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