Month: May 2023

Project Name: Charco Bendito

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Welcome to our series aimed at spotlighting BIER projects. As part of our Member and Stakeholder spotlight series featuring the individual leaders within BIER member companies and stakeholder organizations, our project spotlight series highlights BIER member companies and stakeholder organizations involved in the innovative Charco Bendito project.

Learn how these practitioners and their companies have collaborated to develop and implement this innovative, first-of-its-kind, basin-level watershed initiative addressing three main goals: water accessibility, quality, and availability. Gain insights into key learnings and what inspires each of them to advance environmental sustainability in the beverage sector and collectively, overall.

What is the Charco Bendito watershed project? 

Charco Bendito, meaning “Blessed Pool,” is an innovative, first-of-its-kind watershed collaboration addressing shared water challenges in the Municipality of Tlajomulco de Zuniga, Jalisco Mexico, a part of the Lerma Santiago watershed in and around Guadalajara, Mexico.

Who is involved in the Charco Bendito watershed project? 

The project, initiated in 2020, has been designed and implemented by a team of individuals from BIER member local beverage operations in the Guadalajara area with technical support from Red Bio Terra and public relations support from Bardo Communications. This team works with local stakeholders to realize the project’s goals. Championing the project includes:

ABInBev – locally as ModeloBacardi – locally as Tequila PatronBeam Suntory – locally as Casa SauzaBrown-Forman – locally as Casa HerraduraDiageoKeurig Dr Pepper – locally as PeñafielPernod RicardGrupo Bimbo – Stakeholder – Non-BIER memberMars Stakeholder – Non-BIER member

What does the Charco Bendito project aim to achieve?

BIER companies collaborating on Charco Bendito are keenly aware of the water crisis; as such, project partners are working meticulously and proactively to propagate a water-secure future in the watersheds they operate in.

The project involves seven BIER members and two non-BIER members working collaboratively to conserve 355 hectares as a goal. To date, progress has been made with 125 restored hectares of important land to improve the quality and quantity of water in the region. Key activities include planting native vegetation to increase groundwater levels and reduce soil loss, improving water infrastructure, and increasing awareness about the importance of water to healthy communities.

What is the significance of the Charco Bendito watershed project? What makes it special?

There are many contributing factors that make Charco Bendito a particularly inspiring watershed project. At its core, Charco Bendito is unique because its collaboration is comprised of beverage industry competitors, the local community, and committed local partners, working collaboratively to address complex watershed challenges at the basin level.

Additionally, the governance and finance of the collaboration support the project’s green infrastructure restoration activities, including reforestation and conservation, and promoting equitable water access and connection for the population of San Lucas Evangelista by 2023 by investing in improving water quality through green infrastructure and water quality monitoring.

Municipal President from Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, Salvador Zamora Zamora, sums up the unique aspects of the project, “The local community is key to the success of this project, which is of great importance because it improves water conditions in an area of high cultural and ethnic significance. This project is unprecedented, and we acknowledge, and thank this group of companies for sharing a common vision.”

How to learn more about the Charco Bendito watershed project? 

Due to its innovative, collaborative, and results-generating nature, the Charco Bendito watershed project has been garnering much well-deserved attention. With presentations at the recent United Nations Water Conference and and an upcoming presentation at World Water Week on August 21, 2023, there are several ways to continue learning about the project, including:

Read more on BIER’s websiteVisit the Charco Bendito websiteFollow Charco Bendito on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedInListen to the Charco Bendito Podcast “Conversando el agua” on SpotifyView Charco Bendito on YouTubeRead: A corporate water strategy manifesto: We can and will do betterLearn how Charco Bendito aligns with BIER’s principles of World Class Water Stewardship

Finally, stay tuned for the upcoming Member and Stakeholder Charco Bendito-specific spotlights showcasing how these practitioners and their companies have collaborated on this innovative, first-of-its-kind, basin-level watershed initiative.

The swearing in of elected public officials is usually a cause for a well-attended celebration. However, the city of Monterey Park held a quiet, private ceremony in late January to swear in its new mayor, Jose Sanchez, and mayor pro tem, Thomas Wong. Even family members were restricted from attending out of respect for the tragedy that occurred just one week prior: a mass shooting during the city’s Lunar New Year Festival that killed 11 people and severely injured nine others at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio.

Wong, a policy engagement advisor for Southern California Edison for more than five years, was preparing for his new role with the city when he was called on to help coordinate police response, media inquiries and recovery resources after the shooting.

Since then, the community has been eager to connect in person. Recent public events in Monterey Park have had more attendance than usual.

“I think there’s a hunger and desire to have these community spaces so we can come together to heal, support and enjoy each other’s company. It has been helpful for us as a community to support each other by simply being physically in the same space,” Wong said.

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, a significant occasion for many cultures to convene and celebrate the community’s diversity following Lunar New Year.

At SCE, Wong builds relationships with large business associations, nonprofits and community leaders to advance clean energy, climate and environmental priorities and policies . Giving back to his community is a priority, and he has been involved in public policy long before working for the company as a Monterey Park City commissioner and a San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District board member.

During SCE’s 17th annual AAPI Heritage Month Celebration, Wong presented the Community Impact Award to Brandon Tsay for confronting and disarming the gunman during the shooting at the nearby Lai Lai Dance Studio. Tsay has since focused on turning the tragedy into positive action and impact for the Monterey Park and AAPI community.

“The Brandon Tsay Hero Fund is to rebuild and heal after this tragedy, so I’ve partnered with the Asian Pacific Community Fund to develop a couple of projects and initiatives to draw awareness and make an impact in the AAPI community,” Tsay said.

The work that we do at SCE is personal to me. We’re committed to enabling the state’s efforts to reduce emissions and improve air quality. We’re leading the transformation of the electric power industry focusing on clean energy, the grid of the future and customer choice. SCE recognizes that the progress toward a clean energy future will be successful only if it is equitable and accessible for everyone, including our most vulnerable communities.”

Larry Chung, SCE Vice President

The celebration also recognized the Asian Business Association with the Gwen Moore Diversity Award, Asian Pacific Community Fund and Asian American Professional Association with the Community Partnership Award. Larry Chung, SCE vice president of Local Public Affairs, presented GreenWealth Energy with the Clean Energy Champion award for its partnership with SCE’s Charge Ready program.

Chung began his career in government promoting electric vehicle charging infrastructure years ago when EVs were more of a concept than reality.

“The work that we do at SCE is personal to me. We’re committed to enabling the state’s efforts to reduce emissions and improve air quality. We’re leading the transformation of the electric power industry focusing on clean energy, the grid of the future and customer choice,” Chung said. “SCE recognizes that the progress toward a clean energy future will be successful only if it is equitable and accessible for everyone, including our most vulnerable communities.”

Learn more about Edison International’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in its annual DEI Report.

Click here to view a video of the AAPI Month Celebration.

Lenovo’s Product Diversity Office was formed in 2020 to ensure that Lenovo’s emerging technologies work for people of all backgrounds and abilities. While the team works to eliminate bias, they also look for improvements that provide a competitive user experience for people with disabilities. “At every meeting, I emphasize that it’s the responsibility of all Lenovo employees to consider the perspectives of our diverse customer base whenever we evaluate a product or make a design recommendation,” shared Ada Lopez, Manager of the Product Diversity Office (PDO). “We don’t always have users testing product accessibility in person with us, but the consideration of our users’ diverse abilities and needs is ever-present.”

The team recently heard from one such user, Brent Skinner, a software engineer who has faced a lifetime battle with progressively worsening visual impairment (VI).

Brent’s vision challenges began early. “I had my first pair of glasses when I was nine months old,” he says. “My eyes weren’t focusing properly so the doctors used prisms to precisely direct the light onto my retinas.” When asked how his parents managed to keep a pair of unwieldy goggles on their baby, Skinner jokes, “I couldn’t talk at that stage, but I provided my parents with a lot of informative and unignorable user feedback: I screamed and cried every time they took the glasses off.”

Doctors eventually diagnosed Brent with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative disease that has slowly but inexorably eroded his ability to see. “I have blind spots that my brain fills in,” he says. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t fill them in with what’s actually there. I used to tell people that I could see a paper clip across the room, but I might trip over an elephant if I tried to walk over and pick it up.”

During the early stages of his 34-year career with Kodak and its subsidiaries, the impact of the disease was minimal. “My eyes were getting worse, but it was happening so slowly that I just kept making small adaptations,” he says. Indeed, his decision to begin using a Lenovo Yoga 730 instead of his prior PC was motivated by the need for better accessibility.

“First, the Yoga’s touch screen was a huge help,” he says. “On the other PC I was having a hard time locating the cursor or the pointer. That may not seem like a big issue to sighted users but finding that thin blinking light can be enormously problematic and frustrating for the visually impaired. I was wasting a ton of energy I might have devoted to my job simply trying to find the place where I should start typing and resume working. When you’re developing creative ideas and getting into a flow, stopping for mundane reasons like finding the pointer is intolerably disruptive. For someone with normal vision, this is like having the computer shut down every couple of minutes. How effective are you going to be under these conditions?”

With a characteristically mischievous grin, he adds, “Who knows how many potential Nobel Prize winning ideas slipped through my fingers as I was trying to track down that inconspicuous pointer!”

A second accessibility plus was the placement of the power button, which sits alone on the side of the Yoga keyboard so it cannot be confused with anything else. “Again, this might seem trivial to sighted users, but it isn’t,” Skinner says. “I recently used a friend’s non-Lenovo PC. I had to have a sighted user help me turn it on because their power button is in the top row of the keyboard—between the Delete key and the Page Down key. That can cause all manner of headaches. It may be a simple fix. But I want to work with a company that cares enough about inclusive design to make that fix.

“I’ve noticed that Lenovo’s ThinkPad has a similarly clear design,” he adds. “In that case the power button is set off to the right of the keys, and it’s the only round button on the keyboard, so the user can’t miss it.”

“The third accessibility feature that served me well was the backlit keyboard,” Brent says. “Obviously, this won’t help someone who is blind, but as my eyes got worse, being able to illuminate the keys and adjust the brightness level was extremely helpful: it increased the contrast between the keys and the rest of the keyboard. Again, there isn’t going to be one set of interventions that works for all VI users. It’s a matter of providing the right support at the right time to meet the individual’s specific needs. And in a degenerative disease, those needs are going to change over time—sometimes drastically.”

“The fourth accessibility feature was the Yoga’s on-screen keyboard,” Brent says. “It provides a fallback solution when the user’s eyes are no longer acute enough for the backlighting to work. The bigger keys and better contrast enabled me to keep working efficiently during this stage of my downward trajectory. A PC with a standard keyboard would have been essentially unusable at this point.”

After all the accessibility features, Brent adds that “The Lenovo computer was simply a better and more economical machine. I’d have switched even if my eyes were perfect. It has more power and a faster processor with quicker data retrieval. I spend hours compiling code, and the Yoga has made my work more efficient. Back then the Yoga also supported USB-C connections, and while my other PC did not. The USB-C connections allowed me to daisy chain peripherals together in ways that I needed. I also like having a solid-state drive, and the RAM was extremely affordable. A sighted coworker enthusiastically endorsed the Yoga, so I felt confident purchasing it simply as a computer upgrade. I’ve never been tempted to switch back!”

Over the past year, Brent’s vision has continued to deteriorate. He is now restricted to a mere two degrees of central vision (essential for reading and recognizing faces) with an acuity of 20/200, which meets the definition of “legally blind” and means that what a normally sighted person can see at 20 feet Brent sees as if he were 200 feet away.

“I’m new at being blind,” he says stoically. “I haven’t developed the skills and intuitions that someone would have if they’d been blind since infancy. I don’t read braille, for example, and I’m not yet adept with screen readers and other tools. But I’m speaking with one of the Lenovo PDO’s accessibility consultants about the problems I’m encountering, and the solutions Lenovo offers. I’m encouraged that he’s willing to address my questions and listen to my suggestions and feedback.”

“At the end of the day, I’m looking for a hardware company that cares enough about blind users to provide us with the technology we need to stay productive,” he concludes. “Based on my experience, Lenovo is that company.”