Q&A

Our team recently sat down with Eric Roston to discuss his take on the challenges of covering climate change and the trending environmental issues of the day.

As Sustainability Editor, what are some of your key priorities?
Every journalist, no matter which topic, pretty much has the same basic two-part job description. Find stuff out and tell stories about it. In the sustainability world, that presents a quite broad spectrum of activities. Climate change science, economics, policy, politics, and technology are all a big part of it. But sustainability speaks also to the culture and missions of institutions – what kind of person does the company, organization, government we work for explicitly or tacitly expect us to be? It’s a notoriously difficult thing to measure, but “ESG” (Environmental Performance, Social Policies, and Governance issues) metrics have evolved considerably in the last 10-15 years.

How has sustainability news coverage at Bloomberg evolved since you joined the company in 2011?
Change in coverage reflects change in the world that we cover. And for some large percentage of big companies (including Bloomberg LP), sustainability has become standard operating procedure. It saves money, leads to new products and services, and creates goodwill among consumers, employees, and investors. Consumers have become more adept at distinguishing greenwashing from earnest efforts, just as investors have become more adept at making connections between good sustainability performance, strong governance, and positive returns.

What are the main issues in sustainability right now?
The rise of renewable energy and of the U.S. as a natural gas superpower are ongoing, transformative trends in the energy space. The biggest question of all at the moment may be how global businesses respond to White House exit from the Paris Agreement and uprooting of the Obama administration’s climate policies. As a general matter, it’s a continual struggle to document the conditions that people face around the world manufacturing or producing raw materials and parts for goods enjoyed by developed countries—smart phones, chocolate, coffee. Some investors, particularly some large pension funds, have been more active about what they put in their portfolios.

How does sustainability journalism play a role in helping to address these issues?
Transparency drives a lot of it. The web has brought some neat opportunities for journalists to go beyond daily news stories, to perennial explainers of complicated topics that can be used as a resource for busy people who want to learn the basics of important things in a hurry.

“The rise of renewable energy and of the U.S. as a natural gas superpower are ongoing, transformative trends in the energy space.”

In April, Bloomberg launched ClimateChanged.com, a site devoted to climate science and the future of energy. What inspired the launch?
The considerable public attention given to climate change is not always productive. The site cuts through the increasingly incoherent noise about climate change in Washington to show the problems and opportunities that people, companies, and governments are facing as the world warms.

What are some of the key features of the site?
The site is pretty straightforward and easy to use on any platform, with the freshest climate and energy news up top, replenished as new things publish. There are graphics and videos about halfway down the page that focus on the basics of climate change and that were designed to last a really long time. Climate Changed is also delivered to inboxes via a newsletter.

Climate Changed now houses Bloomberg’s Carbon Clock, a project started in 2015. What is Carbon Clock all about?
The main scientific measure of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas, is a little bit arcane. The goal of the Carbon Clock was to bring about greater familiarity with this measure by making a visually appealing and scientifically sound tour of the metric and its meaning. It was inspired by successful public installations like the National Debt Clock, now on 44th Street, and Metronome art project in Union Square. It’s based on up-to-date government and academic data, which is projected forward thanks to a neat math program written by two data experts in Bloomberg R&D. The design and execution came from Blacki Migliozzi, Mira Rojanasakul, and other colleagues in Bloomberg Graphics.

What are you looking forward to covering this year?
The easiest answer is “good, memorable stories,” whichever piece of the climate puzzle they come from. The most important questions may be how the Trump administration’s actions will rewire international alliances and market opportunities, and how much more clearly can scientists figure out the rate of change – and the stakes.

– Gabriela Tama