Business & Finance

It seems that almost every week, another major food company announces plans to remove artificial colors and flavors from their products. In the past six months, major food companies such as Nestle, General Mills, Kellogg's, Hershey’s and Campbell’s committed to reformulating many of their iconic brands to be free of artificial colors and flavors. National restaurant chains such as Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Subway and Noodles & Company also made similar commitments. Tens of billions of dollars of products are being reformulated.

In a bid to cement his legacy as a champion of the environment, President Obama’s administration recently unveiled regulations aimed at tackling climate change by fostering our use of clean, renewable energy. While we applaud the federal government for taking a stand on one of the most important issues of our time, we believe the most pressing issue of climate change is economic.

Climate change could initially benefit rich countries while damaging the economies of poor nations. That’s the conclusion of a new way of modelling its impact, which challenges earlier forecasts. Previous methods of estimating the economic effects of climate change usually looked at how individual sectors like agriculture or tourism would be affected, then added them all up to give the net effect on each country’s economy.

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As part of the 2015 Fletcher Annual Inclusion Forum, Inclusion, Inc. hosted by the Institute for Business in the Global Context, Fletcher students Chris Maroshegyi and Laura London sat down with conference keynote speaker and Unilever CEO Paul Polman to discuss his unique look at sustainable and inclusive business. Watch on YouTube

he success of the Paris climate talks, COP 21, this December will not be measured by whether or not countries can all agree on a new global deal. It will rest on deals made outside the negotiation halls and beyond the traditional scope of international climate talks.

It’s raining money! Or so Gov. Jerry Brown would have us believe. The new state budget assumes $2.2 billion in new revenue from California’s pioneering cap-and-trade program designed to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Sustainability-focused startups are entering established companies’ market space, bringing both new threats and new opportunities. Employees want to work for them, customers are willing to pay more for their products and investors are eager to become shareholders. “Hybrid social ventures” like Whole Foods, Patagonia, and Honest Tea that combine commerce with sustainability missions are leading the movement for sustainability-oriented innovation in business.

On a bright afternoon two days after the beginning of classes, first-year student Nathan Hall took some time to sit down with me outside Kroon Hall to talk about the path that has led him to FES. He was born and raised in the coalfields of eastern Kentucky. His family has lived there since the revolutionary war. But the region has faced considerable challenges in modern times. “I’m from the most unhealthy and poorest congressional district in the US,” said Nathan.