to delivering impact at a transformative scale.

3. Equity must be at the heart of climate action. “Climate justice is the social justice issue of our time,” my colleague Heather McTeer Toney, VP of community engagement at EDF, told the audience. Devising inclusive and equitable solutions is imperative. But for those solutions to be effective, we need the voices of those who have experienced climate inequities represented. “Where are all the people who are being impacted in the room?” Suzanne DiBianca, Chief Impact Officer & EVP of Corporate Relations at Salesforce recalled asking. Entrepreneurship happens at the local level, creating opportunities for community-led solutions. Native Renewables, for example, provides clean power to homes on Navajo and Hopi reservations.

4. Good policy drives innovation. Strong public policy can help deliver emission reductions at the speed and scale needed to avoid catastrophic consequences of climate change. “You need smart policies and courage if you're going to tackle climate change ambitiously…. Smart policy works to accelerate clean solutions,” said Catherine McKenna, former Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Canada, and founder of Climate and Nature Solutions. The climate crisis has been, and will continue to be, confronted by policy obstacles. But there are also a lot of opportunities, like the new bipartisan infrastructure law, which includes funding to pilot new clean energy technologies, and the major clean energy tax credits Congress is considering right now. EPA is taking aggressive action on methane regulations and fuel standards. Meanwhile, businesses can use their political influence to accelerate climate policy.

5. Climate tech investment is booming. More than 600 climate tech startups raised over $60 billion in the first half of 2021 alone — a 210% increase from the prior year. That influx of capital is having two impacts: It’s driving down the green tech cost curve and making investments in climate tech look less risky. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s new rules for how publicly traded companies need to report the risks to their businesses from climate change could accelerate climate tech investing further. Looking ahead, investors can provide more opportunities for companies to unlock, test and deliver breakthrough solutions.

Energy transition is the biggest business opportunity we have today. As climate continues to propel the innovation agenda, we can reinvent business models, disrupt the status quo and drive solutions at scale.

 

Act when it matters most

Every day more than 60 people sign up for news and alerts, to find out when their support helps most. Will you join them? (Read our privacy statement.)

Donate to support this work $35 $50 jbrown April 5, 2022 - 11:49

By Ilissa Ocko and Tianyi Sun A new report out this week from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is once again shedding more light on the climate crisis. According to the latest research, we’re on a dangerous trajectory that will result in significantly more warming than what policymakers aimed for. As part of the […]