Future 500

Programs: Energy/climatefuture 500 views the energy issue as a critical thread across all the sustainability projects in which we engage. To that end, our organization continuously seeks to build partnerships with energy companies and energy activists. We work across several energy sectors including, but not limited to: coal, natural gas and oil sands. We believe that smart, comprehensive energy policy can help drive systemic change down the supply chain. We believe that a price on carbon is an economic, security, fiscal, and environmental imperative. To help drive this effort, we have crafted two core policy principles that can unite the bipartisan political support needed for climate policy that is friendly to people, the economy, and the environment. Future 500 has quietly brought together companies, ngos, and investors, to support this policy. We see energy as a dynamic and evolving arena where we seek to play an important role in connecting corporations and activists. We believe that direct engagement will help us solve some of the most pressing energy issues facing our society.

materials/supply chainsince our inception, future 500 has been at the forefront of recycling policy and materials stewardship. In fact, our engagement model pulls from the success of a corporate-ngo alliance built by our founder to pass the ca bottle bill. As we look to the future, we acknowledge that the us needs a more comprehensive recycling structure that encompasses a broader waste stream and helps us increase stagnant recycling rates. In that regard, future 500 led a four part multi-stakeholder "dialogue" series to drive innovative waste management policies. We specifically sought to address what extended producer responsibility (epr) policy might mean for the united states, a proven recycling structure implemented in dozens of countries across the globe.

people/power we face a future of increasing ecological and economic deficits around the planet. Concurrently, we are amidst a global revolution transforming every aspect of our lives. The agent of this revolution is a new family of technologies - broadband, the internet, microchips, and software - that for the first time draw the world together into a single, coextensive whole. By unleashing the innovative capacity of ngos and corporations to use technology for good, we have the potential to reverse these deficits.

food/wateras the planet grows more crowded and affluent, protecting the universal human right to safe food and clean, plentiful water is straining the capabilities of our natural resources. This competition for resources is illuminating the interconnectedness of the food, water and energy sectors. Actions taken in one area inherently impact the other two: the agriculture and energy industries are the largest global consumers of fresh water; transporting and heating water requires enormous amounts of energy; energy resource extraction reduces available land for food production and may contaminate local water sources. More than ever, sustaining our food and water supplies requires integrated solutions that reduce externalities and improve efficiency across sectors and geographies. Toward this end, future 500 works with a broad range of stakeholders to advance systemic solutions at this critical nexus of food, water and energy. We align stakeholders to explore approaches that leverage corporate supply chain and political power to drive improvements in resource quality and quantity.