Originally published by Upworthy
When Don Burckhardt donated blood at a Crews Subaru blood drive in Charleston, South Carolina, he had no idea his own life would be saved by it. The Red Cross worker told Burkhardt that his iron count was low and recommended he go to the doctor to get a full blood test done.
Shiru’s novel, plant protein-based fat ingredient, OleoPro™, works just like animal fat – without the negative environmental costs or health consequences. OleoPro™ reduces saturated fat up to 90% compared to commonly used structured fats, while enhancing the technical performance of alternative proteins.Shiru scientists relied on artificial intelligence to develop, launch and begin commercializing OleoPro™ in only a few months and for a fraction of the cost of “synbio 1.0” ingredients.After OleoPro™’s successful debut in March at a global food tech conference, Shiru will expand its partnership with Griffith Foods to leverage OleoPro™ to bring best-in-class alternative protein products to market.
ALSIP, Ill., July 25, 2023 /3BL/ – Shiru, an AI-powered discovery and development company for novel ingredients, has commercialized the first food ingredient developed using its patented artificial intelligence-powered discovery system.
In June of 2023, the biotech startup confirmed the commercial launch of OleoPro™, a novel, plant protein-based fat ingredient for use in a range of alternative protein food products. OleoPro™ enables up to a 90% reduction in saturated fat while enhancing technical performance in alternative meats when compared to commonly used, carbon-intensive and cardiovascularly damaging structured fats. OleoPro™ is self-standing; holds its shape at room temperature; browns when cooked; and delivers a juicy, fatty mouthfeel in plant-based meat applications.
The first commercial partner for OleoPro™ is Griffith Foods, a purpose-driven product development partner and global manufacturer of delicious, nutritious, and sustainable food-ingredient solutions. Founded in 1919, Alsip, Illinois-based Griffith Foods specializes in providing these solutions to the alternative protein, sauces and dressings, seasonings, and coating systems segments.
Shiru debuted OleoPro™ in March at a global food tech conference in a plant-based chicken karaage, developed by Griffith Foods’ corporate venture arm, Nourish Ventures. After overwhelmingly positive feedback from consumers and chefs, Griffith Foods became OleoPro™’s first revenue-generating customer – and Griffith Foods and Shiru then expanded their partnership to leverage OleoPro™ to bring best-in-class alternative protein products to market.
“One of the biggest barriers to making delicious, nutritious and scalable food is cost – specifically the burden of developing plant-based ingredients that perform exactly like their high-carbon animal analogs,” said Shiru CEO and founder Dr. Jasmin Hume. “Shiru’s pioneering use of artificial intelligence is collapsing the cost and time cycle of food innovation – and that’s why dozens of companies are looking to outsource development projects for key ingredients to our world-class team.”
Shiru: AI from the get-go
Shiru was founded in 2019 as a business-to-business synthetic biology company, helping multinational ingredient makers on deep R&D. The company has worked directly with global food conglomerates including CP Kelco, Puratos and more. Shiru has been using artificial intelligence and machine learning since its founding to drive down the cost of molecule discovery and scaleup, rapidly identifying the most high-functionality, commercializable, and natural proteins for food from a database of hundreds of millions.
To produce OleoPro™, Shiru’s biochemists and computational biologists used AI to scan and select nearly 10,000 formulations in less than three months. Then they determined the precise molecules that would combine to form an ingredient with the unique oil-holding protein scaffold of animal fat.
Shiru’s use of AI significantly accelerates the pace of synthetic biology, which combines engineering with biology to design and build new biological systems. Classical “synbio” tools include genetic engineering, DNA synthesis and cell engineering; combined with AI, synbio could revolutionize medicine, agriculture, and energy within a half decade.
“Synbio 1.0”-era technologies captured investors’ attention a decade ago, with billions invested toward the use of these tools to bring disruptive products to market. While this investment unlocked meaningful innovation, including the development of ingredients used by some of today’s most prominent alternative protein companies, the path to get there was both costly and time-intensive — and as a result, prices for alternative protein products remain stubbornly high.
“Instead of a half decade and more than a quarter billion dollars in R&D to ship a viable product, Shiru used AI to dramatically reduce the cost and time to market of an essential ingredient of plant-based meat to a matter of months and a few hundred thousand dollars – and the cost of protein discovery at Shiru continues to decline,” said Dr. Ranjani Varadan, Shiru Chief Scientific Officer. Previously VP of R&D at Impossible Foods, Varadan joined Impossible in 2011 as the team’s first scientist and led its protein discovery process for more than a decade.
“AI represents a step-function advance for synbio overall,” Varadan said, “and the key unlock to making sustainable proteins scalable and affordable.”
About Griffith Foods
Griffith Foods is the caring, creative product development partner helping food companies meet the evolving needs of consumers while sustaining the planet. As a family business for more than 100 years, Griffith Foods is known for true, collaborative innovation. We create delicious, nutritious, and sustainable foods that are better for people and better for the planet. Our people are united in advancing our purpose: “We blend care and creativity to nourish the world.” For more information, visit griffithfoods.com.
About Shiru
Shiru develops novel ingredients for food and consumer products. The company’s patented technology platform, Flourish™, leverages artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, and precision biology to rapidly generate insights and identify molecules that are natural, highly functional, and suitable for large-scale production. Shiru’s team of technology experts and CPG veterans are proud to be the hidden driver of products that are better performing, better for people, and better for the planet. Shiru is based in Alameda, California, and is backed by leading venture capital firms such as S2G Ventures, Lux Capital, CPT Capital, and Nourish Ventures.
For more information, visit www.shiru.com or contact info@shiru.com.
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Many of us are trying to go green, changing our behavior and lifestyles to reduce our impact on the environment. And our company is no different. Protecting the environment is a key part of our commitment to operating responsibly. We believe a healthy planet is essential to human and animal health, as well as to the sustainability of our business.
Going green can also enhance opportunities for product innovation and cost- and risk-reduction. And our efforts have been getting noticed. Members of our small molecule process research and development (SM PR&D) group have been honored recently for their achievements in developing groundbreaking green chemistry solutions.
“Our strategy is to provide innovative and transformative solutions — rather than incremental improvements to historical practices — to achieve our goals on sustainable manufacturing.”
– Kevin Maloney, Executive director, process chemistry, SM PR&D
2023 Peter J. Dunn Award for design of biocatalytic cascade
Merck was honored for the design of a biocatalytic cascade, a novel process using natural substances including enzymes to build molecular complexity while drastically reducing hazardous waste.
“Enzymes are the action heroes of biology — and with a little training, they can be the superheroes for chemistry, too.”
– Stephanie Galanie, Director, protein engineering, enabling technologies PR&D
2022 Green Chemistry Award for the development of a sustainable manufacturing process
This award — given by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — recognized our company’s development of a green and sustainable manufacturing process for large quantities of medicine while preventing millions of pounds of waste per year.
“It was more critical than ever that we develop the most green and sustainable processes, as well as invent new reactions to realize the ultimate synthetic route from sustainable raw materials.”
– Patrick Fier, Principal scientist, process chemistry, SM PR&D
This marks our sixth consecutive Green Chemistry Challenge Award and ninth overall.
Learn more
Green chemistry is just one way we help support a healthy planet. Our commitment to environmental sustainability focuses on improving operational efficiency, reducing environmental risks in our supply chain and lowering the environmental impact of our products and packaging. Read more about our new goals to achieve carbon neutrality across our operations by 2025.
Learn more about Merck’s Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) approach by visiting merck.com/company-overview/esg
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STAMFORD, Conn., July 25, 2023 /3BL Media/ – Webster Bank has been recognized by the Connecticut Green Bank for its outstanding partnership and support of Green Bank initiatives and their impact on the green economy in our communities.
Webster was cited for its support of residential and commercial solar photovoltaic (PV), Green Liberty Bonds, and the Green Bank’s Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy efforts. (C-PACE).
“Webster is proud to be recognized by Connecticut Green Bank for the initiatives that are designed to reduce our impact on the environment and to promote environmentally friendly projects and practices throughout our communities,” said Marissa Weidner, Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer at Webster. She added, “By financing loans for renewable energy, energy efficient components and environmental remediation, we further extend our commitment to the communities we serve.”
The 2022 Awards recognize key partners in the Green Bank’s dedicated network of contractors, developers, lending partners, community leaders, and home and building owners across the state. As a result of projects and partnerships like these, the Green Bank has helped create 66,000 clean energy projects since 2011.
“We are excited to honor this comprehensive group of our community members, and we are proud of their continued leadership and support,” said Bryan Garcia, President and CEO of the Green Bank. “Webster Bank has been a long-term partner of the Connecticut Green Bank bringing wind, solar, and fuel cell deployment in communities across the state.”
About Webster
Webster Bank (“Webster”) is a leading commercial bank in the Northeast that provides a wide range of digital and traditional financial solutions across three differentiated lines of business: Commercial Banking, Consumer Banking and its HSA Bank division, one of the country’s largest providers of employee benefits solutions. Headquartered in Stamford, CT, Webster is a values-driven organization with $75 billion in assets. Its core footprint spans the northeastern U.S. from New York to Massachusetts, with certain businesses operating in extended geographies. Webster Bank is a member of the FDIC and an equal housing lender. For more information about Webster, including our latest annual report, please visit our About page. To find our latest press releases, visit the Webster Newsroom.
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Smallholder farmers hold incredible potential on our journey towards global food security when they can access the modern agricultural solutions they need to increase their productivity, better their livelihoods and work more sustainably. That’s why we’re working directly with smallholder farmers around the world to make a massive impact, together.
In partnerships with public, private, and local organizations, we can address smallholder farmers’ needs holistically. Our commitment will help increase local food production, improve smallholder livelihoods, and contribute to reducing poverty in rural communities.
We are making a difference in smallholder farmers’ lives at multiple levels, ranging from, for instance, knowledge transfer in agricultural trainings to improved crop yields, more stable financial incomes from farm work or a better perceived livelihood for the farmer and his family – all directly correlated to our smallholder initiatives and measurable based on samples of farmer populations.
In line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we are committed to contribute to feeding the growing population while respecting planetary boundaries. We must not choose between improving livelihoods, food production and environmental sustainability. With the right initiatives we can address all sustainability aspects creating opportunities for smallholder farmers to prosper sustainably.
Social livelihood assessments
For smallholder farmers, two dimensions come to the forefront when they think of meaningful changes to their farm lives: crop yield performance and financial income collection based on good harvests and effective market linkages. By providing them with high-quality inputs, such as seeds and crop-protection products as well as customer-centric solutions to support their farm management across the planting cycle – be it in forms of trainings or digital support – we can have a direct impact on smallholder farmers’ livelihoods.
Besides the most obvious change in productivity and financial incomes that oftentimes prevail directly after one harvesting season, smallholder farmers’ voices have told us how they appreciate the change our initiatives have brought to their livelihoods. In our programs they have experienced a change in the way of farming, in how they perceive their quality of life and their well-being.
We have assessed farmers’ perception of selected programs with the help of third-party providers who are experts in the field. They listen to what farmers have to tell and provide us with actionable learnings on the type of change our interventions truly make.
Ansal Tomato Variety in Kenya
With a sample group of 418 smallholder farmers in Kenya growing our tomato seed variety Ansal, 60 Decibels performed an impact study demonstrating that 83% of the farmers perceived the value of Ansal Tomatoes to be ‘good’ to ‘very good’, with top value drivers being improved production, good seed quality, and resistance to pests and diseases. Most farmers appreciate higher yields, lower loss rates, and longer shelf life of Ansal tomatoes.
Overall, 86% mentioned increased crop production, 91% increased income, and 89% say their quality of life has improved with increased incomes, the ability to afford expenses, and purchase assets as top outcomes.
Read more about the impact of Ansal tomatoes:
60 Decibels Study on Ansal Tomatoes Kenya (PDF 3.88 MB)
Better Life Farming Program in India
With a sample group of 684 vegetable smallholder farmers working with Better Life Farming (BLF) in Uttar Pradesh/Jharkhand, India, 60 Decibels performed an impact study demonstrating that 81% confirm that BLF puts their interests first. Staff outreach and field demonstrations were the top reported motivation factors among farmers for joining the program. Most farmers feel more confident than before to invest in agriculture, due to the availability of good quality inputs, access to training, new information and techniques as well as the witnessed improved crop yield and quality.
Overall, 78% mentioned increased crop production, 72% increased income, and 71% say their quality of life has improved with increased incomes, the ability to afford expenses, and improved farm maintenance as top outcomes.
Read more about the impact of Better Life Farming:
60 Decibels Study on Better Life Farming India (PDF 5.54 MB)
DKsilos Program in Mexico/Honduras
With a sample group of 400 small-scale cattle ranchers working with DKsilos in Mexico and Honduras, 60 Decibels performed an impact study demonstrating that DKsilos has been successful in encouraging silage preparation, resulting in cost savings for the ranchers. 82% of them witnessed better cattle health, primarily improved cattle weight and milk quality/production. The quality of inputs and technical support drives satisfaction among cattle ranchers who point out consistent and frequent advice as well as knowledgeable and reliable advisors.
Overall, 69% mentioned increased livestock production, 68% increased income, and 67% say their quality of life has improved with increased incomes, greater corn yields, and healthier livestock as top outcomes.
Read more about the impact of DKsilos:
60 Decibels Study on DKsilos Mexico/Honduras (PDF 4.9 MB)
GeoPotato Program in Bangladesh
In Bangladesh GeoPotato is designed to support small-scale potato farmers by enabling preventive spraying and easier crop protection decisions. It is a geodata-driven early warning system for late-blight disease in potatoes, devised by Wageningen Plant Research, Terrasphere, mPower, Bayer and governmental institutions. A sample group of 275 small-scale potato farmers confirms the uniqueness of late-blight alert messaging: Around 90% of surveyed farmers could not easily find a good alternative in the market and consider the alert messages trustworthy. GeoPotato has also contributed to farmers’ resilience and recovery from climate shocks such as floodings or irregular weather patterns.
Overall, 86% mentioned increased crop production, 83% increased income, and 82% say their quality of life has improved with increased incomes, greater potato yields, and better disease prevention and management as top outcomes.
Read more about the impact of GeoPotato:
60 Decibels Study on GeoPotato Bangladesh (PDF 4.24 MB)
Environmental benefits
In the pursuit of improving their farm productivity, farmers are faced with the challenge of mitigating climate change effects and at the same time protecting the environment. Smallholder farmers are often the first to suffer from adverse effects of climate change. Any solution to smallholder farmers must therefore consider environmental sustainability and climate change resilience.
For instance, climate-resilient seed varieties or hybrid seeds can further minimize these risks and help smallholder farmers grow their yields in challenging climatic conditions. Our solutions enable them to maintain and improve soil health as the foundation of a productive and sustainable agriculture, and the introduction of innovative growing practices, as with directly seeded rice, combine economic opportunities for farmers with environmentally sustainable agricultural practices.
Smallholder farmers growing, for instance, our bean variety Moraleda as an intercrop for tomato cultivation are contributing to improve their soil’s health in India. Beans are commonly eaten around the world and are a rich source of fiber and B vitamins, as well as plant-based protein. In addition to the benefits for human health, bean cultivation has a potential positive impact on soil health through fixation of nitrogen levels in the soil, which is crucial for plant and crop health. In many parts of India, farmers previously used local cucurbits and gourds as an intercrop but were struggling due to lower yields, virus incidents, and a lack of market interest. With a better understanding of the benefits of intercropping with leguminous crops, many tomato and grape farmers began to implement the practices by replacing cucurbits and gourd crops with Moraleda pole beans.
“I am very happy that I am part of this, and I share this with my fellow farmer friends, so we are able to provide a stable income for our families”. Mr. Vijay, Malewadi, Baramati, Dist. Pune, West India
Read more about Smallholders and Vegetable Seeds | Bayer Global
Capacity building on safe use of agrochemical application
Through targeted training courses, we educate smallholder farmers on how to use our products both effectively and safely to maintain healthy plants and thereby increase the yield and quality of their harvested goods. The training courses convey contents such as safe handling of our products during use, transport, storage and disposal, the correct use of protective clothing, and first aid measures in the event of emergencies. Our objective is to continuously increase the outreach of our safe-use training activities. In 2022 we trained 2.7m smallholder farmers on the safe use of our crop protection products.
As part of the Better Life Farming Alliance’s training program, all smallholder farmers connected to a BLF center receive agronomy trainings at the nearby demonstration farm, including the safe use of agrochemicals. As per the lean data study performed by 60Decibels, 57% of the farmers trained reported to have applied ‘most’ or ‘all’ of the training information in their daily farming work.
Read more about Product Stewardship in the Agricultural Business | (bayer.com)
Reducing food loss on and beyond the farm
In India, it is estimated that 20 to 50% of food produced is lost post-harvest. The majority of the well over 100 million tons of perishable food produced is transported in unrefrigerated vehicles – in a hot climate. The typical three-day refrigerated journey from harvest to supermarket in Spain, for example can easily be a seven-day unrefrigerated journey in India.
As much as 40% of the tomatoes grown in India are lost before they can be sold – a significant loss of nutritional food as well as income for smallholder farmers. Determined to tackle this problem, a team of scientists and breeders from Bayer identified two key factors: shelf life and firmness. The newly commercialized Bayer varieties have a 12-to-14-day shelf life compared to the typical 5-to-7-day timeframe. They also deliver superior fruit quality, firmness, and disease resistance as well as greater adaptability for producing more in the hot summer months.
For example, a case study by Wageningen University reveals that only about 8-10% of the Bayer variety Ansal® produce was estimated to be lost in the post-harvest chain (versus estimated loss of 20-25% for a leading competitor variety for India), resulting in approximately 23% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions per kg of marketable crop.1
Bayer’s Vegetable Seeds portfolio aims to provide farmers with seed varieties that help minimize food loss at both the pre-harvest and post-harvest stages.
1 Based on product performance data from 2013-2017 from 65 Bayer internal trials and post-harvest data from 60 growers and 10 dealers and exporters for the south and west India markets.
Read more about Smallholders and Vegetable Seeds | Bayer Global
Nutrient Gap Initiative
The Nutrient Gap Initiative is our effort to enable access to vitamins and minerals to underserved communities. Through intervention, education, and advocacy, we can begin to reverse the cycle of malnutrition – helping people grow properly, raise healthier families, and lead better lives, with focus on the inclusion of women across the value-chain.
Essential vitamins and minerals come from food, a diet rich in fresh fruits, vegetables and grains, and supplementation. Bayer can impact both sides of the equation, with all divisions joining forces at the cross-roads of Bayer’s vision “Health for All Hunger for None.” The Nutrient Gap Initiative aims to improve access to essential nutrients for 50 million people by 2030, expanding its scope to include both safety-net supplementation and food.
As part of the initiative, Better Life Farming initiated pilots with 22 centers in Indonesia to bring access to healthcare closer to communities based on its reach into remote rural areas. Access to healthcare facilities can prove to be a challenge, with some smallholder farmers being as far as 1.5 hours away. Additionally, the family planning participation rate in these communities is relatively low, while the prevalence of stunting is high.
In addition to agricultural offerings, the local Better Life Farming agri-entrepreneurs, together with our local teams and NGO partners, distributed contraceptive products as well as samples of immune vitamins, and offered general and prenatal nutrition education. Through the Nutrient Gap Initiative, we have reached roughly 800,000 smallholder farmers and their families, combining the efforts across our Crop Science, Consumer Health and Pharmaceuticals divisions. We have also trained around 44,000 female farmers and farmers’ wives on family planning, self-care and stunting prevention with promising outcomes in terms of knowledge adoption1.
On average, 97% of participants said that self-care is important. When asked about what they knew about self-care, their level of knowledge increased by 15%. When asked about stunting, 72% of participants were knowledgeable versus 67% before start of the program. Most participants associated family planning with the number of children; this was indicated by how they defined Family Planning as ‘having two children is enough’. After the seminars, more participants defined Family Planning as ‘forming a healthy and prosperous family’.
We will pilot the expansion of services offered with access to nutritional solutions and education given that food security cannot be achieved without health equity.
1 Assessment reports by MercyCorps Indonesia, May 2022 January 2023
Read more about The Nutrient Gap Initiative | (bayer.com)
Originally published on Nielsen News Center
HAMBURG, July 25, 2023 /3BL/ – Sustainability-themed advertising has become a prominent and enduring trend, according to a recent study by Nielsen. The report, which uses statistics from Nielsen’s Ad Intel, a comprehensive source of global advertising data, highlights the growing significance of sustainability in advertising, as companies across various sectors prioritise the ecological sustainability of their products and manufacturing processes.
Over the past decade, sustainability-themed advertising was mainly confined to isolated sectors such as energy and transportation. However, the landscape has evolved dramatically, with a widespread commitment to incorporating sustainability into advertising communications across industries.
The analysis of the German advertising market, which looked at data from the beginning of 2022 to the end of May 2023, uncovered over 18,000 campaign motifs centred around sustainability1. The study focused on media campaigns that emphasised responsible resource utilisation, excluding campaigns solely highlighting aspects of social sustainability (e.g. Fairtrade), natural ingredients, vegan food, animal welfare, or economic sustainability.
The findings indicated that advertising budgets primarily allocate resources to traditional channels like Television and Print. Notably, brands and products in the Cleaning (EUR 142.8m), Services (EUR 111.6m), and Personal Care (EUR 92.4m) sectors were heavy advertisers on the topic of sustainability, since 2022. Key attributes demonstrating ecologically sustainable actions by companies include plastic reduction, resource conservation, sustainable energy usage, climate neutrality, and investments in sustainable projects.
The study identified three central themes in sustainability-themed advertising campaigns:
1. Advertisements promoting specific sustainable products: Companies are increasingly showcasing sustainable innovations and technologies. This encompasses the launch of environmentally friendly products, renewable energy solutions, and advanced recycling processes. Emphasising innovation underscores companies’ dedication to sustainable solutions.
2. Consumer benefits of sustainable actions: Storytelling is gaining traction in sustainable advertising, enabling brands to forge an emotional connection with consumers. Through narratives and personal experiences, brands convey the significance of sustainability and illustrate the advantages it offers to individuals. There is also a growing emphasis on local involvement, including supporting regional supply chains, utilising local resources, and fostering community engagement.
3. Emphasising the company’s commitment to sustainability: Advertising campaigns are placing greater emphasis on the circular economy and recycling. Companies are showcasing their efforts to reuse, repair, and recycle products, while encouraging consumers to support these practices.
Dirk Reinbothe, Managing Director of Nielsen Germany, said: “Ecologically sustainable practices are gaining such tremendous importance that not only established brands, but also niche industries, are integrating sustainability into their advertising strategies. Our Ad Intel study has really shown us that this is more than just a trend – it is a large priority for businesses as they seek to create an emotional connection with their consumers. There are no signs that this is going away any time soon.”
About Nielsen
Nielsen shapes the world’s media and content as a global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics. Through our understanding of people and their behaviors across all channels and platforms, we empower our clients with independent and actionable intelligence so they can connect and engage with their audiences—now and into the future. Nielsen operates around the world in more than 55 countries. Learn more at www.nielsen.com and connect with us on social media (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram).
Press contacts:
Roberta De Martino
Senior Communication Manager EMEA
Roberta.demartino@nielsen.com
Ben Gold
Communications Director, EMEA
Ben.gold@nielsen.com
Source:
1For the analysis, Nielsen Germany evaluated the media channels TV, radio, print, online, out-of-home, cinema, radio and direct mail in the period 1 January 2022 until 31 May 2023.
Gayle Baldwin| Senior Research Analyst and Portfolio Manager—Equities
Vivian Lubrano| Portfolio Manager—Equities
Recruiting talent is a basic ingredient for business success. Companies that are more inclusive in their recruiting will discover better-qualified employees, which can bolster competitive advantages and help deliver better outcomes for investors.
More companies are discovering that policies promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are good for business. Increasing evidence shows how companies that score high on measures of ethnic, cultural and gender diversity have delivered stronger profitability than lower-ranked peers.
But what’s the best way to create a diverse workforce? Many companies focus on meeting defined diversity quotas. That may not be the best approach, in our view. In the race to add more women or minorities to the payroll, human resources (HR) departments won’t necessarily get the right people for the job.
Instead, we think the key is to develop more creative methods to identify the most talented people for positions, by neutralizing biases that may prevent getting diverse talent on board. Even though many employers say they strive to make their recruiting processes fairer, most don’t do this systematically, according to a survey by the HR Research Institute (Display).
Investors should look for three types of inclusive recruitment tactics that signal a strategic fusion of forward-looking hiring and a diversity-driven mindset.
Redefining Qualifications: Behaviors, Not Pedigrees
Recruiters are easily swayed by flashy resumes. Degrees from top universities or professional experience at well-known companies can flatter a candidate. Yet many softer skills don’t show up on a CV and can make the difference between success or failure in a new hire.
Does the candidate have the creativity needed for the role? Is she comfortable questioning conventional wisdom? What about problem solving and intellectual curiosity? If a company could test for these aptitudes, it might find highly qualified workers that don’t meet the standard template for a given job.
Infosys, an Indian IT services company, did just that. The company wanted to expand its roster of US-based client-facing staff and identified critical thinking as a more important success factor for entry-level positions than an engineering degree. So, it partnered with community and liberal arts colleges in the US to identify students with critical-thinking skills who could then be taught how to code. These colleges tend to have proportionally more female and minority students. Tapping this pool of students enabled Infosys to grow and diversify its US employee base, better reflecting the diversity of its clients.
Diversity isn’t typically found behind the wheel of a delivery truck—widely seen as a man’s job. But SG Holdings, a Japanese trucking and logistics company, broke that mold. As it struggled to find enough male drivers in Japan’s aging population, SG invested in technology that helped redefine what capacities are required for roles that historically were more physically demanding. For example, investing in swap body trucks with interchangeable containers allowed the company to separate the tasks of loading trucks from driving them. As a result, SG now has more women, elderly and even disabled drivers steering its fleet.
Turning to Nontraditional Talent
HR departments often get stuck in familiar hiring patterns. Candidates are selected from similar types of colleges and companies, which limits diversity. Creative recruitment processes should be open to searching for pools of suitable talent in atypical places.
Consider the military, where safety and procedural compliance are paramount. Those are perfect attributes for a company like Herc Holdings, which rents heavy equipment for construction. Herc looked to US military veterans, reservists and National Guard members for new employees, and found what they were looking for in a very diverse pool of trained soldiers.
In Europe, refugees from the war in Ukraine and other hotspots might not seem like an obvious place to hire employees. Yet refugees are highly motivated people looking to rebuild their lives after fleeing home. Capgemini, the France-based IT company, launched a program in the UK to train and place refugees in digital jobs, helping to address a huge skills shortage in the sector. French cosmetics group L’Oréal also started to integrate refugees into its workforce in 2022. “The goal is to shift mentalities on migration and turn the challenge of integrating refugees and exiled people into an opportunity for businesses and the economy,” L’Oréal said at the time.
Reducing Bias from the Recruitment Process
Biases are perhaps one of the biggest obstacles to building a diverse workforce. Growing awareness of the issues has led to the creation of various tools that can help reduce bias and drive inclusivity.
Thermo Fisher Scientific, a US supplier of scientific instruments, scores all job postings with a tool that helps reduce language bias—words that might unintentionally inhibit potential candidates from applying. In the UK, industrial company IMI offers training in unconscious biases and requires headhunters to deliver gender-balanced slates of candidates; for three years in a row, half of the engineering graduates hired by IMI have been female.
Getting recruitment right is perhaps one of the most undervalued components of business health. We think investors with a diversity focus should pay closer attention to how companies find the right talent. Those that crack the recruitment formula will naturally diversify their staff base with employees who are a better fit for their jobs—and can help propel a company toward a more profitable future.
The views expressed herein do not constitute research, investment advice or trade recommendations and do not necessarily represent the views of all AB portfolio-management teams and are subject to revision over time.
References to specific securities are presented to illustrate the application of our investment philosophy only and are not to be considered recommendations by AB. The specific securities identified and described do not represent all of the securities purchased, sold or recommended for the portfolio, and it should not be assumed that investments in the securities identified were or will be profitable.
Kingston University, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, and City of Potsdam Accelerate Digital Transformation with VMware Cloud
PALO ALTO, Calif., July 25, 2023 /3BL/– VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW) today announced that customers across Europe are adopting VMware Cloud to support the broad and diverse higher education requirements of students and citizens. With VMware Cloud, customers across Europe can take a more cloud smart approach to building their digital strategies by investing in cloud-based growth initiatives while optimizing costs and increasing resiliency.
“Time and again it’s been proven that VMware Cloud empowers customers to adopt a cloud-smart approach,” said Prashanth Shenoy, vice president, Product Marketing, Cloud Infrastructure Business Group at VMware. “By working with VMware Cloud, customers can invest in app and infrastructure modernization that fuels digital transformation and growth while optimizing cloud spend and improving business resiliency.”
Kingston University: Zero Downtime Migration and a Massively Reduced Data Center Footprint (link)
Kingston University is a prestigious higher education institution based in London that supports and educates more than 19,000 students from the UK and abroad each year. To achieve its ambitions of delivering a more progressive model of higher education, Kingston University required flexible and agile technology that enables a fast response to changing requirements. The IT team sought to reduce the cost and complex maintenance requirements of the university’s on-premises data centers and transition to more sustainable and energy efficient solutions. The University migrated 90 percent of its workloads to VMware Cloud on AWS and modernized the remaining data center infrastructure to support applications that needed to remain in-house. With VMware NSX Distributed Firewall and VMware Aria Operations for Networks, the University created a more modern approach to application and workload-level security.
“We had a choice between investing in upgrading our physical infrastructure or moving most workloads to VMware Cloud on AWS while retaining a small percentage of workloads on prem. With a hybrid cloud strategy built on VMware, we can consciously decide where to host applications to help ensure the best performance and cost benefits,” said Daniel Bolton, head of technical services, Kingston University. “Working with VMware and our partner Xtravirt, we developed a cloud smart approach that dramatically modernized and simplified our environment and helped improve our overall security posture. VMware Cloud enables us to use our existing skills to pivot quickly to changing requirements while giving us a wider choice of cloud services across both the VMware and AWS ecosystems.”
EPFL: Delivering a Modern Cloud That Enables Research Ingenuity (link)
The École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is a research institute based in Lausanne, Switzerland. EPFL comprises 11,000 students, 350 faculty and 6,000 staff. From an IT infrastructure perspective, EPFL required infrastructure to be flexible and secure as well as fast and easy to access. EPFL also needs to keep its research community close and ensure high-value projects remain in the school environment. Unfortunately, researchers were stepping outside of the university’s IT infrastructure, posing potential data security, legal, reputational risks due to Switzerland’s stringent data sovereignty regulations. Using VMware Cloud, the IT team developed a private cloud and self-service portal as a more secure alternative to public cloud. VMware Cloud Foundation combined with VMware Aria Automation, VMware Cloud on AWS and VMware NSX Distributed IDS/IPS has delivered a public cloud-like user experience while enabling better security, compliance, and control.
“The researchers love the VMware Cloud environment we’ve created for them. VMware Cloud enables EPFL to deliver a public cloud-like experience on prem and offer anything as a service to our community,” said Philippe Morel, director of IT operations and infrastructure, EPFL. “With VMware Cloud we don’t have to sacrifice speed and agility for security. We’ve met our goal of 15-minute provisioning which has enabled us to nearly double the number of VMs while reducing the amount of shadow cloud use we’re finding across the community. VMware Cloud has given us better control over our IT environment and governance of our sensitive research data.”
City of Potsdam: Accelerating Cloud Transformation for a Digitized Education System (link)
Potsdam, Germany is home to more than 180,000 residents. One of the city’s most important missions is to provide a modern education experience—including digital services—for 25,000 students and 5,000 educators. As part of a federal government funding program to advance the digital infrastructure of the German school system, the City of Potsdam bought a fleet of 3,000 iPads for its students and teachers. The local municipality worked with PROFI AG to implement VMware Workspace ONE Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) on VMware Cloud on AWS to unify the management of the devices to help ensure compliance with GDPR and German data privacy laws.
“VMware Cloud has been instrumental in providing a digital foundation to accelerate our development of a modern, connected and digitized educational system,” said Mathias Horezky, head of IT infrastructure and service, City of Potsdam. “With VMware Cloud on AWS and Workspace ONE UEM, our small IT staff can support a growing community of users with a modern digital learning platform that meets today’s hybrid learning environment. VMware Cloud on AWS provides us with a modern GDPR-compliant hybrid cloud infrastructure that has lowered our costs and overall risk while streamlining IT operations. Resources that were previously managed on local servers in schools are now hosted in the cloud and managed remotely, providing our IT team with the ability to provision IT resources and additional mobile devices quickly.”
About VMware
VMware is a leading provider of multi-cloud services for all apps, enabling digital innovation with enterprise control. As a trusted foundation to accelerate innovation, VMware software gives businesses the flexibility and choice they need to build the future. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, VMware is committed to building a better future through the company’s 2030 Agenda. For more information, please visit www.vmware.com/company.
VMware, NSX, Aria, and Workspace ONE are trademarks or registered trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States, and other jurisdictions. This article may contain hyperlinks to non-VMware websites that are created and maintained by third parties who are solely responsible for the content on such websites.
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Over the last five years, Duke Energy’s Share the Light Fund has provided more than $3 million of assistance.
PLAINFIELD, Ind., July 25, 2023 /3BL/ – The Duke Energy Foundation is dedicating an additional $100,000 in financial assistance to Indiana customers who may be struggling to pay their energy bills this summer. The funding is made possible through the company’s Share the Light Fund, which helps individuals and families in need.
“The summer months can mean high temperatures and energy use,” said Stan Pinegar, president of Duke Energy Indiana. “The financial assistance we offer through the Share the Light Fund helps connect customers in need to resources to help pay their electric bills as they use more power to cool their homes.”
Duke Energy works with the Indiana Community Action Association to distribute funds to qualifying customers to help pay energy bills, deposits and reconnection/connection charges. Customers can receive up to a $300 credit annually on their account. Individuals should contact their local community action agency to see if they are eligible. Click here to find a listing of service providers by county.
Duke Energy offers a number of tools and resources to help customers take control of their energy use – and save money – while trying to stay cool. Energy and bill management programs, including Budget Billing and Usage Alerts, inform customers when their bills may be higher than normal so they can make adjustments. The company also has a host of energy efficiency programs, including free home energy assessments. To learn more about these programs, visit duke-energy.com/HereToHelp.
Duke Energy Foundation
The Duke Energy Foundation provides philanthropic support to meet the needs of communities where Duke Energy customers live and work. The Foundation contributes more than $2 million annually in charitable gifts to Indiana and is funded by Duke Energy shareholders. More information about the Foundation can be found at duke-energy.com/Foundation.
Duke Energy Indiana
Duke Energy Indiana, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, provides about 6,600 megawatts of owned electric capacity to approximately 890,000 customers in a 23,000-square-mile service area, making it Indiana’s largest electric supplier.
Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), a Fortune 150 company headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., is one of America’s largest energy holding companies. Its electric utilities serve 8.2 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, and collectively own 50,000 megawatts of energy capacity. Its natural gas unit serves 1.6 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky. The company employs 27,600 people.
Duke Energy is executing an aggressive clean energy transition to achieve its goals of net-zero methane emissions from its natural gas business by 2030 and net-zero carbon emissions from electricity generation by 2050. The company has interim carbon emission targets of at least 50% reduction from electric generation by 2030, 50% for Scope 2 and certain Scope 3 upstream and downstream emissions by 2035, and 80% from electric generation by 2040. In addition, the company is investing in major electric grid enhancements and energy storage, and exploring zero-emission power generation technologies such as hydrogen and advanced nuclear.
Duke Energy was named to Fortune’s 2023 “World’s Most Admired Companies” list and Forbes’ “World’s Best Employers” list. More information is available at duke-energy.com. The Duke Energy News Center contains news releases, fact sheets, photos and videos. Duke Energy’s illumination features stories about people, innovations, community topics and environmental issues. Follow Duke Energy on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.
Contact: McKenzie Barbknecht
Phone: 800.559.3853
Microtransponder Technology Adds to Web 3.0 Anchor Options and a Host of Capabilities to DataVault’s Data Management Platform NEW YORK, July 25, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Data Vault Holdings, Inc., the emerging leader in metaverse data visualization, valuation, and the monetization of data…
