Tag: 3BL

National Grid has completed renovations at the former Niagara Falls Power Transfer Station, an historic landmark that now includes a pedestrian walkway and interactive, educational information about the building, which links to the earliest days of pioneering electricity engineering technology.

In the 1890s, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse worked together to build the world’s first hydro-electric power plant, in Niagara Falls. It was Tesla’s theory, technology and inventions that made the idea of alternating current a reality in Western New York, in America and eventually, the world.

The building dates to 1895 and is also referred to as the North Tonawanda Transformer Building. Located at 521 Robinson St., it was one of many important components in Tesla’s plan to capture the power of Niagara Falls to produce electricity and send it over long distances. On Nov. 15, 1896 the transmission of alternating current from Niagara Falls traveled 23 miles to Buffalo, passing through the transformer building along the way.

In recent years National Grid staff began discussing the then-vacant transformer building, and how it could be used to better serve customers. That’s because it seemed an ideal location to store equipment and serve as a hub for work crews, who could be deployed across parts of Niagara and Erie counties.

But first, it needed some renovations.

“We replaced some roof tiles, and a lot of brick on the building that had broken off and cracked,” said National Grid Regional Director Ken Kujawa. “And as we were considering the level of physical work that the building required we asked ourselves, ‘How can we honor its history?”

So, as the company decided to pay homage to Tesla and Westinghouse. Images of both men are now included among graphic window panels that in 2022 adorned the outside walls. Additional discussions resulted in decisions to landscape and pave an area that allows pedestrians to get closer to see the building’s new artwork and a plaque that commemorates the work done by Tesla and Westinghouse. The plaque includes a QR code that points visitors to this web page, where they can learn more.

More information about the building’s history and the work performed in the region by Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse is available here:

* WGRZ-TV story transformer building history

* Niagara Parks Power Station – Tesla patents

* Tesla Memorial Society of New York

* Visit Buffalo Niagara – honoring Tesla’s work

About National Grid

National Grid (NYSE: NGG) is an electricity, natural gas, and clean energy delivery company serving more than 20 million people through our networks in New York and Massachusetts. National Grid is focused on building a smarter, stronger, cleaner energy future — transforming our networks with more reliable and resilient energy solutions to meet state climate goals and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

For more information, please visit our website, follow us on X (formerly Twitter), watch us on YouTube, like us on Facebook and find us on Instagram.

Media Contacts

Dave Bertola

Buffalo (Western NY)

(716) 831-7136

Email

Safeway celebrated the grand opening of a new location at 17230 West Peoria, Surprise Ariz. on Wednesday, Nov. 8.

The community was invited to attend the celebration, and as part of the event, the Safeway Foundation awarded $112,000 in grants to local schools and nonprofit organizations. In addition, Mayor Skip Hall along with community leaders spoke at the event. Guests were also able to enjoy a variety of food samplings and drawings for prizes and gift cards.

“We’re thrilled to unveil this beautiful and highly upgraded Safeway store in Surprise,” said Carl Huntington, President of the Southwest Division for Safeway. “This new location will give shoppers the finest selection of foods, along with a wonderful experience each time they visit us.”

The new store was developed by the Common Bond Development Group. “Safeway is the ideal anchor for the new Sterling Grove Shopping Center,” said Brian Frakes, Principal of Common Bond Development Group, the developer of the project. “Surprise has grown nearly 300% over the past decade plus, and being able to anchor with an exceptional grocery operator like Safeway will continue to establish this red-hot submarket.”

The new store features a full-service, drive-up pharmacy, drive-thru grocery pick-up, expanded Starbucks and seating area, designer floral department and a premier produce department featuring the very best of locally grown fruits and vegetables including a variety of topline organic produce. The meat and seafood department affords shoppers an elaborate assortment of fine cut meats, poultry, and seafood. In addition, the store features a world-class expansive wine and craft beer section along with a full-service sushi counter.

For shoppers who believe in eating dessert first, Safeway’s bakery is a must see and has every item possible when it comes to indulging in something sweet. Shoppers will never have to compromise with Safeway’s new deli and cheese departments. Both feature the finest assortment of domestic and international cheeses, meats, salads, and sandwiches, fresh and ready to go daily.

Safeway is investing in the community by providing grants to the following schools and nonprofit organizations:

Shadow Ridge High School – $2,000

Shadow Ridge High School Marching Band – $2,000

Shadow Ridge High School Cheerleaders – $2,000

Willow Canyon High School – $2,000

Willow Canyon High School Marching Band – $2,000

Willow Canyon High School Cheerleaders – $2,000

Mountain View School – $2,000

Canyon Ridge Elementary School – $2,000

Cimarron Springs Middle School – $2,000

Sunset Hills Elementary School – $2,000

Western Peaks Elementary School – $2,000

Fighter Country Foundation – $10,000

Archer-Ragsdale Arizona Chapter Tuskegee Airmen, Inc -$10,000

Dysart Community Center – $15,000

Valley View Food Bank – $15,000

St. Mary’s Food Bank – $15,000

Falcon Warbirds Foundation – $25,000

See the LinkedIn post on the store opening here, and read more about Albertsons Companies and our Recipe for Change on our website.

Safeway celebrated the grand opening of a new location at 17230 West Peoria, Surprise Ariz. on Wednesday, Nov. 8.

The community was invited to attend the celebration, and as part of the event, the Safeway Foundation awarded $112,000 in grants to local schools and nonprofit organizations. In addition, Mayor Skip Hall along with community leaders spoke at the event. Guests were also able to enjoy a variety of food samplings and drawings for prizes and gift cards.

“We’re thrilled to unveil this beautiful and highly upgraded Safeway store in Surprise,” said Carl Huntington, President of the Southwest Division for Safeway. “This new location will give shoppers the finest selection of foods, along with a wonderful experience each time they visit us.”

The new store was developed by the Common Bond Development Group. “Safeway is the ideal anchor for the new Sterling Grove Shopping Center,” said Brian Frakes, Principal of Common Bond Development Group, the developer of the project. “Surprise has grown nearly 300% over the past decade plus, and being able to anchor with an exceptional grocery operator like Safeway will continue to establish this red-hot submarket.”

The new store features a full-service, drive-up pharmacy, drive-thru grocery pick-up, expanded Starbucks and seating area, designer floral department and a premier produce department featuring the very best of locally grown fruits and vegetables including a variety of topline organic produce. The meat and seafood department affords shoppers an elaborate assortment of fine cut meats, poultry, and seafood. In addition, the store features a world-class expansive wine and craft beer section along with a full-service sushi counter.

For shoppers who believe in eating dessert first, Safeway’s bakery is a must see and has every item possible when it comes to indulging in something sweet. Shoppers will never have to compromise with Safeway’s new deli and cheese departments. Both feature the finest assortment of domestic and international cheeses, meats, salads, and sandwiches, fresh and ready to go daily.

Safeway is investing in the community by providing grants to the following schools and nonprofit organizations:

Shadow Ridge High School – $2,000

Shadow Ridge High School Marching Band – $2,000

Shadow Ridge High School Cheerleaders – $2,000

Willow Canyon High School – $2,000

Willow Canyon High School Marching Band – $2,000

Willow Canyon High School Cheerleaders – $2,000

Mountain View School – $2,000

Canyon Ridge Elementary School – $2,000

Cimarron Springs Middle School – $2,000

Sunset Hills Elementary School – $2,000

Western Peaks Elementary School – $2,000

Fighter Country Foundation – $10,000

Archer-Ragsdale Arizona Chapter Tuskegee Airmen, Inc -$10,000

Dysart Community Center – $15,000

Valley View Food Bank – $15,000

St. Mary’s Food Bank – $15,000

Falcon Warbirds Foundation – $25,000

See the LinkedIn post on the store opening here, and read more about Albertsons Companies and our Recipe for Change on our website.

Originally published on bloomberg.com

Bloomberg today announced the launch of a first-of-its-kind tool that investors can use to assess the potential impact of a company’s business on any of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UN member states adopted the SDGs as key pillars to achieve peace and prosperity for people and the planet by 2030.

The market for impact investing surpassed USD $1 trillion in assets worldwide in 2021, according to the Global Impact Investing Network. Yet, the UN estimates the funding gap to achieve the SDGs by 2030 at USD $2.5-3 trillion per year for developing countries (UN Sustainable Development Group). The new data mapping and materiality assessment will provide more clarity for investors seeking to direct capital towards sustainable assets and assess the alignment of private sector activity with the SDGs.

To meet the increasing investor demand for objective SDG-related data, Bloomberg has integrated the UN Environmental Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) Sector Impact Map, developed as part of its suite of resources based on its unique holistic impact methodology, into Bloomberg’s ESG data offerings. The resource maps more than 500 sectoral activities to 38 impact topics and the SDGs, distinguishing between positive and negative impact a company may have on the environment, people and economic development. UNEP FI’s Sector Impact Map has been applied across 50,000 public companies using Bloomberg’s granular segment revenue classification.

SDG Impact assessments provide investors with additional market information for corporate engagement and security selection. Bloomberg’s extensive data coverage enables users to perform benchmarking and fund classification. As the regulatory reporting environment evolves, the new data mapping can serve as a complementary tool for meeting evolving sustainable finance standards and legislative frameworks. The tool is available on the Bloomberg Terminal and via Bloomberg Data License for enterprise use.

“Bloomberg’s ESG data, research and analytics help clients mitigate risk and comply with new and emerging regulatory requirements, and pursue investments aligned with their sustainability commitments,” said Patricia Torres, Global Head of Sustainable Finance Solutions at Bloomberg. “By mapping the UN Sector Impact Map to our comprehensive and high quality ESG data, our customers can bridge the gap between ESG integration and Impact investing, acting with more clarity and transparency.”

“UNEP FI works with the finance industry to mainstream impact analysis and management in business and finance, to help close the SDG funding gap. We have developed a range of impact management tools and resources across the three pillars of sustainable development and across economic sectors and activities, mapping related negative and positive impacts,” said Careen Abb, SDGs and Impact Lead at UNEP FI. “We are delighted the available resources are being used to help to mainstream impact management, and to accelerate the transition to an economy that helps deliver the SDGs.”

Bloomberg’s ESG data, research, and analytics span regulatory compliance, carbon emissions, sustainable debt, scores, indices, climate risk, and more. Clients can readily access this data on the Bloomberg Terminal and via Bloomberg Data License at data.bloomberg.com for use in proprietary or third-party applications. To learn more, please visit our website here.

About Bloomberg

Bloomberg is a global leader in business and financial information, delivering trusted data, news, and insights that bring transparency, efficiency, and fairness to markets. The company helps connect influential communities across the global financial ecosystem via reliable technology solutions that enable our customers to make more informed decisions and foster better collaboration.

For more information, visit Bloomberg.com/company or request a demo.

Bloomberg media contacts

US- Carina Uehara, cuehara2@bloomberg.net, +1 212 617 7927
EMEA- Anna Schoeffler, aschoeffler1@bloomberg.net, +33 1 5365 3215

Ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference COP28 in Dubai, UAE, SAP Insights has released the results of its Wave 3 sustainability study. The research reveals key insights for businesses scaling their environmental efforts and builds on survey findings from 2021 and 2022.

While Wave 1 served to benchmark companies on their sustainability journey, Wave 2 identified a maturing approach to embedding sustainability across business processes. Results from this latest study show truly sustainable businesses – those that have established sustainability as part of business strategy and operational decision-making – achieve a genuine competitive advantage. In addition, more respondents than ever see a stronger positive relationship between sustainability and competitiveness with 72% believing sustainability contributes towards their competitive differentiation.

“We see in the research how many companies are shifting to view sustainability no longer as a regulatory compliance tactic, but becoming more of a strategy to actually build business value,” Sarah Dziuk, SAP Insights Head of Research, said.

The study includes results from 4,750 respondents across 21 nations and 29 industries. Eighty-five percent of responses came from midmarket businesses (under US$1 billion annual turnover) and 15% from large enterprises (over US$1 billion turnover per year).

Making More Leaders Accountable

A key finding in Wave 3 was that businesses making the connection between sustainability and competitiveness make more leadership roles accountable for sustainability. This allows for a broader span of control and more accountability. The most competitive companies tend to have more than one top action taker such as a chief sustainability officer and an environment or sustainability manager.

“Our experience suggests that success is more likely when executives empower [their] organizations to engage proactively and strategically hold them responsible for creating measurable impact. Only then will companies be able to maximize the value at stake from their sustainability initiatives.”

McKinsey

Improving Data Quality

Becoming an intelligent, sustainable enterprise requires regular, reliable, and accessible data. With the majority of emissions sitting within a company’s supply chain, shareability across business networks is also essential for meaningful decision-making. Unfortunately, many companies still rely on estimates and assumptions, many of which they gather manually.

Highly sustainable organizations have a solid focus on the quality of their sustainability data. Quality data comes from primary sources that track actual emissions, waste, and other elements. Unsurprisingly, this leads to more satisfaction with the data. The companies with the most substantial connection between sustainability and competitiveness report the highest level of satisfaction with overall data quality – 47% compared to just 10% of other organizations.

Reliable data is more useful in determining strategy. Forty-one percent of respondents indicate strong data usage to inform decision-making. They also integrate data into more business processes and operations such as procurement, product labeling, selecting M&A opportunities, and recruitment.

“The way we report on environmental data needs to quite quickly go through the same journey that accountancy went on many years ago.”

Stuart Coleman, Open Data Institute

S.Oleum, a Brazilian agroforestry business that generates a third of its revenue from carbon credits, has implemented several SAP software solutions to help track and manage its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data. Having a robust core system in place serves as a basis for all other processes and decision-making, as well as provides the accountability, transparency, and confidence it needs.

Quality data is the cornerstone of Catena-X, a program that allows the standardized exchange of carbon emissions data in the automotive industry using interoperability standards established by the WBSCD Partnership for Carbon Transparency (PACT). This lets businesses share product carbon information, promoting transparency throughout the supply chain, accelerating their journey to net zero, and making them more competitive in the process.

Sustainability as a Business Strategy

The top 25% of businesses reporting the strongest impact from sustainability reported that they treat sustainability as any other strategic pillar, on a par with IT for example. This has resulted in a much higher use of metrics for decision-making, increased investment, higher data satisfaction, and higher confidence of a return on investment in a one-to-three year period.

It has also led to positive business impacts including growth and improved profitability, increased efficiency, better quality products and services, and reduced costs, suggesting a truly sustainable business is more robust and resilient.

With clearer business imperatives, companies make investment decisions to drive business value. They invest in sustainability initiatives and can set realistic expectations of a positive financial return on investment in a shorter time frame, putting sustainability on a comparable timeline with other investments.

Linking Sustainability to Competitiveness

Companies are motivated to take action on sustainability when they see it as a genuine opportunity for differentiation and revenue growth. This leads them to make more people responsible for delivering on sustainability strategies and renders the barriers typically encountered earlier in a company’s sustainability journey, such as funding and concerns over ROI, less material.

It is interesting to note that in the UAE, where sustainability has been promoted at a country level as being as crucial for differentiation, a high proportion of companies (nearly 74%) are planning to increase their investment in environmental issues over the next three years.

The commitment to investment and lack of skepticism around sustainability in the UAE leads businesses there to report a significantly higher than average level of satisfaction with data – 36% are completely satisfied compared to 23% in the rest of the global results. More of these businesses, therefore, use reporting for decision-making, which is viewed more materially and results in decisions being taken more quickly. A positive relationship between sustainability and competitiveness is the culmination of these favorable indicators, allowing them to outshine their competitors in their sector.

Conclusion

The Wave 3 study results are clear: reacting to sustainability initiatives and demands isn’t adequate to gain a competitive advantage. Companies must invest in and treat sustainability as a key business strategy to unlock opportunities. In doing so, they will set a virtuous circle in motion where investment in accountability and better quality data drives more strategic decision-making and further investment. This benefits the company as a whole, making it more efficient, profitable, and robust in the face of the changing climate.

Read the full SAP Insights research study to learn more.

Ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference COP28 in Dubai, UAE, SAP Insights has released the results of its Wave 3 sustainability study. The research reveals key insights for businesses scaling their environmental efforts and builds on survey findings from 2021 and 2022.

While Wave 1 served to benchmark companies on their sustainability journey, Wave 2 identified a maturing approach to embedding sustainability across business processes. Results from this latest study show truly sustainable businesses – those that have established sustainability as part of business strategy and operational decision-making – achieve a genuine competitive advantage. In addition, more respondents than ever see a stronger positive relationship between sustainability and competitiveness with 72% believing sustainability contributes towards their competitive differentiation.

“We see in the research how many companies are shifting to view sustainability no longer as a regulatory compliance tactic, but becoming more of a strategy to actually build business value,” Sarah Dziuk, SAP Insights Head of Research, said.

The study includes results from 4,750 respondents across 21 nations and 29 industries. Eighty-five percent of responses came from midmarket businesses (under US$1 billion annual turnover) and 15% from large enterprises (over US$1 billion turnover per year).

Making More Leaders Accountable

A key finding in Wave 3 was that businesses making the connection between sustainability and competitiveness make more leadership roles accountable for sustainability. This allows for a broader span of control and more accountability. The most competitive companies tend to have more than one top action taker such as a chief sustainability officer and an environment or sustainability manager.

“Our experience suggests that success is more likely when executives empower [their] organizations to engage proactively and strategically hold them responsible for creating measurable impact. Only then will companies be able to maximize the value at stake from their sustainability initiatives.”

McKinsey

Improving Data Quality

Becoming an intelligent, sustainable enterprise requires regular, reliable, and accessible data. With the majority of emissions sitting within a company’s supply chain, shareability across business networks is also essential for meaningful decision-making. Unfortunately, many companies still rely on estimates and assumptions, many of which they gather manually.

Highly sustainable organizations have a solid focus on the quality of their sustainability data. Quality data comes from primary sources that track actual emissions, waste, and other elements. Unsurprisingly, this leads to more satisfaction with the data. The companies with the most substantial connection between sustainability and competitiveness report the highest level of satisfaction with overall data quality – 47% compared to just 10% of other organizations.

Reliable data is more useful in determining strategy. Forty-one percent of respondents indicate strong data usage to inform decision-making. They also integrate data into more business processes and operations such as procurement, product labeling, selecting M&A opportunities, and recruitment.

“The way we report on environmental data needs to quite quickly go through the same journey that accountancy went on many years ago.”

Stuart Coleman, Open Data Institute

S.Oleum, a Brazilian agroforestry business that generates a third of its revenue from carbon credits, has implemented several SAP software solutions to help track and manage its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data. Having a robust core system in place serves as a basis for all other processes and decision-making, as well as provides the accountability, transparency, and confidence it needs.

Quality data is the cornerstone of Catena-X, a program that allows the standardized exchange of carbon emissions data in the automotive industry using interoperability standards established by the WBSCD Partnership for Carbon Transparency (PACT). This lets businesses share product carbon information, promoting transparency throughout the supply chain, accelerating their journey to net zero, and making them more competitive in the process.

Sustainability as a Business Strategy

The top 25% of businesses reporting the strongest impact from sustainability reported that they treat sustainability as any other strategic pillar, on a par with IT for example. This has resulted in a much higher use of metrics for decision-making, increased investment, higher data satisfaction, and higher confidence of a return on investment in a one-to-three year period.

It has also led to positive business impacts including growth and improved profitability, increased efficiency, better quality products and services, and reduced costs, suggesting a truly sustainable business is more robust and resilient.

With clearer business imperatives, companies make investment decisions to drive business value. They invest in sustainability initiatives and can set realistic expectations of a positive financial return on investment in a shorter time frame, putting sustainability on a comparable timeline with other investments.

Linking Sustainability to Competitiveness

Companies are motivated to take action on sustainability when they see it as a genuine opportunity for differentiation and revenue growth. This leads them to make more people responsible for delivering on sustainability strategies and renders the barriers typically encountered earlier in a company’s sustainability journey, such as funding and concerns over ROI, less material.

It is interesting to note that in the UAE, where sustainability has been promoted at a country level as being as crucial for differentiation, a high proportion of companies (nearly 74%) are planning to increase their investment in environmental issues over the next three years.

The commitment to investment and lack of skepticism around sustainability in the UAE leads businesses there to report a significantly higher than average level of satisfaction with data – 36% are completely satisfied compared to 23% in the rest of the global results. More of these businesses, therefore, use reporting for decision-making, which is viewed more materially and results in decisions being taken more quickly. A positive relationship between sustainability and competitiveness is the culmination of these favorable indicators, allowing them to outshine their competitors in their sector.

Conclusion

The Wave 3 study results are clear: reacting to sustainability initiatives and demands isn’t adequate to gain a competitive advantage. Companies must invest in and treat sustainability as a key business strategy to unlock opportunities. In doing so, they will set a virtuous circle in motion where investment in accountability and better quality data drives more strategic decision-making and further investment. This benefits the company as a whole, making it more efficient, profitable, and robust in the face of the changing climate.

Read the full SAP Insights research study to learn more.

There’s something transformative about being with people who share a commitment to driving positive change in our world. Comcast had an opportunity to help create space for this community at our 2023 Project UP Summit. Held recently at our headquarters in Philadelphia, the Summit convened hundreds of leaders from nonprofit organizations across the country for programming and discussions focused on deepening the impact of our collective efforts to advance digital equity as a pathway to economic mobility.

Encompassing programs and community partnerships across Comcast, NBCUniversal, and Sky, through Project UP, our $1 billion commitment, we are connecting people to the Internet; providing them with devices; helping them build digital skills; and opening doors for the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, storytellers, and creators.

This year’s Summit leaned into the power of community ─ helping our partners deepen their relationships with each other, discover different ways to collaborate, and gain more inspiration as we continue this important work.

Our two days together were rich with insights about the intersection of equity and innovation, the power of storytelling, and the importance of listening and building trust in our communities. Programming included spotlights from leaders at our nonprofit partners; breakout sessions about Accessing Public Funds for Community Benefit and Scaling for Operational Impact; and mainstage panels on justice, opportunity, the future of media, and inspiring the team of tomorrow ─ a conversation with Olympian Jordan Burrough and Paralympian Trevon Jenifer.

It’s never been more clear to me how interconnected our efforts are to close the digital divide and help more people excel in an increasingly digital world. I left our gathering with deep gratitude and so many gems that will continue to stretch my thinking and scale our impact. Here are just a few:

1. Listen to and value the voices and experiences of the people you are aiming to serve. We heard variations of this message during almost every session. It’s a reminder that storytelling is data and we need to use it to inform our work.

2. Have optimism. Here, we can take cues from young people. They have great energy, a sense of urgency, and are actively refuting what many of us have come to accept. We need that type of approach to grow impact and get to the next level.

3. Commit to making the honey. During our fireside chat, Professor Ruha Benjamin, author of Viral Justice and Princeton University professor, shared a brilliant anecdote about bees in her yard toiling to fill a hive with honey, though they will not survive the winter. She explained that we often must commit to making the honey, even if we may never taste it. What we do to advance digital equity isn’t only for us ─ the current generations. It’s building a stronger foundation that will benefit those to come. Even if we don’t see the full fruit of our labor, the work is still worth it.

4. “Hope is a discipline.” That quote from community organizer Mariame Kaba is a through-line for our work, and perhaps a lifeline for many of us at some point during our journeys. Hope requires focus, intentionality, authenticity, and execution. We’re not going to build a more equitable world without it.

5. Be pragmatic and be visionary. As Ruha said, despite what many may think, these are not competing interests. We have a responsibility to address the current challenges of our communities, and we also have an opportunity to change the narrative about what we can achieve.

During the Summit’s closing panel, Jordan, U.S. Olympic Gold Medalist in wrestling and Trevon, U.S. Paralympic Gold Medalist in wheelchair basketball, spoke about the type of community it takes to win gold. For Trevon, it includes people who help you stay focused, aim higher, and understand that “we’re going after something greater than we have.”

That was a perfect reminder for the commitment we share and for this moment in time. Let’s imagine more for our world, and work together to create that future of unlimited possibilities for us all.

Dalila Wilson-Scott is Executive Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer for Comcast Corporation and President of the Comcast NBCUniversal Foundation.

There’s something transformative about being with people who share a commitment to driving positive change in our world. Comcast had an opportunity to help create space for this community at our 2023 Project UP Summit. Held recently at our headquarters in Philadelphia, the Summit convened hundreds of leaders from nonprofit organizations across the country for programming and discussions focused on deepening the impact of our collective efforts to advance digital equity as a pathway to economic mobility.

Encompassing programs and community partnerships across Comcast, NBCUniversal, and Sky, through Project UP, our $1 billion commitment, we are connecting people to the Internet; providing them with devices; helping them build digital skills; and opening doors for the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, storytellers, and creators.

This year’s Summit leaned into the power of community ─ helping our partners deepen their relationships with each other, discover different ways to collaborate, and gain more inspiration as we continue this important work.

Our two days together were rich with insights about the intersection of equity and innovation, the power of storytelling, and the importance of listening and building trust in our communities. Programming included spotlights from leaders at our nonprofit partners; breakout sessions about Accessing Public Funds for Community Benefit and Scaling for Operational Impact; and mainstage panels on justice, opportunity, the future of media, and inspiring the team of tomorrow ─ a conversation with Olympian Jordan Burrough and Paralympian Trevon Jenifer.

It’s never been more clear to me how interconnected our efforts are to close the digital divide and help more people excel in an increasingly digital world. I left our gathering with deep gratitude and so many gems that will continue to stretch my thinking and scale our impact. Here are just a few:

1. Listen to and value the voices and experiences of the people you are aiming to serve. We heard variations of this message during almost every session. It’s a reminder that storytelling is data and we need to use it to inform our work.

2. Have optimism. Here, we can take cues from young people. They have great energy, a sense of urgency, and are actively refuting what many of us have come to accept. We need that type of approach to grow impact and get to the next level.

3. Commit to making the honey. During our fireside chat, Professor Ruha Benjamin, author of Viral Justice and Princeton University professor, shared a brilliant anecdote about bees in her yard toiling to fill a hive with honey, though they will not survive the winter. She explained that we often must commit to making the honey, even if we may never taste it. What we do to advance digital equity isn’t only for us ─ the current generations. It’s building a stronger foundation that will benefit those to come. Even if we don’t see the full fruit of our labor, the work is still worth it.

4. “Hope is a discipline.” That quote from community organizer Mariame Kaba is a through-line for our work, and perhaps a lifeline for many of us at some point during our journeys. Hope requires focus, intentionality, authenticity, and execution. We’re not going to build a more equitable world without it.

5. Be pragmatic and be visionary. As Ruha said, despite what many may think, these are not competing interests. We have a responsibility to address the current challenges of our communities, and we also have an opportunity to change the narrative about what we can achieve.

During the Summit’s closing panel, Jordan, U.S. Olympic Gold Medalist in wrestling and Trevon, U.S. Paralympic Gold Medalist in wheelchair basketball, spoke about the type of community it takes to win gold. For Trevon, it includes people who help you stay focused, aim higher, and understand that “we’re going after something greater than we have.”

That was a perfect reminder for the commitment we share and for this moment in time. Let’s imagine more for our world, and work together to create that future of unlimited possibilities for us all.

Dalila Wilson-Scott is Executive Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer for Comcast Corporation and President of the Comcast NBCUniversal Foundation.

Originally published in Quest Diagnostics Corporate Responsibility Report 2022

2022 highlights: 

Contributed ~$15 million in corporate giving and Q4HE grantsProvided ~750,000 donated or discounted test requisitions, at a cost of over $13 millionMatched ~$300,000 in employee donations to hundreds of nonprofitsEmployees volunteered 20,000+ hours

Quest’s Corporate Giving Program captures the passion and commitment of our workforce to make meaningful contributions to the communities where we live and operate. We provide a combination of financial support, donated and discounted services, volunteer time, and thought leadership to nonprofit organizations.

Quest also supports employees in their own philanthropic giving. Through our Matching Gifts Program, employees are encouraged to support organizations that provide healthcare services and education, address healthcare disparities and social determinants of health, fight racism and foster inclusion, and conserve the environment. Quest matches contributions up to $2,500 per employee per year.

We also expanded The Quest Employee Relief Fund to provide financial support to colleagues impacted by personal hardship, in addition to those affected by federally declared disasters. Employee donations to the Employee Relief Fund are 100% matched by Quest. In 2022, $288,000 was awarded through 700+ grants.

Read more

Originally published by Walgreens Boots Alliance

Clinical trial recruitment has historically been centered in larger urban areas near established medical institutions, leaving out the nearly 61 million Americans that live in rural locations where healthcare access is limited.

Walgreens is proud to be an industry leader in increasing access to clinical research across the country, and is committed to reaching vulnerable and marginalized populations that are often excluded from clinical research but can benefit from it the most. In celebration of last week’s National Rural Health Day, we hosted an event at Walgreens store # 11539 in Monroe, Georgia, to elevate awareness about challenges that rural communities like Monroe face in healthcare, as well as share clinical trial insights and resources.

Thanks to the Walgreens clinical trials team: Kendal K. Whitlock, MPH and Tolu Adewuya, PhD; the Monroe store team: Leroy Cooper, Taylor Truelove, Shane Dinwiddie, Carina Cornell and Scott R. Downs; and our partners: Morehouse School of Medicine, Verizon, Takeda, Freenome, Fight Colorectal Cancer, University at Buffalo Clinical and Translational Science Institute, Georgia State Representative Bruce Williamson and Planet Defense CEO, Dr. Indu Singh.