Plastic certificates: Greenwashing or a step to climate neutrality?

A new brand of offsetting allows companies to call themselves "plastic-neutral" while continuing to use plastic themselves. What's it all about?

Plastic waste has become a feature of seas and beaches around the world

Plastic waste and microplastics are everywhere. On Mount Everest, in Arctic ice and the deepest ocean trenches, in the stomachs of animals, in our food, drinking water and even our blood. Such ubiquity is a reflection of how much plastic we make, which is now 200 times more than back in 1950. And so far, we have only managed to recycle around 9% of it.

Experts have long been warning that we can't recycle our way out of the global plastic crisis, but some companies and NGOs are now offering companies the chance to become "plastic neutral" by offsetting. It's a growing industry.

How plastic offsetting works 

Companies looking to offset their plastic pay a fee to NGOs and companies in the plastic offset sector. This money is used to collect a corresponding amount of plastic either from the service providers themselves or from third-party providers in developing countries. In some cases the plastic is also recycled. 

Marine life is also endangered by plastic waste

These service providers offer their customers so-called plastic neutral certificates or plastic "collection credits." 

One of the pioneers in the market is the New York-based company rePurpose Global. When companies invest in its collection and recycling programs, they receive a "plastic neutral” certificate which means they can then market their own products as such. Conversely, however, they can continue to use plastic at the same time.

In a statement to DW, rePurpose Global said it does not certify companies that don't share "a genuine commitment to reducing plastic use," and that it provides brands and companies with "ethically recycled plastic" from its "impact projects, to support their move towards 100% circular supply chains." 

Alix Grabowksi, Director of Plastic and Material Science at conservation group WWF, says it would be logical to expect that products claiming to be plastic neutral have no impact in terms of waste. "But that's not really the case."

"I think it's quite misleading for a company to make a claim like plastic neutral when you could still find their products in nature," she says. 

Companies certified as "plastic neutral" support better waste concepts,

 but they can continue to use plastic packaging

Is plastic-offsetting just greenwashing? 

Market analysis by the US NGO "The Circulate Initiative" sees a clear risk of greenwashing, above all due to a lack of transparency. Of 32 offsetting projects studied, just three make the connection between climate change and plastic consumption. 

Tom Zoete from the environmental organization Recycling Netwerk Benelux is also skeptical.

"The entire life cycle of plastic is associated with resource consumption, petroleum and energy to produce plastic, transport and so on," Zoete told DW, adding that only those who do not consume plastic can be "plastic neutral."

What is not always clear with such offsetting schemes, is what happens to the plastic itself, and so far there have been no studies detailing the impacts. 

rePurpose Global claims to collect seven million kilograms of plastic per year that would otherwise have ended up in the environment. Of that, it says 100% of the recyclable plastic is made into clothing, trash cans or materials for road and housing construction. 

What can't be recycled is burned to create a source of energy for the cement industry, replacing coal in the process. Critics say this merely amounts to one dirty fuel being replaced by another, and that it adds to air pollution. 

For Grabowski of WWF, the marketing tools are more of a problem than the actual projects, many of which she says are working to improve waste management and wages in the places most affected by plastic pollution.

This March, 200 countries reached the first ever consensus on mandatory rules for plastic production, consumption and disposal by 2024. WWF called the agreement historic.

Recycling 'myth'

Products and packaging made of plastic: The petrochemical industry earns as well

99% of plastic is made using fossil fuels, and the industries involved in its manufacture have a vested interest in continued manufacture. Not least since the International Energy Agency predicts that petrochemicals will soon be the biggest driver of petroleum demand. 

This spring, Rob Bonta, the Attorney General of the State of California, launched a far-reaching investigation against ExxonMobil.

He has accused the oil giant of having known for decades about the dangers posed by plastics and of engaging in an "aggressive campaign" to perpetuate the "myth that recycling can solve the plastics crisis."

ExxonMobil denies the allegations.

This article was originally published in German.

GERMANY

Lufthansa pilots decide on second strike starting Wednesday

The two-day strike is set to start on Wednesday. However, unions have said industrial action could still be averted if Lufthansa presents a "serious offer."

Lufthansa pilots are ready for a second strike in a week

Pilots from Germany's Lufthansa airline have decided on a second round of strike action, the Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) union said on Monday night.

The union said Lufthansa could avert the two-day action, set to start on Wednesday, with a "serious offer." Another round of talks will take place Tuesday, according to media reports.

Pilots already paralyzed Lufthansa's core operations on Friday last week after negotiations on a new collective agreement had failed.

"We very much regret that the union is continuing on the path of escalation," a Lufthansa spokesperson said following the announcement.

Which flights will be affected?

The strike was expected to affect passenger flights out of Germany on Wednesday and Thursday, while Lufthansa's cargo subsidiary was set to be affected just on Wednesday.

For legal reasons, the strike only applies to Lufthansa and Lufthansa Cargo departures from German airports. Lufthansa subsidiaries such as Swiss, Austrian, Brussels and Eurowings were not included in the strike.

The all-day pilots' strike on Friday brought most flight operations to a halt. Around 130,000 passengers were affected by the cancellation of more than 800 flights. Lufthansa said the action cost it €32 million ($32 million).

What are the pilots demanding?

Vereinigung Cockpit said last week it was demanding a 5.5% pay rise for its more than 5,000 pilots alongside automatic inflation adjustments for 2023.

Spokesperson Matthias Baier said they hadn't received a "sufficient offer" on Thursday, calling it a "sobering and missed opportunity" on side of Lufthansa.

Lufthansa published details of the offer it said the trade union had walked away from. The last offer proposed a blanket increase of €900 per employee.

The company said this would signify an increase of 15% for pilots early in their career and 5% for experienced captains, based on salaries from the latest 18 months.

The airline was arguing that VC's demands would increase staff costs in the cockpit by 40%, describing the increase as "unreasonable," as it doesn't take into account the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

dh/rt (dpa, Reuters)

Ukrainian wins top photojournalism prize for Mariupol coverage

Ukrainian photographer Evgeniy Maloletka poses in front of his 

photos at the photojournalism festival in Perpignan, France. 

PHOTO: AFP

SEP 4, 2022, 

PERPIGNAN, France - Ukrainian photojournalist Evgeniy Maloletka won the Visa d'Or, one the profession's most prestigious prizes on Saturday, for his work during the devastating Russian siege of Mariupol.

Maloletka, visibly moved, dedicated his prize to the Ukrainian people, at a ceremony in the southern French city of Perpignan.

The 35-year-old journalist, who works for the Associated Press news agency, was - along with his AP colleague video journalist Mstyslav Chernov, one of the first journalists to enter Mariupol on Feb 23, an hour before the first Russian bombs fell.

He was also one of the last to leave, finally quitting the city on March 15, by which time it had been almost entirely destroyed by Russian shelling.

Those 20 days he spent there, he told AFP, were like one long, unending day, "becoming worse and worse".

His pictures showed the full horrors of the conflict there: children killed during the siege, heavily pregnant women lying among the ruins of bombed-out buildings, hastily improvised common graves

The Russian bombardment of this port city of 400,000 inhabitants, in particular a direct hit on a maternity hospital, provoked outrage around the world.


The other two photographers nominated were Daniel Berehulak, an Australian of Ukrainian origin, for "People lived here", his reportage for the New York Times on the massacre of civilians in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv; and Marcus Yam's assignment for the Los Angeles Times: "The fall of Afghanistan."

The war in Ukraine has been one of the dominant themes at the International Festival of Photojournalism, which opened on Aug 27. AFP

‘When I write, I exist and so does my community,’ says Rohingya poet Mayyu Ali

Cyrielle CABOT - Sunday

Mayyu Ali is one of the 700,000 or so Rohingya who had to flee Myanmar in the summer of 2017 following abuses committed by the Burmese army. Five years later, the 31-year-old poet continues to give voice to his people through his writings.


‘When I write, I exist and so does my community,’ says Rohingya poet Mayyu Ali© Munir Uz Zaman, AFP

"The earth revolves around two very different worlds; hell and heaven. I left one to discover the other." One year ago, in September 2021, Mayyu Ali wrote these words as he walked through the door of his new flat in Ontario, Canada, with his wife and young daughter. It marked the end of a long ordeal for the 31-year-old Rohingya poet, who had spent four years in the world's largest refugee camp, Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh.

By chance or a twist of fate, he will be heading to university to study committed literature (littérature engagée) on September 6, five years to the day since he left Myanmar – like 700,000 other Rohingya – to flee army persecution. Since adolescence, he has dreamed of becoming a spokesperson for his community and telling its story. He has already published dozens of poems and, more recently, an autobiography in French, "L'Effacement" (Éditions Grasset), which he co-wrote with journalist Émilie Lopes. "Discrimination, flight, violence... I have seen and experienced everything. It is my duty to tell the world about it," he tells FRANCE 24 from Canada.

'To the Burmese government, I don't exist'

Ali was born in 1991 in Maungdaw, Arakan, a Burmese region on the Indian Ocean. The son of a fisherman and the youngest of six children, he recalls "a joyful childhood" spent bathing in the river and playing with his Buddhist and Hindu friends.

"But the joy soon turned to fear," he says. Since a 1982 citizenship law, the Rohingya, who are mostly Muslim, have been stateless, as Myanmar considers them to be illegal migrants from Bangladesh. This status has resulted in them being targeted by the army and Buddhist religious extremists. "One day, when I was about 10 years old, the military raided the homes of all the Rohingya in my neighbourhood. Including my house," he says. "They had a gun in their hands, it was terrifying. That's when it hit me: when I learned that they had not gone to my Buddhist or Hindu friends' homes, I realised that we were being discriminated against."

In the years that followed, the list of injustices faced by his family and friends seemed endless. "My brother was beaten and then thrown in jail for allegedly not paying a tax on his house, my grandfather's land was confiscated. People around me were prevented from working for no reason," he says.

In 2010, Ali was banned from studying English at university because of his ethnicity. Introduced to poetry by his high school English teacher, he had developed a passion for Shakespeare and the Indian author Rabindranath Tagore. The teenager, who had been writing secretly and for pleasure, thus began to take his writing more seriously.

"At the beginning, I wrote a lot about nature, friendship, family...", he explains, immediately smiling again at the mention of his profession. "And then, little by little, I understood that writing could be an act of rebellion. I am Rohingya. To the Burmese government, I don't exist. I am a human being without citizenship, without rights. But when I write, I exist and so does my community."

At a time when abuses against the Rohingya were increasing in Arakan in 2012, this young man took on the challenge of publishing his texts, which he wrote in English and Burmese. A few months later, one of his poems appeared in an English-speaking Burmese literary magazine. "I experienced it as a rebirth. All of a sudden, I became a recognised person with a name."

"That year was a turning point," he explains. "The Rohingya had always been discriminated against, but now the authorities' aim was to make us disappear," he says. He remembers violent riots, deadly fires, the first villages destroyed and the first people that fled to neighbouring Bangladesh. He decided to stay and get involved with associations, notably Action Against Hunger, to help the local population.

A collection of work

Things changed on the evening of August 25, 2017. "I was living in Maungdaw at the time, which was a two-hour bus ride from my parents' home. I was sleeping when my mother called me," he says. "Crying on the phone, she explained to me that the military had set fire to the village. Everything was destroyed." In the days that followed, he witnessed what he describes as "ethnic cleansing". "There was smoke everywhere, bullets were flying, screams were heard, women were being raped," he says, his voice full of emotion.

Like 700,000 other Rohingyas, Ali and his family resigned themselves to fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh. They had to cross a river and walk for three days. "We had to swim among the dead bodies in the river I used to play in as a child," he recalls. Even today, every August 25th, the Rohingya commemorate those days of violence.

As a refugee at Cox's Bazar, Ali kept up his writing. But his verses began to take on another dimension, as he also wanted to remember everything he was seeing. Through his work with humanitarian organisations and journalists, whom he guided through the makeshift shelters, he collected hundreds of testimonies. "I wrote everything down in notebooks. Little girls raped, murders, corruption, hunger, deplorable sanitary conditions," he says. "And I hope that one day it will serve to bring justice."

Because of these actions, armed militias stationed within the camp threatened to kill him. "I had to hide for several months," he says. "But it was also thanks to this that I was able to leave Bangladesh. The associations mobilised to offer me a way out."

Keeping the Rohingya culture alive at all costs

Even though Ali was able to reach Canada a year ago, he continues to be reminded of his experiences at Cox’s Bazar every time he speaks to his relatives. "My parents and siblings are still there," he says. "They tell me that conditions are getting worse month after month. There is more and more insecurity. Every time there is bad weather, the shelters are destroyed. Diseases are proliferating," he says.

According to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), cases of dysentery have increased by 50% compared to 2019 in the camps and skin infections, such as scabies, are exploding. The Rohingya are also concerned about the increase in crime, as around 100 murders have been committed in five years, according to an AFP count. Some of the victims include community leaders who are probably targeted by insurgent vendettas. Young people, with no prospects for the future, are not allowed to leave the camps or to work. To relieve the camps, the Bangladeshi authorities have transferred some 30,000 refugees to Bhashan Char, an island off the Bay of Bengal.

The young writer remains keen to help. When he is not lobbying the international community to recognise the "genocide" of his people, he is working hard to provide access to education for the children of Cox's Bazar, some of whom were born inside the makeshift camps. "Some of the children have been there for five years, during which time they have been deprived of an education. I refuse to let this be a sacrificed generation," he says. He has managed to set up two schools, with the help of local associations, where the pupils study the Burmese curriculum. "If one day, by some miracle, they return to Burma [Myanmar], they will be able to go back to school," says Ali.

"When we talk about the massacre of the Rohingya, we think of the physical abuse and violence. But our culture and language are also being attacked," he says. "By being refugees, we lose our cultural roots. We have to fight against that. If our culture survives, so does our ethnicity."

Ali continues to devote the rest of his time to his passion – filling in pages. "I want to continue writing, be published in several countries, continue fighting for my people and encourage the international community to act," he says. In March 2022, the US was the first country to recognise the "genocide" perpetrated by the Burmese army against the Rohingya. The poet concludes : "A people, for decades, for being a Muslim minority, still remain under the blade and the bullets. Still and always oppressed, still and always raped and imprisoned. Again and again burned and terrified. Ah, what violence!"

This article is a translation of the original in French.

Nirvana win Nevermind naked baby 

lawsuit after judge tosses out case 

(again)

Emlyn Travis

Sat, September 3, 2022 at

Nothing can sink Nirvana.

On Friday, a California judge dismissed a child pornography lawsuit filed by Spencer Elden — who was photographed naked as a baby for the cover of the band's 1991 album, Nevermind — once again because Elden did not file the suit during the 10-year statute of limitations, Reuters reports.

"In short, because it is undisputed that [Elden] did not file his complaint within 10 years after he discovered a violation… the court concludes that his claim is untimely," U.S. District Judge Fernando Olguin wrote in an eight-page ruling obtained by Rolling Stone.

The list of defendants in Elden's initial August 2021 complaint included former Nirvana members Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, and Chad Channing; Kurt Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, and two other managers of his estate; album cover photographer Kirk Weddle and art director Robert Fisher; and Geffen Records, Warner Records, and Universal Music Group. Per legal precedent, Elden was asking for $150,000 in damages from each defendant.

In which three punk underdogs conquered mainstream America, destroyed hair metal, and defined a generation. Download it: Amazon iTunes

Spencer Elden on the cover of Nirvana's album 'Nevermind'

This isn't the first time Olguin has tossed out Elden's suit against the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" stars. The judge previously shut down the case back in January but "with leave to amend" should Elden file another complaint addressing the "defects" in the defendants' motion to dismiss.

Now, the judge has given his final verdict on the matter. He added, "Because plaintiff had an opportunity to address the deficiencies in his complaint regarding the statute of limitations, the court is persuaded that it would be futile to afford plaintiff a fourth opportunity to file an amended complaint."

In his original filing, Elden claimed that the defendants "knowingly produced, possessed, and advertised commercial child pornography depicting Spencer, and they knowingly received value in exchange for doing so."

In return, attorneys for Grohl; Novoselic; Weddle; Love; Cobain; Nirvana, L.L.C.; MCA Records; UMG Recordings, Inc.; Universal Music Group, Inc.; the David Geffen Company; and Geffen Records filed a motion to dismiss the case in December, per Variety.

They reportedly claimed that the statute of limitations had since expired and that Elden — who recreated the cover for the album's 25th anniversary back in 2016 — had "spent three decades profiting from his celebrity as the self-anointed 'Nirvana Baby.'"

Following the verdict, Bert Deixler, a lawyer for Nirvana, told Reuters, "We are pleased that this meritless case has been brought to a speedy final conclusion."

Elden's attorney and representatives for Nirvana and Dave Grohl did not immediately respond to EW's request for comment on the court's decision.

Remote work debate intensifies as companies mandate return to office after Labour Day

Brett Bundale, The Canadian Press

A return-to-office showdown is unfolding in Canada and pitting some bosses and workers against each other as the back-to-school season brings with it a renewed push to get employees back into office buildings.

It's a battle experts say could end a years-long experiment in flexible, remote work — or spark a sweeping worker revolt. 

"We’re seeing some evidence of a broad pushback," said David Zweig, professor of organizational behaviour and human resources management at the University of Toronto.

"Until this pandemic is dead and gone, going back to the office is going to be a hard sell."

It's not the first time white-collar workers have been recalled to cubicles. 

Yet previous return-to-office plans were derailed — repeatedly — by fresh outbreaks and new variants of COVID-19.

This time, however, some companies appear to be drawing a line in the sand. 

Rather than voluntary return-to-office guidelines, employers are mandating office attendance through corporate policies.   

Some big banks and Bay Street law firms appear to be leading the charge, issuing memos mandating a set number of days a week in the office following Labour Day weekend. 

Law firm Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP said in a statement that on Sept. 6 its offices will move to a hybrid working model where most employees will work three to four days a week in the office, subject to operational requirements and local public health guidance.

The head of Royal Bank of Canada recently said organizations need to find the right balance between remote and on-site working. 

"It won’t just happen organically," RBC's president and chief executive Dave McKay said in a LinkedIn post. "We’re asking teams across the bank to start coming together in person more often to work and collaborate."

For many managers, the office is about culture. It's a place of collaboration, face-to-face teamwork and, yes, even office cooler chit-chat. 

"We're hearing from organizations that the value of creative collision that happens in offices just cannot be recreated virtually," said Tara Van Zuiden, Deloitte Canada’s human capital partner and leader of workforce transformation for Western Canada.

"They want the connection and collaboration that happens in person."

For many workers, the preference for working from home is about flexibility and the lack of distractions. They want a better work-life balance and an end to lengthy commutes. 

"People want to hold on to the autonomy and flexibility that they've gained around their work schedules during the pandemic," said Zweig.

Of course some employees never worked remotely and others are clamouring to get back to the office five days a week. Some companies have already moved to a hybrid model permanently — or quit office leases and told workers to stay home. 

In May 2020, Canadian tech giant Shopify Inc. shifted to a fully remote, "digital by design" company — saying in a press release its location was not its Ottawa headquarters but "Internet, Everywhere."

The company does most work remotely and "occasionally we gather in person in highly intentional ways to build trust with our teams and connect to our mission. We call these 'bursts,'" spokeswoman Jackie Warren said in an email. 

But other companies are rolling out new guidelines for returning to the office this fall, a situation that could lead to a standoff between managers and workers, some observers say. 

"If they're going to call people on back en masse, every day as it was before, they're going to get employee pushback," said Adam Savaglio, an employment lawyer and partner with Scarfone Hawkins LLP in Hamilton.

"We could see a mass revolt."

Many workers have argued that their productivity has remained strong or even improved while working from home. They say their quality of life is better as they spend more time with kids or pets or doing activities that improve their mental and physical wellbeing. 

They bristle at the idea of a rigid work day, long commutes and expensive downtown coffee and lunches.

"We're on a bit of a collision course," said Mike Shekhtman, a regional director with recruitment agency Robert Half. "Some employers believe the office is the best place to see a high level of productivity. They still believe they have to see and hear their teams in order to feel like they are collaborating and innovating. 

"But some workers are really questioning that." 

Companies that issue strict policies around returning to the office this fall could face a wave of workers quitting.

It's a significant threat in a tight labour market with a rock-bottom jobless rate. 

"Some employees will find the more prescriptive return-to-work policies won’t work for them and they will vote with their feet," said Van Zuiden with Deloitte. 

Yet it's not just about retention. 

Job hunters are often searching for flexible work arrangements. Positions with strict office attendance rules are becoming harder to fill, experts say. 

"The biggest challenge for employers will be that if they mandate a hard return to the office, employees might feel like they have been treated unfairly and are losing control," Zweig said. 

"When that happens, people often try to restore a sense of fairness and equity by engaging in less work, like 'quiet quitting,' or worse."

This more subtle form of dissent has different definitions, but at its core it's about workers setting boundaries and not taking on additional work for which they aren't paid.

In other words, they clock in when expected, do their assigned tasks and leave on time.

Meanwhile, one of the potential pitfalls of a full return-to-office plan is the upcoming cold and flu season, coupled with another potential wave of COVID-19.

"As you call people back, you can expect productivity to drop as people become sick in the fall," Savaglio said. "You're in a confined and limited space conducive to transmitting COVID-19."

Even if some Canadians are ready to put the pandemic behind them, he said there's a difference between personal life choices and conditions they are subjected to in the workplace. 

"In your personal life, you can choose what you feel comfortable with, you select your risk of harm to some extent," Savaglio said. "When you go to the workplace, you submit to your employer's terms and conditions ... if employees aren't comfortable with the health and safety standards there could be a backlash."

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Amazon closes, abandons plans for dozens of U.S. warehouses

Matt Day and Spencer Soper, Bloomberg News

Amazon.com Inc., determined to reduce the size of its sprawling delivery operation amid slowing sales growth, has abandoned dozens of existing and planned facilities around the US, according to a closely watched consulting firm. 

MWPVL International Inc., which tracks Amazon’s real-estate footprint, estimates the company has either shuttered or killed plans to open 42 facilities totaling almost 25 million square feet of usable space. The company has delayed opening an additional 21 locations, totaling nearly 28 million square feet, according to MWPVL. The e-commerce giant also has canceled a handful of European projects, mostly in Spain, the firm said. 

Just this week Amazon warned officials in Maryland that it plans to close two delivery stations next month in Hanover and Essex, near Baltimore, that employ more than 300 people. The moves are a striking contrast with previous years, when the world’s largest e-commerce company typically entered the fall rushing to open new facilities and hire thousands of workers to prepare for the holiday shopping season. Amazon continues to open facilities where it requires more space to meet customer demand. 

“There remains some serious cutting to do before year-end -- in North America and the rest of the world,” said Marc Wulfraat, MWPVL’s founder and president. “Having said this, they continue to go live with new facilities this year at an astonishing pace.”

Maria Boschetti, an Amazon spokesperson, said it’s common for the company to explore multiple locations at once and make adjustments “based upon needs across the network.” 

“We weigh a variety of factors when deciding where to develop future sites to best serve customers,” she said in an emailed statement. “We have dozens of fulfillment centers, sortation centers and delivery stations under construction and evolving around the world.” 

The Maryland closings are part of an initiative to shift work to more modern buildings, Amazon says. “We regularly look at how we can improve the experience for our employees, partners, drivers and customers, and that includes upgrading our facilities,” Boschetti said. “As part of that effort, we’ll be closing our delivery stations in Hanover and Essex and offering all employees the opportunity to transfer to several different delivery stations close by.”  

Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy has pledged to unwind part of a pandemic-era expansion that saddled Amazon with a surfeit of warehouse space and too many employees. The company has typically weaned its ranks of hourly workers by leaving vacant positions open, slowing hiring and tightening disciplinary or productivity standards. But warehouse closings are also part of the mix, and workers are bracing for more. During the second quarter, Amazon’s workforce shrank by roughly 100,000 jobs to 1.52 million, the biggest quarter-to-quarter contraction in the company’s history. 

The Seattle company has also been seeking to sub-lease at least 10 million square feet of warehouse space, Bloomberg reported in May. 

When homebound shoppers stampeded online during the pandemic, Amazon responded by doubling the size of its logistics network over a two-year period, a rapid buildout that exceeded that of rivals and partners like Walmart Inc., United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp. For a time, Amazon was opening a new warehouse somewhere in the U.S. roughly every 24 hours. Jassy told Bloomberg in June that the company had decided in early 2021 to build toward the high end of its forecasts for shopper demand, erring on the side of having too much warehouse space rather than too little. 

Wulfraat said that most of the closings announced this year are delivery stations, smaller buildings that hand off already packaged items to drivers. Facilities that have been canceled include several planned fulfillment centers, giant warehouses containing millions of items. MWPVL estimates that Amazon operates more than 1,200 logistics facilities, large and small, around the US.

More belt-tightening could complicate Amazon’s already fraught relations with organized labor. Earlier this year, an upstart labor union started by a fired Amazon worker won a historic victory at a company warehouse in Staten Island, New York. A federal labor official on Thursday rejected Amazon’s bid to overturn the result. Last month, workers at an Amazon facility near Albany, New York, filed a petition to hold a union election there. 

How much overcapacity Amazon needs to work through is hard to gauge, and some analysts believe the extra space will come in handy during the Christmas holiday season. 

'Hold off or lay off': Tech sector retracts in adjustment to new reality

Michelle Zadikian, BNN Bloomberg

North American tech companies are adjusting to the new economic reality as they emerge from the days of massive pandemic-fuelled growth – and jobs have been the biggest casualty as tech firms pare down their workforces.

A number of factors have rapidly changed in the tech world including a slowdown in ecommerce followed by a softening economy, according to Elaine Kunda, the managing partner at Toronto-based Disruption Ventures, a firm that invests in early-stage tech startups.

“That's a bit of a double whammy. So, there are just behaviours that are going on that are causing a retraction in the market. And then it's the fear of what's to come and the consumer is the one that's being hit the hardest right now with inflation,” she said in a recent phone interview.

The other challenge, she said, has been a major pullback in financing for tech firms across the board, causing companies to re-evaluate their biggest expenses -- which are employees in most cases. The lack of new funding also made some of them rethink their future investment plans.

“The industry as a whole has really retracted as far as capital being invested and access to debt,” she said.

“Companies are saying let's either hold off or layoff and, you know, at the earlier stage companies, they don't have as many employees – they’re usually quite tapped out. So what you'll see, perhaps, with the earlier stage companies who have raised money and do have money, they just won't hire as quickly and as aggressively as they might have a year ago.”

For big tech firms though, some have chosen to scale down their workforces after a hiring frenzy during the days of pandemic lockdowns and restrictions.

Shopify Inc., Hootsuite, Wealthsimple, ClearCo and Robinhood Markets Inc. are just a few major North American tech firms that announced layoffs in recent months. Meanwhile, companies such as Alphabet Inc. and Apple Inc. implemented hiring freezes.

GOING TO THE BENCH

Kevin was laid off from Google mere months after being hired.

He worked as a recruiter in the mid-Atlantic for the tech titan under an outsourced contract with recruitment firm Randstad. He said he was hired in May and found himself part of a round of layoffs in mid-August.

“A few weeks ago, they told us that they were going under a hiring freeze that was going to hit the press, and not to worry, everybody's job was fine. They're just going to sort of figure out what they're going to do. So I took them at their word,” he said by phone. Kevin is not his real name. BNN Bloomberg granted him anonymity to speak freely because he fears repercussions.

“I put my faith in them and I didn't think they were going to lay us off.”

On Aug. 18, he found himself without a job and was offered one-week severance.

BNN Bloomberg contacted Google for a statement on the layoffs and is still awaiting a response.

“It was a pre-recorded call, saying due to Google's hiring freeze and the lack of jobs right now, unfortunately, you're going to be going on what they call the bench, which is them trying to find us another job with another company or something,” he said.

“By the time the conversation ended, all of our Google emails and everything were deactivated.”

Kevin said the pre-recorded call was similar to a Zoom meeting. After the pre-recorded message, he said affected employees were allowed to ask two Randstad officials questions in the platform’s chatroom and the hosts chose which questions they wanted to answer.

PANIC RESPONSE

Disruption Ventures’ Kunda said the rapid change in the economy led to “panic” in the tech sector.

“With everything, you have your initial reaction, you have the panic selling, layoffs, panic response, and then, you know, people take a breath. [They] look to see what happens and then slowly start to bring back what they need. And perhaps change their approach,” she said.

However, the contraction in the tech sector was a “necessary reset” to bring company valuations and tech salaries that “got way out of whack” back in line with economic fundamentals, she added.

“I think some of the multiples that we saw didn't make sense. I’ve said that for the last few years. And, you know, the bubble bursts. It has burst before it'll burst again. And then, you know, start and rebuild from there.”

As for Kevin, he said he still works at his side gig, but is actively looking for a full-time, remote job.

HYPE OVER PLANT-BASED MEAT IS DONE BUT MARKET STILL POISED FOR GROWTH: EXPERTS

Michelle Zadikian, BNN Bloomberg

The fanfare around plant-based burgers, sausages and hot dogs that captured the attention of many fast-food companies and meat manufacturers might have faded, but the alternative meat market still has a long runway of growth ahead of it, experts say.

“As consumers became much more educated and the technology advanced, and then (companies) started to introduce plant-based product offerings, consumers were much more receptive to it. And the market really, for this area, increased dramatically,” said Robert Carter, managing partner at The StratonHunter Group, in a phone interview.

He said the wider distribution of plant-based products, messaging around sustainability and evolutions in the taste of such products helped drive consumer demand initially – all factors that “didn’t really exist previously.”

The plant-based meat market really started to become mainstream roughly five years ago, when fast-food chain A&W began to add vegan meat products to its menu. At the time, it was so popular that A&W sold out of its Beyond Meat burgers across Canada within weeks of its menu debut.

Fellow fast-food chains such as Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Chipotle, among numerous others followed suit, adding plant-based offerings to their menus.

Additionally, meat manufacturers including Maple Leaf Foods Inc. expanded into the plant-based category when it bought Lightlife Foods and Field Roast Grain Meat Co. in 2017.

However, more recently, consumer demand for alternative meats have faded.

“I wouldn't call it a saturation point. We've gone through a period of trial. So we've got a whole bunch of consumers that have come in and they've tried the product. And now we've got some consumers that are kind of dropping off. … Are we getting the repeat usage? No, I don't think we're getting that repeat usage that everyone expected to take place,” Carter said.

ADJUSTING TO DEMAND

For companies that invested heavily in plant-based proteins such as Maple Leaf, Mark Petrie, an equity research analyst at CIBC Capital Markets that covers the company, said an adjustment to the current market conditions is in order.

“As the demand profile has evolved, and the [plant protein] category has proven to be a slower-growing category than what [Maple Leaf] initially anticipated, they have pivoted their strategy to right size their cost base and manufacturing capacity in an effort to achieve near-term profitability or breakeven,” he said.

Maple Leaf reported sales of its plant-based products fell 15 per cent in the second quarter compared to a year ago and said it’s restructuring the division to bring costs down significantly. The segment was the biggest drag on its bottom line.

However, Petrie doesn’t foresee Maple Leaf exiting the business because of the company’s desire to be a sustainable protein manufacturer.

For fast-food chains, Carter said sales of plant-based products will be an area that continues to grow, but not at the dramatic rate many companies were expecting.

GROWTH STILL AHEAD

Despite the current lull in consumer demand for plant-based meat, the industry overall is still likely poised for growth in the coming years.

“Essentially, the market size/opportunity did get over-hyped,” Colin Stewart, chief executive and portfolio manager at JC Clark Limited, said in an email.

“I think as new plant-based products develop (ground meat, sausages, etc.) and it is not just all about the burger, that should help broaden the market and stabilize growth.”

Stewart also said he expects Maple Leaf’s plant-based segment to become profitable within the next two years as investment spending is scaled back and costs are reduced. JC Clark holds Maple Leaf in client portfolios.

Petrie agreed in that over time, the growth trajectory of the broader industry will become more clear.

“I believe plant based still has a long term future as a category, and I think consumer tastes will continue to evolve to include more alternative proteins. But the settling out period continues,” Petrie said.

In the meantime, most fast-food restaurants that added plant-based options to their menu continue to offer them today. McDonald’s is a notable chain that ultimately removed its vegan meat offering, dubbed the P.L.T., which was short-form for plant, lettuce, tomato, after a six-month trial in Canada.

“I think everyone's expectations were so high in terms of what this was going to do and how much of a game changer it was that they're not realizing, you know, we're not going to sustain 30-40 per cent growth in these products. We've hit a level. We're going to have two, three, four per cent growth over a certain period of time. We're not going to have that dramatic growth,” Carter said.

How sustainable are fake meats?

Checking whether plant-based burgers may have lighter environmental footprints.

BOB HOLMES, KNOWABLE MAGAZINE - 9/4/2022

Enlarge / A stack of plant-based Impossible Burgers.

If you’re an environmentally aware meat-eater, you probably carry at least a little guilt to the dinner table. The meat on our plates comes at a significant environmental cost through deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, and air and water pollution—an uncomfortable reality, given the world’s urgent need to deal with climate change.

That’s a big reason there’s such a buzz today around a newcomer to supermarket shelves and burger-joint menus: products that look like real meat but are made entirely without animal ingredients. Unlike the bean- or grain-based veggie burgers of past decades, these “plant-based meats,” the best known of which are Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat, are marketed heavily toward traditional meat-eaters. They claim to replicate the taste and texture of real ground meat at a fraction of the environmental cost.

If these newfangled meat alternatives can fill a large part of our demand for meat—and if they’re as green as they claim, which is not easy to verify independently—they might offer carnivores a way to reduce the environmental impact of their dining choices without giving up their favorite recipes.

That could be a game-changer, some think. “People have been educated a long time on the harms of animal agriculture, yet the percentage of vegans and vegetarians generally remains low,” says Elliot Swartz, a scientist with the Good Food Institute, an international nonprofit organization that supports the development of alternatives to meat. “Rather than forcing people to make behavior changes, we think it will be more effective to substitute products into their diets where they don’t have to make a behavior switch.”

There’s no question that today’s meat industry is bad for the planet. Livestock account for about 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions both directly (from methane burped out by cattle and other grazing animals and released by manure from feedlots and pig and chicken barns) and indirectly (largely from fossil fuels used to grow feed crops). Indeed, if the globe’s cattle were a country, their greenhouse gas emissions alone would rank second in the world, trailing only China.

Worse yet, the United Nations projects that global demand for meat will swell by 15 percent by 2031 as the world’s increasing—and increasingly affluent—population seeks more meat on their plates. That means more methane emissions and expansion of pastureland and cropland into formerly forested areas such as the Amazon—deforestation that threatens biodiversity and contributes further to emissions.

Global demand for meat continues to rise with little sign of slowing. Much of the increase comes from middle-income countries, where consumers use their increasing wealth to put more meat on their plates.

Not all kinds of meat animals contribute equally to the problem, however. Grazing animals such as cattle, sheep, and goats have a far larger greenhouse gas footprint than non-grazers such as pigs and chickens. In large part that’s because only the former burp methane, which happens as gut microbes digest the cellulose in grasses and other forage.

Pigs and chickens are also much more efficient at converting feed into edible flesh: Chickens need less than two pounds of feed, and pigs need roughly three to five pounds, to put on a pound of body weight. (The rest goes to the energy costs of daily life: circulating blood, moving around, keeping warm, fighting germs, and the like.) Compare that to the six to 10 pounds of feed per pound of cow.

As a result, the greenhouse gas emissions of beef cattle per pound of meat are more than six times those of pigs and nearly nine times those of chicken. (Paradoxically, grass-fed cattle—often thought of as a greener alternative to feedlot beef—are actually bigger climate sinners, because grass-fed animals mature more slowly and thus spend more months burping methane.)

Building fake meat

Plant-based meats aim to improve on that dismal environmental performance. Stanford University biochemist Pat Brown, for example, founded Impossible Foods after asking himself what single step he could take to make the biggest difference environmentally. His answer: Replace meat.

Researchers trawled through the scientific literature to find every available study measuring the greenhouse-gas footprint of meats and meat alternatives. Beef is by far the most emissions-heavy option, while plant-based meats and plant foods generally are linked to much lower levels of greenhouse gas emissions for production of a given quantity of protein. In the chart, (n) refers to the number of studies for each category of protein.

To do that, Impossible and its competitors basically deconstruct meat into its component parts, then build an equivalent product from plant-based ingredients. The manufacturers start with plant protein—mostly soy for Impossible, pea for Beyond, and potato, oat, or equivalent proteins for others—and add carefully selected ingredients to simulate meat-like qualities. Most include coconut oil for its resemblance to the mouthfeel of animal fats, and yeast extract or other flavorings to add meaty flavors. Impossible even adds a plant-derived version of heme, a protein found in animal blood, to yield an even more meat-like appearance and flavor.

All this requires significant processing, notes William Aimutis, a food protein chemist at North Carolina State University, who wrote about plant-based proteins in the 2022 Annual Review of Food Science and Technology. Soybeans, for example, are typically first milled into flour, and then the oils are removed. The proteins are isolated and concentrated, then pasteurized and spray-dried to yield the relatively pure protein for the final formulation. Every step consumes energy, which raises the question: With all this processing, are these meat alternatives really greener than what they seek to replace?

To answer that question, environmental scientists conduct what’s known as a life cycle analysis. This involves taking each ingredient in the final product—soy protein, coconut oil, heme, and so forth—and tracing it back to its origin, logging all the environmental costs involved. In the case of soy protein, for example, the life cycle analysis would include the fossil fuels, water, and land needed to grow the soybeans, including fossil fuel emissions from the fertilizer, pesticides, and transportation to the processing plant. Then it would add the energy and water consumed in milling, defatting, protein extraction, and drying.

Similar calculations would apply to all the other ingredients and to the final process of assembly and packaging. Put it all together, and you end up with an estimate of the total environmental footprint of the product.Advertisement

Plant-based meats are highly processed products in which proteins, fats, starches, thickeners, flavoring agents and other ingredients are mixed and formed into foods that resemble traditional meat products such as burgers, hot dogs and chicken nuggets.

Unfortunately, not all those numbers are readily available. For many products, especially unique ones like the new generation of plant-based meats, product details are secrets closely held by the companies involved. “They will know how much energy they use and where they get their fat and protein from, but they will not disclose that to the general public,” says Ricardo San Martin, a chemical engineer who codirects the Alternative Meats Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. As a result, most life cycle analyses of plant-based meat products have been commissioned by the companies themselves, including both Beyond and Impossible. Outsiders have little way of independently verifying them.

Even so, those analyses suggest that plant-based meats offer clear environmental advantages over their animal-based equivalents. Impossible’s burger, for example, causes just 11 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that would come from an equivalent amount of beef burger, according to a study the company commissioned from the sustainability consulting firm Quantis. Beyond’s life cycle analysis, conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan, found their burger’s greenhouse gas emissions were 10 percent of those of real beef.

Indeed, when independent researchers at Johns Hopkins University decided to get the best estimates they could by combing through the published literature, they found that in the 11 life cycle analyses they turned up, the average greenhouse gas footprint from plant-based meats was just 7 percent of beef for an equivalent amount of protein. The plant-based products were also more climate-friendly than pork or chicken — although less strikingly so, with greenhouse gas emissions just 57 percent and 37 percent, respectively, of those for the actual meats.

Similarly, the Hopkins team found that producing plant-based meats used less water: 23 percent that of beef, 11 percent that of pork, and 24 percent that of chicken for the same amount of protein. There were big savings, too, for land, with the plant-based products using 2 percent that of beef, 18 percent that of pork, and 23 percent that of chicken for a given amount of protein. The saving of land is important because, if plant-based meats end up claiming a significant market share, the surplus land could be allowed to revert to forest or other natural vegetation; these store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and contribute to biodiversity conservation. Other studies show that plant-based milks offer similar environmental benefits over cow’s milk.

Researchers compared the amount of land needed to produce a given amount of protein for meat, plant-based meat and plant foods. Once again, beef towers above the rest, largely because grazing animals need a lot of land to forage. Plant foods are shown to require more land than plant-based meats, but this difference is not meaningful because the estimates for plant foods include crops grown in low-yielding countries, while plant-based meats rely on ingredients grown under high-yield conditions.

A caution on cultivation methods

Of course, how green plant-based meats actually are depends on the farming practices that underlie them. (The same is true for meat itself—the greenhouse gas emissions generated by a pound of beef can vary more than tenfold from the most efficient producers to the least.) Plant-based ingredients such as palm oil grown in plantations that used to be rainforests, or heavily irrigated crops grown in arid regions, cause much more damage than more sustainably raised crops. And cultivation of soybeans, an important ingredient for some plant-based meats, is a major contributor to Amazon deforestation.

However, for most ingredients it seems likely that even poorly produced plant-based meats are better, environmentally, than meat from well-raised livestock. Plant-based meats need much less soy than would be fed to actual livestock, notes Matin Qaim, an agricultural economist at the University of Bonn, Germany, who wrote about meat and sustainability in the 2022 Annual Review of Resource Economics. “The reason we’re seeing deforestation in the Amazon,” he explains, “is because the demand for food and feed is growing. When we move away from meat and more toward plant-based diets, we need less area in total, and the soybeans don’t necessarily have to grow in the Amazon.”

But green as they are, plant-based meats have a few hurdles to clear before they can hope to replace meat. For one thing, plant-based meats currently cost an average of 43 percent more than the products they hope to replace, according to the Good Food Institute. That helps to explain why plant-based meats account for less than 1 percent of meat sales in the US. Advocates are optimistic that the price will come down as the market develops, but it hasn’t happened yet. And achieving those economies of scale will take a lot of work: Even growing to a mere 6 percent of the market will require a $27 billion investment in new facilities, says Swartz.
Steak hasn’t yet been well done

In addition, all of today’s plant-based meats seek to replace ground-meat products like burgers and chicken nuggets. Whole-muscle meats like steak or chicken breast have a more complex, fibrous structure that the alt-meat companies have not yet managed to mimic outside the lab.

Part of the problem is that most plant proteins are globular in shape, while real muscle proteins tend to form long fibers. To form a textured meat-like product, scientists essentially have to turn golf balls into string, says David Julian McClements, a food scientist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and an editor of the Annual Review of Food Science and Technology. There are ways to do that, often involving high-pressure extrusion or other complex technology, but so far no one has a whole-muscle product ready for market. (A fungal product, sold for decades in some countries as Quorn, is naturally fibrous, but its sales have never taken off in the US. Other companies are also working on meat substitutes based on fungal proteins.)Advertisement

The environmental impact of the two leading plant-based burgers, from Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, is much less than a comparable beef burger, according to detailed studies commissioned by the two companies. Other experts note that these studies are difficult to verify independently because they rely on proprietary information from the companies.

McClements is experimenting with another approach to make plant-based bacon: creating separate plant-based analogs of muscle and fat, then 3D-printing the distinctive marbling of the bacon. “I think we’ve got all the elements to put it together,” he says.

Some critics also note that a shift toward plant-based meat may reinforce the industrialization of global food systems in an undesirable way. Most alternative meat products are formulated in factories, and their demand for plant proteins and other ingredients favors Big Agriculture, with its well-documented problems of monoculture, pesticide use, soil erosion, and water pollution from fertilizer runoff. Plant-based meats will reduce the impact of these unsustainable farming practices, but they won’t eliminate them unless current farming practices change substantially.

Of course, all the to-do about alternative meats overlooks another dietary option, one with the lowest environmental footprint of all: Simply eat less meat and more beans, grains, and vegetables. The additional processing involved in plant-based meats means that they generate 4.6 times more greenhouse gas than beans, and seven times more than peas, per unit of protein, according to the Hopkins researchers. Even traditional, minimally processed plant protein such as tofu beats plant-based meats when it comes to greenhouse gas. Moreover, most people in wealthy countries eat far more protein than they need, so they can simply cut back on their protein consumption without seeking out a replacement.

But that option may not appeal to the meat-eating majority today, which makes alternative meats a useful stopgap. “Would I prefer that people were eating beans and grains and tofu, and lots of fruits and vegetables? Yes,” says Bonnie Liebman, director of nutrition at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy organization supporting healthy eating.

“But there are a lot of people who enjoy the taste of meat and are probably not going to be won over by tofu. If you can win them over with Beyond Meat, and that helps reduce climate change, I’m all for it.”

Plant-based milks

Meat isn’t the only source of animal protein with a high environmental cost. Dairy, too, causes large emissions of greenhouse gas from cud-chewing cows and sheep, and from growing feed. Here, too, plant-based alternatives, many of which are already mainstream options in the grocery store, may be an environmentally friendlier alternative—in some ways, at least.

Just how much friendlier they are, though, depends on how you measure their footprint. One option is to express environmental costs per quart of milk. By that measure, all plant-based milks shine. Soy milk, for example, requires just 7 percent as much land and 4 percent as much water as real milk, while emitting only 31 percent as much greenhouse gas. Oat milk needs 8 percent of the land and 8 percent of the water, while releasing just 29 percent as much greenhouse gas. Even almond milk often regarded as a poor choice because almond orchards guzzle so much fresh water—uses just 59 percent as much water as real milk.

But not all plant-based milks deliver the same nutrient punch. While soy milk provides almost the same amount of protein as cow’s milk, almond milk provides only about 20 percent as much—an important consideration for some. On a per-unit-protein basis, therefore, almond milk actually generates more greenhouse gas and uses more water than cow’s milk.

Bob Holmes is a science writer—and guilty omnivore—based in Edmonton, Canada.

This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews. Sign up for the newsletter.