ELI in Action
Author
Linda K. Breggin - Environmental Law Institute
Environmental Law Institute
Current Issue
May-June 2018
Issue
3
Linda K. Breggin

For several years, ELI has served as the project coordinator for the Nashville Food Waste Initiative, a project of the Natural Resources Defense Council. In this capacity, ELI Senior Research Associate Emmett McKinney and I have worked with NRDC to develop and implement a promising pilot program in Nashville that explores local approaches to addressing food waste.

NRDC’s landmark report “Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food From Farm to Fork to Landfill” documents the shocking amount of food that is thrown away — and that almost all of it is landfilled or incinerated. From an environmental, social justice, and flat-out cost perspective, however, it is far preferable to prevent wasted food, rescue surplus food, and recycle food scraps — in that order.

Consequently, NFWI has worked in partnership with the metro government of Nashville and encompassing Davidson County and a wide range of stakeholders on a holistic strategy that fosters these alternatives to landfilling and incinerating. Most recently, NFWI has focused, in particular, on the rescue of prepared foods.

The catalyst for these efforts, in part, was an analysis by NRDC exploring the potential to expand food rescue from consumer-facing businesses, such as restaurants, retail grocers, and caterers located in Nashville and other cities. Its 2017 report “Modeling the Potential to Increase Food Rescue: Denver, New York City and Nashville” found that an additional 2.3 million meals potentially could be rescued each year from restaurants, hotels, and caterers in Nashville alone — mostly in the form of prepared foods. Furthermore, these potential meals represent 23 percent of the 9.3 million meals needed to feed the food insecure in the city.

To further assess the landscape for prepared food rescue and identify barriers to rolling out a program nationwide, NRDC and ELI conducted a series of interviews and surveys with local “last mile” organizations — nonprofits that address food insecurity — and potential donors, such as restaurants.

The study, “Nashville Food Rescue Landscape Analysis,” concluded that a substantial portion of the nonprofits could increase the number of meals they served, but several barriers limited donations and the ability to accept them. These impediments included staffing, storage, and funding constraints, as well as concerns about liability and lack of knowledge about federal tax incentives.

Furthermore, a threshold barrier for potential donors was the need for more information about nonprofits that could receive donated food and handle it safely. To address this barrier, NFWI launched an effort to introduce some of the largest potential donors to recipient organizations. This multi-step process has included soliciting more detailed information from hunger and poverty nonprofits about their needs and reaching out to large potential donors.

As part of the effort to encourage potential donors, NFWI partnered with the National Restaurant Association’s local chapter and the independent restaurant association Nashville Originals on a workshop for their members about the tax benefits of and liability protections for surplus food donations. The workshop also introduced potential donors to organizations that facilitate donations, such as the Food Donation Connection, which is a nonprofit that manages businesses’ food donation programs with its communication, reporting, and monitoring networks, and One Generation Away, a local organization that picks up surplus food and delivers it to nonprofits.

To date, NFWI has successfully facilitated donations from about 11 businesses, including Ascend Amphitheater, several Hilton hotels, and Bridgestone Arena — in some cases matching them with Food Donation Connection or One Generation Away, which in turn will ensure that a wide range of local nonprofits benefit from the donations.

Typically, matchmaking is as simple as setting up a conference call to kick off the partnership. In other cases, potential donors want to talk first with other businesses that have donated food to learn more or tour the recipient organization before they donate.

Future efforts to encourage surplus prepared food donations include the relaunch of the 2017 Mayor’s Food Saver Challenge for Restaurants, in which over 50 restaurants participated by adopting measures to address food waste. For example, Country Music Hall of Fame has donated 1,000 trays of food — each serving 20-40 people — since joining the Challenge, compared to none the year before.

The relaunch is anticipated to include not only restaurants but the entire hospitality industry in the region and may involve regular reporting and adoption of measures, including surplus food donation, on an ongoing basis.

Feeding the hungry with wasted food.

ELI Report
Subtitle
Making Law Work for People, Places, and the Planet
Author
Laura Frederick - Environmental Law Institute
Environmental Law Institute
Current Issue
March-April 2018
Issue
2

Floodplain Buyouts: Following 2017’s monster storms, reports aid communities in acquiring and rehabilitating properties.

2017’s extreme hurricane season is a reminder that such storms are the new normal. Communities will need to become resilient to consequences. ELI can help.

In the aftermath of floods and major storms, property owners are faced with a tough choice — to stay and rebuild in place or leave and rebuild on higher ground. An incentive for homeowners is to participate in a floodplain buyout program, such as the voluntary Federal Emergency Management Agency mitigation buyout program or state or local floodplain acquisition programs for destroyed homes and neighborhoods.

Once properties are acquired through these programs and existing structures removed, the land is typically dedicated to open space or recreational or wetland-management uses. Local governments often take ownership, but they have neither funding nor guidance on what to do with the properties over the long term. The result is that key opportunities are missed to leverage the environmental and flood-mitigation benefits of these properties.

Since 2013, ELI and the University of North Carolina Institute for the Environment have worked to increase knowledge and provide guidance to local governments and communities on how to use buyout programs to maximize the environmental and flood-mitigation benefits of acquired properties.

Building on our expertise, at the end of 2017 ELI and UNC released two guidance documents for local governments and communities. The first guide, Prioritizing Future Floodplain Acquisitions: Maximizing Opportunities for Habitat Restoration, Community Benefits, and Resilience, provides ideas for planning floodplain acquisitions and related projects in order to maximize community benefits. While buyouts are primarily intended to address flood damage to communities in the short term and mitigate future risks, secondary, longer-term benefits can include restoring habitat, rehabilitating ecosystems to improve water quality, and creating recreational spaces. By prioritizing eligible future buyouts, communities can develop more comprehensive mitigation projects and broaden their options for the management and use of acquired properties.

The ELI-UNC report provides a summary of prioritization criteria and methods that communities are using to make the most of these buyouts today, along with a four-step outline for integrating broader community goals into hazard mitigation and acquisition planning.

The second guide, Financing and Incentives Guide for Floodplain Buyouts, focuses on how local governments and communities can fund the acquisition and management of damaged properties.

The primary federal sources of funding for acquisitions are often only available after declared disasters, and often are not sufficient to purchase all eligible properties from willing sellers. Further, federal acquisition programs are usually matching funds for buyout projects provided by state and local governments or other entities. As a result, there are often more property owners willing to sell than are funds available.

Funding also represents a major challenge to managing and restoring properties to successfully leverage all the benefits of floodplain buyouts. Because of these challenges, most acquired properties remain as vacant, unimproved lots.

While available funds vary by state and locality and can depend on budgets, some communities have found creative ways to fund acquisition and management of open space properties. Based on a review of innovative approaches to make floodplain acquisitions a reality, ELI and UNC provide an overview of the sources and types of funds that exist and how they can be used to contribute to acquisition projects. The analysis offers a concise summary of how to approach this critical component of a successful buyout project.

Restoration in Gulf of Mexico Can Continue Despite Funding Cuts

In 2017, ELI released a background paper on Fast-Tracking ‘Good’ Restoration Projects in the Gulf of Mexico, which focused on mechanisms available to speed restoration projects that are subject to federal environmental requirements. The Institute’s research indicated that as the pace of restoration accelerates, resource constraints are likely to become a barrier to timely action and efficient environmental compliance. 

ELI recently published a follow-up to that work, addressing this resource deficiency conundrum. Fast-Tracking Restoration: Addressing Resource Constraints in Federal Agencies focuses on how agencies may be able to supplement their internal budget and personnel resources in order to increase the efficiency of the compliance process.

In general, federal agencies can only expend funds allocated to them through the congressional appropriations process. There are exceptions. ELI’s guide explains the circumstances in which federal agencies are allowed to accept outside funds or share personnel with other entities. Appropriately applied, these provisions may assist federal agencies overseeing gulf restoration in addressing at least some of their resource constraints related to environmental compliance.

The backgrounder explores legal provisions to allow government agencies to accept non-federal funds that can be used to expedite activities related to permitting and other environmental compliance activities, and it highlights mechanisms for intergovernmental transfer or loan of personnel engaged in environmental compliance activities to increase capacity without expending funds.

The backgrounder reviews hiring third-party contractors to prepare documents required for federal permits, approvals, or funding, paid for by the applicants, in place of agency review. 

Finally, the report suggests attendance at non-profit training activities by government employees involved in environmental compliance activities, where those needs are not already being met.

ELI also provides examples of instances in which these provisions have been used in projects.

By being strategic about the use of existing resources and creating new ones, federal agencies may be able to move restoration projects forward at the rate necessary to rehabilitate the environment and livelihoods of gulf communities.

 

Senator gives roadmap for environmental justice at ELI event

Last fall, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Representative Raul Ruiz (D-CA) introduced the Environmental Justice Act of 2017. The bill would require federal agencies to address environmental justice through agency actions and permitting decisions, and strengthen legal protections against environmental injustice for communities of color, low-income communities, and indigenous communities. The measure is the culmination of a months-long process of working with dozens of grassroots organizations across the country to craft a comprehensive bill that strengthens environmental justice protections for vulnerable communities. 

ELI hosted a panel discussion co-sponsored by the ABA Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice’s Environmental Justice Committee, the ABA Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources’ Special Committee on Environmental Justice, and Beveridge and Diamond, P.C.Booker gave the keynote address, focusing on the various ways the bill addresses critical issues for vulnerable communities nationwide.

He highlighted the connection between social justice issues and environmental problems. Booker started his career as an activist for issues of poverty, but saw “unconscionable” harm to the environment in his own backyard, such as lead contamination and water pollution, that stemmed in part from racism and disadvantage.

“I didn’t become an environmentalist because I was worried about global warming,” he said. “I didn’t become an environmentalist because I was concerned about penguins or polar bears. I became an environmentalist because I was living in Newark,” where environmental problems were disproportionately cast on disadvantaged communities.

Following the senator’s address, the cosponsors held a discussion with Mustafa Ali, vice president of climate, environmental justice, and community revitalization for the Hip Hop Caucus and formerly head of the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice, and Patrice Simms, vice president of litigation for Earthjustice.

The program was moderated by B&D’s Randy Hayman.Topics included changes at EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice, attempts to limit science in agency decisionmaking, and challenges to environmental protection for clean air, water, and land via measures that could curtail citizen suits and enforcement. 

Field Notes: China grants ELI premier elite NGO advisor status

ELI has received approvals from China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Beijing Bureau of Public Security to begin work on a project to build the capacity of NGOs to more fully engage in environmental litigation. The project is supported by the Hewlett Foundation and the Tilia Fund. 

Chinese law grants authority to NGOs to file these types of suits. ELI will work with its local partner, the China Environmental Protection Foundation, to build the capacity of public interest groups in China to file and win environmental cases, ensuring accountability and improvements in environmental quality. With this final procedural step in place, ELI cohosted its first workshop in January. 

Receiving this approval is a major reflection on ELI’s international reputation in promoting effective environmental governance and rule of law, as ELI is the first foreign NGO to receive temporary registration for an environmental protection-related project from the MEP under China’s foreign NGO law. It is also demonstrative of the excellent work of CEPF.ELI expects to receive additional temporary registration with other China-based partners to further expand the Institute’s growing work with governmental agencies and others in China. 

ELI expects to receive additional temporary registration with other China-based partners to further expand the Institute’s growing work with governmental agencies and others in China.

❧ ELI Visiting Scholar Carol Adaire Jones moderated a session on Tackling Wasted Food With Smart Technology hosted by the Solid Waste Association of North America. The session brought together speakers from organizations and companies that employ new and innovative uses of smart technologies to reduce food waste. The session focused on issues surrounding EPA’s Food Recovery Hierarchy of reduction (preventing wasted food at the source), reuse (donating wasted food leftovers) and recycling (as energy or nutrient products following processing).

❧The Antiquities Act grants presidents the authority to protect historic landmarks, structures, and objects of historic or scientific interest, and restrict uses of that land accordingly. The statute is ambiguous, however, as to whether the authority to reduce or modify these national monuments rests with Congress or the President — and the courts have never ruled on this particular issue.

Yet, last April, more than 50 years since the last alteration of national monument boundaries, President Trump issued an executive order instructing the Interior Department to undertake a broad review of national monuments created since 1996 that are larger than 100,000 acres. Based on the review, two proclamations significantly reduced the perimeters of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments. 

ELI explored these legal questions at an ELI Associates Seminar, Antiquities Act: Legal Implications for Executive and Congressional Action. Speakers explored issues surrounding presidential authority and the role of Congress in the declaration and modification of national monuments. Participants gained insight into the legal history of the law, importance of America’s national monuments, and the role of Congress in management of these lands.

Aiding communities flooded by storms, sea-level rise.

Google Saving Millions Via Materials Reuse
Author
Kate Brandt - Google
Google
Current Issue
January-February 2018
Issue
1
Parent Article
The Circular Economy in Action

During the 20th century, global raw material use rose at about twice the rate of population growth. Society’s demand for resources is already equivalent to what 1.7 Earths can provide. And the World Economic Forum estimates that by 2030 we are going to have 3 billion new middle class consumers. These sobering statistics highlight the pressing need to reevaluate the economic model that has been in place since the industrial revolution.

At Google, we believe global businesses should lead the way to driving a 21st century model in which people’s lives are improved while reducing dependence on primary materials and energy from fossil fuels. And we believe this can be done in a way that makes business sense, providing economic return, community benefits, and a restored natural environment.

In 2015, Google established a goal to embed circular principles into the fabric of our company’s infrastructure, operations, and culture. To achieve this goal we are focused on three strategies: Utilizing energy from renewable sources, designing out waste from our operations, and thinking in cascades.

Today we are the largest corporate renewable energy purchaser in the world. We’ve signed contracts to purchase 2.6 gigawatts of renewable energy — equal to taking over 1.2 million cars off the road — and this year we will reach 100 percent renewable energy for our operations.

In addition to our renewable commitment for our operations, we’re working to help our users adopt clean energy themselves with tools like Project Sunroof, which is now available in all 50 states and Germany, and uses Google 3D Earth imagery to calculate each roof’s solar energy potential to determine how much a home could save by installing solar panels.

We’ve also been focused on designing waste out of our systems. In 2016, across our 14 global data centers, we diverted 86 percent of waste from landfills and last fall we announced a new commitment to zero waste to landfill for all our data center operations.

A major strategy for achieving this goal is how we manage the servers that are at the heart of our data centers. These servers deliver your Gmail and favorite YouTube videos but they are also a great example of the power of deploying circular economy at scale.

First, we focus on maintenance. Google’s process for data center repairs enables longer life expectancy of servers. We aggressively refurbish and remanufacture components: in 2016, 36 percent of servers deployed were remanufactured machines. We also redistribute components through secondary markets and sold over 2 million units in 2016 alone. And 100 percent of what is left gets recycled. Through this approach, we are saving hundreds of millions of dollars per year and significantly decreasing the amount of virgin material needed to operate our data centers.

Our food team has also been looking for ways to reduce waste before food hits the plate, since feeding more than 70,000 people around the world breakfast, lunch and dinner is a pretty big undertaking. In April 2014, we formalized this effort by partnering with LeanPath, a technology that helps us understand exactly how and why food is being wasted in order to improve our process. Today we have 129 cafes participating in the LeanPath program across 11 countries. Since the start of the partnership, these efforts have saved a total of three million pounds of food.

As we know, to truly enable materials to cascade through the loops of the circular economy we must focus on what’s contained in the materials we are choosing. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, there are approximately 85,000 known chemicals in the world. 21,000 of them are registered on the Chemical Substance Inventory mandated under the Toxic Substances Control Act, and only six are federally regulated. That means the buildings in which most of us spend roughly 90 percent of our waking hours are built using materials with unknown impacts on human health and performance.

In 2016, Google and the Healthy Building Network launched Portico, a first of its kind building materials analysis and decisionmaking tool. For the first time, everyone involved in a construction project, from owners and designers to contractors and manufacturers, could work together to leverage the data in Portico to find healthy materials and improve indoor environments.

At a time when we recognize climate change and resource constraints as two of our most significant global challenges, creating effective solutions will involve a complex mix of policy, technology, and international cooperation. At Google we are working to utilize circular economy principles as a transformative strategy for people and the planet but we also know that we’ve only just begun to realize what is possible.

 

Kate Brandt is Google’s lead for sustainability and previously served as the nation’s first federal chief sustainability officer.

National, State Policies Drive Circular Economy
Author
Mathy Stanislaus - World Resources Institute
World Resources Institute
Current Issue
January-February 2018
Issue
1
Parent Article
The Circular Economy in Action

First, a quick primer of why a circular economy approach matters: the extraction of raw materials grew from 22 billion tons per year in 1970 to 70 billion tons per year in 2010. If this trend continues, raw materials could be required to increase by as much as three times by 2050.

At the same time, over half of the yearly material inputs into industrial economies become waste within a year, with a $4.5 trillion annual loss of value by 2030. Moreover, recent studies have concluded that a circular economy approach could reduce the gap of achieving the Paris Agreement by 50 percent.

While the economic and environmental promise of a circular economic approach has been getting some traction in the United States, what are realistic near term policies to accelerate such a transition? The U.S. Business Council for Sustainable Development is working with Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan, and Minnesota to advance secondary materials transactions.

However, the definition and interpretation of whether an interstate transfer of secondary materials is considered a transfer of feedstock for manufacturing or for waste management has become a barrier to secondary materials utilization. For example, Ohio’s regulations differ from adjacent states. One immediate activity is to harmonize the definitions among adjacent states to foster secondary materials markets, with the necessary transparency requirements.

A regulation adopted by EPA in 2014, the Definition of Solid Waste Rule, is intended to incentivize the utilization of secondary materials in manufacturing while protecting against mismanagement in the recycling system. The rule removes certain materials from being designated as a hazardous waste to foster reuse back into the manufacturing production process from which it was generated (e.g., closed-loop recycling) and remanufacturing of chemical solvents. Separately, the rule also clarified that the recycling of metals is for the purpose of producing valuable products.

The rule is projected to save as much as $59 million per year. The remanufacturing of solvents alone is projected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 344,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year. Having states adopt this rule, and expanding the number of materials covered under this rule, would accelerate the reuse of secondary materials in manufacturing, save money, and further reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

More than 20 states now have “extended producer responsibility” laws for e-waste in an effort to shift some of the end-of-life burden of electronics to the manufacturers. However, the EPR systems have not resulted in the recovery of high quality metals and minerals as feedstock for remanufacturing into electronics products. Currently, while a ton of mobile phones contains about 200 to 300 grams of gold, only 10–15 percent is recycled.

Investment in technology and automation in recycling infrastructure to recover high quality metals and minerals is not occurring with the absence of economies of scale cited as a factor. Moreover, EPR’s cost allocation system has not acted as an incentive for manufacturers to change design. China’s version of EPR has a target of 20 percent recycled content in products including electronics by 2025. Accomplishing this target will require higher quality systems for recovery of metals and minerals from electronics. Could such a target create market drivers to promote investment and innovation for higher quality recovery in the United States?

Tax incentives can drive action. In December 2015, Congress passed into law a permanent charitable giving tax incentive for donating food and extended it to pass-through entities. The tax credit has been cited by food manufacturers as a critical factor to overcome concerns regarding the cost of food donation and liability risks. It has resulted in a substantial increase in food diverted from waste.

Sweden has introduced tax breaks and other fiscal incentives to promote maintenance and repair of durable consumer goods, and as such encourage extending the lifespan of products. A targeted tax incentive tied to a level of product’s recycled content could drive design and investment.

One last and potential far reaching opportunity is carbon pricing. As state-based carbon systems develop, such as California’s pending carbon market system, credit for use of secondary materials (e.g., products using recycled steel avoid approximately 75 percent of CO2 emissions as compared with using steel produced from virgin ore) would assist in financing secondary materials recovery systems and as incentive for product design.

Establishing a public-private process to prioritize policy actions and to establish an implementation strategy would tangibly advance the promise of a circular economy.

 

Mathy Stanislaus is a senior fellow at World Resources Institute and senior advisor to the World Economic Forum focusing on advanced circular economy policies and strategies globally. He headed EPA’s solid waste office during the Obama administration.

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