Month: July 2026

MetLife

MetLife’s responsible investments seek to achieve a market financial return while considering social and/or environmental benefits that help create healthier communities and a more sustainable environment. Responsible investments focus on the core areas of infrastructure investments, green investments, municipal bonds, affordable housing and impact investments.

Affordable Housing

MetLife invests in high-quality housing projects that seek to build financial health and bring benefits to communities. These housing investments involve partnering with nonprofit organizations that provide below-market rental homes to low-income earners.

Affordable housing is not just for social good—it is a financially material and strategically aligned investment category that can help enhance community well‑being while delivering stable long‑term value for investors. This relevance is reflected in MetLife’s financing of a portfolio of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-supported affordable housing properties across several states. Proceeds from the transaction were used to maintain and support ongoing operations of existing properties, and funded critical preservation needs to help maintain long-term affordability for residents.

Infrastructure

MetLife invests in infrastructure projects that create jobs, support resilient communities and provide economic benefits. These projects could include building or upgrading airports, ports, roads, pipelines, transmission lines and power generation. The impact of this strategy is illustrated through projects that demonstrate how long‑term infrastructure investments can strengthen connectivity, accelerate the clean‑energy transition and deliver tangible benefits for communities.

Infrastructure investment examples include:

• MetLife is helping to finance Portugal’s first high‑speed rail between the country’s two largest cities, Lisbon and Porto. The line is expected to significantly reduce travel time while improving regional connectivity for millions of passengers annually.⁴ The project seeks to deliver meaningful social, economic and environmental benefits, including lower emissions, as it is expected to encourage demand to shift from road and air travel to more sustainable rail.
• MetLife was also a major lender in Project Aurora, a large solar and battery storage initiative in Chile’s Tarapacá Region. The project aims to advance the country’s clean energy transition by replacing coal‑based generation with renewable power and strengthening grid reliability through storage that enables solar energy delivery, even after sunset.

Municipal Bonds

MetLife’s municipal bond investments support infrastructure, education and community services spanning 46 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. The proceeds of these investments can be used to finance or refinance environmental, water and clean energy projects, as well as projects with anticipated positive social outcomes, such as affordable public housing and school building revitalization.

• MetLife invested in the Idaho Housing and Finance Association (IHFA), a self‑supporting financial institution that expands affordable housing and strengthens Idaho communities by providing homeownership lending, rental assistance, homelessness support and multifamily finance. With deep expertise in real estate development, finance and tenant services, IHFA is committed to making safe, stable and affordable housing accessible to all Idahoans.

Green Investments

MetLife invests in companies and projects that focus on the conservation of natural resources, the production and discovery of alternative energy sources, the implementation of clean air and water projects and other environmentally conscious business practices. These investments demonstrate how MetLife advances our New Frontier strategy by deploying capital into projects that seek to strengthen environmental resilience, reduce long‑term risk and support sustainable value creation.

For example:

• MetLife installed solar panels on the rooftop of its Fairmont Hotel investment in Washington, D.C. The solar panels generate renewable electricity that supplies the local power grid and decreases reliance on fossil fuels. The installation supports MetLife’s broader efforts to reduce its overall carbon footprint by contributing to a greener grid.
• As part of a financing agreement, MetLife partnered with Resource Management Service, LLC, on behalf of investors to enroll thousands of acres in a Working Forest Conservation Easement (WFCE) funded by the U.S. Forest Service in partnership with South Carolina Forest Commission. The WFCE preserves sensitive lands vital to clean water, wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities, while also supporting rural economies dependent on timber resources for economic development.

Impact Investments

Since the MetLife Impact Investment program’s inception in 1984, MetLife has committed approximately $1 billion, with an average of $40.9 million annually for the past 10 years. The program’s investments are made with the intent to generate positive financial returns alongside measurable social and environmental outcomes, such as supporting financial health and climate resilience. These impact investments are originated solely for MetLife and MetLife Foundation. See For Our Communities for more information about MetLife Foundation’s work.

• Through our General Account (GA) portfolio, MetLife is a lender to the Lendable Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Fintech Credit Fund II, which aims to expand financing for micro, small and medium enterprises and consumers by lending to fintechs in frontier and emerging markets. Lendable’s work supports access to fair financial resources that unlock consistent access to food, clean water, electricity, shelter, education and income.

Read more about our responsible investments in MetLife’s 2025 Sustainability Report.

 

^{1 At estimated fair value as of December 31, 2025. See the Glossary for responsible investments definitions.}

^{2 Green investments include MetLife Real Estate and Agriculture investments.}

^{3 Represents impact investments originated solely for MetLife’s GA investment portfolio and MetLife Foundation.}

^{4 Railway News (July 2025). https://railwaynews.net/portugal-high-speed-rail-lisbon-porto-line-funding-impact.html. Accessed February 2026.}

Originally published on Whispp

The project brought Whispp’s audio-to-audio Voice Reconstruction AI together with the on-device processing capabilities of Snapdragon X Elite. Thirty participants across nine countries used the technology during everyday calls and online conversations, providing practical feedback on performance, usability, privacy and communication quality.

Download the white paper

Bringing real-time Voice Reconstruction AI onto the device

Live voice communication leaves little room for delay, unstable processing or interruptions. For Voice Reconstruction AI to feel natural in conversation, the system needs to process audio continuously and respond almost immediately.

Whispp reconstructs whispered or affected speech into a clear, natural voice without first converting it into text. By keeping the process audio-to-audio and running it locally, the technology is designed to preserve conversational timing, expression and elements of the speaker’s identity.

For the pilot, Whispp was optimized to run on the Snapdragon X Elite platform, using its dedicated Neural Processing Unit to support real-time Voice Reconstruction AI inference.

Why the NPU matters

Running Voice Reconstruction AI on a dedicated NPU can improve both performance stability and energy efficiency. This is especially relevant for technology that needs to operate continuously during calls rather than process a single prompt or isolated task.

Testing conducted during the pilot showed that Whispp maintained processing latency of approximately 48 to 50 milliseconds when running on the NPU. CPU-based execution showed greater variation, including latency spikes and disruptions during sustained processing.

The NPU also delivered substantially longer battery runtime in the test setup. Whispp ran for approximately 310 minutes on the NPU, compared with around 130 minutes during CPU-based processing under the same conditions.

“This collaboration with Qualcomm allowed us to test Whispp where the technology ultimately needs to perform: in real conversations, on the devices people already use. Running Voice Reconstruction AI efficiently on Snapdragon X Elite shows what becomes possible when this technology moves directly onto the device.”

Joris Castermans, Founder and CEO of Whispp

Click here to read more on Whispp

Francia Páramo, Director of Freight Forwarding in DP World in Mexico, was recognized in T21’s “100 Women in Transportation and Logistics 2026,” an annual list celebrating women who are shaping the future of Mexico’s transportation, logistics, and supply chain sectors through leadership, innovation, and professional excellence.

Published by T21, one of Mexico’s leading business media outlets covering transportation, logistics, supply chains, ports, and international trade, the recognition celebrates business leaders, executives, entrepreneurs, and supply chain professionals whose careers have helped advance both their organizations and the broader logistics industry.

With more than 25 years of experience in logistics and international trade, Páramo has built a distinguished career in freight forwarding, business development, and strategic account management. Before joining DP World, she held leadership positions at global logistics companies including Kuehne+Nagel, Damco (Maersk), and CEVA Logistics, helping customers strengthen supply chains and expand international trade opportunities.

Today, as Director of Freight Forwarding at DP World in Mexico, Páramo leads the company’s freight forwarding business through an integrated end-to-end logistics model, providing solutions spanning air, ocean, and ground transportation, customs services, and supply chain management. Her leadership has strengthened DP World’s presence in strategic trade corridors supporting nearshoring and international commerce while delivering tailored logistics solutions for industries including automotive, retail, technology and consumer goods.

“Receiving this recognition is an honor because it reflects the incredible progress women are making across the logistics industry,” said Páramo. “As our industry continues to evolve, diverse perspectives and strong collaboration will be essential to building more resilient supply chains and creating opportunities for the next generation of leaders.”

Francia Páramo’s recognition reflects DP World’s broader commitment to fostering diverse leadership and creating opportunities for women across the logistics industry. By investing in talent and empowering leaders, DP World continues to strengthen the teams driving smarter, more connected global trade.

Learn more about the people driving innovation and shaping the future of logistics at DP World.

Purpose. Profit. Politics. Few business leaders have spent more time at the intersection of all three than Matthew McCarthy.

As former CEO of Ben & Jerry’s and a longtime leader at Unilever, he’s spent decades navigating the collision of competing stakeholder expectations, public pressure, and business performance.

On ‘It Shouldn’t Be This Hard’, we talk to business leaders, sustainability professionals, and social impact entrepreneurs working at the intersection of purpose and performance—hosting lively, playful (and often provocative) discussions around why sometimes it’s so hard to do the right thing… and do the right things.

In Part 2 of our conversation with Matthew McCarthy, we tackle anti-woke backlash, the monetization of conflict, the collapse of trust, and the difficult reality of leadership in a world where outrage is increasingly stoked over collaboration and progress.

Listen to Part 2 of the interview here.

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Grounded is a multi-award-winning, B Corp certified brand activation agency — thriving at the intersection of brand experience, commercial innovation, sustainability and social impact. They work with brands, retailers, startups and nonprofits all over the world, helping them transform purpose into profit, commercialize sustainability and drive positive behavior change at scale. Learn more.

NEW YORK, July 21, 2026 /3BL/ – The 2026 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report was released today by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Food Programme (WFP), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and UNICEF. The report is the leading annual benchmark on global hunger, food access, and the affordability of healthy diets. Rotimy Djossaya, Chief Impact Officer with Action Against Hunger, available for interviews to discuss the findings.

The 2026 SOFI report, “Understanding and Addressing the High Costs of a Healthy Diet,” puts global hunger at 645 million people, 7.8% of the world’s population. This is a decrease of just 14 million from 2025’s estimate of 720 million. That decline is concentrated in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia; it does not reflect what is happening in Africa, where 309 million people, or 1 in 5, are hungry and 66.6% cannot afford a healthy diet. Without a sharp course correction, which includes reversing aid cuts, addressing conflict, and investing in climate-resilient food systems, the modest gains recorded elsewhere will not hold, and Africa’s trajectory will continue to worsen.

This year’s report also lands amid a prolonged funding crisis for humanitarian nutrition programs. In early 2025, the United States terminated roughly 90% of its foreign aid contracts, including $1.4 billion in emergency nutrition funding, and the effects are still unfolding. More than 13 million children across West and Central Africa alone are projected to suffer from malnutrition in 2026 as aid cuts push millions deeper into hunger. Supply chains for treatments like ready-to-use therapeutic food remain disrupted, and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz continues to push up global food prices, adding further risk for children already on the edge.

Key findings:

• For the first time on record, Africa has more hungry people than Asia: 309 million, or 1 in 5 people, compared with 292 million (6%) in Asia. Latin America and the Caribbean stand at 4.8% (32 million); Oceania at 8% (3.7 million).
• Africa’s hunger population has nearly doubled since 2010, from 171 million to 309 million in 2025, driven by conflict, displacement, climate shocks, and economic instability in countries including Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and Nigeria.
• Nearly one in three people worldwide (32.7%) cannot afford a healthy diet. In Africa, that figure is two in three (66.6%) – more than double the rate in Asia (28.9%) and Latin America and the Caribbean (25.7%).
• Official Development Assistance from DAC donor countries fell 23.1% in 2025 compared with 2024. Action Against Hunger was forced to close more than 50 projects across 20 countries as a result, cutting services to hundreds of thousands of people, most of them in Africa. In Madagascar, the organization closed 3 of its 5 sub-bases and 10 mobile clinics stopped operating, affecting treatment for over 5,000 children with acute malnutrition. In Burkina Faso, 6 of 8 bases closed between 2025 and 2026.

“When 645 million people are hungry, that’s cause for concern. Perhaps even more alarming is the fact that this figure doesn’t yet count the ways that rising inflation, current conflicts, El Niño and other climate shocks are making hunger even worse,” said Rotimy Djossaya, Chief Impact Officer for Action Against Hunger USA.

***

Action Against Hunger leads the global movement to end hunger. We innovate solutions, advocate for change, and reach 26.5 million people every year with proven hunger prevention and treatment programs. As a nonprofit that works across over 55 countries, our 8,500+ dedicated staff members partner with communities to address the root causes of hunger, including climate change, conflict, inequity, and emergencies. We strive to create a world free from hunger, for everyone, for good.

Spokesperson available. 

CONTACT:
Kara Green
kgreen@actionagainsthunger.org

This article is authored by Santiago Martinez, Lab Manager & Core Refrigeration Lead, Trane Technologies.

If something still works, I don’t throw it away and buy something new. So, when I joined the Thermo King laboratory in Barcelona and saw that we were buying new refrigerant, running tests and then sending the used refrigerant to be destroyed, it didn’t sit right. It wasn’t sustainable, environmentally or financially.

We were paying twice — once for the new refrigerant and again to destroy the old one. Each time I signed off on another order, I thought: We’re throwing away something that still has value.

I knew something had to change.

The hidden waste problem in refrigerant testing

In engineering, we’re taught that system performance depends on the purity of the working fluid. As refrigerant circulates through a system, it picks up contaminants — mainly oil from the compressor and moisture from small leaks. Oil, in particular, degrades performance. It doesn’t transfer heat the way refrigerant does, so a contaminated charge won’t deliver the precision needed for certification testing.

That’s why the standard practice has always been to use new refrigerant. Clean input, reliable output. However, I’d seen a different approach work before. In an earlier role at Thermo King, I worked on marine refrigeration systems, where we routinely recovered and reused refrigerant. Marine compressors have very low oil circulation rates, so what you recover is almost clean. Road transport systems are different. Those compressors push much more oil into the system, so the recovered refrigerant is genuinely contaminated. That’s why we defaulted to buying new. Once I understood that, the next question was simple: what would it take to clean it properly?

Finding the solution in existing technology

I started talking to colleagues and suppliers and found that the technology already existed. Industrial processes can clean refrigerant and restore its chemical composition if it has shifted during recovery. That matters because refrigerant blends can separate. The most volatile components are recovered first, so unless you achieve a full recovery, the composition changes. Regeneration corrects for that.

There was some initial skepticism, but my team was open to trying something new, especially as it contributed to more sustainable practices. Together, we partnered with specialists who could remove contaminants, verify the composition and return the refrigerant for reuse. And so, our new system was born.

How the regenerative process works

Our process is straightforward, but technically rigorous at each step.

Before adopting this system as standard practice, we ran extensive side-by-side comparisons — new refrigerant against regenerated refrigerant, across multiple units and conditions. We only moved forward once the technicians working with these systems every day confirmed it performed to the same standard as new.

VIDEO: How Regenerative Refrigerant is Driving Circularity in Barcelona

Refrigerant regeneration process

1. Filling the units
The units are filled with refrigerant, using regenerated stock when available.

2. Recovery
After testing, the used refrigerant is collected, stored in 50 kg cylinders, and sent to our supplier once full.

3. Industrial cleaning
Our specialist partner removes oil, moisture and other contaminants using industrial separation equipment.

4. Composition calibration
If minor variations occur, the composition can be adjusted to match the original specifications.

5. Chromatography verification
A full chemical analysis confirms the refrigerant meets AHRI 700 standards’ purity levels. Any that do not must be destroyed, though none have failed since the process was implemented.

6. Reuse
The refrigerant is returned to the lab and reused in the testing cycle as new.

The cost and emissions impact of refrigerant regeneration

The shift to regenerative refrigerant delivered measurable benefits across three closely tracked areas.

• 5-10% – Loss per cycle, the rest stays in circulation
• 80% – Less expensive per kg than new refrigerant
• CO2e – Significantly lower emissions, we only buy new once

We now handle around 200–300 kg of refrigerant per year in the Barcelona lab. That’s a modest volume in the grand scheme of things. But the impact is visible. There’s a clear reduction in both cost and in the kilograms of new refrigerant purchased, contributing to Trane Technologies’ Gigaton Challenge — our commitment to reduce one billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from customers’ carbon footprints by 2030.

Sustainability beyond the lab

Of course, our lab is one small part of a much larger, global sustainability effort. But this work shows that meaningful change doesn’t always require a mandate or breakthrough technology. For our team in Barcelona, it started by noticing something wasteful and asking whether there was a better way.

To me, this is what circularity looks like in practice. Not as a single initiative, but as something built into our daily work, decision by decision, to challenge what’s possible for a more sustainable world.

See how we’re making sustainability scalable – Read our latest Sustainability Report

This article is authored by Santiago Martinez, Lab Manager & Core Refrigeration Lead, Trane Technologies.

If something still works, I don’t throw it away and buy something new. So, when I joined the Thermo King laboratory in Barcelona and saw that we were buying new refrigerant, running tests and then sending the used refrigerant to be destroyed, it didn’t sit right. It wasn’t sustainable, environmentally or financially.

We were paying twice — once for the new refrigerant and again to destroy the old one. Each time I signed off on another order, I thought: We’re throwing away something that still has value.

I knew something had to change.

The hidden waste problem in refrigerant testing

In engineering, we’re taught that system performance depends on the purity of the working fluid. As refrigerant circulates through a system, it picks up contaminants — mainly oil from the compressor and moisture from small leaks. Oil, in particular, degrades performance. It doesn’t transfer heat the way refrigerant does, so a contaminated charge won’t deliver the precision needed for certification testing.

That’s why the standard practice has always been to use new refrigerant. Clean input, reliable output. However, I’d seen a different approach work before. In an earlier role at Thermo King, I worked on marine refrigeration systems, where we routinely recovered and reused refrigerant. Marine compressors have very low oil circulation rates, so what you recover is almost clean. Road transport systems are different. Those compressors push much more oil into the system, so the recovered refrigerant is genuinely contaminated. That’s why we defaulted to buying new. Once I understood that, the next question was simple: what would it take to clean it properly?

Finding the solution in existing technology

I started talking to colleagues and suppliers and found that the technology already existed. Industrial processes can clean refrigerant and restore its chemical composition if it has shifted during recovery. That matters because refrigerant blends can separate. The most volatile components are recovered first, so unless you achieve a full recovery, the composition changes. Regeneration corrects for that.

There was some initial skepticism, but my team was open to trying something new, especially as it contributed to more sustainable practices. Together, we partnered with specialists who could remove contaminants, verify the composition and return the refrigerant for reuse. And so, our new system was born.

How the regenerative process works

Our process is straightforward, but technically rigorous at each step.

Before adopting this system as standard practice, we ran extensive side-by-side comparisons — new refrigerant against regenerated refrigerant, across multiple units and conditions. We only moved forward once the technicians working with these systems every day confirmed it performed to the same standard as new.

VIDEO: How Regenerative Refrigerant is Driving Circularity in Barcelona

Refrigerant regeneration process

1. Filling the units
The units are filled with refrigerant, using regenerated stock when available.

2. Recovery
After testing, the used refrigerant is collected, stored in 50 kg cylinders, and sent to our supplier once full.

3. Industrial cleaning
Our specialist partner removes oil, moisture and other contaminants using industrial separation equipment.

4. Composition calibration
If minor variations occur, the composition can be adjusted to match the original specifications.

5. Chromatography verification
A full chemical analysis confirms the refrigerant meets AHRI 700 standards’ purity levels. Any that do not must be destroyed, though none have failed since the process was implemented.

6. Reuse
The refrigerant is returned to the lab and reused in the testing cycle as new.

The cost and emissions impact of refrigerant regeneration

The shift to regenerative refrigerant delivered measurable benefits across three closely tracked areas.

• 5-10% – Loss per cycle, the rest stays in circulation
• 80% – Less expensive per kg than new refrigerant
• CO2e – Significantly lower emissions, we only buy new once

We now handle around 200–300 kg of refrigerant per year in the Barcelona lab. That’s a modest volume in the grand scheme of things. But the impact is visible. There’s a clear reduction in both cost and in the kilograms of new refrigerant purchased, contributing to Trane Technologies’ Gigaton Challenge — our commitment to reduce one billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from customers’ carbon footprints by 2030.

Sustainability beyond the lab

Of course, our lab is one small part of a much larger, global sustainability effort. But this work shows that meaningful change doesn’t always require a mandate or breakthrough technology. For our team in Barcelona, it started by noticing something wasteful and asking whether there was a better way.

To me, this is what circularity looks like in practice. Not as a single initiative, but as something built into our daily work, decision by decision, to challenge what’s possible for a more sustainable world.

See how we’re making sustainability scalable – Read our latest Sustainability Report