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Healthy coastal ecosystems play crucial roles in the U.S. economy, from supporting multibillion-dollar fisheries and tourism industries to protecting coastlines from storms. Theyre also difficult to manage, requiring specialized knowledge and technology. Thats why the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationthe federal agency best known for collecting and analyzing the data that make weather forecasts and warnings possibleleads most of the governments work on ocean and coastal health, as well as research into the growing risks posed by climate change. The government estimates that NOAAs projects and services support more than one-third of the nations gross domestic product. Yet, this is one of the agencies that the Trump administration has targeted, with discussions of trying to privatize NOAAs forecasting operations and disband its crucial climate change research. As a marine environmental historian who studies relationships among scientists, fishermen, and environmentalists, I have seen how NOAAs work affects American livelihoods, coastal health, and the U.S. economy. Here are a few examples from just NOAAs coastal work, and what it means to fishing industries and coastal states. Preventing fisheries from collapsing One of the oldest divisions within NOAA is the National Marine Fisheries Service, known as NOAA Fisheries. It dates to 1871, when Congress created the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries. At that time, the first generation of conservationists started to worry that Americas natural resources were finite. By conducting surveys and interviewing fishermen and seafood dealers, the fish commissioners discovered that freshwater and saltwater fisheries across the country were declining. Oil spills and raw sewage were polluting waterways. Fishermen were using high-tech gear, such as pound nets, to catch more and more of the most valuable fish. In some areas, overfishing was putting the future of the fisheries in jeopardy. One solution was to promote aquaculture, also known as fish or shellfish farming. Scientists and entrepreneurs reared baby fish in hatcheries and transferred them to rivers, lakes, or bays. The Fish Commission even used refrigerated railroad cars to ship fish eggs across the country. Today, U.S. aquaculture is a US$1.5 billion industry and the worlds fastest-growing food sector. Much of the salmon you see in grocery stores started as farm-raised hatchlings. NOAA provides training, grants, and regional data to support the industry. NOAA Fisheries also helps to regulate commercial and recreational fishing to keep fish populations healthy and prevent them from crashing. The 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and other laws implemented catch limits to prevent overfishing. To develop fair regulations and combat illegal practices, NOAA and its predecessors have worked with fishing organizations through regional fishery management councils for decades. These industries generate $321 billion in sales and support 2.3 million jobs. Restoring coral reefs to help marine life thrive NOAA also benefits U.S. coastal communities by restoring coral reefs. Corals build up reefs over centuries, creating cities of the sea. When theyre healthy, they provide nurseries that protect valuable fish species, like snapper, from predators. Reefs also attract tourism and protect coastlines by breaking up waves that cause storm-driven flooding and erosion. The corals of Hawaii, Florida, Puerto Rico, and other tropical areas provide over $3 billion a year in benefits from sustaining marine ecosystems to recreation, including sport fishing. However, reefs are vulnerable to pollution, acidification, heat stress, and other damage. Warming water can cause coral bleaching events, as the world saw in 2023 and 2024. NOAA monitors reef health. It aso works with innovative restoration strategies, such as breeding strains of coral that resist bleaching, so reefs have a better chance of surviving as the planet warms. Battling invasive species in the Great Lakes A third important aspect of NOAAs coastal work involves controlling invasive species in Americas waters, including those that have menaced the Great Lakes. Zebra and quagga mussels, spiny water flea, and dozens of other Eurasian organisms colonized the Great Lakes starting in the late 1900s after arriving in ballast water from transoceanic ships. These invaders have disrupted the Great Lakes food web and clogged cities water intake systems, causing at least $138 million in damage per year. In the Northwest Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, invasive lionfish, native to Asia and Australia, have spread, preying on native fish essential to coral reefs. Lionfish have become one of the worlds most damaging marine fish invasions. NOAA works with the Coast Guard, U.S. Geological Survey, and other organizations to prevent the spread of invasive aquatic species. Stronger ballast water regulations developed through the agencys research have helped prevent new invasions in the Great Lakes. Understanding climate change One of NOAAs most crucial roles is its leadership in global research into understanding the causes and effects of climate change. The oil industry has known for decades that greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels would raise global temperatures. Evidence and research from around the world have connected greenhouse gas emissions from human activities to climate change. The data have shown how rising temperatures have increased risks for coastal areas, including worsening heat waves and ocean acidification that harm marine life; raising sea levels, which threaten coastal communities with tidal flooding and higher storm surges; and contributing to more extreme storms. NOAA conducts U.S. climate research and coordinates international climate research efforts, as well as producing the data and analysis for weather forecasting that coastal states rely on. Why tear apart an irreplaceable resource? When Republican President Richard Nixon proposed consolidating several different agencies into NOAA in 1970, he told Congress that doing so would promote better protection of life and property from natural hazards, better understanding of the total environment, and exploration and development leading to the intelligent use of our marine resources. The Trump administration is instead discussing tearing down NOAA. The administration has been erasing mentions of climate change from government research, websites, and policiesdespite the rising risks to communities across the nation. The next federal budget is likely to slash NOAAs funding. Commercial meteorologists argue that much of NOAAs weather data and forecasting, also crucial to coastal areas, couldnt be duplicated by the private sector. As NOAA marks its 55th year, I believe its in the nations and the U.S. economys best interest to strengthen rather than dismantle this vital agency. Christine Keiner is a chair at the Department of Science, Technology, and Society at Rochester Institute of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
About 19 million children under 5 around the world suffer from severe acute malnutrition every year. This life-threatening condition kills 400,000 of themthats one child every 10 seconds. These numbers are staggering, especially because a lifesaving treatment has existed for nearly three decades: ready-to-use therapeutic food. Nutriset, a French company, was founded by Michel Lescanne. He was one of two scientists who invented this product in 1996. A sticky peanut butter paste branded Plumpy’nut, its enriched with vitamins and minerals and comes in packets that require no refrigeration or preparation. Healthcare professionals were quickly convinced of its promise. What was harder to figure out was how to manufacture as many packets as possible while cutting costs. In 2008, ready-to-use therapeutic food producers like Nutriset charged $60 for a box of 150 packetsthe number needed to treat one severely malnourished child for the six to eight weeks needed for their recovery. In a study we published in the Journal of Management Studies in October 2024, we explained how the international agencies, nongovernmental organizations, activists, and for-profit companies involved in the products distribution managed to resolve a public controversy over the use of Nutrisets patent and its for-profit business model. Contrary to the expectations of activists and many humanitarian NGOs, this for-profit company managed to reduce its prices down to $39 per box of Plumpy’nut packets by 2019 and keep them consistently lower than any nonprofit or for-profit competitors could, all the while enforcing its patent rights. We interviewed Jan Komrska, a pharmacist then serving as the ready-to-use therapeutic food procurement manager at UNICEF, the United Nations agency for children; Tiddo von Schoen-Angerer, a pediatrician who was leading the access to medicines campaign at Doctors Without Borders, a medical charity; and Thomas Couaillet, a Nutriset executive. We also studied documents issued over the course of a decade to find out why this companys unusual approach to intellectual property protection was so successful. Helping franchisees in low-income countries get started Nutriset and humanitarian organizations disagreed at the start over how to proceed with the production of ready-to-use therapeutic food. Doctors Without Borders at first accused Nutriset of behaving like a big drugmaker, shielding itself from competition by aggressively enforcing its patents to charge excessively high prices. The nongovernmental organization demanded that Nutriset allow any manufacturer to make its patented packets, without any compensation for that intellectual property. By 2012, Nutriset had changed course. It had stopped being almost the sole producer of ready-to-use therapeutic food and instead allowed licensees and franchisee partners, chiefly located in low-income countries, to make the packets without having to pay any royalties. It did, however, make an exception for the United States. It allowed Edesia, a Rhode Island-based nonprofit, to become a Nutriset franchisee. It also provided these smaller producers with seed funding and technical advice. Nutriset is still the worlds largest ready-to-use therapeutic food producer, we have determined through our research. Its responsible for about 30% to 40% of the worlds annual production, down from more than 90% in 2008. There are some other U.S. manufacturers, such as Tabatchnick Fine Foods, but they arent Nutriset partners. Threatening legal action At the same time, the company continued to threaten to take legal action against potential rivals located in developed countries that were replicating their recipe without authorization. Usually, cease-and-desist letters were sufficient. Nutriset implemented this strategy to ward off competition from big multinational corporations that might try to establish their brands in new markets, gaining a foothold before flooding them with imported ultraprocessed food. A big risk, had that occurred, would have been less breastfeeding for newborns and the disruption of local diets. Nutrisets strategy of opening access to its patent selectively has enabled UNICEF to double the share of packets it buys from producers located in the Global South. UNICEF, the worlds biggest buyer of ready-to-use therapeutic food, bought less than one-third of its supplies from those nations in 2011. That share climbed to two-thirds in 2022. Nutrisets reliance on local franchisees has helped create over 1,000 jobs in hunger-stricken regions while strengthening the supply chain and reducing the carbon emissions of transportation, according to UNICEF. Nutrisets creative patent strategy also helped its partner producers in low-income countries, which include nonprofit and for-profit ventures, compete with large corporations in developed countries by the time its patent expired in 2018. In this instance, a for-profit company not only managed to keep its prices lower than its competitors, including nonprofits, but used its patent to support economic development in developing countries by shielding startup producers from international competition. As a result of these successes, we found that nongovernmental organizations eventually stopped criticizing the French company and recognized that high prices were actually not due to Nutrisets patent policy but rather to global prices of the packets ingredients. In recognition of its contributions and innovation, Nutriset won the U.S. Patent and Trademark Offices Patents for Humanity Award in 2015. Offering a cheap, convenient, and effective treatment One of the biggest advantages of ready-to-use therapeutic food is that parents or other caregivers can give it to their kids at home or on the go. Thats more convenient and cheaper than the alternative: several months of hospitalization where children receive a nutrient-dense liquid called therapeutic milk. The at-home treatment works most of the time. More than 80% of the children who get three daily food packets recover within two months. Severe acute malnutrition deaths remain high because historically only 25% to 50% of children suffering from it get treated with ready-to-use therapeutic food, due to insufficient funding. The treatment programs are run by governments, UNICEF and other international agencies, and NGOs such as Doctors Without Borders. USAIDs funding role The U.S. government spent about $200 million in 2024 through the U.S. Agency for International Development on ready-to-use therapeutic food, enough packets to treat 3.9 million children. Thats nearly as much as UNICEF, which treats about 5 million children annually. Its unclear whether the Trump administration, which is trying to dismantle USAID, will discontinue its funding of ready-to-use therapeutic food that the U.S. government has purchased exclusively from U.S. manufacturers with U.S.-sourced ingredients. At a time when the flow of development aid from several wealthy countries is declining, the precedent Nutriset set suggests that humanitarian organizations, by teaming up with international agencies, governments, and for-profit companies, can help drive down the costs of saving lives threatened by hunger while increasing the nutritional autonomy of the Global South. But the funding for ready-to-use therapeutic food and its distribution has to come from somewhere, whether it is from governments, foundations or other donors. Nicolas Dahan is a professor of management at Seton Hall University. Bernard Leca is a professor of management sciences at ESSEC. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
Graham Allcott has written six books, including the global bestseller How to Be a Productivity Ninja. He is the founder of Think Productive and has privately coached prominent international business leaders. Whats the big idea? Kindness, empathy, and psychological safety at work are not just fluffy, hippie ideas. They are key drivers of outstanding performance. Kindness is a practice that requires strength, skill, and intentionality. With it, every team can create an environment of abundant wellbeing, innovation, and growth. Below, Graham shares five key insights from his new book, KIND: The Quiet Power of Kindness at Work. Listen to the audio versionread by Graham himselfin the Next Big Idea App. 1. Kindness and empathy build trust and psychological safety. High-performing teams are built on trust and psychological safety. Kindness is one of the fastest ways to build this high-performing environment. Trust allows people to take risks, admit mistakes, and remove micromanagement and other forms of due diligence. In a team, psychological safetyfeeling able to take interpersonal risksleads to high performance. When a team is psychologically safe, people raise the alarm if they spot a problem and share the risky idea that might drive innovation. They tell hard truths but are also more open to feedback for improvement. They feel seen, heard, and part of a bigger picture. All the research points to psychologically safe, people-driven business as being more successful. Psychological safety leads to greater productivity, engagement, retention, well-being, creativity, innovation, and happiness. Kindness and empathy arent just moral nice-to-haves. Theyre strategic advantages for building a culture of psychological safety where the work matters because the people doing it matter. 2. Nice and kind are not the same. Kindness often gets bad press, or people might even say theres no place for kindness at work. Kindness is often considered weak or a quality of pushovers. But this is because people confuse being kind with being nice. Nice often is a bit weaknice cultures often focus on keeping the peace but shirk the responsibility to tell the truth or call out bad behavior. On the other hand, kind cultures focus on truth and grace. Nice is about telling people what they want to hear. Kind is about telling people what they need to hear. Imagine youve been in a meeting, and a colleague delivered a presentation to the group. It didnt go well. At the end of the meeting, your colleague asks you for feedback. At this moment, we face a choice. The nice option is that we tell a white lie to keep the peace: it was good; you did well. We are shirking the truth to keep the peace. Kind is about telling people what they need to hear. The kind route would be to invest 20 minutes the following day to go through some quick feedback. We can offer difficult and uncomfortable truth, but from a place of love. The result is that they can learn and improve. It takes real strength to choose kind over nice in that moment. Its inconvenient (it takes time), its brave (because you have to put your relationship with that person at risk to help them improve), and its skillful (because delivering the truth with grace takes a skilled communicator). But when everybody operates like that, no one fears feedback, people grow, and the teams performance and work output continuously improves. Being too nice can be a weakness, but being kind is pretty badass. 3. Challenging the Business Baddie narrative. Kindness drives performance. It also lowers stress levels and improves physical well-being. And its free. So, why isnt there more kindness? Whats holding us back? If you look at portrayals of business and work in theatre, fiction, and media, what youll find everywhere is the business bastard archetype. Back to Shylock and Ebeneezer Scrooge, right through to Shark Tank and The Wolf of Wall Street, were taught that those who treat people badly are the ones who succeed. Upon reading the biography of Steve Jobs, I witnessed many founders thinking that if they shouted at staff during their all-hands meeting, theyd build the next Apple. In the book, I debunk the idea of dog-eat-dog success. The majority of successful leaders, statistically, are likable. But reasonable people doing a great job, being kind, and inspiring loyalty along the way produce less interesting stories than an evil genius. From Warren Buffett to Jacinda Ardern to Brian Chesky at Airbnb to the kind managers and leaders that you know, there are remarkable leaders whose warmth and kindness set the tone for success. The business bastard narrative keeps us locked into a scarcity mindset, whereas kindness rewires our brains toward abundance. We need to move away from the self-talk that says there isnt enough time, or there isnt enough, or that we are not enough. We need to replace that self-talk with talk of abundance: I am enough. There is enough. When we see the world through this lens, then kindness is much easier. 4. Kindness is a verb. A lot of what we see online regarding kindnessthe #be kind hashtag, social media memes, virtue signallingis people adopting kindness as part of their identity. Theres no such thing as a kind person or an unkind person. There are just kind or unkind actions. All of us have the capacity to be kind or unkind. Kindness isnt something you are, its something you do. You are as kind as your last kind act or as unkind as your last unkind act. When we see kindness as a verb, not a noun, we recognize the importance of seeing kindness as a practice. There are no prizes for just having the thought. Kindness happens in the gap between having the idea to make someones day and actually making someones day. There are no prizes for just having the thought. Its the action that counts. The more we see kindness as a practice, the more we spot the gap when it happens. Its that tiny moment when you spot an opportunity to be kind. Youre on a train, and someone needs your seat more than you do, or youre in a meeting, and theres a tiny window of time to say something kind about a colleague. Act in that moment, and you make their day. Ponder for a couple of seconds too long, and the agenda moves on, and the moment is gone. Learning to leap into that gap rather than be held back by our own resistance is kindness. To notice more opportunities, it helps to slow down. The biggest source of accidental unkindness is busyness. When we reduce busyness and increase presence, it increases empathy, and we build stronger relationships with thse around us. 5. Kindness starts with you but doesnt end with you. I created 8 Principles of Kindfulness at Work. The first of these is that kindness starts with you. When we think about kindness, often our first thought is external: who needs our help? How can we be kind to a stranger? But the uncomfortable truth is that we have to start with self-kindness. Most of us are wired to treat others better than we treat ourselves. We think of self-care as somehow self-indulgent. But practicing self-kindness signals to others that self-kindness matters, and they can follow your example. It also helps us move our self-talk away from scarcity and toward abundant thinking. For the kindness it inspires in others, being kind to yourself is a radical act of generosity. Kindness starts with you. The people who are kinder to themselves find it easier to be kind to others. But of course, kindness doesnt end with you. In the coffee shops of Naples, they have a tradition called caffé sospeso. It basically means suspended coffee and its a pay-it-forward model. Theres a jar on the counter of the coffee shop and when I order my coffee, I tell the barista that I also want to order a caffé sospeso. When I do that, the barista gives me a suspended coffee ticket and I put it in the jar. Then, the next time someone comes in and doesnt have their wallet or money, they take out the ticket and claim a free coffee. Its a wonderful example of the power of a single, kind act to create a ripple effect. I feel good and get that helpers high, the barista feels good about where they work, the customers who witness it are inspired to do something kind, and then someone claims it, and everyone gets to witness the act of kindness all over again. Theres a lot of research that talks about how many ripple effects can come from a single act of kindness. All the coffee shop owner really did was find a jar and write caffé sospeso on it! They literally created a vessel for kindness and, in doing so, made it easy to be kind. Thats kindfulness. The idea that we can create vessels for other people to be kind. We can, in our work, make it easy for other people to be kind. Whether its instigating a thank you card for someone, or taking a few moments in a team meeting to ask everyone to say something they value about the person to their left, we can all create the vessels for kindness. Think about your own work: whats the equivalent of that jar at the coffee shop? How can you be a vessel for kindness, and make it easy for everyone around you to be kind? This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
Category:
E-Commerce
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