Tag: 3BL

ATLANTA, February 15, 2023 /3BL Media/ – Truist Foundation and the Truist Trusteed Foundations recently announced $450,000 in total grant funding awarded to Sweet Auburn Works (SAW), the preservation-based economic development organization charged with preserving, revitalizing and promoting Atlanta’s famed Sweet Auburn Historic District. The grants – provided by Truist Foundation and the Truist Trusteed Foundations: Florence C. and Harry L. English Memorial Fund – will support the signature initiatives of SAW’s first-ever capital campaign, Walking with Heroes. Funding will support the SPARK Lab, a retail accelerator program for existing and new entrepreneurs of color in Sweet Auburn, and the Heroes Walk, a forthcoming permanent 1.1-mile historical walking trail through Sweet Auburn, which will be dedicated to Atlanta’s Black heroes, past and present.

Through the SPARK Lab, Sweet Auburn Works Executive Director LeJuano Varnell works with local business owners to provide hands-on technical assistance; design interventions to beautify and improve physical storefronts and online retailers; and grants to implement said improvements. One current SPARK Lab participant of note is Chef Sonya Jones, owner of the beloved Sweet Auburn Bread Company, which has been doing business in Sweet Auburn for nearly three decades.

“Thanks to design support and funding from SPARK Lab, my space at 234 Auburn Ave. is currently undergoing renovations to make the nearly 500 square-foot bakery more efficient for business operations and customer patronage alike,” Chef Jones shared. “Through an innovative partnership between Sweet Auburn Works and the Savannah College of Art and Design, Executive Director Varnell led a class of marketing and business graduate students through drawing concepts for the renovation. Then I worked with the student cohort to agree on a final design. I can’t wait to see how their creative ideas improve my business!”

Donor funding for SPARK Lab paid for the upgrades, which will include new countertops, baking equipment, lighting and plumbing upgrades throughout the bakery. The SPARK Lab aims to support 20 or more entrepreneurs during its first three years of operation.

Complementing these customized business interventions is the forthcoming Heroes Walk, a historical walking trail that will stretch 1.1 miles, from the Jackson Street Bridge, down to Auburn Avenue and further south to Historic Oakland Cemetery. The Heroes Walk will pair new storytelling opportunities– both digital and physical – with public art and pedestrian amenities such as new tree canopy, benches, sidewalk improvements and bike lanes. Taken together, these improvements will draw locals and visitors alike deeper into the Sweet Auburn neighborhood, encouraging them to learn about historic and modern-day Black leaders who worked and lived in the district and to patron local businesses during their visit. With full campaign funding, the Heroes Walk is expected to break ground in 2023 and be completed in 2024.

These investments underscore Truist Foundation’s commitment to supporting innovative, community-driven approaches to help BIPOC-owned businesses thrive and further advance the foundation’s recently announced strategic initiative, Where It Starts.

“Truist Foundation believes bringing together entrepreneurs of color, partner organizations and community leaders to co-create solutions can be the start to breaking down systemic barriers for small business owners in the Sweet Auburn Historic District,” said Lynette Bell, president of Truist Foundation. “We are proud to contribute to Sweet Auburn Works’ Walking with Heroes campaign, which perfectly illustrates how the power of collaboration can honor a community’s history while dismantling deep-rooted inequities.”

“We are so grateful to Truist Foundation and Truist Trusteed Foundations for understanding how these two initiatives work together to bolster the local economy in Sweet Auburn, while also paying homage to our unique neighborhood’s rich history and present-day promise,” said Varnell.

About Truist Trusteed Foundations 

Truist Bank provides trustee services to private and family foundations, including the Florence C. and Harry L. English Memorial Fund. To learn more, visit truist.com/trusteed-foundations.

About Truist Foundation

Truist Foundation is committed to Truist Financial Corporation’s (NYSE: TFC) purpose to inspire and build better lives and communities. Established in 2020, the foundation makes strategic investments in nonprofit organizations to help ensure the communities it serves have more opportunities for a better quality of life. Truist Foundation’s grants and activities focus on building career pathways to economic mobility and strengthening small businesses. Learn more at truist.com/foundation.

About Sweet Auburn Works

Founded in 2012, Sweet Auburn Works’ mission is to preserve, revitalize and promote the commercial and cultural legacy of the Sweet Auburn Historic District. SAW represents the district’s land-owning stakeholders to ensure thoughtful, equitable redevelopment in the neighborhood; attract and retain business owners; support historic preservation efforts; and facilitate public and private stakeholder engagement in Sweet Auburn.

CLEVELAND, February 15, 2023 — KeyBank’s Key4Women will present “Grit and Grace”, a free, one-hour virtual event on Wednesday, March 1, at 12pm eastern standard time.

The webinar will kick off Women’s History month with guest speaker, Cheryle Jackson, Founder of Grit and Grace, The Movement and current CEO of MyOwnDoctor, a groundbreaking telehealth company. This lively webinar will discuss why practicing grace along with grit is the answer to not only sustaining success but walking in your brilliance to live a life you desire.

Jackson’s history-making career has been marked by her ability to break barriers. She has served as a C-suite executive at a global aviation company, CEO of the Chicago Urban League, a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Obama, communications director for an Illinois Governor, and a vice president at National Public Radio. In 2018, Cheryle founded Grit and Grace, The Movement, a women’s empowerment, coaching and media company. In 2020, she became CEO of MyOwnDoctor, a telehealth company that offers culturally specific care with platforms Black Telehealth and LatinX Telehealth.

Her highly accredited TEDx Talk “Grit and Grace” validates the career trajectories of go-getters but also implores women to place self-compassion on par with ambition as a lasting model for success.

“Key4Women is about empowering women, which is what Cheryle embodies in her work throughout her career,” said Rachael Sampson, Key4Women Leader. “Our attendees are going to walk away feeling energized to take on and overcome challenges that will drive them to success.”

For more information, visit key.com/women, or register online by February 28th here.

About KeyBank 
KeyCorp’s roots trace back nearly 200 years to Albany, New York. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, Key is one of the nation’s largest bank-based financial services companies, with assets of approximately $189.8 billion at December 31, 2022. Key provides deposit, lending, cash management, and investment services to individuals and businesses in 15 states under the name KeyBank National Association through a network of approximately 1,000 branches and approximately 1,300 ATMs. Key also provides a broad range of sophisticated corporate and investment banking products, such as merger and acquisition advice, public and private debt and equity, syndications and derivatives to middle market companies in selected industries throughout the United States under the KeyBanc Capital Markets trade name. For more information, visit https://www.key.com/. KeyBank is Member FDIC.

Originally published on Illumina News Center

The Norwegian term for virgin snow, “nysnø”, seemed the appropriate inspiration to name Jennifer Johnston’s company, NysnoBio, as it underscores the pioneering work NysnoBio is doing to tap the potential of Parkin, the protein most often linked to young onset genetic Parkinson’s disease.

Johnston, co-founder and CEO, was the first to publish a high-resolution crystal structure showing critical features of how the Parkin protein works. Its activity is responsible for eliminating cellular stress and maintaining appropriate energy balance. Her scientific advisory board member, Dr. Nobutaka Hattori, was the genetic pioneer who identified the Parkin gene, which provides the instructions to make the Parkin protein. Without this gene and protein, cellular stress goes unchecked, leading to loss of cellular energy, chemical imbalance, and cellular death and disease.

“NysnoBio is focused on the most common cause of early-onset Parkinson’s disease,” Johnston says. “If you are missing this gene, it is 100 percent certain that you will get Parkinson’s disease before the age of 45.” Her team is seeking a therapy to replace the gene in people who are missing it, to arrest progression of the disease in patients.

Gene therapy all-stars 
Johnston has studied the causes of early-onset Parkinson’s disease for over 20 years. She’s a long-standing member of The Michael J. Fox Foundation, and she directed the Parkinson’s program at Elan Pharmaceuticals before launching her own company.

NysnoBio is staffed with gene therapy and neurosurgery experts; when Johnston first approached industry and academic colleagues about joining her to explore gene therapy, they jumped aboard. “My team is a dream,” she says. “Most of them focused their lives on Parkinson’s disease, early-onset patients, and making therapeutics; and are now providing their expertise on topics as diverse as neurosurgery, human genetics, and manufacturing for complicated biologic protein therapeutics like gene therapies. Our approach is to directly deliver the normal Parkin gene to the area of the brain that, for those with Parkinson’s disease, is dying. It’s a very simple, straightforward, and pragmatic approach, and while no one has done this before, my team probably has the most experience in this form of the disease.”

While working with an academic group, Johnston was awarded a three-year grant from Aligning Sciences Across Parkinson’s (ASAP), an initiative supported by the Sergey Brin Family Foundation in collaboration with The Michael J. Fox Foundation. The grant is funding research into the possibility of using transplanted brain cells from a healthy person to cure a patient with Parkinson’s disease.

No mutation is alike 
In their studies, the NysnoBio team sought to go beyond the usual process of collecting cells from patients, analyzing them, and—with any luck—reaching a big conclusion about the cohort for a published paper.

“The challenge for these types of studies,” Johnston says, “is that when you get cells from different individuals who may all share a common Parkinson’s mutation, they could have vast differences in mutations across the rest of their genome. While Parkin is the most common early-onset genetic mutation, there are more than 15 genes that can lead to Parkinson’s disease. Parkin is 100% penetrant, which means if you have mutations in Parkin it is 100% certain you will get the disease. For other genetic mutations, that is not the case; other dominant mutations are “incomplete penetrance,” meaning other genetic factors strongly influence whether someone will actually get the disease at all, and whether they get it early in life or during old age.

“For our ASAP project, we are studying all genetic forms of Parkinson’s disease—both penetrant and incompletely penetrant mutations. So when we get cells from a patient who has an incomplete penetrance genetic form, we cannot make any conclusions about how those cells behave until we have a complete whole-genome sequence (WGS) from those cells, because we need to understand the influence of the ‘background mutations’ before we can attribute any cellular effects to a Parkinson’s disease mutation. For the 100% penetrant genes, like Parkin, the background is not as important, but we still want to make sure we capture that WGS information.”

Studying cell behavior requires an understanding of the entire genome, and Johnston cautions against making assumptions about a mutation based on any single behavior it exhibits. “If I get 10 samples of one mutation from 10 different patients, they’re all going to have different genetic backgrounds; they may behave differently. We’re trying to use the sequencing power that Illumina brings to light so we can understand the whole genome of all our samples—why some behave the same, and some behave differently.”

Many research groups are already working with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to develop models of Parkinson’s disease, yet each group has its own patient-derived cell lines and utilizes genetic manipulations and programming techniques which may unknowingly alter the genome. When one compares these cell lines, the phenotypic data is inconsistent between them.

NysnoBio is an early adopter of Illumina Connected Analytics bioinformatics platform and Cohorts, a module in Connected Analytics for rapidly building and exploring study cohorts. This tool helps them aggregate cell line genomic and phenotypic data. It also provides analytics for whole-genome sequencing data, which they can use to identify genetic variants, and in turn distinguish between different disease subtypes.

“What’s really unique and amazing about Illumina Connected Analytics and Cohorts is that it’s going to allow us to bring together all the data that people are generating from these human cells from patients with Parkinson’s disease,” Johnston says. “We’ll be able to understand their genetic background in a comprehensive way that we never have before. Add in machine learning, and we’ll be able to look for patterns in our data and in the genes.”

The ability to obtain precise genetic information has helped Johnston before. While working on a project to understand the role of the Parkin protein in suppressing cancer, she frequently relied on two extensive databases of cancer cells studied with WGS—canSAR in the UK, and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) in the US—which allowed her to determine which cells she wanted to use for her experiments. “I thought, ‘We definitely need to do this for Parkinson’s disease. It’s so powerful, it saves so much time, and it unifies the field.’” Johnston says.

Once NysnoBio’s grant from ASAP is complete, Johnston hopes their findings will become a powerful resource (like canSAR or TCGA) to share with the Parkinson’s disease community. “It can help us to compare and contrast the experimental effects of people who were previously lumped into one genotype,” she says. “We can understand how additional mutations in each person’s genome impact the presence of the Parkinson’s disease manifestations—leading to a more personalized medicine.

“I think it’s also going to be a way to bring researchers together, because it’s not everyone just in their lab by themselves with their cells,” she says. “Soon, they can put their information in this interactive database—and those are things no one’s ever been able to do before. So I’m very excited about the capability of Cohorts to help us understand our data better.”

Pattern recognition 
“The challenge for neuroscience therapeutic development is that it’s unlike cancer—you can’t take a biopsy. So how do you know something’s working?” Johnston says. Today, the NysnoBio team is working on a neural network imaging study in Parkinson’s patients. “When you use glucose in the brain, you can use imaging technology to see which neurons are using the glucose,” Johnston says. “In healthy patients, they use groups of neurons in one way; and in Parkinson’s patients, the brain must enlist alternative groups of neurons to maintain function after neurons are lost in disease. In studying our early-onset patients, we can determine these alternative patterns. The goal for our therapeutic in development is that we’ll be able to restore the alternative pattern back to normal.

Before a patient is enrolled in a clinical study, the NysnoBio team can have that patient’s genome sequenced, assess whether they have the specific Parkinson’s mutation, and determine background mutations that may influence how the patient will respond to therapy. Having the WGS data helps the team identify genetic factors that can influence patient phenotype: How does their disease look? How fast does it progress? And how well do they respond to the therapy? The answers—and perhaps the cure—are waiting in our cells.

More on Parkinson’s in our genomics research hub: Using DRAGEN for Gaucher and Parkinson disease research: resolving GBA1 variants using PCR-free whole-genome sequencing.

Originally published in Sealed Air’s Global Impact Report

Sealed Air (SEE) is developing a strategy to effectively manage and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with our operations and achieve the goals we have set to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change. We are building a technical roadmap for our transition to net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2040. The roadmap will inform the actions we take to reduce energy consumption, increase efficiencies in our operations, and find renewable energy opportunities for our manufacturing facilities across the globe.

Net Zero by 2040

SEE has committed to net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2040 across its operations (Scopes 1 and 2).

Reporting Year 2021 Performance

SEE generated 146,113 tonnes of CO2eq global Scope 1 CO2 emissionsSEE generated 285,848 tonnes of CO2eq global Scope 2 CO2 emissions

Science-Based Targets

According to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which defines and promotes best practice in emissions reductions and net-zero targets in line with climate science, SEE “commits to reduce absolute Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions 46% by 2030 from a 2019 base year.” The company “commits to reduce absolute Scope 3 GHG emissions from purchased goods and services as well as use of sold products 15% within the same timeframe.” SBTi’s target validation team classified SEE’s Scope 1 and 2 target ambition and determined it is in line with a 1.5°C trajectory.

Scope 1

2021: 146,113 tonnes GHG

2020: 123,025 tonnes GHG

2019: 131,377 tonnes GHG

Scope 2

2021: 285,848 tonnes GHG

2020: 342,145 tonnes GHG

2019: 323,950 tonnes GHG                 

For consistency in reporting against SBTi-aligned goals, market-based emission factors are used whenever possible and supplemented with location-based data where market-based data is not available.

Contributing factors from refrigerants and fire suppressants have not been included in Scope 1 emissions calculations.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

SEE follows the revised edition of the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard with a centralized approach to quantify GHG emissions.

Absolute Emissions – Scopes 1 and 2* 

Scope 1

2021: 146,113 tonnes GHG

2020: 123,025 tonnes GHG

2019: 131,377 tonnes GHG

Scope 2

2021: 285,848 tonnes GHG

2020: 342,145 tonnes GHG

2019: 323,950 tonnes GHG

*Scope 1 = GHG emissions in SEE facilities and fleet

*Scope 2 = GHG emissions from the electricity SEE purchases and includes owned and leased offices and facilities

For consistency in reporting against SBTi-aligned goals, market-based emission factors are used whenever possible and supplemented with location-based data where market-based data is not available.

Contributing factors from refrigerants and fire suppressants have not been included in Scope 1 emissions calculations.

CO2 – 73.59%

CH4 – 0.03%

N2 O – 0.30%

SF6 – 26.08%

A third party performed limited assurance verification of SEE’s emissions and usage data for the 2021 reporting year in accordance with the ISO 14064-3 Standard. The third party verified 85% of SEE’s greenhouse gas emissions. SEE did not generate perfluorocarbons nor nitrogen trifluoride emissions during reporting year 2021.

Greenhouse Gas Intensity Reductions

Reduce GHG Intensity (Scopes 1 and 2) 30% by 2025 and 46% by 2030 from a 2019 Base Year.

SEE measures and manages GHG emissions generated by its operations on a monthly basis. Scope 1 includes GHG emissions from fleet, operations or sources owned by SEE. Scope 2 is the indirect GHG emissions from purchases of electricity. The values for global warming potential for each source of GHG emissions are obtained using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report. SEE calculates total metric tons of GHG emissions expressed as CO2eq. Intensity is calculated by dividing the total metric tons of CO2eq by the net trade sales.

Greenhouse Gas Intensity of Operations 

Reduction of 17.5% in GHG intensity from a 2019 base year.

2021: 0.078 kg CO2eq / USD*

2020: 0.094 kg CO2eq / USD

2019: 0.095 kg CO2eq / USD

*To normalize foreign exchange rates and inflation fluctuations, net trade sales are adjusted to 2019 foreign exchange rates, except for one currency which has been designated as highly inflationary under U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (U.S. GAAP) and continues to utilize 2021 foreign exchange rates.

 

Read Sealed Air’s Global Impact Report here.

Learn More About Sealed Air’s ESG efforts here.

Chemours and the Wilmington, Delaware-based EastSide Charter School (ESCS) recently broke ground at Eastside Charter School on a new 24,000 square foot community STEM facility – the Chemours STEM Hub at EastSide Charter School. The new Hub will serve as a premier access point for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and other development opportunities in the Wilmington community. Made possible in part by a $4 million grant Chemours made in 2021 through its ChemFEST school partnership program, the Chemours STEM Hub will offer public spaces for learning and improve access for more students from more backgrounds to be exposed to, excited by, and interested in STEM.

“Shaping the world’s future through the power of our chemistry requires great innovators and problem solvers from all backgrounds. And ensuring we have a robust pipeline of future STEM talent requires strategic investments to nurture students and members of communities who have been underserved, under-resourced, and often overlooked,” said Mark Newman, President and CEO at Chemours. “Our ChemFEST school partnership program provides greater access and support so students can grow, explore, and achieve their dreams. We’re excited to take another step closer to opening the doors on the Chemours STEM Hub at EastSide Charter School.”

The Chemours STEM Hub will house ESCS APEX (Middle School Honors) and STEM programs and include a maker’s space, 3D printing, engineering, and other STEM-related activities. The impacts of the Hub will extend beyond the school day as it will double as a community center after-school, on weekends, and in the summer. Out-of-school programming will include mentoring, robotics, coding, chemistry, biology, renewable energy, and Science Olympiad competitions.

“We are stronger and better when we work together. And in a state with an impressive amount of STEM career opportunities, we do not have community spaces to prepare our citizens for these opportunities,” said Aaron Bass, CEO at EastSide Charter School. “The new Chemours STEM Hub at EastSide Charter School will allow students to receive world-class instruction from titans in the STEM field and gain skills that can improve their lives. Additionally, parents will have the opportunity to gain job skills and interview with STEM-focused businesses. The Chemours STEM Hub will be where community members, corporations, and educators can unite to transform our state.”

The Chemours STEM Hub at ESCS is anticipated to be completed by the start of the 2024-2025 school year, and has received support from the Delaware Federal Congressional Delegation, the Delaware General Assembly, Barclays, and more.

LINCOLN, Neb., February 15, 2023 /3BL Media/ – The United Nations Environment Programme has engaged with the Arbor Day Foundation to aid in the urgent movement to ramp up global sustainability efforts. The U.N.’s Decade on Ecosystem Restoration initiative recently named the Arbor Day Foundation as a supporting partner.

Launched in 2021, the 10-year campaign constructs focused strategy to avert climate change around the world. As a supporting partner of the U.N. Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, the Foundation will help develop evidence-based recommendations for the world’s leading environmental experts and expand the reach of the U.N.’s impact.

“The large-scale scope of the U.N.’s commitment requires a bold group of environmental stakeholders all working together, and the Arbor Day Foundation is excited to do its part,” said Dan Lambe, chief executive of the Arbor Day Foundation. “We hope our learnings from having planted trees in communities and forests around the world for more than 50 years can help this critical campaign as it seeks to create a better world for future generations.”

The U.N.’s flagship initiatives for the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration focus on areas of greatest need and closely align with the Arbor Day Foundation’s own conservation priorities. That includes prioritizing and protecting key ecosystems that include Brazil’s Atlantic Rainforest and the Central American Dry Corridor.

Trees play an important role in slowing climate change by pulling carbon from the atmosphere. Their benefits are maximized when planted where they are needed most, which is why the Arbor Day Foundation recently committed to planting 500 million trees with a focus in forests where they are needed most.

To learn more about its new goal, visit arborday.org/atreecanbe.

About the Arbor Day Foundation

Founded in 1972, the Arbor Day Foundation is the world’s largest membership nonprofit organization dedicated to planting trees. With a focus in communities and forests of greatest need, the Foundation — alongside its more than 1 million members, supporters and valued partners — has helped to plant nearly 500 million trees in more than 50 countries. Guided by its mission to inspire people to plant, nurture and celebrate trees, the Arbor Day Foundation is committed to unlocking the power of trees to help solve critical issues facing people and the planet. Learn more about the impact of the Arbor Day Foundation at arborday.org.

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Ceres Director of Federal Policy Zach Friedman issued the following statement after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued its initial guidance for the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a measure within the Inflation Reduction Act designed to spur clean energy investment and deployment in low-income and marginalized communities:

“The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund is a key financing tool within the Inflation Reduction Act that provides a clear market signal for investors and companies to empower the communities that have been too often ignored yet are most at risk from the effects of the climate crisis. The grant-making process announced by the EPA today allows this important work to begin moving forward toward delivering jobs, lowering burdensome utility costs, and cleaning the air in these communities. We look forward to engaging with our private sector partners, our Community Development Financial Institution and Green Bank colleagues, and community-based organizations. Together, we can ensure that strong proposals for development and investment that expand the benefits of the clean energy economy to all are put before the EPA.”

Ceres submitted a letter to the EPA as the agency shaped its guidance for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act, calling for the program to “attend to both well-grounded principles of environmental justice and sound principles of clean energy and community investment.” Specifically, Ceres provided the EPA with the following recommendations to meet the program’s environmental justice goals:

Work with existing local financial institutions embedded in their communities;Ensure the funding benefits targeted communities;Prioritize projects and proposals focused on residential building electrification, energy efficiency, and distributed energy in low-income and disadvantaged communities, as well as clean technology workforce development.

Ceres worked with leading companies and investors throughout 2021 and 2022 to support passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and ensure a strong domestic clean energy industry, supply chain, and manufacturing base. Since passage of the landmark climate and clean energy law, Ceres has been closely engaged in its implementation to maximize its climate, equity, and economic benefits. In addition to its letter on the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, Ceres submitted comments about parts of the law relating to clean vehicle tax credits, climate-smart agriculture, and energy efficiency upgrades and retrofits in commercial buildings.

About Ceres

Ceres is a nonprofit organization working with the most influential capital market leaders to solve the world’s greatest sustainability challenges. Through our powerful networks and global collaborations of investors, companies and nonprofits, we drive action and inspire equitable market-based and policy solutions throughout the economy to build a just and sustainable future. For more information, visit ceres.org and follow @CeresNews.

Media Contact: Helen Booth-Tobin

Originally published by The Property Council of Australia

In the world of sustainability, the S in ESG (environmental, social, and governance) is often assumed to stand for exactly that. However, experts warn that this common mistake risks overlooking a crucial component: the “social” aspect.

Devan Valenti of the International WELL Building Institute said the sleeping giant of ESG cannot be ignored, especially as the property market increasingly focuses on sustainability.

“One of the realisations investors are having is that there’s a better appreciation and understanding of the risks with poor social performance on an ESG perspective,” he said.

Continue reading here. 

This January, CNH Industrial attended International Green Week in Berlin. Now in its 87th edition, the event is the world’s leading trade fair for food, agriculture and horticulture.

Giulia Catini, Head of EU Affairs at CNH Industrial was present. She participated in a panel discussion on the EU Data Act, alongside representatives of the European Commission, the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture and other industry stakeholders.

The Data Act is a key pillar of the EU’s digital strategy, which is aiming to standardize rules on fair access and data usage across the region.

During the discussion, Giulia highlighted CNH Industrial’s own digitalization strategy and the company’s vision for smart, sustainable farming.

Due to the current economic climate, higher prices are being placed on energy and commodities. To ease this pressure, she said, farmers are now focusing more than ever on precision farming technology and exploring how it can support sustainable business models across the industry.

Thanks to its advanced tech stack, CNH Industrial offers an array of solutions to help farmers increase their yields. These include: GPS auto-guidance, sensors for the real time collection and analysis of data and connectivity services for remote fleet monitoring and optimized planning.

But, Giulia explained, to benefit from it there must be fair and transparent rules in place. This creates trust, as data sharing is handled appropriately and securely.

CNH Industrial’s agricultural brands were also present. Representing Case IH was Alfred Guth, the brand’s Communications Manager for Germany. He moderated a panel titled: “Digitalization as a task for the community.”

Elsewhere, at the fair’s large agricultural booth, New Holland Agriculture showcased its T6 Methane Power tractor, the world’s first commercialized natural gas tractor. Case IH also invited attendees to try out a simulator seat.

Customers are at the heart of CNH Industrial’s actions. Through the company’s efforts, agriculture is becoming smarter, safer and more sustainable.

At Entergy, giving back to the community doesn’t begin and end with January 16 but continues throughout the year. Dr. King once said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’” Our employees respond through action. Last month, Entergy volunteers across Louisiana collaborated with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana and Healthy Blue committed to sponsor 200,000 meals at food banks and other organizations addressing hunger in Louisiana. Over 600 volunteers from all three organizations helped surpassed the 200,000 meals goal and address hunger in Louisiana.

Through Feeding Louisiana and The Pack Shack‘s “Feed the Funnel” program, volunteers packed the meals at a series of events in recognition of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which is a National Day of Service. These actions are a part of our commitment to a more inclusive company for our employees, customers, partners and the communities we serve.

“Volunteerism is an integral part of Entergy’s mission,” said Patty Riddlebarger, vice president of corporate social responsibility. “Our participation in volunteer events like the Day of Service is one of many reasons why Entergy has been honored the past seven years as one of 50 most community-minded corporations in the U.S. by the Points of Light Foundation.”

The packing parties were full of excitement. The DJ set the tone at the Second Harvest Food Bank event in New Orleans. Volunteers were joined by special guests from the New Orleans Pelicans NBA team, the Pelicans dance team, the infamous “King Cake Baby” and Pelicans player Naji Marshall.

Volunteer events across Louisiana included:

250 volunteers packed 78,336 meals in Baton Rouge.150 volunteers packed 50,010 meals in New Orleans.125 volunteers packed 44,706 meals in Monroe.30 volunteers packed 10,080 meals in Thibodaux.30 volunteers packed 16,116 meals in Lafayette.20 volunteers packed 10,260 meals in Lake Charles.12 volunteers packed 4,822 meals in Shreveport.