Wendy’s Partners with NextGen Consortium to Boost Sustainability

When bandits slaughtered 650 elephants in just weeks, in one of the most remote national parks in West Africa, it was an atrocity that shook the conservation world. Celine Sissler-Bienvenu, IFAW Country Director France and Francophone Africa was one of the few people with the contacts and the capabilities to expose the outrage. Celine is perhaps unique in modern conservation. The first European student and woman to graduate from the Wildlife Specialists School of Garoua (L’Ecole pour la Formation des Spécialistes de la Faune à Garoua) in Cameroon, her training in a mostly male paramilitary environment gathering 15 African cultures gives her a highly influential network of connections across French-speaking Africa.

Two Rivers Community School, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains, places a strong focus on teaching sustainability. In fact, conservation of the natural environment is one of the cornerstones of its curriculum. One of the key components of the mandatory 8th grade student capstone project includes demonstrating how they have become good stewards of the natural world, including showing understanding of the importance of conservation, sustainability, and stewardship. The school emphasizes the importance of service and outdoor education.

The focus on greenhouse gasses is typically on CO2, but we shouldn’t forget about methane. From the NOAA article Increase in atmospheric methane set another record in 2021 – Carbon dioxide levels also record a big jump (4/7/2022):  For the second year in a row, NOAA scientists observed a record annual increase in atmospheric levels of methane, a powerful, heat-trapping greenhouse gas that’s the second biggest contributor to human-caused global warming after carbon dioxide.  NOAA’s preliminary analysis showed the annual increase in atmospheric methane during 2021 was 17 parts per billion (ppb), the largest annual increase recorded since systematic measurements began in 1983. The increase during 2020 was 15.3 ppb. Atmospheric methane levels averaged 1,895.7 ppb during 2021, or around 162% greater than pre-industrial levels. From NOAA’s observations, scientists estimate global methane emissions in 2021 are 15% higher than the 1984-2006 period.  Methane data links are at the bottom of this Global Monitoring Laboratory page. There is also a methane project on the Calculus Projects page.

Overnight, Shopify, Stripe, Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook) and McKinsey launched Frontier, an Advance Market Commitment (AMC) to accelerate the development of carbon removal technologies.  The founding companies are committing an initial $925M USD (~$1.25B AUD) to purchase permanent carbon removal from companies building promising new solutions over the next nine years, starting in 2022.  This is a global initiative and covers APAC. Essentially, the investment will go towards buying carbon removal solutions from companies developing emerging technology and scaled solutions to address climate change around the world.