Tag: 3BL

Originally published by Northwestern Mutual on February 1, 2024

Company: Foresight

Founder and CEO: Jannae Gammage

Year founded: 2022

We’re proud to be investing in Foresight through the Northwestern Mutual Black Founder Accelerator® in collaboration with NM Future Ventures.

From a young age, Jannae Gammage learned from her mom’s example that being an entrepreneur means being able to set your own path in terms of how you want to make a living and create the life you want. But her own journey toward becoming a mission-based entrepreneur was more circuitous.

While serving as an intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army, Gammage was considering a career change—perhaps becoming a basketball coach or going into sports psychology. But while still in the military, she opened a gym because where she was stationed didn’t have the type of facility she wanted for working out—and then she sold it to a franchise.

For her next career move, she drew on her background in marketing and sales, and started up a company where she worked with several large corporations. That experience taught her what she did not want to do. “I decided I wanted to serve little guy and work with small businesses,” she said. “To package the same high level of marketing for a small budget meant incorporating technology—and that eventually led me to becoming a tech founder.”

After selling her marketing business, she decided to stay within the tech sector. In 2022, she founded Foresight, a company that aims to open doors for consumers underserved by traditional banking services by leveraging technology to assess credit risk, fraud and bias.

Below, Gammage shares how being a small business owner inspired her career, offers her perspective on the particular challenges Black woman entrepreneurs face and explains why she believes building relationships and community are key to being a good leader

What inspired you to found Foresight?

I’ve been a small business owner who has had trouble getting the money I needed to either get started or to scale my business. Then while I was helping a friend through a lending process, I started digging deeper into the problem and found that in our society, the little guys get looked over, or outright stomped on, through no fault of their own. Where you come from shouldn’t be a determining factor as to whether you can get the resources you need to bring something good into the world or to start or grow a business.

How does your platform work?

Banks typically use a manual, hands-on approach that takes months to get to the information they need to make a decision on whether they can loan a business money. Foresight solves this problem by connecting the dots for the lenders by vetting the applicants and asking these key questions:

Is this company thriving?Is it profitable?Can it grow?Will this money actually be able to help the company?Will they be able to pay it back?

Foresight sifts through the noise and answers those questions in a couple of seconds rather than months.

Another issue is that almost every application a lender receives is incomplete or incorrect—usually because there’s a knowledge gap on the business owner’s side. So Foresight clears up those issues as well.

Foresight is able to do all of this with just a few pieces of information from the borrower, which also gives them also a better experience because no one wants to fill out 1,000 different questions on a loan application. Our goals are to simplify the process for both the borrower and the bank, so that the transaction can get done in a timely manner.

How do you use technology in this process?

We use a proprietary combination of machine learning, computer vision and AI to connect the dots for lenders and fill in the knowledge gaps for borrowers. I am very fortunate to have Joel Ward (chief technology officer) and Alaia Martin (chief lending and risk officer) on the core founding team of Foresight with me. They’re two of the smartest humans I know. Their expertise and contributions have been crucial to making the platform what it is today. But they are also committed to our mission of serving others. Plus, they’re really scrappy and gritty like me. We have fun together.

What traits are the most important for a CEO?

That front-facing charisma—always projecting confidence to any room that you’re in and being at the ready for any situation. You need tenacity and flexibility to sell the company, push the company, get a customer, get a partner or talk about your company in a way that inspires people to get involved.

But it’s also important to know your own purpose. I think I was created to serve others so I was looking for a path that allowed me to do my best work while living the life that I wanted to comfortably. My last company was serving others but it wasn’t necessarily mission based. With Foresight, I’ve been able to build something that’s at the intersection of what I believe is my life’s purpose, while helping the little guys and getting people out of the situation I’ve been in. That’s what’s fulfilling to me.

What challenges have you faced as a Black woman entrepreneur?

I was in military intelligence where there are barely any women—and definitely no Black women. The tech world is the same. I think it’s sad but it doesn’t faze me or change where I feel I belong in the world. I hope I can provide a leadership example for some Black girl or woman that can help them understand that while these barriers definitely exist, the only way to change it is for us to step up and do it ourselves.

In your journey, has there been bias that has made it harder for you?

My customers are bankers, who, statistically, are not young, not women and not Black. The bias I’ve experienced has been inherent and unconscious, rather than blatant racism. So for me, showing up as yourself is the best way to prove your worth.

Having Northwestern Mutual’s support has been a big stamp of approval, but it also helps build credibility for us to expand our network, get more partnerships and more investment. The capital investment was huge, but the also company showed us a deeper level of community in the way that they approached supporting us. So now, when we approach building community, it’s more about being relational than transactional, and being able to take advantage of the connections that we make. It’s increased our bottom line significantly but it’s also given us a new outlook, especially when we consider the people that we want to bring on board as our company grows.

What is your biggest goal for the company for 2024?

We have roughly 300 banks onboarding to the platform in 2024. They all hit their milestones that we set for them. We will help them deploy around $100 million over the next year into small businesses all over the nation. And we’re really excited about that.

Originally published on U.S. Bank company blog

Fortune magazine again recognized U.S. Bank as one of the 2024 World’s Most Admired Companies, naming it No. 1 in the Superregional Banks category for the 14th consecutive year.

Within the Superregional Banks industry category, U.S. Bank topped the list in four of the nine key attributes of reputation: Long-term investment, quality of products/services, people management and use of corporate assets. U.S. Bank ranked second in financial soundness, quality of management and social responsibility.

The Fortune 2024 World’s Most Admired Companies list is determined by a survey of senior executives, directors and analysts rating 660 companies in 29 countries across 52 industry sectors on a series of criteria.

Originally published in Qualcomm’s 2023 Corporate Responsibility Report

Qualcomm engineers human progress. We relentlessly innovate to enable intelligent computing everywhere. Our solutions deliver powerful intelligence and connectivity across devices to make our lives better in new ways and transform industries.

Throughout the year, we remained focused on executing our strategy, prioritizing our future growth and setting the pace of innovation, while navigating the challenging macroeconomic environment. Building on our nearly 40-year history of era-defining technology breakthroughs, our proven technologies span across unrivaled connectivity, high-performance, low-power computing, and leading edge artificial intelligence (AI). Together with our ecosystem partners, we are creating opportunities designed to drive innovation, societal advancement and sustainability.

Empowering Digital Transformation 

Qualcomm is playing a fundamental role in enabling industries to digitally transform leveraging our advanced technologies. As a new generation of always connected, smarter and more capable devices scale at the edge, they will help enterprises drive sustainable growth and innovation, unlock operational efficiencies, increase productivity, enable new business models and foster greater opportunities for participation in the digital economy.

The rapid development of generative artificial intelligence promises to accelerate this transformation and enable entirely new experiences and applications. Achieving this will require intelligent computing everywhere – in the cloud and on devices. Qualcomm is the company bringing the capabilities of generative AI directly to smartphones, PCs, virtual and mixed reality devices, vehicles, IoT and more. On-device intelligence will provide greater precision, personalization, reliability, efficiency and privacy.

Acting Responsibly 

We strive to make our technology broadly available in an increasingly digital world. In collaboration with our ecosystem partners, we are working to deliver impactful solutions at scale to enrich lives, improve businesses and enable communities to progress. Providing broad access to technology and programs that strengthen economic and social development helps make quality education, entrepreneurial and employment opportunities, health care and other services more attainable for underserved communities globally.

Our success is rooted in the hard work and dedication of our people worldwide. While economic and industry-wide challenges required certain balancing actions, we remain committed to empowering our employees by providing support and resources to cultivate a company culture that celebrates continued growth, creativity and innovation. We continue to strive to be a workplace that reflects the world in which we do business, and we know that our diverse workforce increases our global awareness, creates an authentic sense of belonging and accelerates our ability to innovate.

Having a diverse talent pipeline helps enable future innovation. Last year, we announced that we had met our science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education goal of engaging 1.5 million students and teachers across the world three years ahead of schedule. This year, I am proud to share that we have met our 2025 Qualcomm® Wireless Reach™ goal – one year early – to bring technology to underserved communities around the world. Since 2006, our Wireless Reach program has directly and indirectly supported over 27 million people.

Operating Sustainably 

We believe that environmental sustainability is critical, and we continue our efforts to reduce our environmental footprint. This year, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) approved our corporate GHG reduction targets as consistent with the latest climate science and the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement.

We met our 2025 GHG emissions goal two years ahead of schedule, reducing our Scope 1 and 2 by over 35 percent; we did this by switching to renewable energy and decommissioning one of our electricity cogeneration plants at our headquarters in San Diego, as well as pursuing other purchase power agreements in key markets.

We are honored that our hard work and commitment to environmental and social efforts continue to be acknowledged. This year, we have been recognized on lists such as America’s Greenest Companies and the World’s Best Employers. Once again, we made Newsweek’s list of America’s Most Responsible Companies, Fortune’s Change the World list and led our industry at the top of The Best Corporate Citizen’s ranking. Additional awards can be found in the Our Awards and Recognitions section of this report.

We are driving the world toward a more intelligently connected world. We will continue to focus on purposeful innovation to help enrich lives and shape a better future for all.

Cristiano Amon 

Chief Executive Officer

Learn more about how Qualcomm is driving innovation, societal advancement and sustainability in the 2023 Corporate Responsibility Report

Get to know Annette A. Angus, Ph.D., an R&D manager for the microbiology team at Clorox.

A microbiologist by training, Annette’s a social activist at heart. She was drawn to the company after learning about our foundation’s involvement in the Oakland community. “I felt like it was going to be the perfect place for me to be both a scientist and an advocate,” she says.

“There’s so many ways that Clorox puts people at the center,” Annette says. “For me, it was during COVID, the recognition of George Floyd’s murder and allowing spaces for people to be able to talk about it in a professional space really touched me. And the recognition of Juneteenth — some people think that is a new holiday, but I’ve been celebrating Juneteenth all my life. To have a day off recognized by a corporation before it was a federal holiday was huge.”

Annette’s found her personal perspective to be an asset here at Clorox. “I’m a woman of color in the sciences, and that is something that I bring to work every single day. I bring my own unique set of experiences as a consumer, as a scientist and as an employee. That really helps me — especially as a manager — to work with people who have different approaches to solving problems. It’s about allowing others to shine in their own way.”

Annette is building more than just a strong team here at Clorox — her own family is growing, too. “This is my second Clorox baby, and I am so proud and so happy to be at Clorox during this time,” she says. “I’ve had scientific mentors who, during their time, said it was not okay to be a mom, it was not okay to have a family or to have both. But now, this is what a science mom looks like. I just found out that we have benefits that support my ability to hire a doula. My wellness and my ability to thrive and my family’s ability to thrive is top of mind and a priority. I feel so taken care of in so many ways that I’m really grateful for.”

Entergy’s Information Technology organization has announced the application period has opened for its scholarship program for New Orleans metro area college students. The Entergy Technology Scholarship Program will award up to five current college students a one-time $4,000 scholarship toward their education. The students must currently be enrolled in college and majoring in an eligible technology field.

Eligible students can apply now through Jan. 23, 2024, on the Entergy Technology Scholarship Program website.

“This scholarship program is part of Entergy’s commitment to nurturing young talent, supporting the New Orleans metro area, and building a stronger, resilient and more diverse IT workforce for the future,” said Michael Rhymes, Entergy’s vice president and chief information officer.

Applicants to the Entergy Technology Scholarship Program must meet all the following criteria:

Be a graduate of a high school located in the greater New Orleans metro area, including Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, St. Tammany or Tangipahoa parishes.Be current full-time undergraduate students with a declared major in cloud computing, communication networks and security, computer engineering, computer information systems, computer science, cybersecurity, data science, engineering technology, information systems, and information technology.Enrolled in or will be transferring to one of the following universities for the full 2024-25 academic year:Dillard University.Grambling State University.Loyola University.Southern University.

Entergy IT selected the New Orleans metro area as a pilot location for the scholarship program, with hopes to expand to other communities in Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas in the future.

The scholarship program supports the Entergy’s corporate social responsibility mission to create sustainable value for our customers, employees, communities and owners. Aligning with our business objectives, these scholarships serve as a fundamental element in developing a pipeline of future talent in our workforce, expand economic development in the region and meet our customers’ needs.

Learn more and apply online

Eligible college students can visit the Entergy Technology Scholarship Program webpage to learn more about the scholarship and apply. Applications are now open and will be accepted through Jan. 23, 2024. Students who are selected to receive the scholarship will be contacted in March 2024.

Selection of recipients are made by Scholarship America, a leading scholarship facilitator and partner. Entergy does not participate in the selection process.

PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., February 15, 2024 /3BL/ – KeyBank and Genesis Housing Corporation have partnered to create a new energy efficiency program as part of the organization’s Healthy Homes Program for income-qualified families of Montgomery County in the greater Philadelphia, PA area. The three-year, $150,000 grant from KeyBank Foundation will enable Genesis Housing to provide energy audits and low-cost energy saving improvements to households who receive Healthy Homes grants. Energy saving measures may include LED light bulbs, facet aerators, efficient flow shower heads and additional insulation. This program would also be coordinated with other housing programs adding additional funding for recommended improvements.

“Genesis Housing is excited with the opportunity that KeyBank has provided to add energy efficiency and conservation for lower income homeowners in coordination with the Healthy Homes Program” said Genesis Housing Corporation’s Executive Director, Judith Memberg. “Existing energy efficiency programs can’t combine fixing a leaking roof with new insulation. Homes with problems like this are not eligible for the energy efficiency work until the roof is repaired. With this innovative program, rehab of deteriorated systems, like roofs, can be completed and insulation installed to provide a more comfortable weather tight home with lower energy costs.”

KeyBank’s grant to Genesis Housing is part of the bank’s $40 billion community investments plan focused on economic access and equity to communities across the country. The scope of the plan includes investments and lending in affordable housing, home lending, small business lending, green initiatives, and transformative philanthropy targeted toward workforce development, education, and safe, vital neighborhoods for underserved communities and populations.

“KeyBank joins Genesis Housing in the belief that all families deserve safe, affordable and stable housing. As a community-minded bank, we are committed to providing access to capital and support to neighborhoods and neighbors who face financial barriers,” said KeyBank’s Eastern Pennsylvania Market President and Market Retail Leader, Youseff Tannous. “Healthy Homes grants are an essential resource for many low- and moderate- income families in Montgomery County and we are proud to help provide an energy-efficient component to the program.”

About Genesis Housing 
Genesis Housing is dedicated to the development of affordable housing, the revitalization of neighborhoods and the education of consumers on housing and financial issues. Since its inception in 1994, Genesis Housing has served Montgomery County and the surrounding counties as a community housing development organization (CHDO) and has renovated or build over 800 units of affordable housing and provided housing counseling services to more than 15,000 clients.

About KeyBank Foundation 
KeyBank Foundation serves to fulfill KeyBank’s purpose to help clients and communities thrive, and its mission is to support organizations and programs that prepare people for thriving futures. The Foundation’s mission is advanced through three funding priorities – neighbors, education, and workforce – and through community service. To provide meaningful philanthropy that transforms lives, KeyBank Foundation listens carefully to understand the unique characteristics and needs of its communities and then backs solutions with targeted philanthropic investments. KeyBank Foundation is a nonprofit charitable foundation, funded by KeyCorp.

About KeyCorp/KeyBank 
KeyCorp’s roots trace back nearly 200 years to Albany, New York. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, Key is one of the nation’s largest bank-based financial services companies, with assets of approximately $188 billion at December 31, 2023. Key provides deposit, lending, cash management, and investment services to individuals and businesses in 15 states under the name KeyBank National Association through a network of approximately 1,000 branches and approximately 1,200 ATMs. Key also provides a broad range of sophisticated corporate and investment banking products, such as merger and acquisition advice, public and private debt and equity, syndications and derivatives to middle market companies in selected industries throughout the United States under the KeyBanc Capital Markets trade name. For more information, visit https://www.key.com/. KeyBank is Member FDIC

# # #

Media contact 
KeyBank: Karen Crane, Regional Communications Manager | 203-789-2752 | karen_crane@keybank.com

Originally published on Aflac Newsroom

COLUMBUS, Ga., February 15, 2024 /3BL/ — Crucial for the development of new treatments and promising therapies for children with cancer and blood disorders such as sickle cell, pediatric oncology and hematology research has been a focus of support for Aflac for nearly 30 years.

In keeping with that commitment, The Aflac Foundation Inc. recently made a $1.5 million donation to The Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, $1 million of which is earmarked for the hospital’s clinical research office. The remaining $500,000 will help fill critical needs at Children’s Hughes Spalding Sickle Cell Clinic, where more than 85% of patients rely on Medicaid or are uninsured.

“Discovery leading to innovation, hope and better outcomes for patients takes place every day at the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center,” said Kathelen Amos, president of The Aflac Foundation. “Our support of the clinical research enterprise is for the ultimate benefit of patients everywhere, starting with patients right here at the Cancer Center.

“Providing care to more than 2,600 children and young adults with sickle cell each year, the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center is home to the largest pediatric sickle cell disease program in the country,” Amos added. “This funding will help them continue to treat the ‘whole child’ at the Hughes Spalding clinic through its support of psychologists, social workers and teachers — crucial positions that are not fully reimbursed by insurance and rely on philanthropy to continue.”

One of the most active research institutions in the country for pediatric clinical trial enrollment, the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center offers patients access to more than 380 clinical studies. Over the past nine years, the program has grown from 44 to 71 full-time research employees and from seven to 28 investigator-initiated clinical trials. Current research surrounding sickle cell disease includes chronic pain management, blood-banking anemia testing, opioid treatment, and stroke biomarkers and prevention.

“The support we receive from the Aflac Foundation is not just a donation; it’s a lifeline to many, a beacon of hope, and a catalyst for a healthier future” said Beatrice E. Gee, MD, director of the Aflac Sickle Cell Disease Program and Sickle Cell Disease Comprehensive Pain program at the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Dr. Jason Payne, MD, Hughes Spalding campus director, echoed Dr. Gee’s gratitude. “We are grateful for this unwavering commitment to our cause and the countless lives that together, we touch each and every day,” he said.

The latest donation by the foundation brings Aflac’s support of pediatric cancer and blood disorders to over $173 million since 1995. Additionally, the Aflac Childhood Cancer Foundation Inc. has provided, free of charge, more than 28,000 My Special Aflac Ducks® to children across the United States, Japan and Northern Ireland ages 3 and up diagnosed with cancer or a blood disorder such as sickle cell since 2018. The award-winning robotic, comforting companion that helps patients through medical play, communication, distraction and more was provided to 6,702 patients in 2023 through hospitals, support organizations and a direct-to-family program.

For more information about Aflac’s commitment to childhood cancer and blood disorders and the My Special Aflac Duck program, visit www.aflacchildhoodcancer.org.

ABOUT AFLAC INCORPORATED 
Aflac Incorporated (NYSE: AFL), a Fortune 500 company, has helped provide financial protection and peace of mind for more than 68 years to millions of policyholders and customers through its subsidiaries in the U.S. and Japan. In the U.S., Aflac is the No. 1 provider of supplemental health insurance products.1 In Japan, Aflac Life Insurance Japan is the leading provider of cancer and medical insurance in terms of policies in force. The company takes pride in being there for its policyholders when they need us most, as well as being included in 2023 in the World’s Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere for 17 consecutive years, Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies for 22 years and Bloomberg’s Gender- Equality Index for the fourth consecutive year. In addition, the company became a signatory of the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) in 2021 and has been included in the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index (2023) for 10 years. To find out how to get help with expenses health insurance doesn’t cover, get to know us at aflac.com or aflac.com/espanol. Investors may learn more about Aflac Incorporated and its commitment to corporate social responsibility and sustainability at investors.aflac.com under “Sustainability.”

Media contact: Jon Sullivan, 706-763-4813 or jsullivan@aflac.com

Analyst and investor contact: David A. Young, 706-596-3264, 800-235-2667 or dyoung@aflac.com

1 LIMRA 2022 U.S. Supplemental Health Insurance Total Market Report

SOURCE Aflac

This is the first of our three-part series on Cisco Foundation grantees working in the Amazon and South America region. This series will introduce you to eight Cisco Foundation Climate Impact & Regeneration grantees working to support preservation and protection of the Amazon basin through three main avenues, all of which are deeply entangled and in tandem serve to promote enduring environmental protection and preservation: Prioritizing Indigenous Sovereignty, Promoting Sustainable Livelihood Opportunities, and Scaling Innovative Financing Opportunities.

This article was constructed in partnership with my colleagues at Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance: Atossa Soltani, Uyunkar Domingo Peas, Rafalea Iturralde; and Digital Democracy: Jen Castro, and Megan Barickman.

The Amazon is a vast tropical rainforest, spanning nine South American countries, and is known for its rich biodiversity and cultural vibrancy. Indeed, the numbers are breathtaking: the Amazon covers 6.7 million square kilometers, is home to over 47 million people, (about 2 million of whom are Indigenous), stores an estimated 200 billion tons of carbon, and is home to approximately 10% of the world’s remaining biodiversity (World Wildlife Fund: Living Amazon Report, 2022). Beyond these regional numbers, though, the Amazon is important at a wider scope: large swaths of water vapor known as “atmospheric rivers” above the Amazon help to stabilize global temperatures and rainfall patterns around the world.

And yet, the ecosystem is facing enormous pressure from extractive industrial practices such as gold mining, oil drilling, and deforestation for timber and agricultural land. The scientific community now warns that if such unchecked degradation continues, the Amazon could reach a “tipping point,” triggering a massive and irreversible ecological die-off within decades. While such headlines may be concerning, radiating out from within the region is a spirit of energy, hope, and opportunity that sparks optimism and weaves together a collective vision of a resilient and inclusive future.

Cisco’s Chief Sustainability Office and the Cisco Foundation’s Climate Commitment seek to build capacity for our social and environmental systems to heal and thrive by working toward an inclusive, resilient, and regenerative climate future. Our work in the Amazon seeks to uphold these values, and enthusiastically supports several partners operating from within the region.

Indigenous Lands of the Amazon

The ecological significance of the Amazon bioregion is clear, but what often takes a backseat in modern discourse is its immense biocultural vitality. We cannot discuss Amazon preservation without centering and prioritizing Indigenous voices and acknowledging the necessity for Indigenous peoples to exercise self-determination within the lands they steward. Around the globe, some of the best-preserved and most resilient bioregions are those areas inhabited by Indigenous peoples. For example, land stewarded by Indigenous communities holds 80% of the world’s biodiversity. Within the Amazon, there are over 500 Indigenous groups who have inhabited over 300 million hectares of land since before European recorded history; and satellite imagery from the rainforest does show that land fully managed by Indigenous nations is the most well preserved. The Coordinator of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA) is the preeminent leading organizational body acting on behalf of all 511 Indigenous groups in the Amazon (Please note: COICA’s primary language is Spanish).

Despite this data, very little funding for conservation and climate mitigation actually reaches Indigenous territories in regions across the globe. The Amazon is no exception. To effectively invest and support resilient ecosystems, it is crucial that we shift the main paradigm of ecosystem preservation and protection into the hands of the forest’s original stewards: Indigenous peoples. Two Cisco Foundation grantees are taking monumental strides to herald in that future by prioritizing Indigenous sovereignty through governance and digital access.

Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance: Indigenous Governance & Self-Determination

Cisco Foundation grantee Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance (ASHA) is an alliance founded in 2017 by Amazon Indigenous federations in Ecuador and Peru, including COICA with a goal to permanently protect and restore 86 million acres of rainforest within the Amazon headwaters, in the Napo, Pastaza, and Marañon basins. The alliance has now grown to include 24 Indigenous organizations and 3 non-governmental organizations (NGOs). According to Uyunkar Domingo Peas, the President of ASHA’s Board of Directors, these organizations are “joining together to mobilize significant financial and technical resources to ensure that our voices are heard, our rights are recognized, and our territories are protected.”

Domingo explains that comprehensive alliance is vital for the region, because “we all belong to the same interconnected web of rivers and forests. We are all kin, and when we unite, we can better protect our lands and our rights.” The guiding vision for ASHA, and many people within the region, is Buen Vivir, or the concept of collective well-being. To bring Buen Vivir to life, the Alliance co-created the Bioregional Plan 2030, which seeks to address five shared objectives: “improving living conditions, advancing Indigenous rights and territorial governance, stopping deforestation and degradation, conserving forests and restoring degraded areas, and stopping the advancement of extractive industries (ASHA).”

The Bioregional Plan emphasizes working closely with government leaders to promote a new economic paradigm, where extractive industries are foregone in favor of what Domingo describes as a “regenerative standing forest bioeconomy.” This future, according to Domingo, is not actually a sacrifice but instead a “Win-Win-Win: For Indigenous peoples, the Earth’s biosphere, and the nation’s long-term economic prosperity.” And how to practically bring Buen Vivir to life? Well, according to ASHA, it will take “significant levels of international funding, investments and financial mechanisms (e.g. debt forgiveness, climate and biodiversity adaptation and mitigation funds, philanthropy) can be mobilized and leveraged to incentivize the protection of the Sacred Headwaters region.”

Digital Democracy: Co-Building Indigenous Digital Futures

Another Cisco Foundation grantee, Digital Democracy, partners with remote front-line communities to help them address climate change and defend their rights through accessible technology. Crucial to Digital Democracy’s approach is “co-creation,” wherein product development is led largely by Indigenous partners and involves deep listening practices. In their own words: “Co-creating digital tools with Indigenous land defenders is critical because very little technology currently exists that meets their needs. Instead, technology is often used against Indigenous Peoples who are living in close relationship with nature and trying to protect vast, climate-sensitive ecosystems from destructive industries.”

According to Co-Director Jen Castro, at the organization’s inception in 2008, their partners needed technology that didn’t yet exist, such as “mapping tools that worked offline, allowed for offline collaboration amongst users, and supported data sovereignty, and tools that help them tell their own story in a digital world.” In practice, Indigenous earth defenders in the Amazon require tools to document threats such as oil spills or illegal logging. That data can then be used in legal cases or when seeking resources. Digital Democracy’s custom and flagship product Mapeo fills this gap: it is a free, open-source digital toolset that allows users to document, monitor, and map many types of data, completely offline. Digital Democracy’s work has contributed to 70 projects in nearly 40 countries with 7 million hectares of territory mapped and defended.

When asked about their current vision for the future, Digital Democracy painted a very clear picture: “The future we imagine is one of abundance and climate justice, in which Indigenous communities have sovereignty over their territories and their digital futures. We hope the tools we are co-building with our Indigenous partners will help lay the groundwork for this future.”

Uniting the Cisco Foundation, Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance, and Digital Democracy is a singular vision: one of a thriving, harmonious and resilient Amazon ecosystem, in which local Indigenous communities are active leaders, fully sovereign on their lands, leading the driving paradigm of preservation and protection.

The thread that weaves together three very different organizations is the pursuit of this vision — whether through Buen Vivir, Digital Sovereignty, or Resilient Ecosystems. If our goal is regeneration and a future where environmental systems are healthy and thrive, we get there by protecting human rights; facilitating diversity, inclusion, and equitable opportunity; and empowering local communities.

Stay tuned for the next article in our series about ecosystem restoration and regeneration through sustainable livelihood opportunities in the Amazon and South America.

View original content here.

Sara Rosner| Director of Environmental Research and Engagement—Responsibility

Patrick O’Connell, CFA| Director—Fixed Income Responsible Investing Research

David Tsoupros, CFA| Senior Research Analyst—Concentrated Growth

Investors face an urgent challenge in understanding, analyzing and managing biodiversity risks.

From South Africa’s endangered black rhinoceros to the shrinking Amazon rainforest, threats to the variability of life on Earth are mounting. Protecting biodiversity—animals, plants and other living organisms, and the ecosystems they are part of—is vital to maintaining the health of our planet and the products, services and economic activity that sustain our daily life. Yet until recently, biodiversity hasn’t ranked highly among investors’ priorities.

This may seem surprising, given biodiversity’s importance as the living component of the natural world. Together with abiotic resources—the nonliving components of the natural world, such as land, water, air and minerals—biodiversity comprises natural capital, the world’s stock of natural assets.

Natural capital provides the building blocks that enable ecosystem services—the positive benefits that societies and economies derive from nature—to sustain life and create wealth. That’s why biodiversity loss alone could cost the global economy trillions of dollars in the coming years, in addition to trillions more related to climate change.

Biodiversity is, quite simply, the world’s life support system, the foundation from which nearly all goods and services are produced.

Web of Life: Biodiversity Risks Are Highly Complex

For many years, governments and investors have focused on the material impacts of climate change, with little consideration for the role of the natural world. But today there is a growing recognition of the high degree of interconnectivity and myriad feedback loops between climate change and nature—and a greater appreciation of the risks associated with biodiversity.

The interconnectedness within and across ecosystems makes biodiversity risk especially complex. Ecosystem services can be grouped into four interconnected categories: the regulation of natural ecosystem processes, such as pollination; the provisioning of physical products, including food; the cultural or nonmaterial benefits that arise from a harmonious relationship between people and their environments; and, most importantly, the supportive infrastructure of oxygen production, water and nutrient cycles, and soil formation, which makes all other ecosystem services possible (Display).

The idea of interconnectedness is important when considering the drivers of biodiversity loss. Changing land use (such as deforestation) and sea use has been one of the largest threats to biodiversity. According to the World Wildlife Fund, land conversion is the main reason for a 69% decline in wildlife populations (mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish) since 1970.

But deforestation not only affects wildlife; it also impinges on climate. The Amazon rainforest, for example, currently absorbs 30% less carbon dioxide than it did in the 1990s due to deforestation to make way for cattle farms. Deforestation reduces the forest’s capacity to store and release moisture into the atmosphere.

This reduction in moisture from the Amazon has major implications for the global hydrological cycle—the processes of rain, evaporation, freezing and melting around the world—which in turn negatively affects more species’ habitats and changes the global climate. Deforesting a further 20% of the Amazon could release more than 90 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere—2.5 times more than annual global fossil fuel emissions.

There is a silver lining, because interconnectedness works both ways: tackling climate change and biodiversity loss in tandem can lead to twin wins. Steps taken to reduce deforestation in the Amazon, for example, may help to mitigate the speed and severity of climate change by creating additional carbon sinks for growing carbon flows.

The National Academy of Sciences in the US underscored the connection between nature and climate when it estimated that, in a below-2-degrees Celsius warming scenario, nature-based solutions such as green infrastructure and carbon sequestration and storage could carry out 37% of necessary carbon mitigation between now and 2030, and 20% between now and 2050.

In other words, tackling biodiversity loss and climate change is one route to resolving two systemic issues (Display).

Similarly, in our view, awareness of the links between biodiversity and climate risks may help investors develop valuable insights and investable opportunities for their portfolios through carbon credits, agricultural solutions, ecotourism, water management, green infrastructure and other nature-based solutions, to name just a few.

The web of risks becomes even more complex when other causes of biodiversity loss are considered. Land- and sea-use change and climate change are only two of the worst drivers. Others include direct exploitation, pollution and invasive species.

While changing sea and land use are currently ranked as the most destructive causes, these rankings may vary over time, adding another layer of complexity. Failure to abate climate change, for example, may lead to climate becoming the leading cause of biodiversity loss.

Investors face an urgent challenge in analyzing and managing these risks and opportunities. As biodiversity loss continues, the risks to companies and investment portfolios increase. And, as governments and regulators respond to biodiversity loss, the pressure builds on businesses and investors to engage with these issues, generating opportunities.

Helping Investors Rise to the Challenge

The challenge of analyzing and managing nature-related risks and opportunities is not insurmountable. Investors can take practical steps to engage with biodiversity risk by understanding its place in the broad ecological structure, its role in underpinning ecosystem services and how those services interact with each other in supporting life and economic activity.

From there, they can develop a framework for assessing companies’ biodiversity exposures—not just physical and transition risks, but also the economic and investment opportunities that can arise from actions taken to mitigate biodiversity loss and climate change. And, by applying appropriately designed conceptual frameworks and specialist data, biodiversity risk and opportunities can be calibrated at the sector and individual issuer levels and mapped to investor portfolios with the goal of unlocking better returns.

By using these approaches in an active strategy that combines fundamental research, third-party specialist knowledge and issuer engagement* and stewardship, investors can aim for meaningful long-term performance while helping to mitigate nature-related business and investment risks.

These actions alone won’t solve the biodiversity crisis, but they may help to create a world in which, one day, economies will behave more like ecosystems and less like invasive species.

For a deeper dive into the risks and opportunities surrounding this topic, download our white paper, Biodiversity in the Balance: How Nature Poses Investment Risks and Opportunities.

*AB engages issuers where it believes the engagement is in the best interest of its clients. 

The authors wish to thank Max Lulavy, Environmental Research Associate, for his invaluable contribution to this research.

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. Views are subject to revision over time.

About the Authors

Sara Rosner

Sara Rosner is a Senior Vice President and AB’s Director of Environmental Research and Engagement on the Responsibility team. She leads AB’s collaboration with the Columbia Climate School, which focuses on enhancing investors’ ability to integrate climate change considerations into their decision-making and investment processes. Rosner is also developing and implementing AB’s Climate Transition Framework. She co-chairs the firm’s working groups on net zero and biodiversity and has managed firmwide initiatives on climate scenario analysis, carbon offsets, and ESG education and training. Prior to joining the firm in 2018, Rosner performed research for the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, where she worked on projects related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and renewable energy alternatives in the extractive industry. She spent most of her early career as a journalist covering energy and infrastructure finance in the Americas for Euromoney Institutional Investor. Rosner holds a BS in international studies, magna cum laude, from Pepperdine University and an MS in sustainability management from Columbia University. She is a global member of 100 Women in Finance and a financial literacy volunteer with the High Water Women Foundation. Rosner was named one of Crain’s New York Business Notable Leaders in Sustainability 2023. Location: New York

Patrick O’Connell, CFA

Patrick O’Connell is a Senior Vice President and Director of Fixed Income Responsible Investing Research. In this role, he is part of the leadership team that develops responsible investment strategy across AB’s Fixed Income business, particularly related to integrating environmental, social and governance considerations throughout the team’s research and engagement. Previously, O’Connell served as a corporate credit research analyst, focusing on emerging-market corporates in Latin American and African countries. He joined the Emerging Markets research team in 2013 after working as a credit analyst covering US high-yield energy credits at AB. Prior to joining the firm in 2012, O’Connell was a desk analyst at UBS Investment Bank, where he helped to allocate capital on the trading desk. He holds a BS in accounting and finance (magna cum laude) from Villanova University and is a CFA charterholder. Location: New York

David Tsoupros, CFA

David Tsoupros is a Senior Research Analyst for Concentrated Growth. Before joining AB in 2013, he was an analyst on the US equity research and portfolio-management team at WPS Advisors. Prior to that, Tsoupros spent four years as a senior healthcare analyst at Roaring Brook Capital. He began his career with Merrill Lynch in 1998 and finished his tenure there as an equity research analyst specializing in the healthcare sector. Tsoupros holds a BA in history, with a minor in economics, from the University of Virginia. He is a CFA charterholder, a member of the CFA Institute and an SASB FSA (Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting) Credential holder. Location: New York

Learn more about AB’s approach to responsibility here.

Rueil-Malmaison (France), February 15, 2024 /3BL/ – Schneider Electric, the leader in the digital transformation of energy management and automation, announced today its 2023 sustainability impact performance as part of its full-year financial results. The Schneider Sustainability Impact score for the year exceeded expectations, reaching 6.13 out of 10, and surpassing the year-end target of 6 out of 10. Schneider Electric was also recognized as a top performer by independent environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings throughout the year.

Schneider Electric’s strong performance spans what was the hottest year on record – serving to highlight the importance of collective action to decarbonize business operations and value chains to avoid the worst effects of global warming and accelerate the transition to a cleaner, fairer world.

Three years into the Schneider Sustainability Impact (SSI) program, Schneider Electric solutions for electrification, digitalization, and automation continue to lower the carbon emissions of customers, with 112 million of tonnes saved and avoided in 2023 alone. Great strides have also been made in transforming Schneider Electric’s supply chain. Carbon emissions from Schneider Electric’s top 1,000 suppliers have fallen by 27% — significant progress compared to the 10% reduction achieved in 2022 — and 21% of the company’s most strategic supply chain partners have met Schneider Electric’s decent work standards.

Efforts across the company to act responsibly with resources mean 63% of Schneider Electric’s product packaging is now free of single-use plastic and made of recycled cardboard. The company’s long-standing commitment to close the energy access gap has also advanced at pace, with 46.5 million people now accessing clean and reliable electricity thanks to Schneider Electric initiatives around the world, and more than 578,000 people learning new skills to address the future energy needs of their communities.

“Schneider Electric’s holistic approach to sustainability ensures that environmental, social, and governance considerations are integral to our business strategy and operations,” said Agustin Lopez Diaz, Chief Sustainability and Customer Satisfaction & Quality Officer at Schneider Electric. “We care deeply about the impact we have throughout our ecosystem and the legacy we leave behind us. That’s why we’re determined to accelerate our sustainability program in its penultimate year and bring everyone along for lasting, positive impact.”

On the external ESG rating front, Schneider Electric has maintained its status as a sustainability leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) and in Corporate Knights’ list of Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World for the 13th year running, and obtained high scores from Moody’s Analytics, CDP, and EcoVadis with a Platinum medal.

All of these achievements feed into the company’s short and long-term pay incentive plans, underlining the company’s commitment to sustainable performance.

More details on the 2023 SSI results and other highlights are available in the full-year sustainability impact report.

Related resources:

Sustainability ReportsESG Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)Schneider Electric’s recent awards and recognitions

About Schneider Electric 

Schneider’s purpose is to empower all to make the most of our energy and resources, bridging progress and sustainability for all. We call this Life Is On.

Our mission is to be your digital partner for Sustainability and Efficiency.

We drive digital transformation by integrating world-leading process and energy technologies, end-point to cloud connecting products, controls, software and services, across the entire lifecycle, enabling integrated company management, for homes, buildings, data centers, infrastructure and industries.

We are the most local of global companies. We are advocates of open standards and partnership ecosystems that are passionate about our shared Meaningful Purpose, Inclusive and Empowered values.

www.se.com