“The Big Story” in this week’s edition of the Brands Taking Stands Newsletter focuses on the issue of long-term strategy in investment—a subject rising rapidly to the top of business agendas.

General Mills became a food giant by pioneering ideas to get people in and out of the kitchen more quickly. Now, it has moved to the front lines of an agricultural movement it didn’t start. A series of investments in recent months for its growing portfolio of natural and organic products has been aimed at fortifying the land where its food is grown.

Los Angeles Business Journal ranked Tetra Tech as the #1 Environmental Engineering and Consulting Firm in Los Angeles County for 2018. With headquarters in Pasadena, California, Tetra Tech was founded in 1966 and has grown to 522 employees in Los Angeles County, with 17,000 employees and 400 offices worldwide. Led by CEO and Chairman Dan Batrack, Tetra Tech’s full-service work includes expertise in water, environment, infrastructure, resource management, energy, and international development.

Sodexo, a food and facilities management company committed to improving Quality of Life, announced today that it has been recognized for 10 consecutive years by Working Mother as one of the 2018 Best Companies for Multicultural Women-- an honor that recognizes U.S. companies that create and use best practices in hiring, retaining and promoting women of color.

Arrow Electronics recently hosted the second annual Diversity Meets Innovation Competition. Student teams, with a diverse set of majors and backgrounds, from four local universities applied their knowledge and skills to propose a tangible impact that could affect the next generation of technology entrepreneurs.

Bloomberg’s Inaugural Business of Equality summit took place on Tuesday by convening more than 400 influential business leaders, advocates and activists to discuss diversity and inclusion initiatives in the workforce, future of equality, and what is at stake for both the economy and society at-large. The event was held at Bloomberg’s Global Headquarters in New York City.

Join LBG Canada companies on June 5, 2018 in Calgary, as we discuss community investment's role in a diversity and inclusion strategy. Suzanne Jackett, CEO of Between Friends, joins panelists that include leaders influencing corporate thinking on abilities, LGBTQ inclusion, Action 92 and Indigenous inclusion, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

California's most abundant resource, combined with precedent-setting integration of battery storage, will help a school district dramatically reduce its utility bills and build new defenses against outages. Black & Veatch today announced its role alongside Sharp Electronics Corporation’s Energy Systems and Services Group in engineering six sites of solar photovoltaic (PV) and SmartStorage energy systems in the Santa Rita Union School District (SRUSD) in Salinas, California.