Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio. It's an ugly truth out
Speaker 1: there doing business, Carol, it's just not good for the environment.
Speaker 1: In fact, more than half of greenhouse gas emissions in
Speaker 1: the US come from two sources, transportation and industry. That's
Speaker 1: according to the EPA, and those two things they're closely
Speaker 1: tied together. After all, you've got to get what the
Speaker 1: industry produces wherever it's going, and that takes planes, trains,
Speaker 1: and automobiles, all which emit carbon.
Speaker 2: The Environmental Defense Fund is a global nonprofit organization. It's
Speaker 2: taking on climate change. It calls quote it the greatest
Speaker 2: challenge of our time. And this organization works with companies
Speaker 2: you know so well, Amazon, Walmart, Danone, Fedexge and more,
Speaker 2: and it's all about reducing their impact on the environment.
Speaker 2: Delighted to have with us Fred Krupp, he's president of
Speaker 2: the EDF and he joins us on Zoom from San Francisco. Fred,
Speaker 2: thanks so much for being with us. We are living
Speaker 2: in a world where there's a lot being thrown at everyone,
Speaker 2: global companies in particular when it comes certantly to our environment.
Speaker 2: I feel like after a summer a year where I
Speaker 2: feel like, once again we had superlatives when it comes
Speaker 2: to the impact on our climate. Tell us a little
Speaker 2: bit about the work you're doing, and more importantly, I
Speaker 2: want to know about the progress that you feel like
Speaker 2: companies are making or if they are.
Speaker 3: But hey, thanks Carol, Thanks Tim. I appreciate the opportunity
Speaker 3: to be with you the You know, companies are at
Speaker 3: the center of a lot of the emissions and pollution
Speaker 3: that we have, and so it just stands to reason
Speaker 3: that they present a big opportunity to make progress. So
Speaker 3: you asked, Carol, are we making progress? Absolutely, More and
Speaker 3: more companies see tremendous value in cleaning up their businesses,
Speaker 3: creating new products that are more sustainable or reduce greenhouse gases.
Speaker 3: You can see that in the tremendous market cap at Tesla.
Speaker 3: You can see that in companies that want to do
Speaker 3: right by a climate in order to improve more employee
Speaker 3: morale and their ability to hire employees. You know, many
Speaker 3: companies now realize that their reputation, their character is judged
Speaker 3: on the basis of whether they're a leader or a laggard.
Speaker 3: So we're seeing a lot of companies right now, very
Speaker 3: motivated to take big steps as opposed to you know,
Speaker 3: cosmetic things or just spinning, spinning little things as though
Speaker 3: they were big things that we saw so much of
Speaker 3: right in years past and still see some now.
Speaker 1: Hey, Fred, can you talk a little bit about the
Speaker 1: strategy at the Environmental Defense Fund? I think people might
Speaker 1: It's a nonprofit that's more than fifty years old at
Speaker 1: this point, so I want to hear about the change
Speaker 1: in strategy that you guys had, gosh, maybe about fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago, where you went from suing the companies to
Speaker 1: try to get them to change their behavior actually actively
Speaker 1: partnering with them these days.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So our original motto when we were founded with
Speaker 3: sue the Bastards. I I don't think that was the
Speaker 3: official motto, but that was a bit formally the motto.
Speaker 3: And then we realized I think longer than fifteen years ago,
Speaker 3: but we did realize that, you know, finding the ways
Speaker 3: that work, you know, made more sense. And you know,
Speaker 3: if we can, you know, without having to go to
Speaker 3: the Senate or the Congress here in the United States
Speaker 3: or legislatures around the world, if we can go directly
Speaker 3: to Amazon and FedEx and help them to have more
Speaker 3: electric trucks, or go to Dano, which has fifty five
Speaker 3: thousand dairy farms that supply them, and work with them
Speaker 3: to make an industry leading commitment to reduce the methane
Speaker 3: emissions from their supply chains by thirty percent, not by
Speaker 3: twenty five fifty, but by twenty thirty. You know that
Speaker 3: change in strategy, Tim reflected the fact that you know,
Speaker 3: sometimes just going to the folks and talking to them,
Speaker 3: you can find a quicker way to a solution than
Speaker 3: throwing bricks at them.
Speaker 2: Fred help me out here though, Like you guys, as
Speaker 2: a nonprofit right are reliant on donations, and I'm assuming
Speaker 2: corporate donations as well, and I'm just wondering how do
Speaker 2: you how do you do it and avoid conflict of
Speaker 2: interest in terms of the financial support that comes in
Speaker 2: perhaps from the corporate community that keeps you guys going,
Speaker 2: as well as you know, making sure that you are
Speaker 2: pursuing the toughest policy you can to protect the environment
Speaker 2: with these entities.
Speaker 3: At the same time, Hey, Carol, thanks for that question.
Speaker 3: I should have quarified. Ninety nine percent of our funding
Speaker 3: does not come from corporations. We occasionally will accept a
Speaker 3: gift of there's a company that has a you know,
Speaker 3: an employer match plan or something like that. But the
Speaker 3: partners that I've mentioned, we've received no corporate funding from
Speaker 3: Walmart or dan Own or Amazon or FedEx. So we
Speaker 3: avoid that conflict of interest, you know, pretty effectively.
Speaker 1: But do they pay you to partner with them?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: Wow, So talk a little bit about how that works.
Speaker 3: The we get funded by individuals, by members who see
Speaker 3: the value of kind of a different approach, and these
Speaker 3: are you know, we have several hundred thousand members and
Speaker 3: people that give us small donations, medium size and large
Speaker 3: just because those of us who are concerned about climates
Speaker 3: see an urgency and getting things done. So when they see,
Speaker 3: you know, a partnership with Walmart to cut a billion
Speaker 3: tons of ways and pollution, that's you know, tim, that's
Speaker 3: the same amount as Germany admits in a year. When
Speaker 3: they see that, they see that partnership achieving results, and
Speaker 3: they understand why, you know, we don't want to take
Speaker 3: money from the company to have that conflict of interest
Speaker 3: to do that work. You know, people step up and say, hey,
Speaker 3: we want to fund that. We like we like the
Speaker 3: idea that you're getting results, and we see why you
Speaker 3: want to have a measure of independence. And so that's
Speaker 3: worked really well for us, those people in the you know,
Speaker 3: environmentalists like myself. I hope I can include the two
Speaker 3: of you. What we care most about is getting results.
Speaker 3: And it's unconventional to work directly with companies but often
Speaker 3: not always, but oftentimes it works. Just hasn't been tried
Speaker 3: often enough?
Speaker 2: Would you say no? Just full full of transparency. So
Speaker 2: thank you for answering our questions, because we do have
Speaker 2: listeners and viewers write in and be like, hey, but Fred,
Speaker 2: do you find that because of greater regulation and oversight
Speaker 2: and cop and goals, whether it's through Europe or through
Speaker 2: the United States, that has made the corporate environment much
Speaker 2: more open to being more aggressive when it comes to
Speaker 2: climate goals. Is it about that or is it also
Speaker 2: about that they're realizing their existence alone is also important
Speaker 2: about protecting the environment.
Speaker 3: Hey, another great question, thanks Carol. The it's a combination
Speaker 3: of things. You know, everybody's got children. I now have
Speaker 3: three grandchildren. So I think we all want to leave
Speaker 3: the world better than we found it, and that includes
Speaker 3: you know, many, not all, but many people who work
Speaker 3: in companies. We need regulations. Working with companies alone is
Speaker 3: not going to solve climate change. You know, I'm so
Speaker 3: happy to see the Biden administration putting in strong rules
Speaker 3: requiring a shift to electric vehicles, requiring you know, massive
Speaker 3: reductions in greenhouse gases. So these corporate partnerships, it's one tool,
Speaker 3: but we need regulations. We also sometimes need lawsuits. Not
Speaker 3: a very efficient way to change the world, but it's
Speaker 3: sometimes necessary. So there's lots of motivations, and you know, Carol,
Speaker 3: we don't much care about the motivation. We just want
Speaker 3: the results. And so where we can, we make the
Speaker 3: case that they'll make more money, so they will harvest
Speaker 3: value through better reputations, better employee morale, capturing additional market
Speaker 3: share of electric vehicles by going in this new direction,
Speaker 3: that it's in their business interest. And if that's what
Speaker 3: motivates them, that you know, they'll make more money, that's
Speaker 3: fine with us. We just want to change.
Speaker 2: I agree, and you're talking to you two environmentalists right here, Fred,
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, look forward to hopefully continuing the conversation.
Speaker 2: Fred Crop, President of the Environmental Defense Fund. Pancreatic cancer
Speaker 2: is a third leading cause of cancer related deaths in
Speaker 2: the United States, the five year survival rate is just
Speaker 2: twelve percent. And I've got to say this cancer is
Speaker 2: very much near and dear to me. I lost my
Speaker 2: mom to it, two other family members, and two other
Speaker 2: very close friends of the family. It's a cancer tim
Speaker 2: that many seem to say is rare, and yet it
Speaker 2: seems like more and more individuals are getting it and
Speaker 2: unfortunately dying from it. So it's a really tough one
Speaker 2: having seen at firsthand, really really difficult.
Speaker 1: And the question is are things improving at all. We've
Speaker 1: got a great guest with us this afternoon who's in
Speaker 1: the know of all things pancreatic cancer, Julie Fleshman, as
Speaker 1: President and CEO of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. Julie
Speaker 1: joins us on a zoom from California. Julie, good to
Speaker 1: have you with us this afternoon. I was shocked to
Speaker 1: see that those statistics are still so low. Only twelve
Speaker 1: percent of people who get a pancreatic cancer diagnosis survive
Speaker 1: five years. Why.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. And I'm
Speaker 4: so sorry to hear about your own personal experience. So
Speaker 4: pancreatic cancer is tough one. There is no early detection
Speaker 4: test for the disease, so usually by the time it's diagnosed,
Speaker 4: it's late stage and it's already metastasized or spread to
Speaker 4: other organs beyond the pancreas, making it very difficult to
Speaker 4: treat your If you think about where your pancreas is,
Speaker 4: it's deep in your abdominal cavity, behind your stomach, in
Speaker 4: front of your spine. It's not something you could feel,
Speaker 4: you know, you know, like you have your breast, you
Speaker 4: might feel a bump or a lump. You can't feel
Speaker 4: you're pancreas, and so it's difficult to get to end.
Speaker 4: We don't have an early detection test.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's interesting, you know, for my mom and
Speaker 2: particularly like the symptoms can be indicative of other things,
Speaker 2: kind of not so serious things, and sometimes it takes
Speaker 2: a while for it to diagnose. Having said that, you know,
Speaker 2: I always feel like Julie that a cancer. I think
Speaker 2: of Katie Kurk her husband uh and colon cancer. Like
Speaker 2: when a celebrity or somebody high profile gets something that
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you know, attention is paid, money
Speaker 2: goes into it is money going into research to find
Speaker 2: ways to do either a test or earlier detection of
Speaker 2: pancredit cancer. As you say, it's so difficult and by
Speaker 2: the time you find it, there's so much going on
Speaker 2: by the pancreas it's just difficult to deal with.
Speaker 4: Yes, I mean, so one of the challenges with this
Speaker 4: disease is twenty years ago there was no funding being
Speaker 4: put into pan credit cancer research, both from a private
Speaker 4: perspective and from a you know, government federal perspective. That's
Speaker 4: definitely changed. I think pan CAN and our advocacy efforts
Speaker 4: have really helped to be a catalyst to you know,
Speaker 4: infuse dollars and interest and support in pank credit cancer research.
Speaker 4: So today there is a vibrant pank credit cancer research community.
Speaker 4: You know, most major medical institutions across the country have
Speaker 4: a pankred a cancer research program. So there's a lot
Speaker 4: happening today. There are a lot more dollars being invested
Speaker 4: in pankred at cancer research. But we quite frankly, for
Speaker 4: the severity of the disease, we still need more. We
Speaker 4: need more people to step up to donate and to
Speaker 4: you know, raise their hands to help us with this
Speaker 4: challenging disease.
Speaker 1: What are rates that we're seeing right now, Julie, Are
Speaker 1: they stable, are they increasing? Are they decreasing? What can
Speaker 1: you tell us?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the FIBROSOVIV right, Although twelve percent is dismal
Speaker 4: obviously and unacceptable, that has gone up by a percent
Speaker 4: each year for the last couple of years. So we
Speaker 4: are moving in the right direction. When I started doing
Speaker 4: this work, you know, two decades ago, the five year
Speaker 4: survival it was just four percent. It had gone up
Speaker 4: to about six percent in two thand and eleven, and
Speaker 4: since twenty and eleven it's gone from six to twelve.
Speaker 4: So again not acceptable, and we still have a lot
Speaker 4: of work to do, but I think it does show
Speaker 4: that there is a lot more interest, There is a
Speaker 4: lot more work being done, you know, we don't We
Speaker 4: not only need an early detection test, but we also
Speaker 4: need better treatment options. Even those people who are diagnosed
Speaker 4: early and I have surgery many times there is a reoccurrence,
Speaker 4: and so we also need better treatment options for patients.
Speaker 2: So talk to us about some of the signs because
Speaker 2: as I said to you, I know for my mom,
Speaker 2: uh particularly, there were things that were going on that
Speaker 2: you know, it took a while to really diagnose because
Speaker 2: it could be read as just you know, upset stomach
Speaker 2: and some different different things. So it does take a
Speaker 2: while sometimes to figure it out, but symptoms that maybe
Speaker 2: people should watch out for. At this point. It doesn't
Speaker 2: necessarily mean you have it, but it might at least
Speaker 2: cause you to at least ask the questions of a
Speaker 2: member of the medical community.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and that's what we want. We want people to
Speaker 4: be aware so that it can be their own best
Speaker 4: you know, patient advocate. And the symptoms are fairly benign.
Speaker 4: It's things like weightless sudden weight loss. So if you
Speaker 4: suddenly lose weight and you know, people are excited I
Speaker 4: lost weight, But if there's not a reason for it,
Speaker 4: that's the kind of thing you should pay attention to.
Speaker 4: Stomach pain, back pain, jaundice or yellowing of the skin
Speaker 4: or eyes is many times a telling symptom for pancreatic cancer,
Speaker 4: although usually comes on more late stage new onset diabetes.
Speaker 4: That's a symptom that we understand more about today that
Speaker 4: for some people who get sudden onset diabetes, that may
Speaker 4: be an early symptom of pancretic cancer. And people can
Speaker 4: go to pancan dot org to read about all of
Speaker 4: the symptoms as well as the risk factors for the disease.
Speaker 2: Is there a chance that there will be a test someday?
Speaker 2: I know that members of my family are my world
Speaker 2: that when there's been some concerns, we've done baselines just
Speaker 2: to kind of have something to compare God forbid. But
Speaker 2: having said that, does the medical community, the research community,
Speaker 2: with the right amount of time money, approach that there
Speaker 2: will be some kind of screening test someday? And is
Speaker 2: genetics the genetic testing I know is something that certainly
Speaker 2: I'm curious about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, I mean there is a lot of research
Speaker 4: going on in this area. I think kind of three
Speaker 4: areas of blood tests. So there is work being done
Speaker 4: to develop a blood test, a blood marker where you
Speaker 4: know someone, if you took someone's blood, you would be
Speaker 4: able to potentially see the circulating DNA that might tell
Speaker 4: you that the person has cancer and then you know,
Speaker 4: So that's one area. There's there's tests being done that
Speaker 4: there are blood tests that are being worked on specifically
Speaker 4: for pancratic cancer. And then there's blood tests that are
Speaker 4: being working worked on across many cancers where someone might
Speaker 4: go in and get had blood work done and it
Speaker 4: might give them an indication of you know, across many
Speaker 4: different types of cancers. Usually these tests are not definitive
Speaker 4: and you still have to do them, you know, follow up,
Speaker 4: but at least might give someone an indication that they
Speaker 4: should do that sort of next step, you know. Genetic testing,
Speaker 4: as you mentioned, is another area. We know people who
Speaker 4: are at a higher risk if they've had someone in
Speaker 4: their family who's had pankcredic cancer. So understanding your genetic
Speaker 4: risk is important. Understanding did the person who had pankcredic cancer.
Speaker 2: They have testing we have to run, unfortunately, but a
Speaker 2: lot of great information. Julie Fleishman, she's president CEO of
Speaker 2: PANC Credic Cancer Action Network. Thank you so much,