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Corporate America’s commitment to environmental justice has been tepid to non-existent. Several factors explain this absence of commitment, including a fear of lawsuits from high community pollution levels, opposition to revising operating permits by regulatory agencies, potential citizen protests to plant site expansions, and corporations’ broader reluctance to discuss their economic and political power in…

Universities across the country are embracing solar energy to help power their campuses, become more sustainable, and save money. Proving that point, here are three major announcements U.S. universities made in late May alone. Brigham Young University–Hawaii Brigham Young University–Hawaii announced completion of a campus-wide renewable energy system that includes rooftop solar, carport solar, and…

Comprehensive retrofits of commercial buildings can reduce their energy use by up to 40 percent but are not happening anywhere near the scale needed to meet climate goals, according to a report released by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). With new federal funds available for such energy-saving upgrades, the report offers a…

NFPA Today – June 03, 2022 Over the past several months, I have noticed a few incidents occurring in mercantile occupancies that have raised some questions related to the allowable delay between sprinkler activation and fire alarm notification in the event of a fire, which is governed by NFPA 72®, National Fire Alarm and Signaling…

  I don’t do well with unresolved conflict. If there’s an elephant in the room, I want to address it. One of our family legends stems from a time we were driving in Sydney, Australia with an unspoken conflict brewing between my daughters in the back seat. I asked them to sort it out but…

When patients visit a healthcare facility, they are not thinking about how many kilowatt-hours of energy the facility is using, or how the facility may be reducing its cubic feet of natural gas consumption annually. When patients visit a healthcare facility, they are thinking about the care they’re going to receive. As healthcare facility managers,…

System change is a large opportunity for the corporate and financial sectors. It soon will be an essential component of the most advanced corporate sustainability and responsible investing strategies. These fields have become mainstream over the past 20 years. The global sustainable/responsible investing (SRI) market is about $40 trillion. Corporate sustainability and SRI have provided…

As codes evolve and change, technology is changing at an even more rapid pace. Here’s what you need to keep your occupants safe and sound. Emergency lighting is an important part of a facility’s overall emergency preparedness plan. Functional and effective emergency lighting can literally save lives in the case of any type of facility…

Amid the increased prominence of sustainability in policymaking and legislation, there is a huge opportunity for chief finance officers to take the lead in corporate accountability. The common perspective that the CFO’s responsibilities should not extend beyond the traditional parameters of corporate finance and risk management is increasingly being challenged by shifts in the business…

Automation will grow exponentially in most sectors within the next few years. For example, robotic process automation (RPA), which uses bots to mimic routine cognitive human tasks, is set to explode. According to research cited by Oracle, the RPA market is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40.6% between 2020…