The
Sustainability
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Recent news, research, and insights

Creating an employee handbook is a good idea if you want to keep your employees happy and motivated. It helps you communicate company policies and deadlines to all your workers. Plus, it helps you deal with problems with staff members by outlining disciplinary actions and procedures to follow. Employers who create effective employee handbooks end up saving time, money, and grief.

When it comes to the climate crisis, businesses are often a step behind. While the severity of climate change has been understood for some time, many corporations are just beginning to take action to reduce their environmental impact. Now, history is seeming to repeat itself in the arena of environmental justice (EJ), or the idea that people of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds should be treated fairly in the implementation and creation of environmental policies. Climate change does not affect everyone equally. Racial minorities too often bear the brunt of this worsening issue. Yet despite mounting evidence and the increase in environmental justice activism, businesses have been slow to acknowledge this issue and especially to act on it.‍

With the climate crisis continuing to worsen and consumers increasingly concerned with the environmental consequences of their purchases, businesses are eager to become more sustainable. However, many of these companies have no clue where to start, and don’t have anyone on their team that is well-versed in environmental issues. Thus, many companies in recent years have turned to sustainability consulting.

There is more need now than ever for sustainability in business. With many companies seeing the benefits of adopting more ESG practices, it is important that these initiatives are integrated properly. A lack of standards and digital tools have historically made it difficult and inaccessible for some companies to achieve these goals. A new platform Ecolytics helps businesses measure, report, and integrate their environmental impacts.

Today, Ecolytics announced its participation in the Techstars Alabama EnergyTech Accelerator to advance their growth in helping companies measure, improve, and showcase impact, so businesses can immediately take action on sustainability. Techstars is a top global accelerator program that provides startups with funding, mentorship, and access to the Techstars mentor and alumni network.

Climate neutrality, or “net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions,” means reducing and/or offsetting your company’s carbon footprint so your company has a neutral or net-zero effect on climate change. According to the United Nation Environment Programme, ensuring a safe future below the 1.5°C mark aligning with the Paris Agreement requires the world to cut 30 gigatonnes GHG emissions annually by 2030. Thus, global governments and international organizations are encouraging companies to consider becoming carbon neutral. In this blog post, Ecolytics will guide you through five reasons why businesses should start planning on carbon neutrality.

Many companies are considering B Corp certification as they strive to generate social impact through their business. For a socially-conscious business, the B Corp certification is a strong credential presenting a company’s determination to pursue a sustainable, inclusive, and equitable business and social environment.

In 2019, Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge with Global Optimism, an advisory organization that advocates for climate solutions, committing to net-zero carbon emissions across businesses by 2040. The three principles Amazon presents in The Climate Pledge are regular reporting, carbon elimination, and credit offsets. Amazon has promised to periodically measure and report greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, implement decarbonization strategies through business changes and innovations, and execute quantifiable and socially beneficial offsets to achieve its 2040 Net-Zero target.

In April 2022, the Sixth Assessment Report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its third report, conducted by Working Group III, on the mitigation of climate change. The report, the last one to be published by the three working groups before the final synthesis report is due by early 2023, provides an updated global assessment of climate change mitigation progress and pledges and examines the sources of global emissions. It explains recent developments in emission reduction and mitigation efforts, assessing the impact of national climate pledges in relation to long-term emissions goals.

We are thrilled to announce we've been selected as one of The Understory's 2021 Startup Spotlight Award winners!

80% of top companies now report on sustainability. While this is great news, that number is misleading when it comes to conveying efficacy. The main problem: companies often report very different metrics in very different ways. Compared to financial reporting, in which all companies follow SEC guidance and utilize the same disclosure methods, the variety of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting types complicates the comparison of different companies’ impact and creates room for businesses to only report their best metrics. And as the climate crisis worsens, reliable sustainability reporting is more important than ever.

The climate has been a major focus of environmental advocates for years. As a result, the terminology has evolved over time, with each successive term demonstrating a more complete understanding of rising global temperatures. This blog will walk through notable climate terminology over time, define each term, and examine the evolution of climate change discourse as the situation becomes more dire.

On its most basic level, CSR is a manifestation of a business’ recognition of a duty to the world and the potential to be a power for good.

Carbon offsets are a cost-effective way for a company to reduce its emissions by paying to invest in green projects such as methane capture, reforestation, and green energy initiatives, which gives them carbon credits to “offset” the emissions they produce.

According to the 2017 Carbon Majors Report, over half of global industrial emissions since 1988 are attributable to a collection of just 25 corporations or state-owned businesses. While climate activism is often focused on government policy and reform, this statistic makes it clear that businesses should be an increasing concern for environmentalists given their mammoth carbon footprints.