Stories from Andrew Kaminsky
Nature
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
Can Good Samaritans Fix America’s $60 Billion Abandoned Mine Problem?
Organizations across the U.S. want to clean up abandoned mines, but federal laws could hold them liable for centuries-old pollution if they try. The new Good Samaritan Act shields them from legacy abandoned mine liability issues, but will it be enough?
October 22
Sponsored
Bringing Tires Full Circle: How Traceability Enhances Recovery and Sustainability
From Highway to Hockey Rink: How Tires Are Recycled Into New Products
Scientists have yet to figure out how to recycle old tires into new ones at scale, but they can still find valuable second lives in new rubber products. We took a peek behind the tire recycling curtain to find out what really happens to tires when they retire and where they go next.
September 16
Alternative Economies
Money Trees: Paraguay’s Carbon Market Strategy Comes into Focus
The global compliance carbon market is opening a big financial opportunity, and Paraguay is prepared to make the most of it.
April 28
Corporate Responsibility
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
Panama’s Copper Crisis: What a $20B Lawsuit Says About Investor Power
A Canadian mining giant is using a $20 billion lawsuit to pressure Panama into reopening a controversial copper mine. The case exposes how international investment agreements can undermine democracy, and why experts are calling for fairer investment frameworks worldwide.
April 13
Technology
E-waste is Illegally Flowing to Asia, Even as Certifiers Try to Close the Loopholes
E-waste recycling is meant to keep old electronics out of landfills and ensure they’re handled responsibly, but gaps in oversight mean American waste is still shipped to landfills in Southeast Asia. The leading certification bodies are weighing in on what needs to change.
February 6
Sponsored
Bringing Tires Full Circle: How Traceability Enhances Recovery and Sustainability
Where Do My Old Tires Go? eTracks Has the Answer
Jurisdictions around the world have put laws on the books to incentivize tire recovery and recycling. But to enforce those rules, they need visibility into where tires come from and where they go. That's where the eSustainable Recovery Platform comes in.
November 10, 2025
Technology
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
The Blockchain Solution for the World’s Most Problematic Minerals
Minerals pass through countless hands before reaching manufacturers, making it nearly impossible to trace the ethics of their origins. In Rwanda, one tin smelter turned to blockchain to bring transparency and trust to its supply chain.
November 7, 2025
Sponsored
Sourced with Purpose
Brands Come Together to Raise Awareness of the Only Fair Product Label That Goes Beyond the Farm Gate
Fair for Life is more stringent than other fair standards, but consumer awareness of the label remains low. Certified brands are joining forces to help more people understand what the certification is all about.
October 8, 2025
Justice + Equality
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
Is It Really a Just Transition If We Don’t Talk About Supporting Artisanal Miners?
Nearly 45 million people worldwide mine minerals by hand, often without legal recognition or protections. Formalizing artisanal and small-scale mining could secure supply chains while providing workers with safety standards, financial support and legal recognition.
October 6, 2025
Energy
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
How to Regulate an Unregulated Area: The Deep-Sea Mining Challenge
As interest in deep-sea mining heats up, international lawmakers are struggling to decide how to regulate international waters. Creative solutions that ensure equitable benefit sharing are on the table.
September 11, 2025
Finance
The Rise of Mega-Scale Forest Carbon Credit Programs
As deforestation rapidly erases habitats and emits carbon, fast action is needed to reverse it. Jurisdictional forest protection programs are expanding, but are they enough?
September 8, 2025
Nature
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
Is Deep-Sea Mining As Harmful As Mining On Land?
The deep sea holds metals necessary for the clean energy transition, but at what environmental cost?
August 18, 2025
Finance
Plastic Credits Have a Bad Rep, PCX Hopes to Change That
Every year, millions of tons of plastic leaks into the environment, with only 9 percent ever getting recycled. A new initiative funds plastic cleanup and recycling efforts, providing companies with a verified source of recycled plastic.
August 1, 2025
Nature
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
The Cook Islands’ Dilemma: To Mine or Not to Mine
While companies, countries, regulators, and researchers quarrel over whether and how to pursue a global deep-sea mining industry, the Cook Islands is slowly marching towards becoming the first place in the world to do it.
July 8, 2025
Nature
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
Is Responsible Deep-Sea Mining Possible? Experts Say Maybe
Deep-sea mining could help meet the surging demand for clean energy minerals with fewer social harms. But without a true understanding of the environmental impacts and a lack of global regulations, the path ahead is in uncharted waters.
June 9, 2025
Technology
This Company Can Make Plastic With 90% Less Fossil Fuels: Is That Enough?
By swapping fossil fuels for agricultural waste, Applied Bioplastics makes plastics cheaper, stronger and lower-impact. It won’t end plastic pollution, but it could help manufacturers and buyers cut carbon in a world still obsessed with plastic.
May 6, 2025
Alternative Economies
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
How Dark Matter and Hydropower Saved Mining Communities From Collapse
When a mine closes, people, towns and even countries lose a significant source of revenue. With an estimated 500,000 abandoned mines in the United States alone, repurposing mining sites helps support the surrounding community and mitigate negative impacts.
February 24, 2025
Food + Farming
Why the Māori and a U.S. Business Came Together to Grow Seaweed
A Māori tribe in Aotearoa — the Māori-language name for New Zealand — is partnering with an innovative seaweed company to bring seaweed farming, and its economic and environmental benefits, to the country's northeast coast.
December 12, 2024
Corporate Responsibility
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
Zero Waste Mining: Creating Opportunities From a Billion-Ton Problem
Mines produce an enormous amount of waste, some of which is highly toxic. But researchers and mine waste management companies say zero waste mining could become a reality, and it would be in the best economic interests of mining companies.
December 10, 2024
Energy
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
Small Changes, Big Impact: These Lithium Battery Innovations Can Transform Lives
Companies and researchers around the world are finding new ways to improve the internal composition of lithium-ion batteries to create better-performing, more sustainable and lower-cost alternatives.
November 22, 2024
Justice + Equality
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
Will the World Bank's New Policy Reduce the Environmental and Social Harms of Clean Energy?
The World Bank recently released its long-awaited Approach to Responsible Exit policy. It's designed to ensure risks to communities are managed responsibly when it exits a project investment. Will it be effective?
November 18, 2024
Energy
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
Lithium is Good, But What Are Some Better Battery Alternatives?
Lithium-ion batteries are the current standard, but there's room for improvement. In the newest installment of our responsible mining series, Andrew Kaminsky explores the benefits of alternative batteries and the environmental and social implications of extracting minerals to scale their production. <br />
November 7, 2024
Alternative Economies
Renewables Are Expanding on Indigenous Lands, Co-Ownership Offers a Solution
Renewable energy co-ownership agreements between Indigenous communities and developers are on the rise. A new report looks at global examples to assess the benefits, gauge the risks, and provide guidance on how to ensure these partnerships can thrive.
October 21, 2024
Alternative Economies
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
How Co-Ownership Built a Strong Relationship Between an Indigenous Community and a Mining Company
Co-ownership could be a responsible mining solution to ensure communities can actually influence company decisions that affect them. Right now, it's very rare. But a partnership between the Tahltan Central Government and Skeena Resources shows it's possible.
October 8, 2024
Community Development
Tony the Tiger is Keeping U.S. Middle-Schoolers Engaged in Sports
Named after the Frosted Flakes cereal mascot, WK Kellogg Co.'s Mission Tiger initiative has provided 2 million sports experiences for youth at 3,000 schools across all 50 states.
September 16, 2024
Nature
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
From the Petri Dish to the Mine: These Microbes Dissolve Minerals
Mining companies are using microbes break up low-grade ores and release the desired metal. It's called biomining, and it can reduce the environmental and social impacts of the process.
September 9, 2024
Energy
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
These Plants Are Made of Metal, And They Might Be the Fix the Clean Energy Transition Needs
Scientists discovered a group of plants that accumulate significant amounts of critical minerals like nickel from the soil around them. Now, they're exploring mining plants, a process called phytomining, to help supply the minerals needed to power the clean energy transition.
September 3, 2024
Corporate Responsibility
Ceres' New Guidance Shows Leaders How to Build a Climate Plan Step-By-Step
When it comes to building a climate transition plan, many companies don’t know where to start, are overwhelmed or fear they'll do it wrong. Ceres' new report walks through the different aspects of creating or evaluating a plan so companies can manage the risks and opportunities presented by climate change.
July 15, 2024
Finance
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
Closing the Loopholes Mining Giants Use to Avoid Taxes
To avoid paying higher tax rates, multinational mining companies use strategies like shifting profits from the country of extraction to a low-tax country, doing an injustice to the countries and communities relying on that tax revenue. Several organizations are working to close these loopholes.
July 8, 2024
Justice + Equality
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
Mining Companies are Suing Governments, and It's Compromising Environmental and Human Rights Laws
Did you know companies can sue countries for enacting social and environmental protections that impact their projects? It's called an investor-state dispute settlement, and some say the mechanism is necessary to mobilize private investment. Human rights and environmental organizations disagree.
May 2, 2024
Justice + Equality
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
Empowering Indigenous Voices Might be the Key to a Successful Green Energy Transition
With 54 percent of transition mineral projects located on or near Indigenous peoples’ lands, getting free, prior, and informed consent from Indigenous communities for mining project development is one way to ensure they are not neglected as the green energy transition marches forward.
February 26, 2024
Corporate Responsibility
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
What Happened in Panama? How Transparency Measures Can Fight Corruption in Mining
In November, thousands of Panamanians took the streets to protest a copper mining contract. Their story is one of many unfolding around the world, in which corporate and government corruption make way for mining projects that harm the public good. Measures like the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative can help.
January 8, 2024
Finance
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
The Role of Development Banks in Mining Projects, and How Communities Can Hold Them Accountable
Development banks can offer an avenue for communities impacted by mining projects to seek justice. We take a closer look as part of "Undermining Progress," a solutions journalism series focused on human rights and environmental concerns tied to mining for the low-carbon energy transition.
December 4, 2023
Justice + Equality
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
The Energy Transition is Hiding a Human Rights Problem: Due Diligence ‘Takes the Cover Off’
While the mining industry still has a long way to go, human rights due diligence requires an intimate examination of supply chains and pushes the needle toward better and more just practices as the energy transition accelerates.
October 23, 2023
Justice + Equality
Undermining Progress: Human Rights and the Low-Carbon Transition
Hidden Costs: The Impacts of Net-Zero on Human Rights and the Environment
Renewable energy technologies require specific minerals like cobalt, copper and lithium, but mining these minerals has been linked to human rights abuses in some parts of the world.
October 13, 2023
Sponsored
Why Smart Leaders Care What Consumers Think About Brand ESG
Consumers Already Care About Sustainability, and Signs of Economic Recovery Could Shift Preferences Further
Sustainability is already top of mind for many consumers — and its relevance as a purchasing driver is quickly growing as the economy improves.
August 23, 2023
Sponsored
Putting Sustainability at the Center of Business
SAP, One of the World’s Largest Tech Companies, Aims to Tackle Scope 3 Emissions
Having almost 90 percent of the world’s financial and goods flows touch an SAP system, including nearly all carbon flows, the technology giant has access to the supply chain data that companies need to track and tackle the most challenging Scope 3 emissions along their value chains.
August 10, 2023
Sponsored
Board Ready: Governance for Responsible Leadership in ESG
ESG Amidst Inflation: 7 Governance Mechanisms That Drive Value Creation in the Consumer Packaged Goods Industry
Running a profitable business in the consumer packaged goods industry isn’t easy, especially when inflation has consumers pinching pennies. Strong corporate governance and commitment from the C-suite are how organizations can manage today’s business requirements and thrive under the opportunities that this new landscape presents.
May 5, 2023
Sponsored
Board Ready: Governance for Responsible Leadership in ESG
The Ripple Effect: How Good Governance Builds Outward in Commercial Banking
Governance in the commercial banking industry is complex — if not overwhelming. To shed some light on the topic, we can turn to the example of one bank that has been able to successfully manage its ESG obligations and emerge as a leader.
April 17, 2023
Corporate Responsibility
Mandatory Biodiversity Disclosures Are Coming, But Don’t Panic: Steps You Can Take to Prepare
The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) released the fourth beta version of its risk management framework today. It's one step closer to the eventuality of mandatory biodiversity disclosures — and companies should prepare sooner rather than later, says Carolin Leeshaa, TNFD taskforce member and biodiversity lead at KPMG Australia.
March 28, 2023
Corporate Responsibility
U.S. SEC Climate Disclosure Rules: What Are They, and How Can You Prepare?
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to release its much-anticipated climate disclosure rules for companies this spring. We asked William Theisen, CEO of the climate consultancy EcoAct North America, how leaders can best prepare for what's ahead.
February 16, 2023
Corporate Responsibility
Everything You Need To Know About the New Nature-Related Risk Disclosures
The U.N. Environment Program and S&P Global announced the Nature Risk Profile, a methodology to analyze how companies depend on and impact nature, at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos this week. Here's the need-to-know.
January 20, 2023
Corporate Responsibility
Buying Halloween Chocolate Too Often Legitimizes Human Rights Abuses on Cocoa Farms
About 90 million pounds of Halloween chocolate are purchased during this time, an impact that's often a dire one for many cocoa farmers in West Africa.
October 25, 2022
Sponsored
Why Smart Leaders Care What Consumers Think About Brand ESG
Everything You Need to Know to Improve Your ESG Communication Strategy
Effectively communicating performance is vital to avoid throwing away the hard work a business puts toward developing an environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy. We take a closer look at how brands can speak up — and what their stakeholders want to hear.
October 24, 2022
Community Development
Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Need More Say In Where Their Conservation Funding Goes
Indigenous peoples and local communities have relatively little say in how the conservation dollars meant to support them are actually spent. The decision-making is mostly left to large international organizations and multilateral institutions.
September 20, 2022
Energy
100 Percent Renewable Energy Systems Could Power the Globe By 2050
A new review concludes that a world powered and fueled by 100 percent renewable energy systems is absolutely feasible by 2050.
September 5, 2022
Community Development
Disaster Preparedness Hub in Caribbean Will Save Lives and Tons of Money
A disaster preparedness hub in Barbados will be more cost-effective, and may save more lives, than the usual reactive response to climate-related disasters.
August 25, 2022
Energy
CHERP: The Nonprofit Providing Free Solar Power to Low-Income Households
Next-generation solar panels manufactured by CHERP Solar Works will provide free solar energy to low-income households across the U.S.
August 19, 2022
Finance
Investors Need Transparent Reporting as ESG Funds See Record Investment
Consistent guidelines are needed to boost environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing, prevent greenwashing, and encourage companies to enact more sustainable business practices.<br />
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August 16, 2022
Energy
Students are Fed Up: They Want Governments and the Fossil Fuel Industry to File for Divorce
The End Fossil: Occupy movement is fed up with the fossil fuel industry and is planning worldwide student protests at schools and universities this autumn.
August 15, 2022
Finance
Amidst Criticism, ESG Reporting Should Be Reformed, Not Abandoned
Ambiguous language, confusing acronyms and unclear definitions detract from the insight that ESG reporting is meant to provide.
July 21, 2022
Community Development
Food Insecurity Is Becoming Worse — Here’s Why, and What We Can Do
Food insecurity is surging worldwide, with 750,000 people now at risk of starvation or death, and up to 50 million people at risk of succumbing to famine.
June 17, 2022
Energy
With Plastic Waste Expected to Triple By 2060, The U.S. Announces A Plastics Ban…Sort Of
A new report arrives at a stark conclusion that the world's growth of plastic waste will nearly triple by 2060 if no intervening action is taken.
June 13, 2022
Finance
High Pump Prices: Oil Lobby Says Blame Russia and Biden, But Economists Say It Ain’t So
A recent report shows how the U.S. energy sector in the is using the war between Russia and Ukraine to push for the expansion of fossil fuel production.<br />
June 6, 2022
Energy
Seneca Nation’s Journey to Bring Energy Sovereignty to Indigenous Communities
Seneca Solar is changing the way Indigenous communities interact with companies, starting by letting them own the energy assets on their own lands.
May 24, 2022