The topic deals with the negative effects people/vulnerable communities encounter because of a company’s pollution of air, water, and soil.
2
The core focus should be on how any activity is threatening or destroying one’s health and ultimately communities' decent and dignified standard of living. The analysis can discuss one, two, or the three pollutions’ impacts on communities (depending on those that are relevant).
3
This topic covers the negative impact only in relation to the company's direct or indirect business activities.
What is it?
Adverse Health Impacts is defined as “the causation, promotion, facilitation and/or exacerbation of a structural and/or functional abnormality, with the implication that the abnormality produced has the potential of lowering the quality of life, contributing to a disabling illness, or leading to a premature death.”
The above is intrinsically connected to one’s healthy and dignified standard of living. Companies, in this aspect, might negatively bring about externalities that impair communities’ health and well-being.
This topic explores the negative direct effects stemming from the air, soil, and water pollution. According to the UNDP, “the right to breathe clean air is one of the components of the right to a healthy environment. Air pollution negatively impacts the enjoyment of many human rights, particularly the right to life and the right to health, especially in relation to vulnerable groups.” The same applies when discussing soil and water.
As a parameter for comparison, air, soil, and water pollution kill 8.3 million people globally every year. The WHO states that pollution might decrease one’s life expectancy by approximately one year.
The total amount of air pollutants emitted in tonnes -> usually disclosed by the companies in their reports
Types of air pollutants emitted (NOx, SOx, VOCs, PM, CO, etc.)
Instances of water and/or soil pollution related to adverse health impacts
Year
Fines for polluting air, water, and/or soil
Total number of people affected/impacted
Some definitions:
Disclosed: When the data is directly disclosed by the company, i.e., we did not do any calculations/estimations to obtain the figure.
Estimated: When we have calculated the figure.
Complete: When the data represents 100% of the company’s operations.
Partial: When the data is given for only a portion of its operations (not 100%).
Units:
We want to have homogenous and comparable units. Therefore, for the company’s air emissions, we will accept values expressed in tonnes (t).
We are looking for concrete instances in which companies’ operations have harmed the health of nearby communities. The impact should be direct and pertinent.
Include the estimated number of people or households that have been affected
If the analysis does not already contain information on the gravity of the impact caused by the company’s pollution, please add a line addressing this.
An analysis that discloses the amount of air pollutants without any added value will not be accepted (exceptions: automobiles, air freight, road transportation, airlines and similar industries)
For companies in certain industries, such as the Electric Utilities & Power Generation industry, you can also include instances of human rights violations.
Impact assessment
Air Pollution
Specifically, when the note deals with Air Quality, we must remember that Air Pollutants differ from greenhouse gases. While greenhouse gases affect the environment and contribute to global warming, air pollutants tend to be more harmful to humans.
Different companies release different pollutants ranging from gaseous pollutants such as Nitrogen oxides (NOx), Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), Benzene, etc. to particulate pollutants such as Lead (Pb), Fly ash, dust, etc. As these vary drastically in their properties and nature, we have tried to classify them according to some similarities in their behavior. Here's a list of different pollutants (that we have on our platform as of now) classified according to some of their properties:
Nitrogen Oxides and derivatives: NOx, NO2, NO3
Sulphur Oxides and derivatives: SOx, SO2, SO3
Particulate Matter and derivatives: PM, PM2.5, PM10, dust
The air pollutants emitted by a single company are relatively small when comparing the volume to industrial, national, and global amounts, even if it is a major polluter such as an Oil & Gas or Mining company.
Because air pollution occurs from all sorts of activities worldwide, which cannot be pinpointed to a specific activity or location, pollutants spread and suspend in the air - affecting everyone. This causes adverse health effects, especially when exposed to it for prolonged periods of time.
As companies’ air pollutant emissions are regulated by governments that require mandatory reporting, many companies disclose their air pollutant emissions in their annual CSR/Sustainability report.
When analysing the emissions of a company’s air pollutants, you should report the yearly, absolute quantity of pollutants emitted per category.
After reporting the company’s overall air pollutants and the scale of the impact, you should benchmark these emissions. This will further help readers assess the scale and value of the impact. How significant are the emissions?
Introduction:
Build a strong introduction by making it clear that the emitted pollutants are responsible for deteriorating the air quality and, that even short-term exposure to some of these pollutants can lead to health issues, backed with quantitative data.
Use studies in your introduction to state the impact of these pollutants on human health and explain why it is an issue in the company's industry.
As various symptoms can be triggered by air pollution, in which the blame cannot be attributed to a singular company, it is important to disclose the scale and the value of the impact in the introduction.
Core analysis:
We will not accept analyses that only disclose the amounts of pollutants released (e.g., SOx, NOx, PM, etc.) without adding any other information that helps the reader rate the impact scale.
It should discuss:
How many pollutants are emitted by the company? This includes operations and product use (i.e., automobile factories and driving vehicles).
You should not discuss only operational air pollution.
How many pollutants should a person be exposed to suffer from health consequences? (find a direct impact to help measure the scale and substantiate the claim).
If this information is unavailable, benchmark the emissions to the industry standard to assess if the emissions are below, inline, or above the industry average.
Are the emissions dissipated or concentrated, like in urban areas or pollution "hot spots"? Has it had a direct impact on people? Or do you know of any thresholds (that may be industry-specific)? Keen on having any of you do some further digging on this
Compare the company's emissions with the industry average or a close competitor if the industry average is not available.
Including, as a secondary point, whether the company is investing in technologies to control/monitor the emission of these pollutants.
To publish the analysis, it must build a strong case about the issue and be as robust as possible. To do this, please:
Try to find the direct impact: has the company been fined by the authorities? Have they violated any regulations (such as the Clean Air Act)? Are there direct links to the number of people harmed by air pollution?
Using external studies, correlate the areas where the company has factories/operations with rising health issues in surrounding communities.
Take it a step further: are the emissions dissipated or concentrated, like in urban areas or pollution “hot spots”? Has it had a direct impact on people?
You can use air pollution heat maps and/or other methods to make these extrapolations.
This is relevant for the US, so if analysts can find this for other countries, then we can correlate the areas of factories/operations to those areas to find a direct impact.
You can check if it is located in an air pollution hotspot, globally, or in the US.
The Air Quality Index (AQI) value is a measure of any given location's air pollution level. AQI value below 50 represents good air quality, but higher AQI values increase health risks.
Rather than writing vague analyses that only state how many pollutants have been emitted and finding some comparisons, there needs to be more direct impact data and should be more linked to adverse health impacts (not stating that such an amount of people could potentially be affected).
You should focus on specific events that have been shown to affect people, like reporting on authorities that have fined companies for violating the clean air act or other examples.
What we would find even more interesting is knowing whether communities around the companies' operations, such as factories, have contracted illnesses - respiratory or other.
This would be more difficult for airlines/automobiles/air freight industries. However, for manufacturing companies or extractives, it would be essential to know the impact on people's health regarding soil and water pollution.
Helpful tips:
Look for heat maps of concentrations of pollution.
This is relevant for the US, so if analysts can find this for other countries, then we can correlate the areas of factories/operations to those areas to find direct impact.
Conclusion: will be strict about it, finding direct impact through fines by authorities, links to the surrounding communities, and heatmap where there are concentrations.
Caution:
If the direct data is unavailable to determine the number of people's health that has deteriorated from the company's pollutants, please do not include an estimation about the number of deaths/health issues the company maybe responsible for, being inaccurate.
We also prefer not to include comparisons with the country's or industry’stotalemissions since it will probably render a very low percentage (0.00000x%) and, thus, mislead the readers into thinking that the impact is insignificant. It is better to compare it to the industry average, assessing whether the company is below, in line, or above the industry average.
You can mention if the pollutants have increased or decreased over the years in a single statistic (% change). However, avoid comparing the company's year-on-year release of air pollutants, leading to writing about remediation measures. Always remember to give the broader impact first.
In your analysis, make sure you add value to your readers and go beyond the company’s CSR report by not merely reporting data from the company’s report but going the extra mile of providing additional metrics, studies, and sources to make your analysis robust and the impact value and scale are clear.
Please note that air pollution significantly impacts certain industries, such as airlines, air freight & logistics, automobiles, and others. For other manufacturing industries or extractives, it is important to consider all pollution that has detrimental impacts on people's health, such as air, water, and soil. It is crucial for the analysis to be as comprehensive as possible by disclosing the direct link, especially from water and soil pollution from, for instance, metals & mining, oil & gas, waste management, etc.
It would be good to always ask for this information, and if unavailable, include the impacts from soil and water pollution in the introduction these impacts are tailored to the industry it is in unless you are certain that it is not having such impacts.
Soil and Water Pollution
Introduction:
The introduction shall discuss the negative effects of pollution on human health. Any mention of the environment shall be kept outside the discussion.
For instance:
“Industries are a source of water pollution, producing extremely harmful pollutants to people and the environment1. As of 2020, 88.4 million (Mn) barrels of oil were produced on a daily basis2. Around 40,000 oil fields exist across the globe3. 6Mn people live or work near such oil fields3. Of the total oil fields, 40 are supergiant fields with the production capacity of recoverable oil of around 1 billion barrels or even more. People exposed to such wastes have an increased risk of cancer, higher levels of toxic elements in the body, respiratory diseases, and liver failure5.”
Core Analysis:
The body must prove the direct link between the company’s actions/activities and the adverse health impacts observed in the affected communities.
The analysis must include:
What type of pollution has negatively impacted communities, if not all three (air, water, soil).
Research whether NGOs or other organisations have measured the direct effects of such pollution.
If this direct data is unavailable, using external studies and proxies, you can measure how much water and soil pollution affects communities if the water is ingested or used in crops grown in the contaminated soil.
For instance:
“Around 120,000 people were put at risk of adverse health impacts8. The oil spill was preventable since the collapse was predicted in advance due to oil erosions8. The construction of pipeline itself was a high risk venture since the area is highly volatile with volcanic eruptions, seisemic activity and floods8. Around 27,000 Kichwa people, impacted by the spill, raised concern over health effects of the spill such as skin rashes and gastrointestinal problems9. The water is still highly contaminated and unfit for fishing, drinking and bathing9.”
Standards relevant for all types of pollution:
In general, if there is a clear violation of pollution and/or proof that a company is responsible for health issues, we can accept the analysis.
Lowering our standards:
We will be flexible by allowing the event (violation) to happen three years prior to the fine. That is, if the fine was given in 2023 and the event happened in 2020, we can still accept the case and include it in the analysis.
If we do not have a sense of when the violation occurred, as air pollution remains in the atmosphere, we can accept it without having a notion of time if the fine was given in the last year. This will be accepted on a case-by-case basis, depending on the type of violation.
We only accept fines if they are related to pollution that has exceeded environmental limits. Fines related to prevention control or safety parameters of equipment will not be considered.
If we know that the pollutant exceeded safety levels, then we can accept it if we do not have the absolute amount of pollutant.
Even if the data for the three pollutions lack significant direct data, we will still accept it as we know that they are polluting on all fronts and causing health issues, which should be backed by robust studies.
Reinforcement of our standards:
You must show that the impact is still current and backed by robust studies, i.e., continued health issues, air pollution remaining in the atmosphere, soil pollution moving into bodies of water...etc. If there is no direct impact data, you can use studies to show how this particular pollution affects health.
If there is a fine for pollution violations, we need to know when the violation took place, i.e., a settlement can take years to reach, so we need to get an idea of when the incident happened.
The focus of the analysis should be on the most recent case for which there is a direct impact. Violations that are outdated (over three years) can be added as a secondary point to show persistence.
We still require granular/specific information. If a company has plants in, for example, 11 States, or 1 country, we cannot add the population of the 11 States or of the entire country and state that they all probably suffer from a sort of pollution. We would need to be granular and look at the population nearby the plants. This will allow us to fill the required quantitative metric on scale accurately.
Just discussing air pollution without touching upon soil/water pollution for relevant industries. If air pollution does not meet our standards, please conduct more research on soil and water pollution, which can make the analysis much more robust and increases the chance for publication as there are more chances the company has harmed the health of nearby residents.
Common mistake: we have come across exaggerated information from a source to reach publication. We must remain fact-based.
Helpful Tips:
Be careful and nuanced with your wording. If an article has been written on the impacts of pollution, it is likely the impacts on health were significant. Analyses don’t need to show the number of people who died or were severely sick from the company’s pollution. As long as pollution affected people’s health, the note will get published.
More research about the impacts of the case will fill in the gaps
Using maps! You can identify nearby communities or towns, you can make a clear link between pollution and health issues.
Check the Violations Tracker for the company. There you will be able to find a compilation of the company’s fines and when they were given. We urge you to go a step further and click on the link to the penalty. There you will find more details, including the year the event occurred and why the company was fined.
Added Value on Environmental Injustice:
Environmental injustice is the disproportionate exposure of vulnerable communities to environmental hazards that affect the overall health and well-being of the local communities. Communities that consist of minorities and/or low income are more likely to be exposed to environmental hazards than more affluent and privileged groups.
Environmental racism is a type of injustice in which environmental hazards disproportionately affect communities of color and are one of the main causes of fatality in these communities. Research shows that it is more economically favorable to pollute communities of color than in white communities.
Environmental injustice occurs in various contexts whether that is from a company extracting local resources, sending hazardous waste overseas to a developing region, or contaminating solid and water bodies that cause grave health issues.
Natural resource extraction
Resource extraction is the act of withdrawing local materials from the environment to be used as a commodity. Some examples include fossil fuels, minerals, trees, animals, water, etc. Resource extraction impacts local communities economically, socially, and environmentally, often in an environmentally unjust way.
Indigenous communities in particular often live in regions abundant with resources, like oil/gas, minerals, plants, etc. Unfortunately, economic interests have historically cost the well-being of these communities, and indigenous peoples are still facing exploitation and expropriation today.
Addressing the impact on these communities is imperative so that our platform can provide a voice for those who systematically may not have the privilege to be heard. However, this topic is not limited to only the discussion of marginalized communities as the focus should be on a local community that has been clearly affected by the company’s activity.
Alternatively, the impact of resource extraction is not always negative, i.e. in the case of sustainable development with the local community, especially when the extraction is done in an ethical way that actually benefits their livelihood and preserves their culture.
Shipping hazardous waste to developing nations
Hazardous waste being sent to developing countries gives rise to great concerns. Not only are most developing countries ill-equipped to manage hazardous waste in an environmentally sound manner but often lack the resources to mitigate health impacts arising out of the handling of hazardous waste.
Even though many countries have banned the import of waste, the issue continues to remain and causes serious health concerns from hazardous waste and chemicals in particular. These environmental pollutants cause serious detriment to communities in developing nations.
Soil and water contamination
Soil properties and conditions determine the ability to grow nutritious crops in sufficient quantities. However, soils containing substances such as heavy metals that are toxic to people gravely impact health and food security.
Water pollution occurs when a body of water becomes contaminated, usually by chemicals or microorganisms. Water pollution can cause water to become toxic to humans and the environment. This can occur in many ways, such as ingesting microplastics, drinking water contaminated by sewage or chemical waste, etc.
Other examples include:
Toxic chemical exposure, such as residents near toxic waste sites and landfills are often part of lower-income groups.
Water pollution leads to public health crises, like in Flint Michigan, where the water was contaminated with lead.
There are no hard thresholds for this topic as vulnerable groups are usually on the lower part of the scale. The analysis is publishable if it has demonstrated that the company has had a direct impact on communities through its business activities or in the area where the company’s operations are located, that there is sufficient data to capture the impact and on whom, and that the impact is deep and persistent.
How many people are concerned? Thousands? Millions? Billions?
2/ The depth of the impact
Is the life of people concerned deeply affected, or does the issue just marginally impact them?
Are the changes brought by the issue profoundly changing society or the planet?
3/ The persistence of the impact
How long would the impact described last for? Months? Years? Decades?
How reversible is the impact described in the impact analysis? Can it be easily stopped/extended?
In your analysis, make sure you add value to your readers and go beyond the company’s CSR report by not merely reporting data from the company’s report but going the extra mile of providing additional metrics, studies, and sources to make your analysis robust and the impact value and scale are clear.
Sources you can use:
Annual reports
Financial reports: If the company has been sued for causing pollution and negative impacts on human health, it should disclose this information under risks and liabilities.
Whenever there are doubts about the meaning of something, we encourage you to thoroughly read the reports of the company, considering footnotes, and methodology frameworks, as those might contain the answer to your doubts.
Helpful Statistics
A helpful statistic that shows how widespread the issue is, for example, is that 91% of the world's population lives in places where air quality levels exceed the limits set by the WHO.
In 2019, 6.6 million people died from air pollution
It is the leading environmental risk factor for early death
A helpful statistic that shows how widespread the issue is, for example:
91% of the world's population lives in places where air quality levels exceed WHO limits.
The Air Quality Index (AQI) value is a measure of the air pollution level of any given location. AQI value below 50 represents good air quality, but higher AQI values increase health risk.
1. Check if the assigned analysis has more recent data (we require the latest data available)
NO: do not refresh the analysis and please report it.
YES: Move to step 2
2. Update the analysis following our Important Metrics & Standards
3. Check if the company has been involved in any more recent case of soil or water pollution that have had a direct impact on people’s health. If it has, please add the cases. If it has not but:
the data is at least from 2020
the impact is still felt today
Move to step 4.
If the company has not been involved in any recent cases of pollution related to health impacts and it does not meet the above-mentioned requirements, please flag the note and do not refresh it.
4. Add the number of people that have been affected by the company’s pollution. Add a line about the gravity of the ailments caused if this has not already been done.
5. Check the intro: Is it up to standard? Are sources working? Is data current and relevant?
YES: do not refresh the introduction
NO: move to step 6
6. Fix the Introduction
7. Fix the Headline
8. Fix the conclusion, if needed
9. Update the data points as per the available data
With the right investment companies having a positive impact on the planet are able to flourish. Our community forms part of that mission by measuring their impact.
Using maps! You can identify nearby communities or towns, you can make a clear link between pollution and health issues.
