The Top 10 Sustainable Business Stories of 2017

2. The deadly costs of climate change became even more obvious.
This year, the science got clearer about the connection between extreme weather and human-caused climate change. And that extreme weather was horrifying. Record-setting storms, floods, and drought-driven fires wreaked havoc around the world. Flooding in South Asia killed more than 1,200 people. Asia also experienced shocking heat, including a day in Pakistan that hit nearly 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Hurricane Harvey hit Houston hard (the before-and-after flooding picturesare mind-boggling), and the national weather service added colors to flood maps to reflect the record 30 inches of rain that fell. Hurricane Irma demolished Caribbean islands, and Hurricane Maria created an economic and humanitarian disaster in Puerto Rico. As of this writing, months after the storm, a third of the island is still without power, and 10% of these U.S. citizens have no water. On the U.S. mainland, unprecedented wildfires ripped through Napa and central California, as well as Los Angeles County.

These extreme weather events are primarily human tragedies, but they’re economic and business disasters as well. When entire regions are under water or lose power for months, it’s not good for local and national economies. In fact, the economic cost of extreme weather is vast and rising. In the 1980s, 27 weather events cost the U.S. more than $1 billion each (in today’s dollars). A little more than halfway through the current decade, we’ve already experienced 89 billion-dollar events, and they’re much, much larger. Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and the big trio of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria this year are all $50 billion to $100 billion storms.

3. The Trump administration started dismantling environmental protections.
In the U.S., the new administration’s policy goes beyond pulling out of Paris. We’re seeing an all-out assault on our air, water, climate, and land. The EPA head, Scott Pruitt, spent years suing the agency and essentially intends on dismantling it. Pruitt and Trump, with assists from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, are working to, for example:

• Eliminate the Clean Power Plan (one of President Obama’s main efforts to rein in power plant carbon pollution).
• Reduce restrictions on some dangerous chemicals and pesticides.
• Get rid of rules that limit natural gas leaks.
• Slash the size of national monuments in what The New York Times called “the largest rollback of federal land protection in the nation’s history.”  (One company, Patagonia, took an aggressive public stand against these moves.)
• Prop up coal and nuclear power against all economics and market forces.

Bi-partisan groups of former energy commissioners and EPA heads have spoken out against every move. And while many companies may hope to save money in the short run with fewer regulatory hurdles, it’s also clear that an unhealthier environment is not great for businesses, its customers, its communities, or its employees in the long term.