Business

This archive collects stories about businesses — from startups and local enterprises to multinational corporations — taking meaningful action on social, environmental, and economic challenges. These reports highlight moments when commerce and accountability intersect in constructive ways.

Coal plant by the water, for article on renewable energy capacity

The second-largest U.S. electric company by market value plans to exit all coal by 2035

By / / Good News For Humankind

Duke Energy will shut down all 11 of its remaining coal-fired power plants by 2035, spanning the Carolinas, Indiana, and Florida. The second-largest U.S. electric utility also plans to more than double its solar and wind capacity to 24,000 megawatts by 2030, backed by a $130 billion clean energy investment over the next decade. Duke serves roughly 8 million customers across six states, so its choices ripple outward into grid infrastructure, household bills, and the air people breathe near aging plants. When a utility this large commits to exiting coal entirely, it signals that clean energy economics have tipped — and offers a template other slow-moving utilities around the world may soon follow.

Front of GMC truck, for article on electric truck manufacturing

GM makes largest-ever investment, spending $7 billion on EV manufacturing capacity

By / / Good News For Humankind

GM’s $7 billion bet on electric vehicles is the largest single investment in the company’s 116-year history, and it lands squarely in Michigan. The plan upgrades an assembly plant near Detroit to build battery-powered Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups, while a new facility in Lansing will produce the battery cells to power them. Together, the two sites will create more than 4,000 jobs and the capacity to build 600,000 electric trucks a year. Pickups are America’s bestsellers and among its heaviest emitters, so electrifying them at this scale shifts the emissions math of the country’s roads — and signals that the question for legacy automakers is no longer whether to go electric, but how fast.