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PSEG NewsRoom

PSE&G is the winner of the 2025 ReliabilityOne® Awards for the following:

• National Award for Outstanding System Resiliency
• National Award for Outstanding Customer Engagement for the third consecutive year
• Outstanding Metropolitan Service Area Reliability Performance in the Mid-Atlantic Region for the 24th consecutive year

NEWARK, N.J., November 17, 2025 /3BL/ – Public Service Electric & Gas, New Jersey’s largest utility, is the recipient of the 2025 ReliabilityOne® Award for Outstanding System Resiliency, recognized as the nation’s top utility for system resiliency and integrated planning including reliability and grid modernization initiatives. Along with this honor, PSE&G also received the ReliabilityOne® Outstanding Metropolitan Service Area Reliability Performance in the Mid-Atlantic Region for the 24th year in row, and the Outstanding Customer Engagement Award nationally for the third consecutive year.

The ReliabilityOne® Awards, presented by PA Consulting, a global innovation and transformation consultancy, are given annually to utilities that have achieved outstanding reliability performance and have excelled in delivering the most reliable electric service to their customers. The combination of these three awards reaffirms PSE&G as a leader in delivering best-in-class electric service reliability while also providing a positive customer experience.

“Our customers have growing and evolving energy needs and expectations. We’ve made strategic investments to ensure our electric transmission and delivery system is reliable, resilient and performs well,” said John Latka, senior vice president PSE&G Electric Transmission and Distribution. “These awards reflect the hard work, dedication and commitment of everyone at PSE&G to deliver top-notch reliable service to our customers.”

PSE&G prepares year-round for extreme weather and has made strategic investments to maintain reliable service and system performance for our customers. Over the last decade, we’ve invested $30 billion in the utility infrastructure, with nearly 75% dedicated to boosting reliability and resiliency. The work included dozens of initiatives to upgrade, fortify and harden our transmission facilities and distribution systems throughout the state, along with modernizing technology systems.

In addition, the ReliabilityOne® Awards also praised PSE&G’s superior customer engagement strategies, including efforts to proactively engage with customers, providing accurate and timely information on outage and restoration efforts, as well as on blue sky days.

Customer Focused

PSE&G’s reputation as one of the region’s most trusted energy providers was also reaffirmed by a recent independent study by Escalent, a leading data analytics and advisory firm with deep expertise in the energy, utility, and brand sectors. Escalent’s Q3 2025 Cogent Syndicated Utility Trusted Brand & Customer Engagement™: Residential study ranked PSE&G among the top utilities in the East for brand trust and customer care. The study findings highlight PSE&G’s top performance among regional combination and electric utilities in customer focus, company reputation, communication effectiveness, and reliable service, underscoring our ongoing commitment to delivering excellence every day. Earlier this year, Escalent named PSE&G one of the 2025 Most Trusted Brands. Further, in a 2025 J.D. Power Study, customers rated us the Most Appealing Brand among Residential Electric and Gas Utilities in the East.

“At PSE&G, we are truly committed to putting our customers first,” said Dave Johnson, senior vice president and PSE&G Chief Customer Experience Officer. “Our dedication to improving the customer experience isn’t something that we just talk about, it’s something we invest in and live every day. None of our success would be possible without our hard-working employees in every area of the business, who constantly strive to meet our customers’ needs and serve as their trusted energy provider.”

All utilities operating dense electric delivery networks in North America are eligible for consideration for the ReliabilityOne® Awards. The selection of award recipients is based primarily on system reliability statistics that measure the frequency and duration of customer outages.

After provisional recipients are selected, each company undergoes a certification process which provides an independent review and confirmation of the policies, processes and systems used to collect, analyze and report a company’s reliability results.

About PSE&G 

Public Service Electric & Gas Co. is New Jersey’s oldest and largest gas and electric delivery public utility, as well as one of the nation’s largest utilities. PSE&G has won the ReliabilityOne® Award for superior electric system reliability in the Mid-Atlantic region for 24 consecutive years. For the third consecutive year, PSE&G is the recipient of the ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year award in the Energy Efficiency Program Delivery category. In addition, in 2024 J.D. Power named PSE&G number one in customer satisfaction with residential electric service and gas service in the east among large utilities. PSE&G is a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group Inc., (PSEG) (NYSE:PEG), a predominantly regulated infrastructure company focused on a clean energy future and has been named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for North America for 17 consecutive years (www.pseg.com).

About PA Consulting 

We believe in the power of ingenuity to build a positive human future. As strategies, technologies, and innovation collide, we create opportunity from complexity. Our diverse teams of experts combine innovative thinking and breakthrough technologies to progress further, faster. Our clients adapt and transform, and together we achieve enduring results. We are about 4,000 strategists, innovators, designers, consultants, digital experts, scientists, engineers, and technologists. And we have deep expertise in consumer and manufacturing, defense and security, energy and utilities, financial services, government and public services, health and life sciences, and transport. Our teams operate globally from offices across the US, UK Ireland, Nordics, and Netherlands. Discover more at paconsulting.com and connect with PA on LinkedIn and X. PA. Bringing Ingenuity to Life. 

PA Consulting’s ReliabilityOne® awards are presented to electric utilities providing their customers with the highest levels of reliability in the industry. PA Consulting’s ReliabilityOne® study is based on standard industry reliability statistics that measure the frequency and duration of electric power outages. As a group, ReliabilityOne® participants on average experienced over 50% fewer sustained outages, and their collective system saw 60% shorter outage durations than the average US investor-owned utility. PA Consulting has been analyzing electric utility performance since 1987. For more information about PA Consulting, visit https://www.paconsulting.com/industries/energy-and-utilities

Contacts:

Media Relations:
DL-ENT-pseg.communications@pseg.com
973-430-7734 

Originally published by TriplePundit

By Tina Casey

A worldwide shift in materials science is underway as innovators deploy new technologies to create sustainable products. With people growing more aware of the world’s waste and pollution problems, an expanding segment of consumers is looking for green attributes in the products they buy — choosing items that are biodegradable, are made from renewable or regenerative materials found in nature, and can be disposed of sustainably at the end of their life.

To source the materials they need to meet this demand, companies depend on scientists, innovators, entrepreneurs and investors at the forefront of the growing green economy. In New York City, a planned innovation hub called Gotham Foundry aims to attract and support the best and brightest in this field from around the world.

Gotham Foundry opened this September during Climate Week and is focused on leveraging biomaterial innovation to bring new businesses and materials to key New York City industries — like fashion and construction. It will support startups creating next-gen materials like biodegradable plastic alternatives and upcycled textiles while serving as a hub for biomanufacturing education and green workforce training.

A citywide initiative, Gotham Foundry is funded by $45 million from New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC). Located at Harlem Biospace on West 127th Street, it will be led by materials innovators at Columbia Engineering, the State University of New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology and the City University of New York’s Advanced Science Research Center, and Genspace, the world’s first community biology lab, located in Sunset Park.

New York strives to be at the forefront of the global green economy

While New York City does not have the space for the large “giga-factories” typical of manufacturing hubs in the Asia-Pacific region and elsewhere, the city offers innovators a creative and dynamic environment unlike anywhere else in the world. Not to mention direct access to investors in one of the world’s financial capitals, along with a supportive regulatory environment for sustainability innovation at both the city and state levels.

This confluence of factors creates the opportunity to build a collaborative, interactive network in support of sustainable materials research, said Maria Gotsch, president and CEO of the Partnership Fund for New York City. “Now we’re stitching the pieces together — let’s make this more of a strategic focus, let’s connect the dots in a more explicit way,” she said.

New York has already established itself as a global center for transformative innovation through initiatives including the BATWorks climate innovation hub, the AI Nexus, and the Urban Tech Hub at Newlab — which launched in 2016 with help from the Partnership Fund. “A lot of MIT graduates are coming to New York specifically for Newlab, because if you’re working in urban technology, you have a large concentration of people,” Gotsch explained. “All this makes New York an early-adopter market.””

New York fashion: Where science and creativity meet

The Gotham Foundry hub aims to supercharge New York City’s materials ecosystem to bring and commercialize New York’s legacy industries new, more sustainable innovations. The fashion industry in New York City continues to be the largest centralized area for fashion brands, designers, and manufacturers in the United States. With 1 in 3 fashion designers all residing in the New York metro area and approximately 65 million tourists shopping in the city’s iconic retailers, new material innovators and companies have an incredible opportunity to commercialize and experience growth faster than any other region. The industry also draws fashion technology innovators, R&D and production experts, marketing and advertising specialists, social media and content creators, as well as showrooms, sales and merchandising experts. The city understands the economic and cultural importance of this industry and has worked to develop a suite of programs to support it as well as other innovation sectors.

In 2013, NYCEDC and the Council of Fashion Designers of America partnered to launch the $6 million Fashion Manufacturing Initiative, part of an ongoing effort to support and invest in new technologies for the city’s garment sector. The Fashion Manufacturing Initiative has since grown into a $14 million advanced manufacturing and technology program in support of New York City garment manufacturers and the workforce.

“Every fashion capital thinks they’re the best, and they are at what they do, but I’m really excited about New York City’s openness to creative capital,” said Sara Kozlowski, vice president of program strategies and education at the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Kozlowski says Gotham Foundry will help fashion innovators sharpen their focus on materials reuse and recycling. “We’re in a new phase of how things are made: design for repair, design for disassembly, design for next life,” she explained. “We are in such an exciting time in the last decade. The pace of innovation is incredible. It’s particularly important to think about the interconnection of systems — we need systems to support the great materials we’re seeing.”

Indeed there’s no shortage of innovative materials popping up across the city’s garment space. The Brooklyn startup Kintra Fibers, for example, has developed a plant-based form of nylon that is biodegradable when disposed in controlled composting systems. Also based in Brooklyn, the alternative leather startup TômTex launched in 2020 with support from the CFDA. The company’s base material is chitosan, a naturally occurring fibrous sugar found in mushrooms, shellfish and other biogenic sources that the company makes into a leather-like textile. The CFDA also supports technology-centered improvements in circularity — including a fiber sorting system enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) in collaboration with eBay’s Circular Fashion Fund.

“This also encapsulates what we see at NYCEDC,” said Kidd Solomon, assistant vice president for innovation industries at New York City Economic Development Corporation. “Circularity provides opportunities for people to experience the ‘science-fiction’ of biomaterials beyond the lab and in their everyday lives.”

Rethinking the future of the built environment

From the Statue of Liberty to the Chrysler Building, New York is a city defined by iconic architectural landmarks. “New York is a showcase,” said Emily Majewski, co-founder of the bio-based building materials startup Phytostone.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic raised public awareness of how important well-designed indoor spaces are for our health, major cities like New York are in the midst of a healthy building revolution. Though the building industry tends to be risk-averse, innovators like Majewski are finding success in introducing new bio-based materials that are more sustainable and improve indoor air quality. Gotham Foundry aims to support them and the city’s construction industry as a living laboratory for biomaterials innovation.

“New York is in a very unique position. Especially since COVID, the understanding and appreciation for healthy indoor spaces has skyrocketed,” Majewski said. “Materials are now finally being recognized. After decades of being a fringe consideration, they are everything we interface with constantly. They are so ubiquitous we don’t even notice, but you cannot detach yourself from a material surface.”

According to a press announcement from NYCEDC: “Phytostone created Cast Carbon, biochar-enriched wall tiles that blend clays, minerals and agricultural waste into a compostable finish. The wall tiles are designed for modular installation and disassembly, storing carbon while elevating interior aesthetics. This fall, Cast Carbon is participating in NYCEDC’s Pilots at BAT program, which enables pilots to receive access to spaces and infrastructure at NYCEDC’s flagship waterfront asset BAT—a vital 60-acre industrial campus—and the MADE Bush Terminal Campus to test their technologies, develop their products, show viability for customers and investors, and tap into New York City’s economy, the ninth largest in the world.”

Majewski says her company’s signature product, is a good fit for New York, where the construction industry is constantly updating a “forest” of existing buildings as well as putting up new buildings. Access to a skilled workforce over half a million strong and a reliable, nearby supply chain for bio-based materials drew Majewski to New York to build her startup.

“New York City has such an incredible resource of buildings that need to be renewed and updated. The older buildings are competing with the newest ones, so it made a lot of sense for us to be there,” she explained.

She cites the city’s fashion industry, architects, and interior designers as key supporters of her company’s “lead with beauty” approach to developing new bio-based materials, aiming for a strong, visual-first impression that opens up conversations about cost, performance, sustainability, and ethical supply chains.

Founders like Majewski are among those recognizing that a tipping point in public sentiment has arrived, working in support of biomaterials innovators and investors. Momentum is poised to continue to build toward the more sustainable, circular and healthier bio-based economy envisioned by Gotham Foundry and its partners.

“Material health and bringing nature indoors is universal and bipartisan,” Majewski concluded. “No one will want to go back to unhealthy, damaging materials.”

Read more from this series

About This Content

This content was created in partnership with New York City Economic Development Corporation. TriplePundit maintains editorial independence and works with partners to create valuable content that aligns with our mission of solution-oriented journalism.

Originally published on GoDaddy

TEMPE, Ariz., November 17, 2025 /3BL/ — GoDaddy recently launched Airo.ai, a Beta agentic artificial intelligence (AI) website and experience that turns a simple conversation into completed tasks for small businesses.

A business owner provides direction and Airo.ai infers the goal. It uses reason to plan and act across GoDaddy products and trusted services. Built on an extensible agent framework and GoDaddy’s proprietary data, it keeps improving through automated evaluations and human review. From proposing a business idea and registering a domain to building and publishing a Website Builder site, generating a logo, drafting policy templates, and even spinning up a hosted app, Airo.ai moves customers from intent to outcomes in minutes. Six agents are available at launch, with dozens more in development and new capabilities shipping weekly. To give it a try, visit Airo.ai.

“Small business owners do not want to master a tech stack; they want outcomes that help them start and grow their business,” said GoDaddy Chief Business Officer Gourav Pani. “GoDaddy Airo’s powerful agentic AI capabilities drastically reduces the usual weeks of setup time by handling multiple business tasks simultaneously, all through simple conversation.”

How Airo.ai works

Airo.ai uses proprietary data based on GoDaddy’s nearly 30 years of experience helping tens of millions of small businesses. The benefit of the Airo Agent is that it keeps the conversation in context, evaluates goals in real time and behind the scenes hands work to the best specialized agent to get the job done quickly.

The first six agents are:

• Airo Agent — Orchestrates requests end-to-end: remembers businesses’ preferences over time, proposes step-by-step plans, delegates tasks to other trusted, specialized agents, tracks progress, and requests approval for significant actions (registering a domain or publishing a website, for example).
• Airo App Builder — Converts a plain-language description into working web-apps hosted on GoDaddy. Generates web pages and components, wires forms, basic data storage, and common integrations—then deploys and returns a live URL.
• Compliance Agent — Drafts tailored Privacy Policies and Terms of Service based on business type and location, produces editable documents, and inserts them into the site. Outputs are templates; independent legal review is recommended.
• Domain Search and Registration Agent — Suggests brandable business names aligned to the user’s idea and voice, checks availability across popular TLDs, reserves the selected domain, and configures it for the site automatically.
• Website Builder Agent — Builds and customizes GoDaddy Website Builder sites by selecting an on-brand theme and palette, generating or importing copy and images, setting up core pages (Home, About, Contact, Policies), enabling ecommerce or bookings, and configuring basic SEO settings.
• Logo Agent — Generates brand-ready logo options with color, typography, and usage guidance, exports to common formats (including vector), and applies the chosen logo across the site and social media profiles.

Built to incorporate new specialized agents, fast
Airo.ai’s modular architecture allows GoDaddy to rapidly create new specialized agents as trends or business needs evolve. New agents are rapidly developed and launched, ensuring small businesses have access to the latest tools and capabilities.

These agents can then be deployed to GoDaddy.com for customers using Airo.

About GoDaddy

GoDaddy helps millions of entrepreneurs globally start and scale their businesses. People come to GoDaddy to name their idea, build a website and logo, sell their products and services, and accept payments. GoDaddy Airo®, the company’s AI-powered experience, makes growing a small business faster and easier by helping them to get their idea online in minutes, drive traffic and boost sales. GoDaddy’s expert guides are available 24/7 to provide assistance. To learn more, visit www.GoDaddy.com.

Source: GoDaddy Inc.

 

Originally published on World Economic Forum

Ten years after the Paris Agreement reshaped global ambition, a clear divide has emerged. Some companies are translating climate pledges into measurable progress; others remain trapped in cycles of reporting and rhetoric. Understanding this divide matters more than ever, because the 2020s should not be yet another decade of declarations. We need this decade to be a decisive delivery window for a livable planet.

The freshly published United Nations Environment Programme’s Emissions Gap Report 2025 shows modest but insufficient progress.

Click here to read more on World Economic Forum

by Nancy Friedrich, Industry Solutions Marketing, 6G Thought Leadership

With initial 6G working groups launched by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), final research toward 6G standardization and deployment is underway. The initial research phase included two spectrum candidates: sub-terahertz (Sub-THz) frequencies from 90 to 300 GHz and the informally labeled frequency range 3 (FR3), covering 7 to 24 GHz. Although sub-THz frequencies may be used in future releases or generations, it is confirmed that 6G will use FR3.

The Wideband Multifunctional Software Defined Radio (WMSDR) project bridges the 5G-to-6G gap by covering up to 24 GHz using thin-film variable capacitors (varactors) developed by Professor Subramanyam at the University of Dayton in a project team also including the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and a new startup, CapV LLC. Guru Subramanyam, University of Dayton Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, explains that the project’s focus is on lab to fab transition by incentivizing key technologies to be matured very quickly for the benefit of the Department of Defense (DoD).

The Midwest Microelectronics Consortium (MMEC) funds this Microelectronics Commons Project, which is the U.S. DoD portion of the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) Act. MMEC is one of the eight hubs established across the country, located in Dayton, Ohio. As one of only five 5G/6G projects, the WMSDR is currently in its first year of the three-year program.

Lockheed Martin leads the WMSDR project team. In fact, Lockheed reached out to the University of Dayton in 2018, when Subramanyam was working with a company called Indiana Microelectronics on an Air Force-funded small business technology transfer research (STTR) phase 1 grant. Lockheed recognized the varactor’s potential to help them miniaturize broadband tunable filters. From there, they started an independent R&D (IRAD) program from 2018 through 2020, working for about two years on ultra-miniaturized tunable filters up to 18 GHz. These filters were roughly 11 x 11 mm² in size, with chip scale integration being the overall program goal.

At the end of the Lockheed IRAD program, the team won the DARPA wideband adaptive RF protection (WARP) phase 1 program. The WARP tunable filters were designed for interference cancellation and other performance capabilities. Lockheed Martin, the University of Dayton (UD), Indiana Micro, and 3D Glass Systems (3DGS) were all part of those phase 1 and phase 2 programs. At the end of phase 2, CapV LLC was created for commercialization of thin-film varactor technology. The entire WARP team, along with Intel Corp., won the current WMSDR funding from the ME Commons program.

As a lab-to-fab transition company, CapV has developed AI-enabled varactor and varactor-based chips. Subramanyam lists the chips they make as one of the things he is most excited about in the current work. He says, “We make these thin-film varactor chips. A chip can be as simple as a single varactor, which can be used as a tuning element and integrated in a hybrid fashion with other chips. At the same time, we can also make multi-varactor based complex chips, such as analog phase shifters for precision phase control, tunable true time delay units, and reconfigurable antennas, which are all important for multiple input multiple output (MIMO) applications.”

6G Security and Performance

Looking beyond the chips to FR3 and 6G performance, Subramanyam anticipates improved latency, bandwidth, and connectivity, such as providing much faster data transfer and enhanced performance in terms of links and MIMO systems. He says, “What’s more exciting for us is, even at FR3 bands, you can easily switch the RF front-end modules from one center frequency to a completely different frequency using our technology. If there are some interferers, you can sense and move very quickly to a different band and still achieve a very high bandwidth and other performance features. That’s the capability provided by the varactor technology.”

Engineers can simply move up or down in frequency so that they can avoid interfering with signals anywhere nearby to effectively obtain the necessary bandwidth. This solution could have potential applications for privacy and security as well.

Design and Integration of Varactors

“There are a lot of applications for this technology,” Subramanyam notes. “Basically, all of them will be for chip-scale solutions. The challenges are in the integration of our chip-scale solutions onto existing RF circuits and systems. We have successfully demonstrated our chips for applications up to 18 GHz with no issues in terms of integrating our varactors and demonstrating tunable filters and other applications.”

Subramanyam believes that the varactor technology works well at higher FR3 frequencies as well. CapV has been working with Modelithics Corp. to develop models of varactor chips for integration with Keysight’s Advanced Design System (ADS) and Cadence’s AWR electronic design automation (EDA) tools. Modelithics has developed models for CapV’s varactor chips up to 67 GHz. These varactors can be designed for multiple form factors and integration requirements. Subramanyam says, “We can, for example, design a 50-ohm coplanar waveguide (CPW) transmission line multiple ways because the width of the signal line to the spacing between the ground lines determines the characteristic impedance. We can integrate our devices into multiple different existing designs.”

As a result, Subramanyam says everything is pretty much a custom design. This approach, for example, means they also have to design the biasing circuits for controlling the varactors precisely using a digital to analog converter (DAC). Subramanyam notes, “We also need to make sure that we are routing the biasing lines properly on existing boards and these will not affect the performance of the rest of the RF circuits.”

CapV is also developing a process design kit (PDK) for thin film varactor technology, with the goal of offering multi-project wafer (MPW) services by the last quarter of 2026. “Once we have the PDK,” Subramanyam states, “we can design and fabricate custom chips for any customer who wants to try our varactor technology. CapV will be the only U.S. entity to offer custom MPW chip fabrication service using the thin-film varactor technology.”

Testing for Confidence

The thin-film varactors are the key components for the WMSDR project for reconfigurable radio-frequency (RF) front end and interference cancellation. The team has tested the varactors all the way up to 67 GHz, so they are confident in their operation. Typically, they do electromagnetic (EM) simulations first to assess the performance of the chips. Subramanyam says, “Obviously, we try to model everything including the parasitics. We need to keep in mind the hybrid packaging, wire bonds, and the DC bias lines. We model everything very, very carefully and make sure that we can characterize each of the components of the chips using their drop-out test structures.”

Subramanyam states, “We have already supplied our varactor chips for the WMSDR project. Our team has integrated the varactor devices with the rest of the chips and built the WMSDR system. Demos are planned at the end of our first year. We are working toward solving the challenges in covering the FR3 bands and beyond in our next phase of the project.“

Meet the Expert

Subramanyam just completed his 27th year as a faculty at the University of Dayton. An electrical engineer by training, he got his MSEE and PhD in microelectronics from the University of Cincinnati. During his PhD, he worked with high-temperature superconducting thin films funded by NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. He worked closely with NASA Glenn researchers in the Communication Technology division during his graduate student years from 1986 to 1993. He credits the colleagues from NASA Glenn as the reason for his research in thin-film varactors. While serving as a summer faculty at NASA Glenn, he designed and developed ferroelectric thin-film-based tunable filters for satellite communications from 1997 to 2001.

Subramanyam says, “During my first year as a summer faculty fellow, I was introduced to thin-film ferroelectrics and started working on integrating thin-film varactors for Ku-band tunable filters. Throughout my career, it has been exciting to work with new materials and new devices. Even though I’m an EE, I enjoy solving many materials processing and materials integration issues for microwave and mmWave circuits and make them work well.”

Subramanyam has been collaborating with the AFRL Materials and Manufacturing Directorate and Sensors Directorate since he joined the UD in 1998. “I continue to collaborate with colleagues at AFRL. We have an excellent group of researchers at AFRL, UD, and CapV. We are excited to transition the technology that we have developed over the years.”

Learn more about how to navigate your way to 6G with Keysight here.

Eastman

Collaboration between Eastman and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has led to eye-opening scientific results about how quickly certain biopolymers can degrade in seawater. Researcher Collin Ward hopes it opens eyes on other fronts too.

“We hope this pushes the Earth and environmental sciences community to think more broadly about the benefits of breaking down silos and working together,” Ward said.

Ward is a WHOI scientist who led a study to measure how quickly cellulose diacetate (CDA) breaks down in marine environments. WHOI worked with scientists from Eastman, which provided funding for the study as well as materials: CDA-based foams made with Eastman Aventa™ compostable materials.

WHOI researchers found these CDA foams, which have high surface-area-to-volume ratios, biodegrade rapidly in the ocean while also supporting circularity and material efficiency.

“With foaming, you increase the degradation rate by more than 10 times, and you get to a point where this foamed CDA is degrading faster than paper,” Ward said. “It turns out that this low-density CDA material is the fastest-degrading plastic we’ve ever measured in our lab, and we think it’s the fastest-degrading plastic to ever be documented in the ocean.”

This experiment aside, the partnership itself deserves attention. Eastman has worked for more than five years with WHOI, the world’s leading independent, nonprofit scientific organization dedicated to ocean research. Ward, who has a Ph.D. in Earth and environmental sciences, works in biogeochemistry and studies how organic molecules degrade in the environment. His previous work has produced valuable insights on degrading permafrost in the Arctic and the fate of oil during spills at sea, including the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Then he thought about translating his studies of molecular degradation to the plastic waste crisis.

“Around 2017 or so, I was having coffee with a close colleague, Christopher Reddy, another collaborator on the project, and thought, ‘Why don’t we take these tools and apply them to study the fate of plastics in the ocean?’ ” Ward said.

The partnership between WHOI and Eastman launched in January 2020. Scientists started with fundamental questions about the variables and timelines of CDA biodegradation.

“At the time, no one knew if CDA degraded in the ocean, which bugs ate it and how fast the process happened,” Ward remembered. “It was only a few years into the project when we had a firm enough grasp of that fundamental knowledge to start thinking about applying it to new products, like Aventa.”

Eastman has a century of experience in cellulosic biopolymers, which are made from sustainable wood pulp. Eastman has also studied CDAs used to produce other products, including Eastman Naia™ cellulosic fibers. The company developed Aventa as a compostable alternative for quick-service food packaging, like protein trays, cutlery and straws. Microorganisms can break down compostable food packaging that leaks into the environment so it doesn’t remain as pollution. Polystyrene foam, or Styrofoam, has long been used for quick-service food packaging, but it persists for hundreds of years in the environment.

Eastman turned to WHOI to assess how Aventa could be used as an alternative material that performs like plastic but doesn’t pollute the ocean. The results were published in 2024 in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering. Eastman scientists were co-authors on the paper with Ward and his WHOI colleagues.

Ward was inundated with interview requests and questions from academic colleagues about the results and the academic-industry partnership. He’s happy to expound on the collaboration.

“One thing we learned over the last few years is that there’s a lot of resistance to these partnerships, particularly in the Earth and environmental sciences spaces,” Ward said. He hopes this study and the results help change that. “We really push back on the narrative that all companies are just trying to buy results, and our partnership with Eastman has been the furthest thing from this. Our papers are reviewed by Eastman, but no one’s telling us what to write. No one’s telling us what questions to ask, what hypotheses to test or how to interpret the data. We work amicably together to translate fundamental science into useful and more sustainable materials. It’s been one of the more gratifying collaborations of my career.”

Ward said big challenges need translational science that can be scaled up to make a real impact. Problems like plastic waste need the combined expertise of academic and industrial science.

“We think that bringing academia and industry together can solve this problem faster,” Ward said.

 

Originally published in Principal Financial Group 2024 Sustainability Report

Our approach

For nearly four decades, Principal® Foundation has been supporting organizations that help eliminate barriers to a better financial future and expand access to essential resources and services that build stronger communities.

Specifically, our funding champions organizations working in three primary areas we consider foundational to moving people closer to the financial future they envision.

• Ensuring access to essential needs
• Fostering social and cultural connections
• Promoting financial inclusion

Ensuring access to essential needs

Meeting our most essential needs is where the path to a better financial future begins. Principal Foundation invests in organizations that help ensure families around the world don’t have to worry about whether they will have a roof over their head, food on the table, or the support needed to recover following a disaster.

Fostering social and cultural connections

Arts and culture bind communities together. They shape our lives in innumerable ways—inspiring creativity, sparking collaboration, nurturing social and cultural connections. This creates space for individual growth and economic development. The aim of Principal Foundation is to see the arts and creative sectors embraced as a critical social, economic, and development partner.

Promoting financial inclusion

Access to financial education, services, and resources remains out of reach for too many around the world. By addressing the gaps and systemic barriers that prevent access to these tools and resources, Principal Foundation can help shape a financial system that works for everyone.

Principal® Foundation community investments

Our actions and performance in 2024

In 2024, Principal® Foundation provided $18.8 million to our communities around the globe. The missions of these recipient organizations fall under at least one of our focus areas.

• $18.8M Total community investments in 2024

Featured impact stories

DataSetGo

Principal® Foundation and Everfi joined together in 2022 to launch DataSetGo, a first-of-its-kind digital education program designed to introduce youth to data science fundamentals and exposure to new career opportunities. Since its launch, DataSetGo has reached over 560 schools and impacted more than 40,100 students nationwide. The program not only provides critical knowledge but also opens doors for students through the Distinguished Scholar Award, a competitive essay contest that awards 10 national scholarships each year.

• 40,100 students impacted by DataSetGo

These scholarships help students pursue their ambitions, from cancer research to fashion design, demonstrating the endless possibilities that data science can unlock.

For more information visit: principal.everfi.com

Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund (CFE): Small Business Boost

Small businesses are the backbone of local economies, yet nearly half fail within their first five years. To address this challenge, Principal Foundation committed to funding organizations like CFE that are providing innovative program support to small business owners. The Small Business Boost program was created with the goal of improving entrepreneur personal finances so they could better position themselves to achieve their business goals.

Through the Small Business Boost initial pilot, more than 1,200 financial counseling sessions were provided to more than 430 clients who reduced their debt by over $860,550 and built their savings by more than $235,120. Many of these clients established credit, opened new bank accounts and showed a higher retention rate than those using traditional support programs.

• >1,200 financial counseling sessions provided

Beyond direct assistance to entrepreneurs, CFE Small Business Boost worked with national research organization Urban Institute to evaluate the pilot’s impact and share key findings across the sector.

The study highlighted three key insights:

• The Small Business Boost pilot demonstrated the salience of financial issues like credit, debt, and separating business and personal finances to small business owners, particularly Black and Latina women.
• Successful engagement participants saw a clear link between personal and business financial well-being.
• The pilot demonstrated how free, one- on-one financial counseling as a public service could support small business owners and small business support ecosystems, when built upon robust partnerships that recognize evolving client pathways.

Building on this success, CFE is now preparing to launch Phase 2 of the program in 2025, expanding to additional cities and deepening the impact.

To follow along and find more impact stories visit principalfoundation.org

To learn more, read the Principal Financial Group 2024 Sustainability Report.

Insurance products issued by Principal National Life Insurance Co (except in NY) and Principal Life Insurance Company®. Plan administrative services offered by Principal Life. Principal Funds, Inc. is distributed by Principal Funds Distributor, Inc. Securities offered through Principal Securities, Inc., member SIPC and/or independent broker/dealers. Referenced companies are members of the Principal Financial Group®, Des Moines, IA 50392.

About Principal® Foundation

Principal® Foundation is a duly recognized 501(c)(3) non-profit entity focused on providing philanthropic support to programs that build financial security in the communities where Principal Financial Group, Inc. (“Principal”) operates. While Principal Foundation receives funding from Principal, Principal Foundation is a distinct, independent, charitable entity. Principal Foundation does not practice any form of investment advisory services and is not authorized to do so.

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CAMDEN, N.J., November 17, 2025 /3BL/ – Subaru of America, Inc. (SOA) today unveiled the latest installment of its long-running “Dog Tested. Dog Approved.” campaign, bringing back the automaker’s beloved Barkley family of dogs. The new ads follow the Barkleys behind the wheel of Subaru’s latest vehicles as they navigate everyday adventures that reflect the lives – and humor – of Subaru owners everywhere.

Created in collaboration with agency partner Carmichael Lynch, the campaign builds on Subaru’s legacy of heartwarming, pet-focused storytelling. The campaign features seven new ads, including “The Chase,” which premiered exclusively on Peacock during Sunday’s primetime football game on November 16. In the spot, the Barkleys embark on an adorable car chase with the iconic Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.

The full lineup includes 30- and 15-second spots that will run across both linear and digital platforms.

• “THE CHASE” – When they see the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile on the road, the Barkleys chase their dreams in the new 2026 Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid with a next-generation powertrain.
• “ROUNDABOUT” – The Barkley family has all the range needed as they find themselves circling a roundabout in their Subaru Forester Hybrid.
• “NEW LOOK” – Dogs in the neighborhood are stunned to see the Barkleys behind the wheel of an all-new, completely redesigned 2026 Subaru Outback.
• “HANDWASH” – The Barkleys wash mud off their rugged all-new, completely redesigned 2026 Subaru Outback Wilderness, but a mischievous pigeon has other plans.
• “TRACKING” – The Barkleys use their go-anywhere Subaru Trailseeker EV to quietly sneak up on a squirrel during a family outing.
• “NEW CAR SMELL” – Papa Barkley brings home a capable and fun-to-drive all-new Subaru Uncharted EV, and the family can’t help but take in that irresistible new car smell.
• “SQUEAK” – During an otherwise peaceful drive in their redesigned 2026 Subaru Solterra EV, baby Barkley breaks the silence from the backseat.

The spots are available to view on the Subaru of America YouTube channel’s “Dog Tested. Dog Approved.” playlist.

Alan Bethke, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Subaru of America, Inc.: “Subaru owners have always had a deep love for their pets, especially dogs, and that connection continues to inspire our work. The Barkleys perfectly capture the joy, adventure, and fun-loving nature that defines Subaru owners in these latest ads, showing how Subaru is part of life’s everyday moments for people and pets alike.”

To round out the campaign and extend its celebration of pets, Subaru of America will return as the exclusive automotive sponsor of Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet for the sixteenth consecutive year. Puppy Bowl, the original and longest-running call-to-adoption television event, returns for 2026.

For more information, visit: www.subaru.com/pets and follow #SubaruLovesPets on social media.

About Subaru of America, Inc.

Subaru of America, Inc. (SOA) is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Subaru Corporation of Japan. Headquartered in Camden, N.J., the company markets and distributes Subaru vehicles, parts, and accessories through a network of about 640 retailers across the United States. All Subaru products are manufactured in zero-landfill plants, including Subaru of Indiana Automotive, Inc., the only U.S. automobile manufacturing plant designated a backyard wildlife habitat by the National Wildlife Federation. SOA is guided by the Subaru Love Promise, which is the company’s vision to show love and respect to everyone and to support its communities and customers nationwide. Over the past 20 years, SOA and the SOA Foundation have donated more than $340 million to causes the Subaru family cares about, and its employees have logged over 115,000 volunteer hours. Subaru is dedicated to being More Than a Car Company® and to making the world a better place. For additional information, visit media.subaru.com. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and YouTube.

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Diane Anton
Corporate Communications Manager
(856) 488-5093
danton@subaru.com

Adam Leiter
Corporate Communications Specialist
(856) 488-8668
aleiter@subaru.com

3BL’s media division TriplePundit is celebrating 20 years as a newsroom with a new multimedia campaign exploring the past, present and future of the corporate sustainability field.

3BL’s acquisition of TriplePundit (3p) in 2017 marked a formative moment in our journey to collaborate with the leading voices in responsible business. TriplePundit has helped propel 3BL forward, and we are proud to support them as they honor their legacy and look ahead to what’s coming next.

Shortly after the development of the “triple bottom line” framework, 3p launched as a side project of MBA candidates at Presidio School of Management in San Francisco, the first accredited business master’s program with a focus on sustainability. Fresh off media architecture stints at Mother Jones and Treehugger, Nick Aster founded the site to spread the word about the emerging concepts he was studying and recruited a few classmates to contribute. They described themselves as “critical optimists,” aiming to grow TriplePundit into a resource about the development of sustainable organizations, brands and workplace cultures.

Within a few years, it was one of the world’s most well-read websites on the subject of responsible business, with an audience of over 100,000 readers a month and bolstered by a vibrant community of professionals, advocates and curious minds. In keeping with a history of listening and responding to their community of readers and contributors, TriplePundit pivoted to solutions journalism in 2023, with a focus on telling the under-told stories of people and organizations making measurable progress on complex and seemingly intractable challenges.

Along the way, 3p’s journalists have seen it all — covering some of the most significant developments in the space as they happened, from the launch of pioneering corporate frameworks like Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan and Marks & Spencer’s Plan A, to the adoption of the Paris climate agreement and the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

“Having joined a few years shy of TriplePundit’s first decade, our 20th year as a newsroom is a milestone that means a lot to me, but the nature of the time we’re in — and the questions it inevitably brings forward about the measurable outcome of corporate sustainability — puts the occasion in a different perspective,” TriplePundit’s executive editor, Mary Mazzoni, wrote on the site this month. “In some areas, we’ve come a long way. In others, not so much.”

The Long View: 20 Years of Sustainability in Motion looks back on the pivotal moments, breakthrough technologies and disruptive ways of thinking that shaped the corporate sustainability field. Veteran journalists will take stock of what’s gone right and what’s gone wrong, and leaders, experts and advocates will share their projections and hopes for the future, while an accompanying social media campaign puts the progress and pitfalls into stunning visuals and invites our community to take part.

Check out the campaign here on TriplePundit’s brand new website, and follow along on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky and Instagram.

Responsible procurement involves more than setting expectations for suppliers. It also requires setting a vision that enables Chemours to embed responsible sourcing into our supply chain in ways that reduce environmental impact, uphold labor and human rights, ensure ethical practices, and help communities thrive. This vision—which includes fundamental sustainability attributes such as safety and security, continuity and resilience, and social and environmental responsibility as well as profitability, reliability, and quality—guides our business strategies in a manner that encourages and delivers longer-term, more responsible performance.

As a strategic business partner that champions responsible sourcing, Chemours has a clear strategy for how we conduct and manage procurement activities that is built on partnering with suppliers and customers to create a more sustainable supply chain. We work with suppliers who align with our values and sustainability commitments, which include:

• Providing a safe workplace and complying with all applicable regulations
• Protecting and advancing human rights
• Sharing our commitment to environmental stewardship

Partnering with us to create sustainable supply chains and deliver business value, our expectations are clearly outlined in our Supplier Code of Conduct, which is available in Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.

The Responsible Procurement team, sponsored by our Chief Procurement Officer, drives our sustainability goals across the supply chain and leverages valuable sustainability platforms to execute our strategy. We accelerate meeting these goals by providing suppliers with the resources they need to build capabilities and knowledge in sustainable procurement practices.

Supplier Due Diligence

We measure supplier sustainability performance through our Supplier Corporate Responsibility Assessment (SCRA), conducted in partnership with EcoVadis, a third-party provider of business sustainability ratings for global supply chains. We evaluate across four environmental, social, and governance categories: ethical business practices, social performance, environmental performance, and sustainable supply chain. At the end of the assessment, the supplier receives a scorecard with recommended opportunities to improve their performance.

EcoVadis scorecards are part of our supplier evaluation and due diligence process. Chemours sets minimum performance requirements for the assessment scorecard result. Suppliers must meet these standards to align with Chemours’ sustainability goals. If a supplier’s score is below expectations, Chemours requests a Corrective Action Plan through the EcoVadis platform, where suppliers must propose steps to improve their performance. In turn, Chemours supports them in developing their capabilities and may request third-party audits to ensure compliance and continuous improvement.

2024 Actions Toward Responsible Procurement

Raising the Bar on Our Corporate Responsibility Commitment Goal

In 2024, 81% of suppliers, by spend, demonstrated an average 29% improvement in their sustainability performance versus the 2018 baseline. This exceeds our goal to establish a baseline for the sustainable performance of 80% of suppliers and demonstrate a 15% improvement. As a result of this success and to drive continued improvement, we are in the process of developing a new goal that will be announced in future reports.

Partnering with Suppliers

In 2024, we continued to expand the number of suppliers we assess by matching supplier segmentation to spend—ensuring that we assess our most critical supply base. We also are expanding our commitment to collaborate with suppliers to improve their upstream environmental performance. This will help us support our goal to reduce Scope 3 emissions by 25% per metric ton of production by 2030.

To achieve this, we are partnering with suppliers to collect product carbon footprint (PCF) data using the Together for Sustainability (TfS) PCF Exchange solution. This secure platform ensures transparency and accuracy in emissions reporting, enabling us to track and manage upstream supply chain emissions more effectively. By leveraging TfS guidelines and resources in alignment with our Responsible Procurement program, we support suppliers in calculating and sharing their PCF data, which can help them identify and support more sustainable practices that contribute to our decarbonization efforts.

The Chemours Company is a global chemistry company that believes through transformative partnerships we can amplify our impact and work together to help solve the world’s biggest challenges. Read more about how we work with suppliers, partners, and customers to improve sustainability performance and reduce supply chain risks in Chemours’ latest Sustainability Report.