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The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. PFAS contamination is everywhere: clothing, household products, even the water we drink. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), aka forever chemicals, are engineered to last, making them commonplace in manufacturing but devastating to human health and the environment. While regulators scramble to set new limits, traditional water treatment methods arent keeping up. For industry, this is an environmental crisis and a business imperative. Investing in PFAS removal and destruction technologies can help the industries contributing to PFAS contamination mitigate risks, open new markets, keep pace with regulations, and earn trust in an era where sustainability and operational efficiency are key business drivers. The true cost of inaction Studies suggest that PFAS has contaminated almost 50% of the U.S. tap water supply. These chemicals are linked to a growing list of health risks, including cancers and chronic diseases. Many global institutions have recently taken regulatory action. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed stringent limits for PFAS in drinking water. Meanwhile, the European Union is considering a near-total PFAS ban in consumer products. But PFAS contamination isnt just a regulatory headache, its also a massive financial burden. One report estimates that decontaminating Europe from PFAS could cost at least 100 billion annually and 2 trillion over two decades. In the U.S., the EPA projects that public drinking water systems will need $1.5 billion per year to meet proposed PFAS limits. The American Water Works Association suggests that cost could exceed $3.8 billion annually, and thats for just two PFAS compounds (PFOA and PFOS) out of thousands. Beyond drinking water, recent studies expose another major PFAS concern: wastewater and sludge. Treated wastewater, often considered safe for reuse, has been found to still carry significant levels of PFAS. Even more concerning is the widespread practice of using treated sewage sludge as farm fertilizer. The EPA has warned that PFAS in sludge can contaminate crops, soil, and groundwater, creating a direct pathway from industrial chemical waste to the food we eat. Industries from agriculture to consumer goods face supply chain disruptions, product recalls, and legal battles over PFAS exposure. This is a problem that cant be ignored. The question isnt whether businesses should act, its whether they can afford not to. Why industry leadership is essential Government action alone isnt enough to tackle PFAS contamination effectively. The private sectors speed, resources, and innovation are crucial to addressing PFAS contamination. Public utilities and municipalities often lack the funding and technical expertise to implement cutting-edge solutions on their own. Businesses, especially those in water treatment, chemical manufacturing, and waste management, have both the responsibility and capability to lead the charge in PFAS decontamination. This leadership goes beyond compliance and represents a real opportunity. Companies that invest in next-generation PFAS treatment technologies will be well-positioned to meet growing demand from a range of stakeholders seeking to reduce their environmental footprint. Proactive companies can also shape industry standards, influence policy, and build reputations as sustainability leaders. Current solutions are falling short Many existing PFAS treatment methods are simply shifting the problem elsewhere. Most treatments remove the forever chemicals from water but create a new problem: concentrated waste. This waste is often incinerated or landfilled, practices that are costly, energy-intensive, and environmentally risky. In some cases, utilities transport PFAS-contaminated waste across state lines for disposal. This effectively increases costs and emissions and shifts the contamination burden from one community to another, without solving the core problem. The real solution? Destroying PFAS at its source. The business case for on-site PFAS destruction Emerging technologies like electrochemical oxidation and micro-foam fractionation can eliminate PFAS at the molecular level rather than just concentrating and relocating it. These technologies offer a dual advantage: environmental safety and economic efficiency. By treating PFAS on site, companies reduce the risk of these toxic substances re-entering the environment and provide a cost-effective solution for municipalities and industrial users. For industries that rely on water (manufacturing, energy, pharmaceuticals), adopting these technologies is about more than complianceits about resilience. The time to lead is now A world in which PFAS no longer contaminates our food, water, or ecosystems is within reach. It requires bold industry action, leadership, and innovation. The fight against PFAS isnt confined to one sector; it demands collaboration across industries, from fashion and pharmaceuticals to agriculture and water management. By investing in sustainable water technologies, companies can create new markets and this will drive economic growth. Most importantly, this investment will safeguard public health. The PFAS crisis is here. Its global and its growing, but it is solvable. The question is not whether companies should address PFAS, but how fast they are willing to lead. With the right combination of innovation, investment, and accountability, businesses can turn the tide on PFAS pollution. Industry players who act now will be at the forefront of a cleaner and safer future, one that is more sustainable. Prakash Govindan is cofounder and COO of Gradiant.
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E-Commerce
The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. AI won’t replace doctors anytime soon. Despite the clickbait headlines and the reports of chatbots outperforming doctors on this-or-that clinical task, medicine will always dependliterally and figurativelyon human touch. What’s interesting, though, is how AI seems to be improving that human touch. Thanks to notetaking apps, doctors can stop typing and be more present in the precious minutes they spend with patients. AI-powered workflows are eliminating hours of admin work, easing care team burnout and freeing up clinicians to flex their human expertise where it’s needed most. ChatGPT is even coaching doctors on their bedside manner. Far from replacing them, AI is rehumanizing doctors and the patient experience. The hard work of accessing healthcare This melding of artificial and (human) emotional intelligencewhich I call AI+EQis unlocking a new golden age in healthcare. The very best doctors and nurses have always had a rare mix of experience, expertise, empathy, and emotional intelligence. But before AI, that secret sauce was near-impossible to bottle up and scale. That’s exactly what we’re doing now. Recent advances in generative AI, building on decades of innovation in machine learning and big data, are putting healthcare’s collective wisdom and horsepower into the hands of care teams everywhere, with far-reaching implications for medical education, clinical practice, and patient care. Here’s the catch, though: The 15 minutes (or less) that people spend with their doctor is a sliver of the overall healthcare experience. The rest of the time is spent in a maze of paperwork, logistics, unanswered questions, and financial stress. Choosing a health plan during open enrollment. Searching for in-network physicians. Deciphering deductibles and copaysand then, a few weeks later, deciphering bills and statements. Sitting on hold with your health plan, waiting in line at the pharmacy, and then waiting months (if you’re lucky) for another 15 minutes with your doctor. This is the hard, frustrating work of accessing and navigating healthcare. It makes people give up, disengage, and delay essential care, which is making us sicker and driving healthcare costs through the roof. Too little EQ AI+EQ is just as critical here as it is in the doctor’s office. AI might be helping doctors become more human, but that will only take us so far if the rest of the system remains inefficient, impersonal, and dehumanizing. People want high-quality healthcare that’s simple, personalized, and fast. Delivering that experience, at scale, will require baking EQnot just AIinto every layer of the system, from face time with doctors to the vast amounts of data generated by those face-to-face interactions and everything in between. Startups and established stakeholders will say they’re working on it. Health insurers are using AI to streamline claims processing and prior authorization. Navigation vendors are deploying chatbots to steer people to in-network physicians. Point solutions and digital health apps are using nudges to track patients and promote treatment adherence. Everybodyand I mean everybodyis using AI, or claiming to. (Except in this article, which is 100% human.) But as I look across the industry, I see a lot of AI and very little EQ. Be remembered as a person Too much innovation is happening in the same old silos. So much AI firepower is being deployed, and so little of it is connected or working in sync. We’re recreatingthis time with chatbotsthe same painful experience: filling out forms again and again, ferrying info from your doctor to your insurer (and back), logging into a dozen different apps. People basically now have a healthcare supercomputer on their smartphone, but they still need to introduce themselves to the system over and over, because the back end is as fragmented as ever. The friendliest chatbot in the world can only help you so much if it’s not talking to the other bots. The essence of a positive healthcare experience is feeling seen and heardand rememberedas a whole person, not as a user ID or a number in a system. When you call to ask about a hospital bill, the person on the phone already knows who you are,and which benefits you have. Your PCP knows your cardiologist just prescribed a new medication. Your diabetes coach knows you have a therapy appointment next week. This type of holistic, integrated care depends on holistic, integrated data and systemsspecifically, systems powered by AI and designed with EQ. How to implement AI+EQ What does AI+EQ look like at the systems level? First, it means building platforms and partnerships that break down data silos to thoughtfully (and securely) connect clinical insights, medical and pharmacy claims, info on social and financial context, and the myriad other data points that help us build a three-dimensional picture of individuals. Second, it means making that data visible and available to the entire teamnot just doctors and nurses, but also pharmacists, case managers, advocates, support staff, and yes, chatbotsso they’re all looking at the same 3D person and can seamlessly communicate and collaborate. Third, and most important, the whole system needs to be led and overseen by clinicians, partnering with engineers and data scientists to use their collective EQ to ensure that AI models and algorithms are evidence-based, free from bias, informed by human empathy and expertise, and built to deliver optimal clinical and financial outcomes for everyone involved: patients, providers, and purchasers. If we want to create a modern and personalized healthcare experience, the doctor’s office is just the tip of the iceberg. The real transformation will flow from the hard work deep below the surface to ensure that AI and EQ are coming together system-wide to delier the healthcare experience we humans have all been waiting for. Owen Tripp is cofounder and CEO of Included Health.
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E-Commerce
OpenAI on Monday launched its new AI model GPT-4.1, along with smaller versions GPT-4.1 mini and GPT-4.1 nano, touting major improvements in coding, instruction following, and long context comprehension. The new models, available only on OpenAI’s application programming interface (API), outperform the company’s most advanced GPT-4o model across the board, the ChatGPT maker said. With improved context understanding, they can support up to 1 million “tokens” a term that refers to the units of data processed by an AI model. The models are also equipped with refreshed knowledge up to June 2024. GPT-4.1 showed a 21% improvement over GPT-4o and 27% over GPT-4.5 on coding. Meanwhile, the improvements in instruction following and long context comprehension also make the GPT-4.1 models more effective at powering AI agents. “Benchmarks are strong, but we focused on real-world utility, and developers seem very happy,” CEO Sam Altman said in a post on social media platform X. The family of models also operate at a “much lower cost” compared to GPT-4.5, OpenAI said. The company added it would turn off the GPT-4.5 preview that is available in the API in July, as the new models offer “improved or similar performance.” OpenAI in February released the GPT-4.5 research preview for some users and developers and announced plans to expand access in subsequent weeks. Deborah Sophia, Reuters
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