Edition #8 | Environment Forward

Extreme weather, EV humor, 10 key ESG questions, and how to spot greenwashing.

Hi Y’all! Welcome to Edition 8 of Environment Forward and the first of 2022! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday – at CarbonBetter we took time to reflect on our 2021 accomplishments and what we hope to achieve in 2022, check out our year in review here. I spent the holidays in north Georgia where it was unseasonably warm; much of the US experienced extreme weather at the end of 2021, from unexpectedly warm temperatures to Christmas snowstorms in the Pacific Northwest. As we continue to see erratic and extreme weather patterns across the globe, it serves as an important reminder about the critical importance of taking climate action, no matter how small the steps. In this week’s edition, we take a look back on some of the extreme weather events that occurred in 2021, some humor from Ford’s Twitter account, and ways you can sniff out greenwashing. I’d love to know what you’ve been reading lately, and what you’d like to see more of in 2022 – be sure to drop me a line and let me know your thoughts.

Ford’s bringing EV humor to Twitter

In advance of bringing the F-150 Lightning truck to market in spring of 2022, Ford took to Twitter with some hilarious electric vehicle (EV) memes. The excitement for the F-150 Lightning is building with nearly 200,000 reservations to date. Some may have concerns about the vehicle range of 230 miles, but through memes, Ford pokes fun of “range anxiety.” Regardless of your opinion on EVs, I hope you get a laugh from these memes.

^{Image credit: Ford via Twitter}

Looking back on extreme weather in 2021

In 2021, we experienced some record-setting extreme weather events, and Grist brings us a powerful cartoon recap of the extreme weather and natural disasters we experienced in 2021. The first event they highlight is the February winter storm in Texas that left 4 million people, myself and many of my colleagues included, without power for days. The 2021 natural disaster summary continues on with flooding in Lake Charles, hurricanes in New Orleans and Nashville, fires in California, and heat domes in Los Angeles. Whether you refer to these events as natural disasters or extreme weather, with the latter becoming more common, it's increasingly difficult to avoid being affected by these events.

^{Image credit: Grist / Alexandria Herr}

10 ESG questions from Dambisa Moyo

Dambisa Moyo is an influential economist and serves on the board of major corporations such as Conde Nast, Chevron, and 3M. In this article for the Harvard Business Review, she poses 10 ESG (environmental, social, and governance) questions that every company should be able to answer. While the CarbonBetter Climate Services team focuses on the E in ESG, I found it insightful to hear these ESG priorities and considerations from someone who has spent over a decade in corporate boardrooms. Moyo's questions consider the nuance and increasing importance of ESG to companies and their stakeholders.

^{Image credit: Simone Secci}

Is it greenwashing?

As many businesses and countries, including the 10 largest economies in the world, set goals and roadmaps to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 or sooner, it's created more awareness of climate problems as well as business opportunities to be part of the solutions. As climate tech and innovation spin up new solutions to help reduce carbon emissions, there are also a number of false solutions. Climate change is a super wicked problem that's not easily solvable; Akshat Rathi of Bloomberg poses some helpful questions to help assess whether a climate solution is worth your attention. The questions he poses are ones that I find myself thinking about frequently in the ever-evolving decarbonization space. They include such questions as whether it "smells like greenwashing" or "it's too good to be true."

^{Image credit: Red Zeppelin}

Nicole Sullivan is the Climate Services Manager at CarbonBetter. When she's not working on sustainability reports and helping clients to decarbonize, she's busy reading about the environment or is outdoors exploring it. Connect with her on LinkedIn and drop her a line to let her know what you thought about these stories and share what you're reading.