Creative Climate Campaigns with Stand.earth
Todd Paglia serves as the Executive Director of Stand.earth, an advocacy organization renowned for its strategic communication and research initiatives, challenging both corporations and governments to prioritize the well-being of communities, the environment, and climate. Notably, Stand.earth ranks fourth on Fast Company's 2023 list of innovative nonprofits.
Although Stand.earth has been active since the early 1990s, they came to our attention in a LinkedIn article titled "Climate Groups Call On Health Systems to Divest Fossil Fuel Holdings." This article referred to a report from the Climate Safe Pensions Network, a campaign orchestrated by Stand.earth.
As we've learned more about the organization, we've come to appreciate that Stand.earth embodies a contemporary form of activism, one that leverages data, social media, and virality to drive accountability and achieve tangible results. Enjoy the conversation with Todd as he sheds light on their impactful work.
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Episode recorded on Aug 31, 2023 (Published on Nov 6, 2023)
In this episode, we cover:
[02:03]: Introduction to Stand.earth's history and activism approach
[03:45]: Stand.earth's campaign pushing healthcare systems to divest fossil fuels
[05:14]: Health impacts of fossil fuels show why healthcare divestment is needed
[09:12]: Todd's perspective on engaging with fossil fuel companies
[15:24]: Stand's work exposing who is buying Amazon oil and the banks funding it
[16:23]: Origins of Stand.earth in 1990s and "War in the Woods" campaign
[20:09]: Success of viral Starbucks "Cup Monster" and Victoria Secret campaigns
[27:46]: Causes for recent growth of Stand.earth' staff
[30:12]: The power of employees in influencing their companies' decarbonization
[34:11]: Very few big retail brands doing relatively well (IKEA, Maersk)
[35:15]: Using satellites for instant forest logging transparency
[37:10]: Empowering local advocates through the Safe Cities campaign
[40:12]: The "Amazon Prime Polluter" campaign to push Amazon.com for electric last mile delivery electrification
[43:38]: Todd's lifelong connection to nature as motivation for activism
[44:49]: How to follow Stand.earth
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Cody Simms (00:00):
On today's episode of My Climate Journey, we have Todd Paglia, Executive Director at Stand.earth. Stand.earth is an advocacy organization that combines deep research and strategic communications to challenge corporations and governments to make the health of our communities, our environment, and our climate, the top priority. And they're number four on Fast Companies, 2023 list of most innovative nonprofits. Although Stand.earth has been active since the early 1990s, my awareness of them only surfaced earlier this year when I came across an article on LinkedIn with the title Climate Groups Call On Health Systems to Divest Fossil Fuel Holdings.
(00:40):
This piece referenced a report from the Climate Safe Pensions Network, which turned out to be a campaign orchestrated by Stand.earth. My curiosity grew and I fell down the rabbit hole of stand on Earth's range of campaigns spanning from data-driven approaches to viral videos and even traditional activism like facing down bulldozers. I was intrigued to learn more after reaching out to the media contact on Stand.earth's website, it led to this very interview with Todd. As I learned more about the organization, I came to appreciate that they embody a contemporary form of activism, one that leverages data, social media, and virality to drive accountability and achieve tangible results. I hope you enjoy the conversation with Todd as much as I did. But before we start.
(01:31):
I'm Cody Sims.
Yin Lu (01:32):
I'm Yin Lu.
Jason Jacobs (01:33):
And I'm Jason Jacobs. And welcome to My Climate Journey.
Yin Lu (01:39):
This show is a growing body of knowledge focused on climate change and potential solutions.
Cody Simms (01:45):
In this podcast, we traverse disciplines, industries, and opinions to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change and all the ways people like you and I can help. Todd, welcome to the show.
Todd Paglia (01:59):
Hey, Cody, really happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me on.
Cody Simms (02:03):
So, Todd, Stand.earth has been around from what I could see, since 1990 something, and you've been with the organization since 1999. So, a long history in environmental advocacy, which I feel like we could probably story tell on some of the work you all have done for hours. We're going to try to focus today on a few key topics, but I guess first of all, congrats on the longevity of the organization.
Todd Paglia (02:29):
Well, thanks. We've been elusive because we've changed our name four times. It's a whole new way of doing branding. I think people are going to really catch onto this new method soon. But we started very small with just a couple of people and grew and then, had to and wanted to expand our mission and changed our name and we're now Stand.earth. We'll not change our name again. We can basically do anything under the sun with that name, so we're good now.
Cody Simms (02:55):
Well, as I was reading up and trying to prepare for our conversation, I came across a couple viral videos and things that like, oh my gosh, I saw that 10 years ago. So, I've been aware of you, but I wasn't fully aware of you. But the thing that actually hooked me in to originally reach out and set up the conversation was, I was reading, I think someone I knew in the healthcare world, had posted an article on LinkedIn about healthcare systems divesting from fossil fuels or maybe lack thereof, was actually the kicker in the article, and it said, data was provided by this group, Climate Safe Pensions Network.
(03:31):
And I was like, well, what's that? And I dug in and I saw that Climate Safe Pensions Network was an initiative of a group called Stand.earth. And I was like, oh, well this is interesting. And that's what led me to your website and led me to find you. And so, maybe let's start there with this very specific thing you guys had done, which was to created this media brand to help raise awareness of major health systems that are heavily invested in fossil fuels today, trying to draw the link between fossil fuel pollution, emissions and health outcomes. And asking the question of why is this still a thing today in 2023 where these health systems are heavily invested in fossil fuel assets?
Todd Paglia (04:16):
Exactly. So, as we all know, the Hippocratic Oath is do no harm. And what we're asking the healthcare systems to do is with their investments, with their pensions, with the vast sums of money that they manage and hold, to do no harm, and it's clear that the link between health impacts and climate change could not be clearer. So, we're asking those systems to get out of fossil fuels. The great thing about this campaign overall, both for general pensions, whether it's teacher's pensions, state workers, city workers, healthcare pensions, is that you'll have more money available to the people depending on those pensions if you get out of fossil fuels. They're very volatile, bad investments in the long term and I think everybody knows that, and we're just trying to create enough of a catalyst to get some of these systems off. The good news is, literally hundreds of billions of dollars are getting out of fossil fuels, and it's just a matter of time before the healthcare systems join.
Cody Simms (05:14):
We're recording this in the last day of August 2023, and we literally this week on our podcast published an episode with Dr. Vanessa Kerry, who was just recently appointed as the World Health Organization's Director General Special Envoy for Climate Change and Health. So, a very important topic, and she highlights how extreme heat kills 5 million people a year and how air pollution kills something like 7 million people a year. Just awful, awful outcomes that are only obviously getting, I shouldn't say obviously, many people may not agree obviously, but where I sit, it's kind of becoming obvious that only exacerbated by climate change and probably expected to increase, unfortunately quite dramatically.
Todd Paglia (05:56):
And those numbers are growing. If you look at all of the combined effects of climate change on human health, the numbers are going north of 15 million people dying every year. So, that is exactly the kind of thing healthcare systems should not be investing in. And much of that is obviously caused by fossil fuels and we need to all get our money out of there. That's what Climate Safe Pension Network is all about, and the good news is, this is growing all over the US, all over Canada, into Europe. We're going to see a global movement getting real divestment. And I think the most important thing about divestment is also investment and that's one of the things that we're prioritizing is it's great to get out of fossil fuels, but then you have to go aggressively into wind, solar, regenerative ag. The positive has to happen quickly, just like getting out of fossil fuels.
Cody Simms (06:48):
I'm so glad you mentioned that because, as you know, as we talked about, at MCJ, even, we run our own venture funds and I've found as we're talking to potential investors, even in our own funds, some investors, there's a degree of confusion around should investing in climate related things be about not doing bad stuff or should it be about improving the amount of essentially "good stuff?" Is the goal to avoid investing in things that are causing harm or is the goal to proactively push solutions forward? And when you look at labels like ESG and whatnot, I feel like, or even "impact", those things get very confused depending on with whom you're speaking.
Todd Paglia (07:33):
And I think this is where I think divestment got into a little bit of a scary place in some ways in that divestment previously was, I'm going to get out of Exxon, but now I'm going to get into Home Depot or other big box stores. And that is an improvement, but what we really need is to ramp up those totally positive, carbon positive aspects of our economy. And the other thing is that's where a lot of opportunity lies. I think you're going to see the first movers really getting more aggressive on regenerative ag, wind, solar, run a river hydro, heat pump access, and financing. I mean, there's huge amounts of money to make out there on the good things, and there's not enough capital to do it right now.
Cody Simms (08:21):
On the subject of divestment, in addition to what we talked about on the health system side, you also manage the global fossil fuel divestment commitments database, which is an actual database articulating who is committed to divestment, what types of divestment they're committed to, and I saw most recently it looks like something like 40 plus trillion dollars of value of institutions is now committed to divesting of fossil fuels, which is higher than the GDP of US and China combined. That's insane. I mean, not insane, that's a lot of money.
Todd Paglia (08:57):
That's a lot of money and it needs to be a lot more, and the actual act of divestment needs to accelerate and the act of investing in solutions also needs to accelerate. So, it's a huge amount of money on the table and we're really trying to activate it as quickly as possible.
Cody Simms (09:12):
I've heard points of view on, and I want to talk about the point you're making on investing in the transition for sure. Before we do that, I've heard points of view that one of the challenges with divestment is you lose your seat at the table. As soon as you're no longer investing in a fossil fuel solution as a major, major institution, you've lost your ability to influence it. I'm curious how you all think about that.
Todd Paglia (09:36):
Yeah, I think it's really, really clear. I think that is a total red herring of an argument. These fossil fuels, let's go back 20 years. 20 years ago, fossil fuel companies had the option and the opportunity to become energy companies. They could have seen wind, solar, hydro as how to provide energy for an evolving society, they refused. These companies are suing, lying, cheating. There is not a seat at the table worth having, and we know they're not going to disappear, but there is nothing good coming from those companies. If you look at how much money they've invested in expanding fossil fuels since Paris, it is appalling. And so, anyone who tells you we have to maintain a seat at the table, we don't need a seat with the devil.
Cody Simms (10:28):
I'm going to ask the opposite question then. You talk about investing in proactive solutions, investing in renewable energy, investing in heat pump deployment, et cetera, whatever it may be. How do you view fossil fuel companies making those investments? What's your perspective on that? If you're a company building these solutions, should you accept fossil fuel money into what you're doing and enable them to be part of the transition?
Todd Paglia (10:53):
Well, I have the luxury of being able to have a pure opinion on this because I'm not seeking those investments, but I think there's going to be a lot more money available in the future. Look at that investment database or divestment database, that's a lot of money available. I think we should not be taking money from fossil fuel companies. Mostly if you look at their actual total net worth, the investments they're doing in solutions are so tiny, it's window dressing, it's not worth taking that money and giving them green cover for it.
Cody Simms (11:22):
And then on the notion of, you said, hey, one of the ideas with divestment is take your money away from fossil fuels but then invest in other big box companies or whatnot. You all have now done a number of research reports highlighting of these other mega companies that are out there. Who else is actually positively committed to the transition? I saw a report where you dug into big tech brands and their supply chains. You dug into big retail and their shipping footprints. Explain this type of work that you all do and A, how you do it and to whom you're sending it?
Todd Paglia (12:00):
Yeah, this is one of the unique aspects about Stand.earth. We have our own in-house supply chain analyst group. They used to be external, there's not a lot of mergers and acquisitions in the nonprofit sector, but we acquired them several years ago, used to be known as Borealis. Now they're the Stand Research Group, and these are some of the best supply chain analysts in the world and they can track commodities everywhere, they can track financial flows, we've expanded the team, we've tripled it since they joined us and we're going to build that team even larger. One of the things that this provides is, it's one thing to be an advocacy organization, it's another thing to be an advocacy group with people powered campaigns and data that the companies we're targeting don't even have. So, when we talk to the fashion sector, when we talk to banks investing in Amazon, we often know more than they do about their supply chain.
(12:57):
That gives us an ability to help transform their policies and their buying approaches and the good they can have and the limit they can put on some of the damage that they're doing. And it's a unique piece of our work and it's something that we're going to definitely keep growing because it's incredibly powerful, especially to give frontline groups access to information that they would never have in the past. And that's for example, what we're doing in the Amazon rainforest where indigenous leadership now know the banks that are funneling money into expanding oil and gas into Amazon, and they can go directly to those banks and ask them to stop and join our campaigns to do so.
Cody Simms (13:38):
Tell us more about that report.
Todd Paglia (13:39):
We've done several different reports. One, it's been out for a couple of years, people are still amazed by, is one we tracked the oil coming out of the Amazon. We always want to follow the money. If we want to make change happen, we need to know who's responsible, who's doing what and what are the ways that we can change their behavior? And so, we tracked Amazon Oil. So where is it going? Who's the number one customer for Amazon Oil? What that report revealed is that the state of California is the number one buyer of Amazon Oil. The other thing about it that is really interesting is that as California decreases its internal use of oil because of electrification, public transit and other things, the refineries in California are buying just as much Amazon oil because they're exporting it.
(14:24):
So that's a kind of gnarly problem to solve. We've been meeting with the Newsom administration for the last year. There's a bunch of proposals that we've made to have the State begin to ramp down its use of Amazon Oil and the first step I think is going to be beginning to take some control of the refineries in California because they are going to just have a constant take from the Amazon if they're not regulated to decrease that.
Cody Simms (14:51):
When you say the State of California, it's the actual State buying it or it's private companies that operate in the State of California.
Todd Paglia (14:58):
It's private companies operating in the State, but the State has through low carbon fuel standards, through a variety of health measures, they have the ability to begin to control the amount of oil refined in the State and the standards by which it's refined and the countries that it comes from. And so, that's where we have to get to. And so, that was one of our first extensive reports and tracking who's responsible for buying oil from the Amazon.
(15:24):
The next report we did, which came out recently is what are all the banks investing in expanding oil and gas in the Amazon? We put that report out several weeks ago, got lots of press all over the place and we're now in conversations with many of those banks to join BNP Paribas and other banks that have agreed to no longer invest in oil and gas in the Amazon. BNP alone that takes 13 billion dollars per year off the table for oil and gas expansion. So, that's real change. That's what we want to see accelerating in the Amazon before we get to the tipping point there.
Cody Simms (15:58):
And let's talk about some of the examples of campaigns you've done in the past that have created notable outcomes. The three that I uncovered in my research, I'm sure there are many, many more that we can talk about, but there's one with Starbucks, there's one with this Victoria's Secret, there's one with Facebook that seemed like, these are sort of notable examples for you. Pick whichever one you want to jump into first and let's talk about what these campaigns look like and what sort of outcomes you achieve.
Todd Paglia (16:23):
Yeah, I'm going to go back to the beginning, the very founding of Stand because I think part of the founding story tells you a little bit about why we are what we are today. So go back 20 years to Vancouver Island, Clayoquot Sound, near the town of Tofino. That's the last old growth river valley that's intact and functioning on Vancouver Island, the rest has been logged. The founders of Stand.earth gathered, began organizing, began putting their bodies in the way of the bulldozers, and they actually ended up exceeding every possible dream they had as far as escalating the amount of controversy, media coverage, movie stars were coming and getting arrested. It was the biggest civil disobedience in Canadian history. A thousand people arrested. Rock stars were coming.
Cody Simms (17:12):
This isn't social media, this isn't data as content.
Todd Paglia (17:15):
Pre social media.
Cody Simms (17:16):
This is people literally blockading trees but with their bodies.
Todd Paglia (17:19):
Yes, and pre-social media. So it's word of mouth, it's organizing, it's real forest activism in the old school methods. But here's the thing that was amazing about that chapter is, despite it becoming known as the War in the Woods with international media attention, huge amounts of controversy, the bulldozers and logging trucks kept coming. And it was from that moment of setback that the founders of our organization said, well, who's buying this stuff? Who's buying the wood? The paper, the pulp?
Cody Simms (17:50):
Follow the money.
Todd Paglia (17:52):
And we had no idea, we didn't have a Stand Research Group. We had no idea how to find that out. Letters were sent to hundreds of companies that might be buying wood, paper or pulp. Several of them wrote back and said, we don't want to be part of destroying a rainforest, and that is the first time the logging stopped in Clayoquot Sound. It was the money the customer saying, we don't want to be part of that, and to this day, a thousand-year-old trees still stand in Clayoquot Sound, that whole river valley is intact and it was the power actually of the marketplace saying, no, we don't want to be part of destroying that place.
Yin Lu (18:27):
Hey everyone, I'm Yin a partner at MCJ Collective. Here to take a quick minute to tell you about our MCJ membership community, which was born out of a collective thirst for peer-to-peer learning and doing that goes beyond just listening to the podcast. We started in 2019 and have grown to thousands of members globally. Each week we're inspired by people who join with different backgrounds and points of view. What we all share is a deep curiosity to learn and a bias to action around ways to accelerate solutions to climate change.
(18:54):
Some awesome initiatives have come out of the community. A number of founding teams have met, several nonprofits have been established and a bunch of hiring has been done. Many early stage investments have been made as well as ongoing events and programming like monthly women in climate meetups, idea jam sessions for early stage founders, climate book club, art workshops and more. Whether you've been in the climate space for a while or just embarking on your journey, having a community to support you is important. If you want to learn more, head over to mcjcollective.com and click on the members tab at the top. Thanks and enjoy the rest of the show.
Cody Simms (19:28):
I'm going to give some benefit of the doubt to some extent where I'm going to guess the CEOs of some of these companies, they had no idea where their supply chain was coming from for these products.
Todd Paglia (19:40):
No, and this was when there were no environmental people at companies. When we were reaching out to these companies, we were either sent to the communications department or the lawyers. They had no idea, everything they bought was based on price, quantity, quality, that's it. Origin was not a factor, now it is. And these campaigns that we initiated back in the 1990s are part of that wave, actually the origination of that wave, of accountability and corporate campaigns and on a different level than they were previous to that.
Cody Simms (20:09):
So, one of these campaigns, now fast-forward whatever, 20 years to the era of viral social media that I know I had seen, I just didn't know it came from you all was the Starbucks Cup guy video. Maybe share a little bit more about that one and obviously that's a big evolution of Stand.earth strategy to get to that point, but to some extent, you're still seeking the same kinds of outcomes.
Todd Paglia (20:35):
Yeah. So, Starbucks campaign was a really fun effort. Starbucks had made a lot of promises about their cups, it's their number one environmental impact, huge amount of forest impact, climate impact. They had made a lot of promises 15 years ago that they just never fulfilled. That they were going to increase the recycled content of the cups, they're going to make them recyclable, they were going to start using real cups in their stores, reusable cups, and we kept looking at this and year after year after year, they just didn't do anything, and so finally we were like, all right, we're going to take them on. One of the biggest brands in the world and like we do at Stand.earth, we try to use as much humor as we can, so we did a bunch of spoofs.
Cody Simms (21:17):
And they're neighbors of yours, right? Pacific North Westerners, right?
Todd Paglia (21:20):
They're right down the street here, I'm in Bellingham, they're in Seattle. So, it made it really convenient for protests at their stores. A couple of things about the campaign were really fun for us. One, we got to do a lot of really fun spoofy things with great short movie makers. We also created this entity that became a character in Seattle called the Cup Monster. It was made, Jim Ace, our actions coordinator, made this giant huge, charismatic, amazing cup monster out of thousands of used cups and it would follow the Starbucks executives around Seattle. It became like, you would turn on the radio and NPR would say, hey, the Cup Monster was down at so-and-so field today, and it really bothered them and the reason that it bothered them is, we were getting to their employees. Their employees want more than a paycheck.
(22:09):
They want to see their values reflected in what the company is doing. And one of the turning points was we serve the employees Starbucks Coffee in cups that could be recycled at the headquarters and the best thing Starbucks did is started fighting us and trying to take away the materials from the employees that we were handing to the employees, which then made sure that everybody in the building got the materials and then they made a bunch of commitments. Part of that is that COVID got in the way of implementing a bunch of this, but they are now moving forward. More and more of their cups are recyclable, more recycled content are in the cups and they're piloting, in a bunch of cities reusable cups. So, they're on their way, they're not moving fast enough, but we're going to revisit them in the next year or two.
Cody Simms (22:53):
I think the plastic cup for cold drink footprint needs to probably be the next target.
Todd Paglia (22:57):
Yeah, no doubt. They really don't want another campaign, but it might have to happen.
Cody Simms (23:02):
And then, Victoria's Secrets similar viral campaign.
Todd Paglia (23:06):
Yeah, so Victoria's Secret, that was also a really fun campaign and just a great story as far as the evolution of that company and that catalog. So we took them on, again, we're kind of David and Goliath at that point. We were 12 people and they were this giant company. We took them on because they were putting out a million catalogs per day made from totally unsustainable forest products, mostly in the Boreal, some towards the coast of British Columbia and took them on. We actually did probably the best ad we've ever done. We got on Craigslist, a model to pose as a Victoria's Secret model holding a chainsaw. We label it, Victoria's Dirty Secret, did a full page ad in the New York Times, only the West Coast edition, which back then was like $10,000. So, the entire thing cost us $10,000. We generated millions of dollars of media, got onto The Today Show and then ended up organizing all over the country.
(24:03):
It turns out if you are organizing college kids to protest companies and they get a chance to take most of their clothes off, they're really into it. People went crazy organizing protest at Victoria's Secrets. They ended up making a huge commitment, canceling a $40 million contract with a totally unsustainable logging company in Canada. They helped protect, they actually lobbied with us for the protection of the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, the inland temperate rainforest area also in British Columbia. They moved their catalogs to recycled paper and actually over time they've evolved to the point where the catalog went fully certified paper, recycled paper, and now it's gone. You can request one, but there's no more million catalogs a day.
Cody Simms (24:49):
They don't just show up in your mailbox.
Todd Paglia (24:51):
Yeah. What I love about that campaign is it was a great meeting of a good campaign run really well and a company that saw it could change. That's the magical combination. Sometimes you have these knockdown drag out fights and the company grudgingly changes. With Victoria's Secret, we really had a team there that saw that they could really change the course of the company and they spent $50 million a year way back then on paper and they just saw, hey, we can actually move towards something way more sustainable and more cost-effective, and they did.
Cody Simms (25:28):
So, it almost helped them to think differently and approach it differently and they actually found that it was probably beneficial to their business to have done so.
Todd Paglia (25:36):
Absolutely. It was a win-win.
Cody Simms (25:38):
Really interesting mix of some campaigns that are, I would call them heavy media campaigns, where you're creating assets, you're employing a creative storytelling format and some that are heavy data campaigns where you're going in and doing the research. Those are both really hard things to be good at and we haven't really talked a lot about... We talked, I guess a bit about your data campaigns at the beginning with the health systems and the divestment database, but some of the other work you've done in that regard around supply chain analysis and whatnot. How do you balance these two things as an organization?
Todd Paglia (26:12):
Well, seriously, I've been saying this for years. We could be a TV show. The crazy stuff that we do on a daily basis, the number of threats and attacks we've been through. We've been sued and I've been sued personally for $300 million by a giant logging company. We actually had the government of Canada raid our offices in Vancouver, British Columbia. We've been labeled as an enemy of the State in multiple countries. We still feel like a startup, 20 something years later, and we have people who are incredibly creative and want to be out in the world doing things like the Cup Monster and we had a big campaign against 3M years ago for not using recycled paper. We hung the largest post-it note in the world with a to-do list for 3M off an iconic bridge near their headquarters. So, those creative aspects, but we also have people who are just data crazy.
(27:09):
They just love spreadsheets. And because we've been expanding so quickly, we've tripled in the last four years. We've been able to really bring in some of the best people in the business and keeping those data hounds focused and creating the space for honestly sometimes for failure for our creative actions, comms people to be experimenting and playing with things that are way out there, very far away from spreadsheets and we've been able to keep our culture pretty human, in doing all of those things, which has been one of my favorite parts of Stand.earth over the last several decades.
Cody Simms (27:46):
The staff has tripled in the last handful of years. Is that due to an influx of funding coming into climate action? What's causing the growth?
Todd Paglia (27:56):
I think a couple of things are happening. One is there's beginning to be, and it's very late, there's beginning to be some recognition in philanthropic circles that gigantic groups that have huge budgets that move very slowly, that work with corporations are not the solution. I think the WWF's, the Conservation Internationals, TNCs of the world are plenty big enough and they don't need to be any bigger and they're not aligned the way campaigning groups like Stand.earth is with indigenous leadership, with frontline fighters. I think we're seeing a turn towards real action on climate and so there's definitely more money in the climate space for activism, but I think there's increasingly, an appetite for campaigns that confront the companies, creating a lot of the problems on the climate and environmental side, and that's really encouraging and we see growth in similar groups to Stand and we need to see a lot more of that in the coming years.
Cody Simms (28:58):
It's interesting, you often hear of this dichotomy in climate action where, like you said, you're either a big org that's trying to directly influence policy, has relationships with policymakers, with members of Congress is holding big fancy dinners and trying to move the ball that way, or your super grassroots, your Sunset movement, your extinction rebellion. You've got hundreds of thousands of people on the ground going and doing sit-ins at mayor's offices and things like that. What I'm hearing from you is this kind of different lens of activism, which is around storytelling and helping to craft the narrative of change.
Todd Paglia (29:37):
Yeah. In a lot of our campaigns, we focus on frontline groups, indigenous leadership, but the targets, the companies we're trying to persuade, the banks we're trying to move the pensions, we're trying to move, it's really all about data, logic, storytelling, and the employees. We're a little bit different than a lot of campaigning groups in that the people that work at Starbucks, the people that work at Royal Bank of Canada, those are the people that we're trying to get to. We want them to know what their company is doing because they can change things in ways that we can't from the outside.
Cody Simms (30:12):
So, let's look an example I mentioned at the beginning, the report you all did on big tech brands and their supply chains. Is your general experience that when these reports come out, the employees of these companies are surprised to see where their companies rank on these lists?
Todd Paglia (30:31):
Hugely surprised because the narrative inside these companies is all about the amazing work they're doing all the time. I'll give you an example from a few years ago. So, one of the sectors that we took on this is like six, seven years ago, is the fashion sector. The fashion sector is responsible for somewhere between five and 8% of global emissions of carbon.
Cody Simms (30:55):
And growing rapidly, right? Growing rapidly.
Todd Paglia (30:56):
Growing, plus toxic pollution in rivers because of dyes, all sorts of stuff. So we took on the first company. Back then every company's commitments, they were to have renewable energy in their stores and headquarters. That's about 1% of their impact. All of their impact is in the factories, but nobody was taking any responsibility for it. We targeted Levi's, we just thought that they were the right size, they had the right employee base, they're based in San Francisco, progressive employees, and that they were actually capable of real movement and the brand was powerful enough to show the sector that this is real change happening if Levi's made a commitment. It took two years, they made the first commitment to take responsibility for all of their factories and set a climate goal based on their full carbon footprint. Now every fashion company is doing the same.
(31:49):
Our campaign continues to push those companies. But the interesting thing about the Levi's campaign is that the employees were outraged at us. They were so angry because they had been told how great Levi's is for so long that they could not really understand what we were talking about. And it took 18 months to get through to the employees for them to then get like, oh, the commitments that the executives keep talking about only apply to 1% of our impact. Then there's a turning point where once you break through, then the employees are going to basically help carry the campaign to a victory, and that's what happens pretty much every time.
Cody Simms (32:27):
The tech one that I've referenced a few times, I've got the data right in front of me and you've got Apple at the top with an A plus on operations, decarbonization, which is what you hear all the time. These companies are making commitments to buying clean energy for their own operations. And then Apple also at the top on supply chain decarbonization with a B minus. So doing well, room to improve. But what struck me is on the operations decarb, a lot of the big tech companies are doing fairly well. But man, then on the supply chain side, other than Apple, literally every single one has a D or an F grade.
Todd Paglia (33:01):
It falls off really quick.
Cody Simms (33:03):
So to some extent you're shining a light on the poor performers, but you're also elevating the companies that are doing well. And that I assume also gives them the ability to get more attention and awareness when they speak out about the things they're doing, that hopefully creates a follower effect.
Todd Paglia (33:22):
For sure, and the other thing that it creates is that a lot of the top most valuable employees, they can move. And so when you are a really strong player on values, on climate, on environment, you're more attractive to the best people in your sector and they're always fighting over the best people in their sector. So now, Apple has an advantage and what we're making clear is, even if you're really good at your own operations, but a huge amount of your footprint you're terrible at, that's a mismatch of values. Apple is going to attract more of the top people coming out of the top schools as well as the people at Google and other companies because they're like, my values are matched over there, I want to work at that place. And that's why the employees are so important in every campaign.
Cody Simms (34:11):
I mean, I noticed shipping decarbonization as well. You basically show that IKEA is actually doing quite well of all the big retail brands, and then on the shipping side, it looked like Maersk was doing relatively well and then it just kind of fell off a cliff on both sides as well there.
Todd Paglia (34:27):
Yeah, this is going to be a longer term effort by us and other groups, but we need to line up a lot more money, meaning like the fashion sector, which we're already working on, the IT sector, the furniture sector, the big shippers that are the customers of Maersk have to start drawing the line with Maersk and Evergreen and all the big shippers and say no, decarb has to happen now. The great thing about the shipping sector is they're so far behind their head in a certain way, if you just slow down the ships, do advanced hull coatings and clean the props more frequently, you can cut the emissions by half. It's amazing. It's a logistical thing that needs to be solved then, but the solutions are there and that gives space for us to get to truly decarbonized shipping.
Cody Simms (35:15):
And so part of what you all are then trying to do is not only create the data, but then highlight the solutions, not just so the companies, you honestly probably already know the solutions actually do them, but it creates more pressure on them to report on their advancements on these things.
Todd Paglia (35:31):
Yeah. Part of this is transparency and transparency is becoming more and more important and it's becoming a more powerful tool for us, not just in the supply chain sectors that you're talking about, but I'll give you another example where we're getting closer and closer to instant transparency, which is really important. So, we have a long history of doing forest protection work. We just rolled out this new technology that links together satellite imagery, social media, our own comms and campaign team. So when logging happens in British Columbia, in old growth areas that the government has said should be deferred and protected, we know within hours and we send alerts and those alerts go to our people, to the government, to the media.
(36:22):
And so, we're getting to the point where previously it could take months if not years, to know if a certain place was logged because it's so remote in areas of British Columbia to now transparency becoming almost immediate. And as soon as we launched that new tool called Forest Eye, the government of British Columbia called us and wanted to meet. They thought the tool was a little dramatic, but that's storytelling in a data-based way. You cannot deny that this place was standing and now it's gone and you said you were going to protect it. And that's where campaigns are moving and that's certainly where we're taking our work to instant transparency.
Cody Simms (37:03):
What else do we need more of? Where do you see the future of action evolving into?
Todd Paglia (37:10):
I really feel like there's a thirst out there. One of the reasons that we're growing both as far as our own team, but as well, growing the number of people participating in our campaigns is people really want to do something right now and a lot of times in their own location to impact change. So that's one of the other campaigns that we have that is really expanding. It's actually kind of a unique campaign in that we have more people wanting to do the work than we have people to help them figure out how to do it, and that's our Safe Cities campaign.
(37:42):
Cities are the source of 70% of global emissions. Cities can also be a source of huge decarbonization. And the Safe Cities campaign works with cities all over the US. We now have new campaigners working in Canada, we've mapped out Europe as well, and anyone who wants to change what their city's doing, whether it's fossil fuels, banning gas stations, building electrification, wind and solar, you can go to the Safe Cities campaign and plug in and this is what we're seeing more and more of is that people want real tangible outcomes now. That's a huge area that is growing and we need even more of it in the future.
Cody Simms (38:23):
So the idea there will be, you'll basically allow people to become local evangelists or outreach coordinators in their cities, I presume, in a volunteer capacity in some way, shape or form?
Todd Paglia (38:35):
Yes. And so what we do is we do the legal analysis to figure out what kind of ordinance or local regulation can accomplish the goals that they're seeking. So whether it's gas station bans, building electrification, wind and solar, we create the ordinance. We then work with the city council, the mayor and the county council, as well as local advocates to move those policies forward, and we're getting people from all over North America volunteering and working to push their cities to go green fast.
Cody Simms (39:05):
I don't know if this episode will be live by the time ours ships, but I recorded last week with Ari Matusiak, the CEO of Rewiring America, and Ari mentioned that they're creating a similar kind of local based, call it evangelism program or advocacy program for volunteers to be local points of contact to help people deal with electrification issues in their city or their town. So clearly, I think you just put your finger on a trend that we're starting to see more of.
Todd Paglia (39:29):
And I think it's so hopeful and encouraging that people all around the world want their local government to make the change happen and they're willing to put their time and effort and sometimes their own money into making that change happen and it's just great to see.
Cody Simms (39:44):
Other ways that concerned listeners or everyday folks can get involved and help in the work you're doing?
Todd Paglia (39:50):
Stand.earth is our website, we're on LinkedIn, all the social media platforms. We have people join us every day to work on the Amazon, to work on their own city to work on shipping. And so we have over a million people working on our campaigns and we really want that number to go up to more like 5 million in the next five years, so come on in.
Cody Simms (40:12):
By working on your campaigns, you mean helping to amplify, helping to contribute data or information? What does that mean exactly?
Todd Paglia (40:20):
All of the above, as well as going to, I'll give you an example. So, one of the companies we're pushing to decarbonize more aggressively is Amazon.com. They're also right down the street from us in Seattle. And on Prime Day we created a huge stencil on the street in front of their headquarters that said Amazon Prime Polluter. And it was aimed at the employees and we have put out a report on Amazon's impacts, and those were volunteers. Those people who got up at 2:00 AM, to volunteer, to basically close the road off in front of Amazon's headquarters, create this huge message that ended up reverberating around the world through media, social media and elsewhere. And those are the kind of people that if you've been working with us for a while, you can dive in that deep. If you're just looking to help move your local city council, get your foot in the water, we will do that too. But really as deep as you want to go, you can go there with Stand.earth.
Cody Simms (41:19):
All right, I can't help but dive into the specifics of that one. So Amazon Prime Polluter you said, and Amazon Prime is an incredibly convenient platform for people to get what they need. It's, in my experience, very unlikely you're going to convince individuals to stop using it. So instead, you're pushing Amazon to make the service cleaner, more environmentally friendly. What are the big things that need to happen?
Todd Paglia (41:45):
I mean, the biggest thing that Amazon could do is electrify the last mile of delivery. You buy something on Amazon Prime, it originates in a factory probably in China, ends up at your doorstep. If you look at just the transportation carbon impacts, half of it is in the last mile, meaning from the local warehouse to your front door. That's all possible to be electrified. And what amazon.com has done is they're a big investor in Rivian. They had a potential to order up to a 100,000 electric trucks, they went with the bare minimum of 10,000. They're slowing down and we want them to accelerate. And I think the key is going to be, like I've said many times on this podcast, the employees at amazon.com, they want that change to happen. And I think you're going to see Amazon starting to ramp that back up as they start facing headwinds in their own company because the employees don't want to see what's happening with minimizing electrification in the last mile.
Cody Simms (42:47):
I have to ask, just for my own knowledge, what about the cardboard boxes? Is that causing issues generally in forestry?
Todd Paglia (42:53):
Yes. All packaging is a significant problem. Plastic packaging, the cardboard, the paperboard, it all needs to be much more sustainable. The piece that we're asking Amazon to deal with right now though is last mile, and I think that's the biggest priority and the one that's so easy to solve, they're not short on cash, they can ramp up their purchase of electric vehicles.
Cody Simms (43:15):
All right, Todd, well you've been really generous with your time and listeners may not know this, but you're actually on vacation right now while you're having a conversation with us, so I'm so grateful that you've joined us. I mean, the last thing we haven't talked about is you. So you've been at Stand.earth since 1999, and then it looks like before that you worked for Ralph Nader.
Todd Paglia (43:34):
I did, yes.
Cody Simms (43:35):
So maybe give us a little bit about your background and what got you into this journey in the first place.
Todd Paglia (43:38):
My journey goes back a lot further. So, I grew up in upstate New York and my parents were living the American dream. My dad was kicked out of high school, was a vacuum cleaner salesman, a pool shark, eventually got back on a more traditional route working at a big utility company and he got promoted every two years from a meter reader going into your basement to a senior vice president with 5,000 people reporting to him. But we moved every two years and the thing that was a constant for me was the forest.
(44:13):
Fishing, hunting, and that's what got me into environmental issues and the forest have always been my home in a lot of ways and I wanted to do something to give back, and that's how I ended up getting interested in forest protection, became a lawyer, worked for Ralph Nader and what I found is that campaigns and the activism I was doing for Ralph moved a lot more quickly than law and I ended up getting out of the law relatively quickly and helping start Stand.earth and it's been 20 something years. It's been super fun, lots of impact and it's been a great adventure.
Cody Simms (44:49):
Well, thanks obviously for the work that you are doing and the knowledge that you're now helping to share for folks who want to follow along with your latest reports, your latest insights, what are the best places to follow Stand.earth's work?
Todd Paglia (45:03):
Probably LinkedIn is one of our best places, also just the Stand.earth website. There's a lot coming out almost every day on what we're up to and we'd love to have more folks join us.
Cody Simms (45:13):
Todd, thanks so much for your time.
Todd Paglia (45:14):
Thanks Cody, appreciate it.
Jason Jacobs (45:16):
Thanks again for joining us on My Climate Journey podcast.
(45:20):
At MCJ Collective, we're all about powering collective innovation for climate solutions by breaking down silos and unleashing problem solving capacity.
(45:29):
If you'd like to learn more about MCJ Collective, visit us at mcjcollective.com. And if you have a guest suggestion, let us know that via Twitter @mcjpod.
Yin Lu (45:42):
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Jason Jacobs (45:52):
Thanks and see you next episode.
