Month: May 2023

Last year, McDonald’s Portugal debuted brand-new crew uniforms dreamed up by young local designers Cátia Abreu and Melanie Melo for more than 9,500 employees. While crew members were excited to don the new look, there was still the lingering question of what to do with the old uniforms – more than 18,000 of them – across the country.

Instead of throwing away the old uniforms, McDonald’s Portugal had a bright idea: What if they could give the garments a new life by transforming them into reusable tote bags? Better yet, what if the tote bags could be filled with care items and donated to the local Ronald McDonald House Charities Portugal for children and families in need?

Circular collaboration

From start to finish, the recycling process involved several key players from across McDonald’s Portugal’s supply chain. Logistics partner HAVI collected the more than 18,000 old uniforms from restaurants throughout the country, while Recutex – Reclaimed Textiles transformed the clothing through various stages, including sorting the materials and spinning new fabric without introducing any dyes. Finally, HR Group – the partner responsible for producing the new uniforms – created the reusable tote bags.

“This recycling project represents another way to realize the brand’s commitment to the environment and sustainability, finding more and more circular solutions that help respond to the concerns of today and in the future,” says Inês Lima, Managing Director of McDonald’s Portugal.

A new life for a good cause

But that’s not where the collaboration ends. Together with its partners, McDonald’s Portugal produced 5,500 reusable bags for RMHC Portugal that were packed with comfort kits and delivered to families and their children staying at seven hospitals across Portugal.

Continuing the momentum in 2023, McDonald’s Portugal extended the recycling project by producing even more reusable totes from the old uniforms – this time as a pilot merchandising campaign for MyMcDonald’s Rewards. Customers now have the chance to exchange MyMcDonald’s points for a cool, 100% recycled new tote bag through the app.

Thanks to a little circular ingenuity and a lot of collaboration, 18,000 old crew uniforms get a new life with children, families and brand fans alike.

Originally published on Modern Counsel

BY BRITTANY FARB GRUBER

Hailing from Guyana, Joan Clarke-Narcisse was first exposed to the field of law by her father who served as a judge in the South American country’s military.

“He would pick me up after school and I spent the afternoons either in his office or in the courtroom,” she remembers fondly. “I believe those formative years not only exposed me to the law and made me curious about pursuing a legal career, but also helped me appreciate the value of operating with integrity and ethics, as well as treating all people with dignity and respect.”

Today, Clarke-Narcisse serves as counsel and head of employment and immigration law at Aflac, a Fortune 500 company that provides supplemental health insurance products to millions of policyholders in the US and Japan. Although she immigrated to the United States at the young age of thirteen, the attorney carries many of the lessons she learned as a child growing up in Guyana.

Continue reading the full article here.

SHANGHAI, May 30, 2023 /3BL Media/ – 60 female students in China were recently awarded scholarships by Otis Elevator Company (Otis) in collaboration with China Women’s Development Foundation (CWDF).

The scholarship is intended for students majoring in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields at Tianjin University and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. Winners were selected based on their academic performance, extra-curricular credentials and passion for community impact.

The Otis Scholarship program was launched in 2021 with the goal of helping talented young women in China establish a solid foundation for entrepreneurship and employment. To date, 240 female STEM students have benefited from this program. The project supports Otis’ ESG goal to impact 15,000 students globally through STEM-focused programming across the learning and vocational training continuum to improve livelihoods and help build the workforce of tomorrow by 2030.  

“Otis is committed to nurturing the next generation of innovators. With diversity and inclusion embedded in our ESG goals, we invest in supporting female talent to pursue academic and professional achievements that will help build a sustainable talent pipeline,” said Sally Loh, President of Otis China.

With diverse backgrounds and goals, the Otis Scholarship recipients have a shared aspiration to leverage their scholarship experience for greater achievements. Some are determined to be professionally successful to provide a more prosperous retirement life for their parents in remote rural regions; some plan to register patents for their innovations; some are active volunteers passionate about social responsibility; and some want to give back to benefit younger women in their home villages.

About Otis

Otis gives people freedom to connect and thrive in a taller, faster, smarter world. The global leader in the manufacture, installation and servicing of elevators and escalators, we move 2 billion people a day and maintain approximately 2.2 million customer units worldwide – the industry’s largest Service portfolio. You’ll find us in the world’s most iconic structures, as well as residential and commercial buildings, transportation hubs and everywhere people are on the move. Headquartered in Connecticut, USA, Otis is 70,000 people strong, including 41,000 field professionals, all committed to meeting the diverse needs of our customers and passengers in more than 200 countries and territories. 

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May 30, 2023 /3BL Media/ – Ceres and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) released a new report today that provides a comprehensive review of the current resources available to households for post-disaster economic recovery in South Carolina and explores the extent to which innovative disaster insurance policy designs can fill gaps and bring greater equity to the state’s disaster recovery.

Addressing Financial Recovery Gaps for South Carolina Households: Models for Inclusive Disaster Insurance explores the current state of disaster-related financial recovery for South Carolina households; existing shortcomings and inequities in recovery fund distribution and access; and new types of disaster insurance policy structures that can make insurance more inclusive within the state. The report reveals several common challenges across all programs and sources for economic recovery, including:

Many sources of funds for recovery are insufficient or inaccessible, especially for low-income and communities of colorDisaster insurance can be unaffordable for low- and moderate-income householdsThere are often substantial delays in getting any recovery fundsThe needs of renters and rural areas are not well met

The report explores potential applications, benefits, challenges, and implementation considerations of two insurance designs new to the U.S. residential market: microinsurance and group disaster insurance. Microinsurance is insurance designed with low-cost premiums and lower payouts, which provides affordable baseline disaster coverage. Group disaster insurance involves an intermediary institution between a group of households and the insurer; while the model can vary, the aggregation and pooling of services provides easier cost-sharing and wider take-up.

The research comes on the heels of “Inclusive Insurance for Climate-Related Disasters: A Roadmap for the United States,” a report written by Carolyn Kousky, Associate Vice President of Economics and Policy at Environmental Defense Fund, and Karina French, Manager, Climate Resilience Research at Environmental Defense Fund. Released in January 2023, the previous report demonstrates the national U.S. insurance industry’s inadequate coverage for climate-related disasters.

“Climate disasters are imposing increasing costs on households and our current approaches to financial recovery are leaving out certain populations and failing to cover all needs,” said Kousky. “While there is no silver bullet solution, there are innovative approaches that can be tailored to specific communities in order to improve their economic resilience. We look at two insurance-based approaches in this report. They will need to be adopted in tandem with other programs that reduce underlying risk and improve risk awareness.”

“This report provides South Carolina’s regulators and policymakers a realistic view of the benefits and opportunities associated with these new insurance models and should be used to create a long-term plan to improve regional disaster recovery outcomes,” said Steven Rothstein, managing director, the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets at Ceres. “While we looked specifically at South Carolina in this instance, states nationwide are facing very similar climate-related challenges. This report and the approaches it probes should be treated as case studies for state policymakers, regulators and insurers across the U.S.”

South Carolina has long suffered economic damage from both coastal and inland flooding, which are projected to increase with climate change in the coming years: Damaging flooding events on South Carolina’s coast are expected to occur around 10 times more often by 2050 than they do today. By 2100, more than 116,000 residential properties, concentrated around Charleston and the South Carolina Lowcountry, will experience chronic coastal inundation – meaning they flood at least 26 times per year – at an estimated cost of almost $53 billion.

The new report is authored by Kousky and French, as well as Xuesong You, Climate Research Economist at Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation.

About Ceres 

Ceres is a nonprofit organization working with the most influential capital market leaders to solve the world’s greatest sustainability challenges. The Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets is a center of excellence within Ceres that aims to transform the practices and policies that govern capital markets to reduce the worst financial impacts of the climate crisis. It spurs action on climate change as a systemic financial risk—driving the large-scale behavior and systems change needed to achieve a net-zero emissions economy through key financial actors including investors, banks, and insurers. The Ceres Accelerator also works with corporate boards of directors on improving governance of climate change and other sustainability issues. For more information, visit ceres.org and ceres.org/accelerator and follow @CeresNews.

About Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) 

One of the world’s leading international nonprofit organizations, Environmental Defense Fund (edf.org) creates transformational solutions to the most serious environmental problems. To do so, EDF links science, economics, law, and innovative private-sector partnerships. With more than 3 million members and offices in the United States, China, Mexico, Indonesia, and the European Union, EDF’s scientists, economists, attorneys and policy experts are working in 28 countries to turn our solutions into action.

Media Contacts:

Diane May, Ceres 
Dmay@ceres.org

Sommer Yesenofski, Environmental Defense Fund 
Syesenofski@edf.org