Tag: 3BL

May 10, 2023 /3BL Media/ – CRB announced yesterday it has hired Mike Dieterich as its new Senior Director of Sustainability. With over 17 years of experience in sustainable action, greenhouse gas reductions, and innovations within the built environment, Dieterich brings to CRB a proven track record on sustainability solutions to help clients meet their carbon footprint reduction goals.

Dieterich specializes in decarbonization, zero-waste and net-zero energy projects, and energy efficiency programs. He is a celebrated leader in the sustainability community, with nearly 75 keynote speeches on sustainability, including TEDx talks, and he was recognized in 2021 by Environment + Energy Leader for his contributions to new solutions, programs, and platforms in environment and energy management.

In his new role at CRB, Dieterich is responsible for developing and implementing strategic sustainability initiatives, driving innovation in environmental practices, and working collaboratively with cross-functional teams to achieve lasting sustainability goals for our clients and their projects. His deep understanding of site utility needs and biopharma operations will be invaluable in advancing the company’s sustainability offering and influencing best practices companywide.

“Companies like CRB have an opportunity to drive sustainability across their own organizations, and apply those learnings and innovation outward for client projects that are profitable for everyone and benefit both people and the planet,” Dieterich said. “CRB is making this very commitment, and I couldn’t be more excited to join them.”

Dieterich has led sustainability strategy, planning, and implementation efforts throughout his career. He managed energy and sustainability for Washington DC’s public school modernization, managed a campus of 10 buildings with 1.28 million square feet, using available building analytics platforms and integrating building management systems (BMS) to drive energy efficiency. He significantly reduced waste at a research and development site, which the first TRUE Zero Waste certified BioTech campus. Additionally, he facilitated a first-of-its-kind power purchasers agreement (PPA) in his region, oversaw high-performance green building renovations, provided net-zero consulting, and has guided projects through ambitious building certifications, including LEED Platinum.

“CRB has a unique opportunity to holistically impact our clients’ sustainability goals, starting with early design. Integrating a responsible strategy from the start helps our clients maximize their sustainability efforts, driving positive impact for them as well as their broader communities,” said Ryan Schroeder, CRB President and Chief Executive Officer. “I’m thrilled to bring Mike aboard, and with his guidance, we’ll continue to move the industry forward and be proud of the support and innovation we provide to our clients.”

Dieterich received his Bachelor of Environmental Science from Plattsburgh University and is a LEED Accredited Professional. He serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Houston, sharing his knowledge and passion for sustainability with the next generation of environmental leaders.

Originally published on Essity.com

Conducting Essity’s business in a socially responsible way is part of our corporate DNA. We have a zero-tolerance approach to unethical business behavior and violations of human rights in the value chains where we exercise control.

Code of Conduct

Essity’s Code of Conduct describes how employees should act, how the company operates, and our stakeholder’s expectations of Essity and Essity’s commitment to human rights, including children’s rights. The Code is based on international standards, such as the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP), the ILO Core Conventions, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the UN Global Compact Principles and related legislation.

All of Essity’s wholly owned subsidiaries are bound by the Code of Conduct. We expect joint-venture companies to implement a Code of Conduct and guidelines equivalent to those stipulated in Essity’s Code of Conduct. 
To ensure that all employees comply with the Code of Conduct, it is included as a mandatory training course in all the company’s onboarding programs. To address the risk of corruption, Essity has an anti-corruption program that includes due diligence programs for business partners, training programs for employees and risk analyses. For Essity employees who have frequent contact with external stakeholders, annual anti-corruption training is mandatory.

All our other business partners are expected to follow principles equivalent to those included in the company’s Code of Conduct.

Essity has a Global Supplier Standard to ensure responsible business operations and respect for human rights across the company’s supplier base. This standard contains requirements concerning quality, product safety, the environment and chemicals. It also contains a Code of Conduct for Suppliers that includes Essity’s expectations as regards human rights and employee relations, health and safety and business ethics. Compliance with these principles is a key factor when choosing suppliers and other business partners.

Compliance and monitoring

Systematic activities, such as audits and other monitoring processes, take place to ensure compliance.

For Essity’s own and wholly owned production facilities, compliance with the Code of Conduct is ensured through audits under SA8000 conducted by the Internal Audit unit. The preferred audit format is SMETA, the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange’s (Sedex) social auditing methodology, which is the most widely used format in the world for social and ethical audits. Essity’s own and wholly owned production facilities that have conducted self-assessments in Sedex are available to our customers who are part of Sedex. Customers conduct audits in accordance with SMETA at Essity’s production facilities.

We apply a systematic approach to ensure that our suppliers globally operate in line with our Code of Conduct for Suppliers. Essity requires that the company’s suppliers use Sedex to conduct a self-assessment linked to working conditions, environment, business ethics and health and safety. Audits at the suppliers’ sites, in accordance with OECD guiding principles for Multinational Enterprises and UN Global Compact, are used to verify compliance and to identify and address potential social and ethical issues.

Reporting breaches

Essity encourages an open and honest culture in which all employees can report suspicions of violations of the Code of Conduct or legislation. Retaliation against individuals who submit reports in good faith will not be accepted. Essity offers its employees a number of internal channels to report violations. Essity’s Code of Conduct includes a section on how the company’s whistleblower system works. All employees have access to the whistleblower system, Essity’s reporting hotline, which is managed by an external party. Our reporting hotline is available 24/7 by phone or online in more than 25 languages. Where permitted by law, breaches can be reported anonymously. Essity’s Compliance & Ethics department receives all submitted reports from the whistleblower system and is responsible for ensuring that necessary action is taken. Reports are presented regularly to Essity’s Compliance Council and to the Board of Directors. Read more about this on Essity.com.

Partnering for improved global health and well-being 
Greater impact can be achieved by collaborating with organizations that share our ambition to improve global hygiene, health and equality. We engage in initiatives where we can best contribute and these must be politically and religiously independent, as set out in Essity’s Community Relations Instruction. In 2022, Essity invested approximately SEK 37M in more than 400 projects. For example, during the year we had a close and action-oriented collaboration with UNHCR to support people in Ukraine.

We work with partners to gather and share knowledge and insights. Through our different perspectives, expertise and resources, the aim is to identify solutions to global societal challenges and to drive global change, for example by raising hygiene and health standards, thereby improving well-being for millions worldwide. With important partners such as the United Nations Foundation, we focus on sharing knowledge and raising awareness on what is needed to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Our work in raising awareness of stigmas and breaking taboos related to hygiene and health are examples of how Essity can play an important role in society and participate in the global public debate around issues related to hygiene, health, and well-being.

For many years, Essity has been a strategic partner in the “Global Handwashing Partnership”. We also support the “Hand hygiene for all” initiative together with the WHO and UNICEF in Mexico, the aim of which is to guarantee access to products and services for hand hygiene in countries and areas where knowledge of and access to good hygiene and handwashing solutions are limited. Through our partnership with UNICEF in Mexico, we are highlighting the rights of children and young people in relation to health, education and gender equality, with a focus on hand hygiene and menstruation.

As a means of contributing to the global dialogue on improving hygiene and health, driving societal progress and enabling solutions, we have – over the past 15 years – regularly published “The Hygiene and Health Report” in cooperation with the Sanitation and Hygiene Fund (SHF). The report contains new insights and relevant action and has been the base for engaging with stakeholders to drive urgently needed changes.

Read more about Essity’s strategic priorities, earnings and leading sustainability work in the Annual and Sustainability Report 2022, which can be downloaded at www.essity.com.

To access the digital short version, please click here.

Quest Diagnostics Incorporated, through the Quest Diagnostics Foundation, is proud to support the American Heart Association (AHA)’s Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) Scholars Program for the second year in a row.

The HSI Scholars Program was created by the AHA to invest in aspiring Hispanic researchers and healthcare professionals. As part of the program, undergraduate students enrolled in biomedical and health sciences at these inclusion-driven institutions participate in academic and career-enriching experiences, learning about health disparities in Hispanic communities, how cultural sensitivity can provide safe and reassuring clinical spaces, and how inclusivity is essential in science.

As part of this collaboration, in advance of the HSI Class of 2022-23’s Spring Research Symposium, program participants were treated to a tour of Quest’s Clifton laboratory. The students heard directly from Quest leaders Ruth Clements (Vice President & General Manager of Quest’s East Region) and Santy Galvez (Vice President of Operations for Quest’s East Region) and toured one of the nation’s most advanced laboratory facilities.

Quest’s Clifton laboratory, which debuted in 2021, serves more than 40 million people per year in seven states across the Northeast, performing high-volume diagnostic testing services with increased productivity and superior medical quality.

During the tour, students had the opportunity to learn about laboratory operations from Quest leadership and several automated technologies at work, enhancing efficiency.

“It is our pleasure to collaborate with organizations like the American Heart Association to implement programs that impact access to care and social determinants of health,” said Michael Floyd, Senior Director, Quest for Health Equity. “We at Quest applaud the vision and initiative of the AHA to establish this impactful program, and commend each of the hardworking students who participated.”

“The team at Quest Diagnostics continues to demonstrate how passionate it is when it comes to creating an environment of improving health equity by opening its doors and inspiring the next generation of scholars who are going to be doing the research, developing the science and creating the programs to make improved health and wellness a priority in their communities,” said Pamela Garmon Johnson, National VP, Health Equity & Partnerships, American Heart Association. “We at the American Heart Association are grateful for the opportunities that our collaboration provides.”

To learn more about Quest for Health Equity, visit our website at www.QuestForHealthEquity.com.

Taco Bell Blog

At Taco Bell, we empower our teams to be fearless, embrace difference and drive change. We believe that each one of us has a story to tell. 

The month of May celebrates Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month. This month was specifically chosen to honor the first known Japanese immigrant to the U.S. (May 1843), as well as to acknowledge the tremendous contribution Chinese immigrants made in completing the transcontinental railroad (May 1869).

AANHPI is a wide-ranging term used to describe all cultures across the continent of Asia and the Pacific Islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia – representing approximately 50 ethnic groups and 100 languages. There is incredible depth and richness of diversity found within the AANHPI community, and this month is devoted to recognizing and elevating their cultural influence.

To honor and celebrate this month and the AANHPI community at The Bell, we will share their stories every week in the month of May in hopes that they not only educate but inspire you to drive positive and intentional impact within your community.

Throughout the year, we will continue sharing the incredible stories of our Taco Bell teams; the sharing and celebration doesn’t stop here.

Katie – FSQA Scientist

As an Asian woman, Katie knows the difficulty of the stereotypes that are labeled on her. She describes it as, “… Asian women cannot disagree with someone because they are seen as someone who falls in line and it’s a bias that some may unknowingly carry.” She believes that a step to finding a solution to this issue is having more diversity in leadership. “Put more POC women in leadership positions. Give them opportunities and resources to grow and develop their careers. Celebrate their success with recognition. Embrace their communication styles,” she said.

Katie was raised to be humble, never contradict, and always be respectful. Although she acknowledges that some of these are good character traits, these traits were not helping her succeed in her career. She found it hard to speak up for herself and did not have confidence in her ideas or opinions. She is still working on her self-promoting and not falling back into her old tendencies.

The road to get there wasn’t easy, but it was worth it. She attended California State University, Long Beach, and received her Bachelor of Science in Nutrition and Dietetics. She went on to later receive her Master of Science in Agriculture – Food Science and Management at Washington State University. She has immense knowledge and years of experience in the food industry. If you check out her LinkedIn page, you would be amazed at all her accomplishments.

Speaking of those accomplishments, Katie is not only a Scientist on our Food Innovation QA team, but also a leader of the Business Employee Resource Group, Live Más CREAsians, and an advocate for inclusion. “When you participate in EI&B (equity, inclusion and belonging) initiatives, you begin to view everyday practices differently. It becomes second nature to think about ways you can be more sensitive and respectful to others,” she said. This role has taught her valuable lessons and she recognizes that there is still room for improvement.

“By committing to progressing EI&B efforts at Taco Bell, I know that I am paving the way for others to feel confident in their careers and that their skills are recognized,” she said. Katie hopes that her progress encourages others that are struggling to find their voice and confidence, and to truly believe that the seat at the table is 100% theirs.

For Katie, AANHPI Heritage Month means that her community is being heard, celebrated, and recognized for their achievements. For anyone that wants to get involved, Katie recommends they check out their local advocacy or volunteer groups. At Taco Bell, Live Más CREAsians will be hosting another Fireside Chat with Connie Chung Joe from Asian Americans Advancing Justice SOCAL, a social justice organization that protects the rights and dignity of AANHPI communities. You can read more about her here.

She wants future generations of the AANHPI community to have better experiences learning about their culture than she did growing up. “That they feel not just included but celebrated,” she said.

She is fun, talkative, detail-oriented, and can also be very shy but above all, she has a brave heart that is willing to fight against any bias to ensure that others feel empowered. Katie has the following advice for anyone looking to break out of their shell, “I want people to reject the idea of what they are ‘supposed to be.’ And I encourage everyone to embrace their true self and voice their power.”

 

As previously seen on Lampoon Magazine and published with permission.

The scarce but growing amount of information that has been coming out of the fashion industry seems to be a deliberate strategy that is aimed at greenwashing and confusing the audience.

EKOS international sustainability consultancy 

Cynthia Figge started being concerned with sustainability before it was trendy, before it was considered necessary and inevitable. In 1996 she had already founded EKOS International, a sustainability consultancy: back then, Figge says, she used to travel to Europe often to gather data and best practices from firms and companies. Europe was, and is, ahead of the US in terms of understanding and practicing sustainability as well as the regulatory apparatus that makes it possible. Today, CSRHub is the largest aggregator of EGS data sources – Environment, Social, and Governance.

Figge had met Bahar Gidwani, the co-founding partner of CSRHub, at Harvard Business School. Gidwani was a pioneer in systems to digitize stock photos to bring them online, developing big data techniques that CSRHub still uses to this day. Combined with Figge’s expertise and interest for sustainable development (she had also worked for and advised large corporations like Boeing, Coca-Cola, REA, BNSF), they started building what would become the data aggregator, resulting in the most balanced and widely encompassing rating for companies of all industries based on their ESG performance.

«There was already a rich array of sources from what we would call Wall Street analysts, and actually many of the analysts were in Europe. We started working with them, one by one, to convince them to allow us to use their data. This may not sound very radical at the moment, but at the time none of the sources were allowing their data to be combined with any other source. These were direct competitors to each-other so bringing them together to create a consensus score was unusual». The resulting landscape was thus confusing– contrasting or diverging sources would not always work in the interest of full transparency.

How does CSRHub works

CSRHub’s business intelligence system measures the ESG impact of companies and assigns each an overall rating on a scale from 0 to 100. Sources now include investor facing analysts, customer Intelligence analytics, activists, special interest groups as well as public government data. The company provides transparent access to the ESG performance of 19,000 companies from 134 industries in 143 countries.

Its platform uses algorithms to aggregate, normalize and weigh ESG metrics from 680+ sources, making them the largest aggregator available, encompassing 280 million data points with monthly data history extending back to December 2008. All of this is distilled down to the rating, which is the result of lower level scores on twelve key subcategories: Environment (energy and climate change / environmental policy and reporting / resource management), Employees (compensation / diversity / training and health), Community (philanthropy / products / human rights and supply chain), and Governance (board / leadership / transparency).

Keeping the data confidential through strict agreements

It is only through CSRHub’s vast correlation analysis and granular statistical work that such a vast array of input can be made meaning of, so that comparison and ranking is possible within industries and across geographies. The challenge with ESG is that it covers diverse and often conflicting areas within a single company, hard and soft factors, from employee wellbeing to supply chain efficiency. Progress is not a single facet concept: it can be measured and viewed under different angles, so harmonization and normalization are essential tools for ultimate transparency. It started at the initiative of pioneers like Figge and her partner and, on the companies’ side, of a few illuminated CEOs. In the space of a few years the pressure multiplied manifolds to include pushes from external stakeholders, regulatory institutions and, most importantly, employees.

«There were all sorts of awakenings and pressure in consumer-facing companies like Nike and Coca-Cola or retailers to disclose more, to be conscious. These were times when students on campuses were boycotting companies like Coca-Cola because of the water table drawdown in India [2000-2005]. There was a rising understanding at the consumer level that issues like the scarcity of resources were part of their consideration in terms of brand loyalty. Companies in their own self-interest were beginning to understand the implications of this kind of issues and that there was some cost-advantage to that».

But even back in the ‘early days’ – around the turn of the century – there were already companies, like Hp or Dell in the tech arena, where the implications of sustainability were felt at every level of the organization: even lower level employees and product managers were engaged in recycling and making a difference, long before it became a popular trend. Sustainability gradually but steadily became a factor of innovation, whether it was because of enlightened founders or pure market opportunism.

Patagonia company: a positive example

A virtuous example in an industry as controversial as fashion, is Patagonia, created in 1973 by Yvon Chouinart. As early as 1985, the company has started devolving 1% of their revenues to environmental protection organizations, for a cumulative total of 89 million euros between cash and material donations. On the product and sourcing front, Patagonia has worked to reduce its environmental impact: in 1993, it devised a fleece material made from plastic bottles.

As it won the Circular Economy Multinational Award in Davos in 2017, it launched an e-commerce platform for its Worn Wear initiative, which sells used Patagonia clothing and equipment online, sourced from its customers, in an attempt to show how it is possible to manufacture, repair and recycle products that will last a lifetime. The brand, under the leadership of CEO Rose Marcario (Marcario exits Patagonia in June 2020) has also vocally advocated against the Trump campaign and administration on a number of environmental issues, and went as far as threatening to sue the president in a controversy over Bears Ears National Monument in Utah in 2017. As a result, the company scores an overall rating of 64 which puts it in the top 2% overall, and the top 1% within its industry and country, mainly driven by Environment and Governance scores, solidly in the mid 70s.

Not all companies are disposed to share, be transparent, and embark on a journey to improve on parameters that they might not recognize as crucial in the first place, regardless of the pressure they receive from outside or inside. One of the key issues in the field is that there are industries that have traditionally not disclosed very much at all. The fashion and apparel industry is reported to be responsible for 8% of the global greenhouse gas emissions (Quantis, 2018); this is not surprising when one takes into account that 70% of the 114 billions of items of clothing produced in 2019 will end up in landfill or incinerated (Euromonitor, BCG, Fashion For Good).

The Fashion Transparency Index

One of the most authoritative sources on fashion, the Fashion Transparency Index, which is one of the raters used by CSRHub, has repeatedly highlighted the societal and environmental risks linked to the business of making, selling and disposing clothes and accessories, resulting in one of the most laborious and inefficient chains of production and supply. Transparency in fashion is so low that it’s hard to even get a clear picture of where companies are at in their progress towards sustainability.

The scarce but growing amount of information that has been coming out of the fashion industry then gets muddled by ‘information dumping’. This seems to be a deliberate strategy for some fashion brands that aim at greenwashing and confusing the audience by repeating the same content with little substance or relevance across their CSR webpages, press releases or annual reports. That’s where Marketing and Communications departments, instead of watering down data, should do their due diligence to unclog a tenuous and farraginous stream of information. Fashion has a long way to go before it understands what it really means to be a great company at a holistic level.

CSRHub a for-profit B Corp: rated and certified

So, while CSRHub provides ratings as balanced as possible about all industries, quis custodiet custodes? In other words: does CSRHub get monitored in turn? CSRHub is indeed a for-profit B Corp in the US, which means it is itself rated and certified. B Corporations are businesses that balance purpose and profit. On the business side, CSRHub sells its expertise via a subscription-based model as well as strategic tools to companies, investors and academics around the world. It also signed distribution agreements of their data with financial platforms like Bloomberg.

In addition to pure ratings, CSRHub tags companies against 17 ‘Special Issues’: «what we find is that people are interested in very specific issues, like Gender Diversity, Animal Testing, Fracking, Child Labour, etc. that are driving world concerns». While some issues are universally non-controversial, like Child Labour, on the whole «we have tried to stay very neutral because we understand that people feel differently about different issues. For example, [doctors and scientists] who do cancer research run tests on animals so I suppose you could say that makes their companies ‘pro Animal Testing’? Take things like ‘being involved in a country’: there are absolutely two sides to that».

The Special Issue ‘Burma’ – a case in point

Some consider interaction with the country to be negative, as it may support the Burmese regime. Others may consider it as positive, as it may increase interaction with Burmese society and improve its welfare. Notably, one of the latest Special Issues to be introduced is an association to the Trump family, namely a tag for companies that market Trump-brand related products, which is an issue unquestionably related to one’s political views. To avoid bias CSRHub just tags the company against the issue, they don’t evaluate whether they consider it to be a “good” or “bad” trait; every user of the database can then set their profile parameters to easily check against issues that are important to them one way or the other.

So, is there a specific industry that seems particularly virtuous? When you average out data points a lot of companies end up hovering in the vicinity of 50 out of 100 score, though you end up having leaders and laggards in almost every industry. However, when aggregating by countries data tends to show significant statistical differences between geographies like North America (48/100 overall average) and Europe (54/100 overall average): just like a couple of decades ago, some areas of the world are ahead of others.

How the ESG data can influence the business community 

A conspicuous example of how the ESG data can influence the business community at large and help shift perceptions is the annual Harvard Business Review of the 100 Best-Performing CEOs in the world. Since 2015 their ranking has been based not only on financial performance but also on ESG ratings. In 2019 they have changed the weighting of ESG scores to account for 30% of each CEO’s final ranking, increased from the 20% of the previous four years.

The shift reflects the fact that, also thanks to the work of Figge and her peers, a rapidly growing number of funds and individuals started focusing on far more than bottom-line metrics. The change in ESG weighting created one noteworthy casualty: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Bezos had been the top CEO every year since 2014, but he failed to make the 2019 list owing to Amazon’s relatively low ESG scores, which reflect risks created by working conditions and employment policies, data security, and antitrust issues.

At the intersection of social and environmental issues

Figge is adamant that this is a clear sign of the growing consciousness at the intersection of social and environmental issues: «That’s where I see us going. ESG data is driving our understanding of value. ESG rating is a very legitimate part of how we value companies and businesses».To reinforce its mission and show that external scrutiny is in fact a booster for the value of a company, CSRHub has proven that there is a positive correlation between the number of sources used to evaluate a company and its rating: the more the scrutiny, the higher the rating. Conversely, overtime downgrading has in fact been linked to lack of transparency.

According to Figge the virtue of the rating system lies in its multi-stakeholder premise, the combination of pressure from attentive investors, employees who want to work for companies that matter, customers who are getting more aware and sophisticated, and ultimately regulators and legislators. In the long term, companies of all industries will inevitably be pushed towards wanting to be part of the solution and they will perform better because of it: «There are two parts to this virtuous circle: having a story and telling a story. If you don’t have a story you better develop one and once you have one you need to tell it well».

Cynthia Figge CEO and Co-founder, CSRHub LLC

Cynthia Figge is a forerunner, entrepreneur, and thought leader in the corporate sustainability movement. Cynthia is CEO and co-founder of CSRHub, a leading big-data ESG (environment, social, governance) information platform. CSRHub provides consensus ratings on the performance of 25,000 companies worldwide and serves the corporate, financial, and academic sectors and API partners. Cynthia co-founded EKOS International in 1996, one of the first consultancies integrating sustainability and corporate strategy. She has worked with major organizations including Boeing, Coca-Cola, Dow Jones, and REI to help craft sustainability strategy integrated with business. Cynthia is a national speaker on trends in ESG, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and business intelligence. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur in CSR/ESG, Cynthia was an officer of LIN Broadcasting / McCaw Cellular, leading new services development. She serves as an advisor to media and technology companies and is chair of Compassionate Action Network (CAN). Cynthia has an MBA from Harvard Business School. She is based in the Seattle area.

About CSRHub

CSRHub offers one of the world’s broadest and most consistent set of Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings, covering 50,000 companies. Its Big Data algorithm combines millions of data points on ESG performance from hundreds of sources, including leading ESG analyst raters, to produce consensus scores on all aspects of corporate social responsibility and sustainability. CSRHub ratings can be used to drive corporate, investor and consumer decisions. For more information, visit www.CSRHub.com. CSRHub is a B Corporation.

Author:  Claudio Calò
Source: Lampoon Magazine, October 2022

Some businesses are started out of necessity, others are started for fun. Mia Oi started Ichigo Tokyo Crepes out of nostalgia. Having grown up in Japan, where Tokyo-style crepes were a popular street food, Mia wanted to bring that food and culture to Minneapolis.

After working at a corporate job that was unfulfilling, Mia started her business as a pop-up. When local investors approached her, she jumped at the chance to have her own shop. However, like many, her biggest challenge was trusting herself. Bringing something totally new to an area can be daunting. Trusting yourself and setting small goals that can lead to big goals can set the path to success.

Mia likes being an entrepreneur because it gives her a sense of control. She was excited to explore her passion to start Ichigo Tokyo Crepes and shares that success may come in many shapes and sizes.

See Mia’s story, part of GoDaddy’s Icons of Minneapolis series, streaming now on YouTube.

About GoDaddy Icons

Icons is GoDaddy’s Customer Storytelling video series that goes city-to-city following Everyday Entrepreneurs as they fulfill their dreams and share the professional lessons they’ve learned along the way.

About GoDaddy

GoDaddy helps millions of entrepreneurs globally start, grow, and scale their businesses. People come to GoDaddy to name their idea, build a professional website, attract customers, sell their products and services, and accept payments online and in-person. GoDaddy’s easy-to-use tools help microbusiness owners manage everything in one place and its expert guides are available to provide assistance 24/7. To learn more about the company, visit www.GoDaddy.com.

As published in Qualcomm’s 2022 Corporate Responsibility Report

We strive to enable a world where everyone and everything can be intelligently connected. As one of the world’s leading wireless technology innovators, we continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible across devices and networks to enable next-generation experiences and drive digital transformation. 

We design platforms, chipsets, software, tools and services that help OEMs and developers bring those technologies into products and create experiences that change how we live and work. And we do this at scale, building technologically advanced, in-demand end products that support everything from low- to high-complexity devices — helping us serve virtually every industry at the connected intelligent edge.

5G Leadership

Our innovations are driving the 5G standards and the benefits that define 5G, including speed, responsiveness, reliability and capacity. Our products are accelerating the expansion of 5G, and our work behind the scenes is enabling the growth of the broader 5G ecosystem. In addition to consumer applications, such as smartphones, 5G is also bringing increased efficiency across industries, enterprises and educational institutions.

And now, with 5G Advanced, we are entering the second phase of the 5G decade, bringing a new wave of wireless technology innovations. 5G Advanced will incorporate machine learning to customize performance to varied deployment and application scenarios, including scalable deployments of XR to power remote work, remote education and other economically transformative applications. We’re continuing to lead the industry in 5G Advanced with our unique expertise that spans connectivity, multimedia, AI and computing technologies.

Looking into the longer-term future, we’re also leading research into foundational technologies for 6G to realize the full benefit of emerging trends in cloud computing, spectrum sharing and machine learning. We believe that the convergence of the physical, digital and virtual worlds in 6G will enable new and transformative use cases across numerous industries, deliver next-generation experiences and continue to address societal, sustainability and economic challenges into the next decade.

Some examples of the societal benefits of 5G are provided below.

Digital Transformations for a Sustainable World

Like the Internet and electricity, 5G serves as a foundation to connect everything, helping to develop a more resilient, equitable and sustainable society. Building on our broad technology portfolio, we’re at the intersection of transformative trends that are creating new and diverse opportunities for promoting sustainability across industries. Our help solutions improve efficiency, enable enhanced capabilities, improve safety and equity, create jobs and much more.

Enabling a more reliable, resilient and sustainable grid

Qualcomm is helping to enable the digital transformation of the energy industry to create a more modern, resilient and sustainable grid. Our smart sensors, smart meters and edge gateways offer electric utilities cost- and power-efficient solutions for the monitoring of grid assets and management of decentralized resources, enabling faster decision making for improved reliability and energy efficiency. Using the power of the connected intelligent edge, network infrastructure is deployed without costly infrastructure upgrades, while security, reliability and resiliency are enhanced. We help utilities and their customers increase the efficiency of power distribution and consumption and integrate renewable energy resources. While preparing for the electrification of everything, 5G, which offers faster data transfer, higher reliability and lower latency, can help utilities accelerate their transition to a more sustainable grid with cleaner energy to better serve their communities.

Creating safer and more efficient transportation

Qualcomm® CellularVehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) solutions, which include vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to infrastructure (V2I), vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P) and vehicle-to-network (V2N) communication, can complement use of 5G networks and provide direct communications connectivity for low-latency, safety-critical and mobility-benefiting applications. Together, these technologies can increase safety and equity for vehicle passengers and vulnerable road users and advance sustainability.

Connected transportation systems are designed to support new roadside and driver services that mitigate roadway incidents and improve trip planning, transportation mode choice and traffic efficiency — enhancements that also lower emissions and reduce fuel consumption. Examples include real-time route guidance to bypass congestion, adjusting vehicle dynamics for optimal speed with less braking and idling for lower emissions and fuel use and personal mobility services for additional travel options. With wide-scale market penetration, the annual environmental impact of C-V2X could be equivalent to more than 46 million acres of U.S. forests sequestering carbon10.

C-V2X applications can improve safety and travel mode options for vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians and pedal cyclists in underserved communities who are disproportionately impacted by fatalities in both urban and rural areas. Cyclist fatality rates are 23 percent higher for Latinos and 30 percent higher for African Americans11. Low-income, Black and Latino communities also have higher vehicular traffic volumes, trucking routes, major arterial roads, intersections that are unsafe or impassable by foot or bike and an overall lower level and quality of walking and cycling infrastructure12. In addition to preventing collisions for enhanced safety, information exchanged between road users and infrastructure can also inform mobility-on-demand to increase transportation equity in these communities. In rural areas, the fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled is 2 times higher than in urban areas13; and the lack of connectivity to support emergency response could be a major cause of rural deaths. Complementary network coverage on rural roads is key to addressing these challenges.

Vehicles equipped with connectivity can communicate with their surroundings to enhance safety for road users. Connected vehicles communicate safety information to reduce road incidents and potentially save lives — a notable example involves providing emergency vehicles the ability to pre-empt traffic signals as they approach, turning them green while also alerting surrounding vehicles of their approach, providing them with advanced notice to safely move out of the way. Connectivity also benefits automated vehicles, such as allowing a robotaxi to communicate with passengers and emergency responders in the event of a malfunctioning vehicle. In circumstances where automated vehicles are unable to understand their environment and make decisions, connectivity also allows for remote driving to support continued operation. Vehicles used for last mile deliveries also benefit from connectivity when operating in restricted areas with low mobility. In addition to cellular networks, satellite connectivity can provide communication in a multitude of scenarios to support safer roads everywhere.

Addressing the digital divide

With 37 percent14 of the world population still offline, people without broadband Internet connectivity are cut off from information and opportunities, including access to work, education and healthcare. 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) and mobile broadband can provide improved connectivity and affordability and help to narrow the digital divide. Our pioneering work in millimeter wave and devices with large antenna counts allows FWA technology to meet today’s challenging customer needs.

5G FWA can be up to 80 percent less expensive than fiber to deploy15, improving its affordability, especially in developing and emerging countries. It has already been launched in 45 countries or territories by 83 operators16. If deployed fully, FWA could provide home Internet access for the first time to 850 million people around the world within the next decade16. This would almost close the home Internet divide in high-income countries and connect the homes of 750 million people in emerging and developing countries16. As connectivity facilitates access to work, income, information, markets and services, this holds the potential to facilitate global economic growth in 2023.

Power Efficiency

As each generation of device gets “smarter” more power is typically required. The additional power must be drawn from a device’s relatively small battery. Mitigating this energy challenge has always been a chief focus at our Company, and commitment to power efficiency runs deep in our Snapdragon Platforms.

We expect on average of 10 percent days-of-use power reduction year over year in our Snapdragon premium-tier chipset from 2021 to 2025. In particular, we improved the 5G modem power by 20 percent from Snapdragon 8 Gen1 in 2021 to Snapdragon 8 Gen2 in 2022. The efficiency and power-savings advances in each processor functional block add up to considerable potential battery run time savings.

We are leveraging our strong foundation in building power-efficient smartphone devices into all our product categories. Our solutions for AI, vehicular autonomy and network infrastructure each have leading performance for power consumption.

In addition to fostering power efficiency for mobile devices, we are collaborating with wireless network and service providers in creating technologies targeting improved power efficiency in communication networks, thereby enabling greener wireless communications.

Learn more in Qualcomm’s 2022 Corporate Responsibility Report

10 C-V2X: A new era of smart transportation in the United States
11 The New Majority: Pedaling Towards Equity 
12 Neighborhood Social Inequalities in Road Traffic Injuries: The Influence of Traffic Volume and Road Design 
13 Rural/Urban Comparison of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities 
14 International Telecommunication Union, 2021 
15 GSMA (2022) The 5G FWA opportunity A TCO model for a 5G mmWave FWA network; GSMA (2022) The 5G FWA opportunity: a TCO model for a 5G FWA network using mid-band plus mmWave 1
16 5G and the Digital Divide

WEST CHESTER, Pa., May 10, 2023 /3BL Media/ – QVC®, a world leader in video commerce (“vCommerce”), which includes video-driven shopping across linear TV, ecommerce sites, digital streaming and social platforms, has been named to Newsweek’s list of Most Trustworthy Companies in America 2023. QVC ranked 29th in the retail industry for customer, investor, and employee trust.

“Trust is the foundation upon which every great company is built. At QVC, our commitment to honesty, integrity, and authentic storytelling is what drives our business and connects us with customers, stakeholders and team members,” said Mike Fitzharris, President of QVC US. “It’s an honor to be recognized by Newsweek as one of the Most Trustworthy Companies in America, and we will continue to earnestly build on this reputation in the years to come.”

This prestigious award is presented by Newsweek and Statista Inc., a world-leading statistics portal and industry ranking provider. The awards list can currently be viewed on Newsweek’s website.

Most Trustworthy Companies in America 2023 were identified in an independent survey based on a vast sample of approximately 25,000 U.S. residents who rated companies they know in terms of all three touchpoints of trust. Out of 95,000 submitted evaluations, the top 700 Most Trustworthy Companies across 23 industries were chosen based on a holistic approach to evaluating trust. The three main public pillars of trust were considered: customer trust, investor trust, and employee trust.

About QVC 
QVC® is a world leader in video commerce (“vCommerce”), which includes video-driven shopping across linear TV, ecommerce sites, digital streaming and social platforms. QVC empowers shoppers with knowledge and shares insights in a lively and engaging way. QVC offers an ever-changing collection of familiar brands and fresh new products – from home and fashion to beauty, electronics and jewelry – and connects shoppers to interesting personalities, engaging stories and award-winning customer service. Based in West Chester, Pa., and founded in 1986, QVC has retail operations in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Japan and Italy. Worldwide, QVC reaches more than 200 million homes via 12 TV channels, which are widely available on cable/satellite TV, free over-the-air TV, and digital livestreaming TV. The retailer also reaches millions of customers via its QVC+ and HSN+ streaming experience, websites, mobile apps and social pages. To learn more, visit corporate.qvc.com, follow @QVC on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, or follow QVC on Pinterest, YouTube or LinkedIn.  

Qurate Retail, Inc. (NASDAQ: QRTEA, QRTEB, QRTEP) is a Fortune 500 company that includes the Qurate Retail GroupSM portfolio of brands as well as other minority interests and green energy investments. Qurate Retail Group is the largest player in vCommerce and comprises seven leading retail brands – QVC, HSN®, Zulily®, Ballard Designs®, Frontgate®, Garnet Hill® and Grandin Road® – all dedicated to providing a more human way to shop. For more information, visit qurateretailgroup.com, follow @QurateRetailGrp on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, or follow Qurate Retail Group on YouTube or LinkedIn. QVC and Q are registered service marks of ER Marks, Inc.

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Join PNC Diversity & Inclusion for a special Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month event featuring Afdhel Aziz, leading expert on corporate and brand purpose, conscious leadership & how business can be a force for good. You will hear about Afdhel’s inspiring journey through corporate life in the U.K. and the U.S., and how he gradually came to realize that instead of being a chameleon and blending in, true success came from embracing his authentic identity and bringing his whole self to work.

Title: PNC Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month Event

Date: Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Time: 1:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Duration: 1 hour

Presenter:

Afdhel Aziz 
Leading Expert on Corporate and Brand Purpose, Conscious Leadership & How Business Can Be a Force For Good

Afdhel Aziz is one of the most inspiring leaders in the global movement of business as a force for good. After a 20-year career as a visionary marketer at Procter & Gamble, Nokia, Heineken, and Absolut Vodka, where he created ground-breaking partnerships with everyone from Lady Gaga to TED, Aziz quit corporate life to tackle one of the biggest problems facing both individuals and companies today — how to find purpose and meaning in their work and unlock the enormous power of business to do good in the world.

Aziz is the founder and chief purpose officer at Conspiracy of Love, a global purpose consultancy that works with Fortune 500 companies — including Adidas, Red Bull, Facebook, Microsoft, Mondelez, AB Inbev, Diageo, and Unilever — to use culture and technology as a force for good. Conspiracy of Love is a proud Minority-Owned Business and Certified B Corp, joining the community of companies like Patagonia, Ben and Jerry’s, Seventh Generation, and more who believe in business as a force for good.

As the co-author of Good is the New Cool: Market Like You Give a Damn, Aziz provides a provocative manifesto for a bold new model of marketing, which helps brands “do well by doing good.” His book was a #1 Amazon new release in philanthropy and charity and has been called “the new Ogilvy on advertising.” The Good is the New Cool series continued with the release of Aziz’s second book, subtitled The Principles of Purpose. It is a handbook for CEOs looking to transform their companies into forces for good. He also writes a weekly column for Forbes on the power of purpose.

Opening Remarks

Amanda Agati 
Chief Investment Officer 
PNC Bank

Gagan Singh is executive vice president and chief investment officer of The PNC Financial Services Group. He is responsible for managing PNC’s investment portfolio and balance sheet interest rate risk. In addition, he oversees mortgage servicing acquisition and hedging, and also directs the activities of the economics group.

Singh serves as chief executive officer of PNC Capital Finance and PNC Investment Corporation, overseeing the firm’s private equity, mezzanine and alternative investments. He is a member of PNC’s asset and liability committee (ALCO) and chairman of PNC’s pension investment committee

Prior to joining PNC in 2004, Singh was at JP Morgan where he was a managing director and head of the North America Derivatives Strategy team.

Singh is a member of the advisory board of University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business, and the board of IIT Bombay Heritage Foundation. He also serves as president of the tri-state board of directors of Pratham, an India based NGO focused on primary education.

Singh received a B.Tech in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, India, and earned a M.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland, where he was a recipient of the graduate school fellowship.

Moderator

Ashwin Ramakrishna 
National Director of Client Services and Head of Middle Office Business Management for PNC Private Bank 
PNC Bank

Ashwin Ramakrishna is a Senior Vice President within the PNC Private Bank Client Service and Middle Office (CS&MO) organization, located in Pittsburgh, PA. Ashwin serves as the National Director of Client Services and Head of Middle Office Business Management for PNC Private Bank. As National Director, Ashwin is responsible for overseeing the delivery of client service execution to meet PNC Private Bank clients’ needs. As Head of Business Management, Ashwin oversees the development and execution of CS&MO strategic priorities, including technology and employee readiness development.

Prior to joining PNC Private Bank in 2018, Ashwin oversaw the Strategic Consulting Group within PNC, focused on providing internal consulting services and thought leadership to business executives and leaders across PNC. Before joining PNC in 2015, Ashwin was a Vice President with Goldman Sachs serving as the Americas Middle Office Department Manager for Loan and Investment Operations.

Ashwin has over 18 years of experience working for financial institutions focused on strategic initiatives, execution, operational excellence, and risk management. He has a track record of providing thought leadership, executing change management strategies, and delivering technical solutions to improve operational efficiency. Ashwin is a member of the PNC Corporate Diversity Council and co-chair of the PNC Private Bank Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council. Ashwin holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Bucknell University.

Closing Remarks

Sonia Chung 
Managing Chief Counsel, Employee Benefits 
PNC Bank

Sonia Chung joined PNC’s Legal Department in 2009 and serves as its Managing Chief Counsel supporting employee benefits. In this capacity, she is responsible for providing legal support to PNC’s corporate employee benefit programs, including retirement, health and welfare, and nonqualified deferred compensation plans. She is also a member of the PNC Legal Department’s Pro Bono Committee, where she works in tandem with her colleagues to provide legal services to those in need in communities across PNC’s footprint.

Sonia earned a Bachelor of Science degree from The Pennsylvania State University and a law degree, summa cum laude, from New York Law School. She is based in Pittsburgh, PA, where she and her husband enjoy spending time with their three sons, two beagles, four chickens, and countless goldfish.

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It’s been years since I have written about batteries, and given how quickly things change in that sector, it’s about time I revisited the topic. Often, the buzz around batteries focuses on new types which might be able to topple the king, which is currently lithium ion. That’s not where all the research and innovation is focused, however. Many organizations continue to work on making lithium ion batteries even better than they already are, and in that respect, there has been a recent breakthrough. May I present to you – the silicon anode.

What Is an Anode, and Why is Silicon Better?

As I am wont to do, let’s start with an explainer. An anode is one of the fundamental components of any battery. Take, for instance, the AA batteries that are hanging out in your television remote. On one end of the battery, specifically the side that is flat, you’ll see a “-” sign. This is the anode, with the other side showing a “+” sign for the cathode. Together, anodes and cathodes are the electrodes of a battery, and they serve as the bridge between the energy stored in the battery and the electric circuit to which the battery is designed to connect. In particular, the anode is the side of the battery into which an electric current flows, while the cathode is where the current exits. And in the case of a rechargeable battery, like those in my electric vehicle or this laptop I’m hammering away on, the roles of the anodes and cathodes can reverse depending on if the battery is charging or discharging.

Since rechargeable lithium ion batteries first hit the market in 1991, the anode has primarily been made of carbon in the form of graphite. From the beginning, however, scientists have flirted with the potential of silicon instead. This shouldn’t surprise you, when you consider how silicon has revolutionized electronics. Silicon is an excellent semiconductor, and it’s incredibly abundant, accounting for 27.7% of the Earth’s crust. For much the same reason that we want to use it in computer chips, we also want to use it in batteries. Unfortunately, when historically used as an anode, silicon would swell and shrink when charging and discharging. So it would work really well for a little bit, and then it would physically break the battery. Not ideal.

And so, many different companies have been working on novel fabrication methods of silicon anodes. Turns out that a few of them have broken through. Take OneD Battery Sciences, who has figured out how to put silicon nanowires into a graphite anode to increase how much energy the battery can hold. They’re working with General Motors to deploy improved batteries in electric vehicles. Group14 Technologies out of Washington State recently announced that construction has begun on a one-million-square-foot battery manufacturing facility for silicon battery components. Like OneD, they’ve built a carbon-based scaffolding for the anode into which silicon can be added without breaking the anode upon charge and discharge. They project their components to be in EV batteries by the end of 2024. But there’s another company that has me even more excited for the potential of silicon anode batteries.

The Best Lithium Ion Battery in the World

Allow me to introduce you to Amprius Technologies. What sets them apart is that they have fabricated an anode for lithium ion batteries that is made 100% from silicon. The results, compared to a standard graphite anode lithium battery, are remarkable. First and foremost is energy density, which is the amount of energy a battery holds per unit of weight. I looked up the energy density on the batteries in my 2019 Chevrolet Bolt, and I found an estimated 131 watt-hours per kilogram (Wh/kg). Amprius’s site advertises an energy density of 450 Wh/kg. That’s more than three times! And energy density basically scales linearly, so if you could hypothetically put the same amount of Amprius batteries by weight in my car, it would triple its range. I would have a car that could reliably drive 600 miles per charge.

The next jaw dropping statistic is recharge rates. It turns out that silicon not only helps a battery hold more charge, but it also allows that battery to soak up more energy faster. Whereas a typical graphite anode lithium battery needs about 30 minutes connected to a supercharger to go from empty to 80% charge, Amprius advertises less than 6 minutes on their website. That’s a game changer. If their batteries offer a reasonable range for EVs of at least 500 miles, then we are looking at a 5-minute recharge getting you almost 400 miles of additional range. That’s about how long it takes to fill up an internal combustion engine vehicle at a gas station.

The even better news is that you don’t have to take Amprius’s word for it. Two months ago, an independent third party verified the performance characteristics of their latest battery technology. The latest iteration of Amprius battery clocked in at a whopping 500 Wh/kg.

A Couple of Headwinds That Might Slow the Uptake in Electric Vehicles

There are two bits of bad news, however. First, their batteries have some limitations. For one, the cycle life of the batteries can be as low as 200 cycles, which basically counts how many recharges a battery can handle before it loses performance. This number is lower than the floor for graphite anode batteries, and it likely corresponds to a battery that is primarily charged at high voltages (like a supercharger). In addition, their anode fabrication technique is not “drop-in-ready” with current electric vehicle battery manufacturing, so it’s not likely that their batteries will show up in your next car. They instead are focusing on specialty products, like drones and electric planes.

That leads to the second bit of bad news. At least part of why they are focusing on these markets is because they are military-related, and Amprius is able to command higher profit margins. I lament the fact that the highest margin use for the best mobility battery the world has ever seen is a military application. I’d like to think that maybe, just maybe, solving the climate crisis might be the highest and best use for breakthrough battery technologies. Alas, that’s just me shouting into the wind that is our current economic paradigm.

The news is overwhelmingly good here though. Multiple companies have now cracked the code on utilizing silicon to enhance lithium ion batteries, and it’s only going to get better and cheaper from here. As a result, we have a promising new technological breakthrough that should aid significantly in the decarbonization of transportation globally.