Recent Posts

Most Used Categories

Author: Sponsored Content

Land of Waste: American Landfills by State

by Sponsored Content

The following content is sponsored by Northstar Clean Technologies

Land of Waste: American Landfills by State

Each American produces a whopping 1,700 pounds of waste every year, making the United States the world’s most wasteful country.

Approximately half of the country’s yearly waste will meet its fate in one of the more than 2,000 active landfills across the nation.

In this graphic by Northstar Clean Technologies, we map and compare different states’ landfill waste per capita, using data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

States With Highest Tons of Waste Per Person

Upper Midwestern and eastern industrial states rank highly on the trash-per-capita list, with Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio taking the top five spots.

The availability of cheap landfill space in Michigan attracts trucked-in garbage from out of state and even from Canada. That’s because, under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, waste is considered a commodity, and states and counties cannot restrict its import or export from other states or even other countries.

The state also faces challenges with recycling. Michigan’s statewide recycling rate is around 18%, while the national recycling rate is 32%.

StateTons of Waste in Landfills per Person
Michigan66.5
Indiana59.9
Pennsylvania57.4
Illinois54.8
Ohio52.4
Wisconsin51.8
California50.4
Nevada48.4
Colorado47.0
Kentucky46.8

Some states are accumulating new landfill waste faster than others. Indiana leads the nation with an annual “landfill waste acceptance rate” of 2.35 tons per year per resident.

States with Fewest Tons of (Read more...)

BlackRock MyMap: Designed for First-Time Investors

by Sponsored Content

Whether you’re sending your kids to university or preparing for retirement, meeting future financial needs can be a mighty challenge.

This is due to the many economic issues that eat away at your savings. Inflation, for example, is increasing the cost of gas, groceries, and other daily necessities. The COVID-19 pandemic, on the other hand, has thrown a wrench into many people’s personal finances.

Starting Your Investment Journey

This infographic from BlackRock introduces their MyMap range of multi-asset investment funds, and describes the benefits to first-time investors.

BlackRock MyMap Funds

Today’s Savings Struggles

The above infographic highlighted three savings struggles that make it difficult to meet your future financial goals.

The first is inflation, which refers to the increase in prices of goods and services over time. To understand how inflation can erode the value of your savings, consider this example:

  • £100 worth of goods in 2000 would cost £179 in 2021
  • £100 worth of goods in 1980 would cost £456 in 2021

In other words, inflation reduces the purchasing power of your savings over time.

The second savings struggle is increasing longevity, also known as longer life expectancies. Living a longer life is generally a good thing, but it does increase the risk of outliving your savings. Coming up with a solid retirement plan is becoming more important than ever.

A third struggle is the COVID-19 pandemic, which appears to be having a long-term impact on UK households. In a December 2021 survey, UK families were asked to (Read more...)

Exploring The Consumer Potential of Plant-Based Alternatives

by Sponsored Content

10 things investors should know about the plant-based food market Part 1 of 6
Why the 2020s are a watershed decade for plant-based alternatives Part 2 of 6
Plant-based meat vs. animal meat Part 3 of 6
From bean to burger 4 of 6
Plant-based consumer potential 5 of 6
5 innovations in plant-based technology 6 of 6

The following content is sponsored by The Very Good Food Company

Exploring The Consumer Potential of Plant-Based Alternatives

Plant-based alternatives have exploded in recent years, and by 2030 the total market value is predicted to surpass a whopping $161 billion. The steady growth of this market goes hand-in-hand with another trend: consumers are increasingly being spoilt for choice.

Alternatives products are expanding and evolving in order to offer the same variety as the conventional meat market. Innovative technologies are helping new plant-based products rival animal products in look, taste, texture, and even nutrition.

This infographic from the Very Good Food Company (VGFC) provides a detailed look at the range of plant-based alternatives that could take the market’s consumer potential to the next level.

The Universe of Plant-Based Alternatives

There are four major categories for plant-based meat: natural meat mimickers, functional meat substitutes, meatless meat, and vegetable-forward products. How do they stack up?

Natural meat mimickersProvide meatless products with a savory mouthfeel, and are naturally high in fiber /proteinExamples: Legumes e.g. beans peas, lentils, pressed vegetables, mushrooms, jackfruit
Functional meat substitutesMay not taste exactly like meat, but have similar textures and flavorsExamples: Textured vegetable protein e.g. soya chunks, Unprocessed binders e.g. zucchini, carrot, coconut, beans, tofu, tempeh, seitan
Meatless meatReplicates meat’s typical characteristics, sometimes by combining natural meat mimickers and functional meat substitutesExamples: Impossible Burger,
Beyond Burger

These products appeal to "flexitarian" consumers, but can be highly processed
Vegetable-forwardDoesn’t try to replicate meat exactly, (Read more...)

How Ending Tropical Deforestation Can Keep Global Warming Below 1.5°C

by Sponsored Content

The following content is sponsored by The LEAF Coalition.

How Ending Tropical Deforestation Can Keep Global Warming Below 1.5°C

How Ending Tropical Deforestation Can Keep Global Warming Below 1.5°C

In the case of global warming, a few degrees make all the difference.

The United Nations’ latest IPCC report emphasizes that the Earth is on a collision course with catastrophic climate change—that is unless, in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement, the global rise in temperatures can be limited to 1.5°C.

To achieve this however, the world will need to significantly reduce its carbon emissions. Today’s graphic from The LEAF Coalition highlights how protecting forests is essential to this process.

Tropical Deforestation: A Carbon Emissions Culprit

According to the World Economic Forum, to keep to a 1.5°C pathway by 2030, we’ll need to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half. For this trajectory to be maintained in 2050, emissions need to be completely eliminated.

However, tropical deforestation accounts for 10% of global carbon (CO₂) emissions today, which is comparable to the emissions outputs of entire countries.

 Est. Annual CO₂e Emissions
🇨🇳 China12.4 Gt/year
🇺🇸 U.S.6.0 Gt/year
🌳 Tropical tree cover loss5.3 Gt/year

In fact, combined emissions from tropical tree cover loss, including activities of deforestation, rival annual emissions from major emitters, coming in third just after China and the United States.

Protecting Forests is Key

The urgency of ending tropical deforestation to curb emissions cannot be understated. If in the previously mentioned 2030 scenario, it is assumed that emissions have already dropped steeply, deforestation today would still need (Read more...)

ESG Data: The Four Motivations Driving Usage

by Sponsored Content

Environmental Markets Part 1 of 3
ESG Data Part 2 of 3
Sustainability Indices Part 3 of 3

The following content is sponsored by ICE.

ESG Data Motivations

ESG Data: The Four Motivations Driving Usage

Data is key to the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) revolution. Access to granular ESG data can help boost transparency for market participants. Unfortunately, 63% of U.S. and European asset managers say a lack of quantitative data inhibits their ESG implementation.

Being clear on the potential application of this data is equally important.

  • Investors and banks can use ESG data for risk assessment, to spot opportunities, and to push companies for change.
  • Companies can publish their own ESG data, quantify progress on their ESG goals, and use data to inform decisions.
  • Policymakers can use ESG data to inform regulatory frameworks and measure policy effectiveness.

This graphic from ICE, the second in a three part series on the ESG toolkit, explores four primary motivations of ESG data users.

1. Right Thing

The objective: Having a positive social or environmental impact.

For investors, this can involve screening out companies that conflict with their values and selecting companies that align with their ESG objectives.

As another example, it can involve comparing the social impact of municipal bonds. One way investors can measure social impact is through scores that quantify the potential socioeconomic need of an area, using metrics like poverty and education levels. Here are the social impact scores for three actual municipal bonds issued in Florida.

StateBond IssuerSocial Impact Score
(Higher = larger potential impact)
FloridaIssuer #176.5
FloridaIssuer #266.6
(Read more...)

The Hierarchy of Zero Waste

by Sponsored Content

The following content is sponsored by Northstar Clean Technologies

Zero Waste Infographic

The Hierarchy of Zero Waste

Many cities have set ambitious zero waste targets in the upcoming decades.

The idea is to have communities where waste generation is avoided, and products are shared, reused, or refurbished.

This graphic, sponsored by Northstar Clean Technologies, shows the main strategies and hierarchy to guide zero waste policies.

What is Zero Waste?

In a world that generates approximately 2 billion tons of waste every year, waste management has become a global concern. Thus, countries and cities are increasing efforts to reduce or even eliminate waste when possible.

The Zero Waste International Alliance defines zero waste as “the conservation of all resources  by means of responsible production, consumption, reuse, and recovery of products, packaging, and materials without burning and with no discharges to land, water, or air that threaten the environment or human health.”

Becoming a zero waste community, however, is a complex task.

Currently, Sweden recycles 99% of locally-produced waste and is considered the best country in the world when it comes to recycling and reusing waste. However, such results only came after almost 40 years of recycling and reuse policies.

In line with this, here are seven commonly accepted steps you can use to achieve zero waste:

1. Rethink, Redesign Products

The global population consumes 110 billion tons of materials each year, but only 8.6% is reused or recycled. In a zero waste society, single-use products are avoided and products are designed with sustainable (Read more...)

Visualizing Raw Material Inflation in Canada

by Sponsored Content

The following content is sponsored by Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters.

Raw material inflation in Canada

Raw Material Inflation in Canada

Inflation in Canada is climbing, and it has impacted the raw materials manufacturers use to produce goods. In fact, raw material prices have climbed 37% year-over-year on average.

More than half of manufacturers say this is one of their top challenges. In this graphic from Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters (CME), we show which materials have seen the biggest price spikes over the last year.

Inflation by Raw Material

The table below shows the rate of inflation in Canada for select raw materials from May 2021 to May 2022.

Raw MaterialCategoryPrice Change
(May 2021-May 2022)
CoalCrude Energy95.2%
Crude Oil & BitumenCrude Energy85.0%
WheatCrops73.4%
Natural GasCrude Energy50.3%
Beans, Peas, & LentilsCrops43.3%
Logs & Forestry ProductsForestry Products & Natural Rubber42.1%
Scrap MetalMetal Ores & Scrap40.3%
Canola/RapeseedCrops30.6%
PotashNon-metallic Minerals24.7%
Fish & Fishery ProductsAnimal Products23.7%
Lead & Zinc OresMetal Ores & Scrap21.2%
Cattle & CalvesAnimal Products10.2%
Eggs in ShellAnimal Products8.4%
PoultryAnimal Products8.3%
Sand, Gravel, & ClayNon-metallic Minerals8.1%
Fresh Fruit & NutsCrops8.0%
Nickel OresMetal Ores & Scrap5.8%
Tin, Iron Alloys, & Other OresMetal Ores & Scrap3.3%
Gold OresMetal Ores & Scrap2.1%
Natural RubberForestry Products & Natural Rubber1.4%

Crude energy materials led the rise, with the price of (Read more...)

Operational Health Tech: A New Billion Dollar Market

by Sponsored Content

The following content is sponsored by Bloom Health Partners

Operational Health Tech: A New Billion Dollar Market

Many lessons were learned throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, but what has become most apparent is the need to invest in healthcare on all fronts. In fact in just a few short years, businesses, governments, and consumers have had to entirely reassess healthcare in ways not quite seen before.

What’s more, this elevated importance placed on health could be here to stay, and one area in particular is poised for significant growth: operational health tech.

The graphic above from our sponsor Bloom Health Partners dives into the burgeoning market that is operational health tech, and reveals the key driving forces behind it.

What is Operational Health?

To start, operational health is an industry that provides health services to employees to help keep companies running smoothly.

A critical piece of operational health is workplace health, which is expected to soar in value. From 2021 to 2025, the market for workplace health is expected to grow 200% from $6.5 billion to $19.5 billion.

The industry is undergoing a tremendous amount of innovation, specifically in relation to technological advances.

Operational Health Tech: Disrupting Healthcare

The operational health tech industry is disrupting traditional healthcare by providing direct services to employees in the workplace.

For decades now, the U.S. has increasingly become a statistical outlier for healthcare spending relative to health outcomes. For instance, the average American incurs $9,000 in healthcare spending per year, nearly twice that of (Read more...)

How Environmental Markets Advance Net Zero

by Sponsored Content

Environmental Markets Part 1 of 3
ESG Data Part 2 of 3
Sustainability Indices Part 3 of 3

The following content is sponsored by ICE.

How Environmental Markets are Advancing Net Zero

How Environmental Markets Advance Net Zero

In 2021, roughly 20% of global carbon emissions were covered by carbon pricing mechanisms.

Meanwhile, the global price of carbon increased 91%, bolstered by government, corporate, and investor demand. This puts traditional fuel sources at a disadvantage, instead building the investment case for renewables.

This infographic from ICE, the first in a three part series on the ESG toolkit, explores how environmental markets work and their role in the fight against climate change.

What are Environmental Markets?

First, meeting a goal of net zero carbon emissions involves limiting the use of the world’s finite carbon budget to meet a 1.5°C pathway.

Achieving net zero requires us to:

  • Change how we utilize energy and transition to less carbon-intensive fuels
  • Put a value on the conservation of nature or “natural capital” and carbon sinks, which accumulate and store carbon

Environmental markets facilitate the pathway to net zero by valuing externalities, such as placing a cost on pollution and placing a price on carbon storage. This helps balance the carbon cycle to manage the carbon budget in the most cost-effective manner.

What Is the Carbon Budget?

To keep temperatures 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, we have just 420 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO₂ remaining in the global carbon budget. At current rates, this remaining carbon budget is projected to be consumed by 2030 if no reductions are made.

Carbon Budget1.5°C1.7°C2.0°C
Remaining GtCO₂4207701270
Consumed GtCO₂ (Read more...)

Global Trade Series: The Benefits of Free Trade

by Sponsored Content

Data Highlights the Importance of Free Trade Part 1 of 3
Hinrich Part 2 of 3
Hinrich Part 3 of 3

The following content is sponsored by the Hinrich Foundation.

Free Trade Infographic

Hinrich Foundation

The Benefits of Free Trade

History has shown that trade can be a powerful engine for economic growth. Despite this, the number of protectionist policies enacted around the world has increased.

This is due to a rising tendency to view trade as a competition, rather than a cooperative endeavor. For evidence, consider the ongoing China-U.S. trade war, which has impacted everything from electronics to soybeans.

The economic costs of this dispute are well-documented. In 2019, Moody’s Analytics found that the trade war had cost America 300,000 jobs. In 2020, the Federal Reserve concluded that U.S. firms had lost $1.7 trillion in market capitalization due to the introduction of new tariffs.

In this infographic from the Hinrich Foundation—the first of a three-part series on global trade—we explain the theory behind free trade and explore a powerful dataset that disproves the rationale for protectionist policies.

Why Do We Trade?

The main reason countries trade is to specialize their production. This is when a country’s population is able to focus on what it does best. For example, consider Germany’s expertise in automobiles, or America’s leadership in tech.

These countries use their comparative advantages to generate a greater surplus than if they produced all of their needs on their own. Through exchange, they can trade their surplus output (exports) for the output of others (imports).

Imports are what facilitate the benefits of trade. These are goods that people consume without having (Read more...)