It’s been nearly 25 years since the FDA mandated that all food and beverage packaging carry the Nutrition Facts panel. Now, the ubiquitous label is up for a makeover.
To produce enough food to feed an increasingly hungry world, we must take care of the people who are raising the crops as well as the land, water and air needed for them to thrive. As a global food company that relies on ingredients from around the world, we pay careful attention to the impact of agriculture on our environment and the ability of farmers to be successful.
When I speak about our work in soil health, I will often see a head tilt with a questioning look. Why would a food company have any interest in soil? That’s when I take a step back and share that 99 percent of our food comes from the soil. Being a food company, the connection is instantaneously made.
Most of us don’t think too closely about dirt, but perhaps we should. After all, it’s the foundation of all life on Earth.
Beyond sustaining plant life—and the rest of the food chain along with it—soil itself is very much alive. One handful of dirt contains up to 50 billion bacteria and hundreds of thousands of individual fungal cells. As these microorganisms move through the soil, they feast on minerals and dead organic matter and leave nutrients behind, allowing plants to grow and ecosystems to thrive.
According to some U.S. food industry observers, interest in small farms and sustainable agriculture is on the rise among young people. That’s all well and good, but the overwhelming demographic trend is toward older farm owners — and fewer, larger farms. The financial obstacles to starting a new farm are enormous, and so are the challenges involved in running an existing farm.
Addressing greenhouse gas emissions continues to be a top priority for Cisco. As of FY2017, our GHG emissions are down more than 40% in absolute terms since 2007 — in spite of our business growing more than 37% over that time. At the Global Climate Action Summit, Cisco joined 20 other companies as part of the Step Up Declaration, a new alliance dedicated to harnessing the power of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In this article, Tetra Tech’s Catherine Courtney, the University of Connecticut’s Robert Pomeroy, and the U.S. Agency for International Development's Stephen Brooks developed and tested an assessment framework and process to assist national and subnational governments to assess progress in meeting the Voluntary Guidelines on Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines).
In December 2018 Tetra Tech’s Catherine Courtney, along with the University of Connecticut’s Robert Pomeroy and the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Stephen Brooks, published a paper in the Marine Policy Journal in which they developed an assessment framework based on the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries (SSF Guidelines).
What will happen in 2019 at the intersection of business and society? As our team in the Business & Society Program looked ahead to the new year, we realized the best answers lie in our network of business leaders and academics. From Artificial Intelligence to worker voice to lifelong learning, these diverse predictions impart a powerful sense of possibility, even in facing some of the world’s toughest challenges in the new year.
The Verizon Foundation serves as an incubator for exploring how our technical and human resources can be applied in new ways to the practical concerns...
