Month: March 2023

By Jessica Wells

Thinking about what’s possible, Laurel Meeks said, is one of her favorite parts of her job.

As director of renewable energy development, based in Charlotte, N.C., her team is responsible for adding battery storage in Duke Energy’s six states.

“It gets me excited every morning. Every day, we ask ourselves, ‘How do we get to that clean energy future?’” she said. “It’s going to take a lot of bright minds and strategic thinking to get to the future we know we’re going to realize.”

Batteries will help Duke Energy add significantly more carbon-free energy sources, like solar, while improving reliability in a cost-effective way. By 2035, the company expects to have 30 gigawatts (GW) of renewables on its system and plans to accelerate its investment in batteries to support these resources and its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Meeks was raised in North Carolina by parents who are also interested in making energy more sustainable. They own a company that performs energy audits and install insulation and sealing. She worked with them, earned two degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and continued with a career in sustainable energy.

She joined Duke Energy four years ago and said the role is the perfect combination of her interests.

“Energy is a resource we all count on. We need it to power our lives. We need it to power our communities and economy,” Meeks said. “It’s an area that’s undergoing rapid transformation, and we need to transform to become more sustainable as an industry. That sustainability aspect really keeps me going in my role every day.”

Meeks used green and orange markers on a whiteboard to sketch how batteries benefit the grid.

Like the batteries in your phone or laptop, the ones connected to the energy grid allow operators to charge the grid when power plants are generating more electricity than needed. Then, when customers need more energy than power plants are producing, the battery will be ready.

“It’s a balancing mechanism,” she said.

Batteries will be more important as Duke Energy and other companies add renewables because they will help smooth the swings in generation from intermittent sources like solar.

“(Solar) only produces when the sun is up, so you can use battery energy storage to charge during that time – from clean energy resources – then dispatch when customers need to turn on their lights and their coffee machines,” she said, “for instance, during winter mornings and evenings when the sun is not shining.”

This growing importance is why Duke Energy and others are exploring advanced battery technologies that address two major challenges – duration and cost. For example, Duke Energy is testing a battery technology that can store and discharge electricity up to three times longer than today’s technology.

But batteries can do more than store energy. In addition to being a backup source of power, batteries can help strengthen the grid by managing the flow of electricity. The swings in solar generation as the sun shifts causes fluctuations in voltage and frequency, which can result in flickering lights or power outages. Grid-connected batteries can stabilize it.

“Grid operations are complex,” she said, “so we’re adding more renewables and less carbon while maintaining the same affordability and reliability that customers count on.”

Meeks recently worked on Duke Energy’s most advanced solar-and-battery microgrid, in Hot Springs, N.C.

The 2-megawatt solar installation is paired with a 4.4-megawatt battery that provides backup power and reliability for the remote mountain town of 500 people in Pisgah National Forest.

Hot Springs receives electricity from power lines that run through about 10 miles of rugged terrain. That means there are limited options for rerouting electricity and frequent, extended outages until repairs are made.

“Duke Energy has numerous smaller microgrids on our system, but this is our first microgrid that can power an entire small town if its main power line experiences an outage,” said Jason Handley, general manager of Duke Energy’s Distributed Energy Group.

The Hot Springs microgrid, Meeks said, will help the team continue to learn how to integrate similar systems in Indiana and Florida.

As part of its net-zero carbon emissions goal, Duke Energy plans to have nearly 30 gigawatts of energy storage operating by 2050. Much of that will be battery storage.

Meeks’ team is continuously looking for potential battery sites to make that goal a reality. Once they find a site that meets environmental and logistical requirements, her team takes the project from construction to completion.

It requires working with residents and teams from across the company including engineering, construction, grid operations and planning.

“It takes a creative mindset,” she said. “You’re never static in your role if you’re working in the energy industry today.”

As the investments in grid modernization, renewable energy and emerging technologies like batteries grow, Meeks said she would encourage others – especially women – to consider a career in energy.

She looks forward to finding new sites to deploy batteries but also the idea of reimagining retired coal-fired power plants as new homes for batteries and microgrids. These sites could be a good fit for new, carbon-free power sources since they already have a community familiar with the company and infrastructure to transmit electricity, which means lower construction costs.

“It’s a really exciting concept to not only reimagine the grid of the future but reimagine the sites that have been utilized traditionally for power plants as a part of the clean energy transition,” she said. “We really are planting the seeds of the future.”

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Mindy and Justin Jefferson live with their four children on a 1,400-acre File Family Farms in Bond County, Illinois, that’s been part of her family for five generations.

In many ways, their farm serves as a model in their region thanks to the family’s climate-friendly approach to cultivating crops through practices known as strip-tilling and no-tilling. Both reduce the labor and energy needed to grow corn and soybeans, and their methods limit the amount of carbon released by breaking up the soil through traditional tilling.

Between seasons, they plant cover crops — grasses, legumes, oilseed radishes or cereal ryes — that aren’t traditionally grown for sale. Cover crops limit erosion, keep valuable nutrients from blowing away and even help reduce the frequency of some pests. Think of it as a living mulch.

“We get really excited to think that some of the things that we’re doing on our farm if they were implemented on other farms, could be a huge part of solving the problem of climate change.” 
Mindy Jefferson, Owner of File Family Farms LLC

Beyond the good it does for the soil, cover crops can also reduce the amount of money farmers spend on fertilizers and pest control, which is as good for the bottom line as it is for the soil.

What holds some farmers back from enjoying cover crops’ potential long-term and financial benefits are the upfront costs and the lack of financial incentive to plant something that doesn’t generate revenue.

The U.S. government is trying to incentivize the practice through grants that would encourage farmers to adopt the practice. Recent USDA data shows that farmers reported planting 15.4 million acres of cover crops in 2017, which marked a 50-percent increase compared to 2012. The government wants to double the number of corn and soybean acres using cover crops by 2030.

What else is changing is how companies like CoverCress are bioengineering crops planted between seasons that give farmers a financial incentive to use them in addition to the proven benefits to their soil.

“It’s about turning a species that pretty much was a weed into something that can produce oil and therefore biodiesel, and therefore sustainable aviation fuel with a much lower footprint compared to the other alternatives.”

Leo Bastos, SVP Global Commercial Ecosystems at Bayer

People rarely think of field pennycress as a profitable crop. It’s more or less a weed found along roadsides. However, it has potential as a winter oilseed crop that farmers could plant between seasons and sell. Doing so could decrease nitrogen loss, help store carbon in the soil and improve soil health, while its seeds produce oils used in biofuel production and high-protein meal for animal feed.

“CoverCress can grow during a time of year where you’re not growing anything, you’re not using new land, you’re not using new equipment or new resources, and you are utilizing a lot of the available nutrients that are left over from prior crop,” said geneticist Ratan Chopra, vice president of research at CoverCress.

Mark Messmer, nearing his retirement, was brought into the startup that would later become CoverCress to help develop the idea.

There were challenges to making it viable for farmers due to the early limitations of technology. Messmer said his early field research resembled traditional breeding, using 900 varieties of pennycress collected from around the country. The company hired geneticist Chopra from the University of Minnesota to help domesticate pennycress and allow it to grow within current Midwestern crop cycles.

For farmers like the Jefferson family, eco-friendly farming isn’t just about preserving the climate. It’s also about ensuring the soil they farm today is there when the next generation takes over.

“I’m optimistic that we can change because of the people. I don’t have to look far,” Justin said. “My kids are already changing the mindset that I have and opening my mind to different resources, to different ways of thinking about what the solution to this problem might be and the stuff that I should know. Sometimes it takes somebody else’s eyes, like my children, that I can listen to hear some of those replies and answers.”

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Two athletes sit facing one another on gym mats inside the Suncor Community Leisure Centre, better known as Mac Island by those who live in Fort McMurray, Alta. They don’t wear uniforms or protective gear, but they are about to enter a battle of strength and endurance. They lock fingers, brace themselves and begin to pull with all their might as they compete in the finger pull event at the 2023 Arctic Winter Games (AWG).

For Katelyn Fujii and Roderick MacDonald, a husband and wife volunteer duo with the 2023 AWG, watching the finger pull—a traditional Dene game used to strengthen fingers in preparation for the fishing season—was an enlightening experience.

“How would you even train for that?” says Roderick, a contract coordinator in Mining and Upgrading at Suncor’s Base Plant. “It was neat to watch these sports that I didn’t know existed.”

Both the AWG and the Dene Games, which were part of the AWG, attracted 2,000 athletes from countries in the circumpolar north including Alaska, Northern Alberta, Yukon, Nunavut, Nunavik, Northwest Territories, Greenland, Finland and Norway to the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo (RMWB) to compete in 21 sports ranging from alpine skiing to two foot high kick.

“It was great to see so many people visit our community and come together for the games,” says Katelyn, who is pension coordinator at Suncor and ran the merchandise stores for the games. “One of our merchandise booths was near the front door of the Suncor Leisure Centre, so we saw people’s faces light up when they entered the building. Mac Island is an incredible facility and many of the athletes and their families don’t have access to such facilities.”

Put a pin in it

Pin collecting and trading was a favourite activity among athletes, spectators and volunteers alike. Both Katelyn and Roderick were able to hold on to some unique pins including a Suncor pin.

“The Orange Shirt pin is one of my favourites,” explains Roderick. “I went to the Generations of Lost: Healing the Legacy of Residential Schools exhibit. While there, I was given different pieces of string to braid together—I put my Grade 3 friendship bracelet-making braiding skills to the test and learned more about residential schools. Once the braid was done, I was given an Orange Shirt pin to attach to the braid.”

While Katelyn didn’t take part in the Orange Shirt pin activity, she did visit the exhibition that ran during the games and was surprised to learn how much she didn’t know about the long history of residential schools in Canada.

“I know the history of the residential schools, but I didn’t realize the depth of that history,” she admits. “To have that display lay out the lasting impacts and timelines of everything was a big eye opener for me.”

As the 2023 host society, the RMWB incorporated the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) Calls to Action into the games. As part of that, a Truth and Reconciliation pin series was created for the games: the TRC pin, Orange Shirt pin and the Red Dress pin were only available at events and activities honouring Truth and Reconciliation.

“From my perspective, the games were really successful,” says Katelyn. “The volunteers we encountered were absolutely incredible. You couldn’t have asked for a better group of people.” And Katelyn, as the merchandise committee chair, would know as she’s been working with the games committee for the last three years. Even her dad flew in from Ontario to volunteer for the games.

As seasoned volunteers, Katelyn and Roderick knew their time and efforts supporting the games would be rewarding, but they also came away with something else: education on the national story of the Indigenous athletes’ history.

Learn more about how Suncor employees contribute to communities and support the causes that are important to them.

PORCARI (LU), Italy /3BL Media/ – Sofidel, one of the world’s leading paper groups for the production of paper for hygienic and domestic use known particularly in Italy and Europe for its Regina brand, has again this year received Platinum recognition from EcoVadis for its approach to sustainability and therefore confirming its place among the top 1% of companies in its sector worldwide.

Founded in 2007 and now operating in more than 150 countries, EcoVadis is among the world’s largest providers of corporate sustainability assessments. More than 100,000 companies worldwide use its platform, which is also one of the benchmarks for large retail chains.

The EcoVadis sustainability risk and performance assessment is based on globally-recognized standards – including the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the United Nations Global Compact, and ISO 26000 – and is overseen by an international scientific committee. Environment, Labor and Human Rights, Ethics, and Sustainable Procurement are the four macro-areas covered by the analyses.

In its benchmark category (Manufacture of other articles of paper and paperboard), Sofidel achieved ratings above the average for the companies assessed, with outstanding results for Environment and Sustainable Procurement. A combination that has allowed the company to obtain Platinum recognition, the highest level EcoVadis rating.

“Sustainability ratings are a very useful tool in addressing the path of ecological transition,” commented Francesco Pastore, Sofidel Chief Marketing & Sales Officer. “For Sofidel, this confirmation of the Platinum rating from EcoVadis is important because we once again see the quality of our efforts recognized from the outside, and because it is a valuable aid in transparently and comparably sharing what we are working on and the results we have achieved.”

The Platinum rating from EcoVadis adds to Sofidel’s recent placement in the Leadership band of the Carbon Disclosure Project’s (CDP) Climate Change 2022 and Forests 2022 ratings for its commitment to combating climate change and deforestation.

On the environmental front, Sofidel is committed to reducing the impact of its activities on natural capital by encouraging the transition to a low-carbon, renewable energy-oriented economy. The Group’s 2030 emission reduction targets of -40% per ton of paper by 2030 compared to the 2018 base year were approved by Science Based Targets (SBTi) as consistent with the reduction standards required by the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2°C.

Download the press release

About The Sofidel Group

The Sofidel Group, a privately held company owned by the Stefani and Lazzareschi families, is a world leader in the manufacture of paper for hygienic and domestic use. Founded in 1966, the Group has subsidiaries in 12 countries – Italy, Spain, the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, Greece, Romania, and the USA – with more than 6,400 employees. A member of the UN Global Compact and the international WWF Climate Savers program, the Sofidel Group considers sustainability a strategic imperative and is committed to promoting sustainable development.  For more information, visit www.sofidel.com.       

Media Contact:  

Brianna Fitzpatrick

Mulberry Marketing Communications

bfitzpatrick@mulberrymc.com 

West Columbia, South Carolina will welcome the first new house to be built on Monticello Street in nearly 60 years, thanks to Central South Carolina Habitat for Humanity, Aflac and other community organizations. For new homeowner, Jazenia, it’s more than a house. It’s a home built on promise, hope and the legacy of women.

On March 8, International Women’s Day, Aflac employees in Columbia joined Jazenia, her family and community leaders to celebrate the groundbreaking for her new home, a Habitat for Humanity Women Build project. Women Build empowers women, offers them the opportunity of affordable homeownership and puts a spotlight on equity. A Yale University School of Management study1 shows women pay more to buy a home and earn less when they sell it — and that “overall, gender differences in housing explain up to 30% of the gender gap in wealth accumulation.”

Amplifying equity, one nail at a time

Melody Hodge, director of Account Management at Aflac, is a longtime resident of West Columbia. At the groundbreaking celebration, Melody welcomed Jazenia and her family to the neighborhood and offered words of support and encouragement.

“As women, we are stronger than we realize, and with the help of friends, neighbors and organizations like these, we manage to find a way forward, even when every obstacle is thrown into our paths. It gives me hope to be part of events like these and part of organizations like Aflac and Habitat for Humanity that empower people to open gateways toward progress. It gives me hope because this is our chance to make a real, tangible difference in the lives of families, one home at a time. Thank you, Jazenia, for allowing Aflac to be part of your family story,” said Melody.

Before Jazenia was selected as a Habitat for Humanity homeowner, she immersed herself in the organization’s service projects so she could learn new skills, serve her community and help revitalize neighborhoods. Jazenia has logged more than 400 volunteer hours to build homes for others. Now, she will help build her own home and looks forward to teaching her children about the responsibility of home ownership.

Tearing down barriers to build walls 

Aflac employees will join Jazenia and others to build her new home in late March. With every wall they put up together, they’ll tear down barriers to new home ownership while shining a light on equity for women.

“Aflac is proud to support Habitat for Humanity’s efforts to provide affordable and equitable homeownership for women like Jazenia and her family,” said Bob Ruff, senior vice president, Aflac Group Voluntary Benefits. “On International Women’s Day, Aflac celebrates the contributions and accomplishments of women, and it reminds us of the importance of diversity and equality. Our Aflac team is honored to help build Jazenia’s home through sponsorship support and our many volunteers working alongside the great team at Habitat for Humanity.”

1 “The housing gender gap: Why women still face roadblocks in homeownership, home equity and home values” https://www.bankrate.com/home-equity/women-and-homeownership/ | Yale University School of Management study, “The Gender Gap in Housing Returns.” https://paulgp.github.io/papers/Gender_Gap_in_Housing_Returns.pdf

 

Aflac | WWHQ | 1932 Wynnton Road | Columbus, GA 31999

Z2300190 EXP 3/24 

 

On International Women’s Day, kate spade new york shared this CNBC segment of its CEO and Brand President Liz Fraser, speaking on the importance of mental health in women’s empowerment, a subject near and dear to its brand.

About kate spade’s Involvement with Mental Health Initiatives:

Our mission is to empower women and girls around the world by putting mental health at the heart of our social impact work. Our goal is simple: we’re committing to provide 100,000 women and girls with empowerment and mental health support by 2025.

Empowering Her Whole Self

Women’s mental health has long been underfunded, undervalued and under-acknowledged in empowerment work. We believe in the intersectional role a woman’s and girl’s mental health plays in her life and empowerment journey.

This year, we’re investing $5m dollars in women’s empowerment and mental health resources globally.

Learn more about kate spade’s holistic approach