Energy

When most businesspeople travel for their jobs, they retire to their hotel room at the end of the day. However, when long-haul truck drivers are finished with their work, they move to the back of their truck cab into what is called the sleeper compartment. Long-haul, over-the-road truck drivers typically are out on the road

And now for some serious fun. Last week, I had the opportunity to facilitate an online conversation with Terreform ONE, a Brooklyn, New York-based nonprofit architecture and urban design research group whose humble mission is “to combat the extinction of planetary species through pioneering acts of design.” It was a refreshing jolt of inspiration and hopefulness during

There were plenty of juicy news tidbits in Microsoft’s recent progress report about its goal to become carbon negative over the next decade. But its new goal to link at least 500 megawatts of forthcoming solar energy contracts to environmental justice considerations is bold for many reasons.  For context, the total pledge amounts to about

A £4 million ($5.23 million) project in southwest England has secured funding to help pilot the extraction of lithium for use in technologies such as electric vehicles and batteries. In a statement earlier this week, Cornish Lithium said the new funding would be used to support the construction of “Europe’s first geothermal lithium recovery pilot

How much space do you think you need to grow a forest? If your answer is bigger than a couple of tennis courts, think again. Miniature forests are springing up on patches of land in urban areas around the world, often planted by local community groups using a method inspired by Japanese temples. The idea is

There is a new urgency across the United States to address structural and systemic racial inequities in criminal justice, wealth and housing, employment, health care and education. These disparities are also pervasive in energy. One common measure of this is “energy burden,” or the share of take-home income spent on energy bills. Communities of color

The key to long-term success in the fashion industry is to start trends and continually push the envelope — a philosophy that also applies to its ESG priorities. The $2.5 trillion industry accounts for about 8 percent of the world’s carbon emissions when considering the entire value chain — higher than the entire iron and

A BP company logo at a gas station in London, U.K. Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg | Getty Images Energy giant BP reported a significant loss for the second quarter on Tuesday, after downgrading the value of some of its assets on expectations of lower commodity prices. Second-quarter underlying replacement cost profit, used as a proxy for

As more electric buses and trucks enter the market, future fleets will require a lot of electricity for charging. While some utilities in California and elsewhere are planning for an increase in power demand, many have yet to do so and need to get started. This issue is critical, because freight trucks emit more than

An aerial view shows pumpjacks in the South Belridge Oil Field on April 24, 2020 near McKittrick, California. David McNew | Getty Images Oil prices slid on Tuesday amid concerns that a nascent recovery in fuel demand could stall as a fresh wave of COVID-19 infections around the world sparks tighter lockdowns just as major

This story originally appeared in Grist and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalistic collaboration to strengthen coverage of the climate story. One of the starkest inequalities exposed by the coronavirus pandemic is the difference between the digital haves and have-nots. Those with a fast internet connection are more able

Abu Dhabi city skyline, United Arab Emirates. kasto80 | iStock | Getty Images DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The United Arab Emirates announced Saturday the successful start-up of its Barakah nuclear energy plant, the first in the Arab world and a significant step towards the country’s goal of emissions-free electricity. With the announcement, the UAE

Canceled orders, excess stock, disrupted supply chains: The pandemic has laid bare some fundamental challenges with the way our clothes are designed, ordered, manufactured and sold — or landfilled, incinerated or sold on secondary markets. These impacts have been compounded by COVID-19, but the inefficient and resource-intensive apparel industry needed a redesign well before the

An aerial view of oil tankers anchored near the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles amid the coronavirus pandemic on April 28, 2020 off the coast of Long Beach, California. Mario Tama | Getty Images Oil prices fell on Monday on concerns about oversupply as OPEC and its allies, together known as OPEC+, are

Morgan Stanley has become the first major U.S. bank to commit to measuring and disclosing the climate impact of its loans and investments, announcing last week that it has joined a multi-trillion dollar group of global financial institutions developing a standardized method for carbon accounting. The U.S. bank has become the latest financial firm to

Carl Court | AFP | Getty Images Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell on Thursday reported a sharp drop in net profit for the three months through to the end of June, following an unprecedented period of energy market turmoil and significantly weaker oil and gas prices. The Anglo-Dutch company reported adjusted earnings of $638 million

Cargill, the giant food and ag conglomerate, last week announced a new set of 2030 corporate water targets, the latest to do so among firms in its sector. But this was no me-too kind of endeavor. Rather, it put the company at the front of the pack, going well beyond its own operational footprint to

An offshore drilling platform stands in shallow waters at the Manifa offshore oilfield, operated by Saudi Aramco, in Manifa, Saudi Arabia. Simon Dawson | Bloomberg | Getty Images Oil prices rose on Friday and finished the month higher, benefiting from news that U.S. oil output cuts in May were the largest on record. Brent crude

Plenty of prognostications, including this one from the World Economic Forum, tout the integral role artificial intelligence could play in “saving the planet.”  Indeed, AI is integral to all manner of technologies, ranging from autonomous vehicles to more informed disaster response systems to smart buildings and data collection networks monitoring everything from energy consumption to

Farming is a tough business where success depends on a range of factors, including the weather. Hard frosts and flooding can be particularly damaging to those who grow crops and rear livestock, while severe droughts also have the capacity to wreak havoc. One country that’s been hit hard by drought is Zimbabwe, in southern Africa.

Even whiskey is going electric. Distilleries have long been difficult operations to electrify due to the large heat loads it requires to turn grain into one of humanity’s oldest vices, alcohol. But Diageo’s new 72,000-square-foot distillery is designed to be completely carbon-neutral. According to Diageo, it should avoid more than 117,000 metric tons of annual carbon

Wind turbine from different perspective. fernando arias | Moment | Getty Images A consortium made up of Shell and Eneco is to develop an offshore wind farm that will incorporate a range of “technology demonstrations” including floating solar and hydrogen produced by electrolysis. The 759 megawatt (MW) Hollandse Kust (noord) facility will be subsidy free

Nearly a decade ago, as we took in the lush plant life, clean air and warm sunshine surrounding us during a vacation in Hawaii, my wife, Danielle, and I knew a life shift was happening. A connection to the land — this island — was built on that trip, leading us to relocate permanently to

An offshore drilling platform stands in shallow waters at the Manifa offshore oilfield, operated by Saudi Aramco, in Manifa, Saudi Arabia. Simon Dawson | Bloomberg | Getty Images Oil prices were steady on Tuesday, erasing gains earlier in the session, as rising coronavirus cases dampened the outlook for demand and countered optimism over more U.S.

The world’s biggest automakers are ramping up their carbon commitments even as they struggle to build back in the wake of the pandemic.  This week, Germany’s BMW took the plunge and set a goal to reduce its carbon emissions per car by at least one-third by 2030. Like its peers, BMW plans to reach those targets through a combination of

South Belridge Oil Field is the fourth-largest oil field in California and one of the most productive in the U.S. David McNew | Getty Images Oil prices rose on Wednesday after an industry report showed that crude inventories in the United States fell against expectations, giving the market a boost amid record increases of coronavirus

The sustainability ambitions of the world’s largest cloud software companies — Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Salesforce — have been well-documented. The broad semiconductor industry’s position to date, however, has been less transparent and less ambitious, with the highly visible exceptions of AMD, IBM and Intel.  That stance is shifting, as the sector contemplates the explosive

Cyclists travel in a cycle lane along the Embankment in central London on May 16, 2020. JUSTIN TALLIS | AFP | Getty Images U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has unveiled plans for a “cycling and walking revolution” that, if fully realized, could recalibrate the way people move around towns and cities. The move comes as

In the four years since Nancy Mahon assumed responsibility for CSR and sustainability strategy at The Estée Lauder Companies — she’s currently senior vice president of corporate citizenship and sustainability — her team has launched a series of new initiatives that are a “first” among her organization’s sector. The list includes the company’s first virtual

Longtime GreenBiz friend Bruce Klafter died July 18 after a short and intense bout of pancreatic cancer. Bruce most recently was a vice president of sustainability strategy and outreach at Flex in Silicon Valley. GreenBiz co-founder and President Pete May reflects on his interaction with Bruce over the years. And below, we provide memories of Bruce

Who is responsible for emissions? Where did they originate? How can we be sure? A global coalition fronted by former Vice President Al Gore promises granular insights and data into those sources — down to individual power plants, ships or factories. Climate TRACE (short for Tracking Real-time Atmospheric Carbon Emissions) intends to use a massive worldwide network

I felt sure I’d put burnout in the past. I’d quit my high-stress job at Apple, started my own executive-coaching business and found balance in my life. Then, with shame burning my face, I had to cancel a GreenBiz workshop I was leading about how to take care of yourself. Why? Because I hadn’t taken

A Surgutneftegas worker near pumpjacks in Surgut Region of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area – Yugra, in the West Siberian petroleum basin. Alexei Andronov | TASS via Getty Images Oil and gas majors are likely to report “horrendous” second-quarter results over the next two weeks, energy analysts have told CNBC, with the three-month period through to

Apple already has ventured far beyond most other companies when it comes to pushing for climate action within its supply chain.  Consider that it has convinced more than 70 Apple suppliers to use renewable energy to produce products on its behalf, an effort funded in part by close to $5 billion in green bonds issued

An aerial view shows pumpjacks in the South Belridge Oil Field on April 24, 2020 near McKittrick, California. David McNew | Getty Images Oil edged up on Friday as the dollar fell to an almost two-year low, although demand concerns stemming from rising coronavirus cases and U.S.-China tensions kept a lid on prices. The dollar slid to 22-month

A clutch of major multinational corporates including Microsoft, Danone, Nike, Unilever, Starbucks and Mercedes-Benz together have launched a new forum dedicated to sharing resources, tactics and strategies aimed at speeding up the business community’s transition to net zero.  The Transform to Net Zero initiative launched Tuesday will see members of the coalition — which also include

Until recently, the idea of moving to a big city or town represented an attractive proposition to many. In 2018, the United Nations said that 55% of the planet was living in “urban areas” and forecast that this would rise to 68% by the middle of the century. While the coronavirus pandemic has made a

As people across the United States and the world grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic and calls for racial justice, the business community has an integral role to play in both the dialogue and the solutions to these social issues. Last week, former Unilever CEO Paul Polman urged business leaders to be courageous in their response.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Thursday praised Tesla CEO Elon Musk for building a company that promises to be much more than just electric vehicles. “This man is selling technology, and he’s talking about fully assisted and then he’s talking about driverless. He’s thinking so much bigger,” Cramer said on “Squawk on the Street.” ”He’s a big thinker.

Anything with “technology convergence” and “climate change” in the same sentence captures my attention. Contextualize it in the “making or breaking of human civilization as we know it” and I’m hooked — and admittedly a tad skeptical. That’s why I buckled up and dug into the recent 90-page report put forth by think tank RethinkX,

South Belridge Oil Field is the fourth-largest oil field in California and one of the most productive in the U.S. David McNew | Getty Images Oil prices fell on Wednesday as industry data showed a bigger-than-expected inventory build in the United States where coronavirus cases continue to climb, potentially further denting demand in the world’s biggest oil consumer. In

Digital Transformation and Industry 4.0 are complex concepts, and many manufacturers struggle to sort through what it means and how to approach the topic.  Meanwhile, manufacturing and process businesses continue to face ongoing labor crunches and a mass retirement wave (taking significant tribal knowledge with them), which add to the urgency and stress to understand

A charging station for electric cars on Kurfürstendamm, Berlin. Jens Kalaene | picture alliance | Getty Images The chief executive of Volvo Cars described plug-in hybrids as a “very popular concept” on Tuesday, but emphasized the need for government support when it comes to charging infrastructure. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, or PHEVs, are cars which

As COVID-19 rampages through vulnerable minority populations with tragic consequences, and protests for racial justice surge among a similar demographic, city climate planners see a renewed focus on climate justice. The pandemic, in some ways, has been a trial run for the anticipated coming impacts of climate change — a not-so-distant future in which low-income

Greta Thunberg in a photograph taken in Geneva, Switzerland, on August 8, 2019. FABRICE COFFRINI | AFP | Getty Images Climate activist Greta Thunberg plans to donate a 1 million euro ($1.14 million) prize to organizations focused on the environment and climate change. The 17 year old Swede was named winner of the inaugural Gulbenkian

More than 1,000 global leaders have implemented recommendations from the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure as part of their climate action plans. But many organizations are still grappling with how, exactly, to do this. TCFD reporting offers a standardized framework for companies to disclose information on climate-related financial risk to their investors and stakeholders

Last week, a group of activists, scientists, academics and others issued a report calling for policies and other initiatives to generate prosperity while addressing inequity and the climate crisis. They called it the Blue New Deal. Its focus: an ocean-based blue economy. The problem, these experts said, is that the much-ballyhooed Green New Deal doesn’t

The way people shop is changing. In the U.K., concerns related to the coronavirus pandemic have resulted in a surge in demand for online grocery orders, with an increasing number of consumers eschewing in-store visits for the convenience of home deliveries.  Covid-19 has resulted in some quite significant changes to how these goods are delivered,