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Business

Bayer takes steps to make carbon sequestration a farmer’s newest crop opportunity

• Bayer to reward growers to generate carbon credits by adopting climate-smart practices and creating a new revenue stream on-farm

• The initiative makes Bayer the first company to develop a transparent, science-based and collaborative approach to a carbon market in agriculture

MONHEIM, Germany–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Agriculture may now have another solution to positively impact climate change thanks to a new initiative launched by Bayer. Beginning this month, Bayer will start rewarding farmers in Brazil and the U.S. for generating carbon credits by adopting climate-smart practices – such as no-till farming and the use of cover crops – designed to help agriculture reduce its carbon footprint and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Bayer’s industry-leading Carbon Initiative is the result of years of work validating a science-based approach and methodology to make this happen. It recognizes the pivotal role growers and their land can play in helping to create lasting, positive environmental impacts and is the latest in the company’s sustainability commitments specifically aimed at reducing field GHG emission by 30% in 2030.

“Farmers are passionate environmentalists and stewards of the lands they farm,” said Brett Begemann, Chief Operating Officer of Bayer’s Crop Science division. “Their lives and livelihoods depend on the weather, and they are some of the first to be affected by drought, flooding and extreme conditions. If anyone has a vested interest in battling climate change, it’s farmers and we are committed to developing new business models like this unique Carbon Initiative to help them in that fight.”

Soil is one of the most effective ways of sequestering carbon. Incentivizing farmers to embrace no-till, precision nitrogen use or cover crops helps further sequester carbon into the soil, reduce fossil fuel usage and reduce greenhouse gases. While today farmers get rewarded solely for their food, feed and fiber production, those participating in the Bayer Carbon Initiative will have the opportunity to be rewarded for their best farm management practices and other sustainability efforts as well.

The program’s 2020/2021 season will include approximately 1,200 farmers in Brazil and the U.S. In both countries, farmers will receive assistance in implementing climate-smart agricultural practices and Bayer will acquire the carbon removals created by those practices at transparent prices. The company is also collaborating with partners such as Embrapa in Brazil to build a viable carbon market for farmers.

Bayer plans to expand the program in the U.S. and Brazil to other farmers and then later into other world regions with tailored approaches that will allow growers to choose what climate-smart practices and implementation works best for them. In Europe, we are exploring how this innovative approach could be adapted as part of the European Green Deal. In Asia-Pacific, our goal is to help increase productivity for smallholder farmers as well as reduce methane emissions from rice farming.

“We know that growers in the U.S. are not only good stewards of their land, but also shrewd businessmen, too,” said Lisa Safarian, President of Bayer Crop Science, North America. “That’s why this initiative is so exciting – enabling farmers to realize additional financial benefit from carbon-smart farming practices such as the use of cover crops or no-till agriculture.”

“We are excited to partner with farmers through this new Bayer Carbon Initiative,” Begemann added. “We’re honored to take this major step with farmers to create a carbon-zero future for agriculture, an important legacy that we can create with farmers to leave to the next generation.”

About Bayer

Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the life science fields of health care and nutrition. Its products and services are designed to benefit people by supporting efforts to overcome the major challenges presented by a growing and aging global population. At the same time, the Group aims to increase its earning power and create value through innovation and growth. Bayer is committed to the principles of sustainable development, and the Bayer brand stands for trust, reliability and quality throughout the world. In fiscal 2019, the Group employed around 104,000 people and had sales of 43.5 billion euros. Capital expenditures amounted to 2.9 billion euros, R&D expenses to 5.3 billion euros. For more information, go to www.bayer.com.

Find more information at www.bayer.com.

Contacts

Charla Lord, +1 314-343-7196
Email: charla.lord@bayer.com

Brian Leake, +1 314-370-3285
Email: brian.leake@bayer.com

Categories
Business

NICE Actimize enhances SURVEIL-X Holistic Trade Surveillance solution with self-service analytics for custom risk detection

SURVEIL-X Studio enables FSOs to rapidly create, test and deploy custom analytic risk detection models to close regulatory and operational risk gaps

HOBOKEN, N.J.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–In the world of financial services, regulations and business risks are constantly evolving. Surveillance models that get the job done today could be out-of-date tomorrow, potentially exposing firms to fines and reputational damage. To address this challenge, NICE Actimize, a NICE (Nasdaq: NICE) business and the leader in Autonomous Financial Crime Management, has introduced an enhancement to its SURVEIL-X Holistic Trade Surveillance solution that provides self-service analytics, called SURVEIL-X Studio. This all-in-one approach enables Financial Services Organizations (FSOs) to rapidly create, test and deploy custom analytic risk detection models.

Instead of wasting time coding, and sourcing and scrubbing data, business analysts who use SURVEIL-X Studio can focus their expertise on creating risk models to close coverage gaps and solve complex compliance challenges. Non-technical business analysts can effortlessly create models using SURVEIL-X Studio’s drag-and-drop interface, choosing from an expansive library of customizable templates or easily building their own rules from scratch.

SURVEIL-X Studio also features built-in integrations to data services (including trading data and market data), and common business functions and calculations (including currency conversions and market trends).

Chris Wooten, Executive Vice President, NICE, stated, “Today, many firms are attempting to plug surveillance gaps with in-house solutions or by mixing and matching out-of-the-box products from different technology providers. These temporary measures don’t provide complete coverage and may force analysts to work in silos which can be risky, costly and time consuming. With SURVEIL-X Studio, NICE Actimize has leveraged decades of experience to create an all-in-one, self-service analytics solution tailored to the needs of financial services organizations. Firms get complete surveillance coverage without the added costs, hassles and limitations of in-house or multi-vendor solutions.”

Using SURVEIL-X Studio, testing and implementing risk models is fast, easy and seamless; business analysts can deploy rules into tests and promote them to production with a single click with fully auditable, built-in change control processes guiding them every step of the way. Additionally, once rules are deployed into production, all alerts are delivered to analysts on the same ActOne case management platform, for a consistent, seamless user experience. ActOne’s rich visual alerting capabilities provide comprehensive graphical representations of all detected risks, along with detailed timelines of events and explanations of alerts, leveraging a broad range of risk factors, including communications, trades and more.

SURVEIL-X Studio is part of NICE Actimize’s SURVEIL-X, the industry’s first AI-powered, cloud-native, true holistic surveillance solution. SURVEIL-X detects all forms of risky behavior to ensure compliance with key global regulations, including MiFID II, Dodd-Frank, MAR, Regulation Best Interest and others. SURVEIL-X offers unparalleled risk coverage for buy- and sell-side firms, insurance companies, crypto exchanges, regulators and more by enabling accurate detection and rapid, thorough investigation of market abuse, inappropriate sales practices, conduct risk and other undetectable compliance risks to insulate firms from fines and reputational damage.

Learn more:

  • For further information on SURVEIL-X and SURVEIL-X Studio please click here.
  • To learn how to leverage self-service analytics to improve your firm’s risk coverage capabilities, please click here to view our recorded webinar. Registration required.

About NICE Actimize​

NICE Actimize is the largest and broadest provider of financial crime, risk and compliance solutions for regional and global financial institutions, as well as government regulators. Consistently ranked as number one in the space, NICE Actimize experts apply innovative technology to protect institutions and safeguard consumers’ and investors’ assets by identifying financial crime, preventing fraud and providing regulatory compliance. The company provides real-time, cross-channel fraud prevention, anti-money laundering detection, and trading surveillance solutions that address such concerns as payment fraud, cybercrime, sanctions monitoring, market abuse, customer due diligence and insider trading. Find us at www.niceactimize.com, @NICE_Actimize or Nasdaq: NICE.

About NICE ​

NICE (Nasdaq: NICE) is the world’s leading provider of both cloud and on-premises enterprise software solutions that empower organizations to make smarter decisions based on advanced analytics of structured and unstructured data. NICE helps organizations of all sizes deliver better customer service, ensure compliance, combat fraud and safeguard citizens. Over 25,000 organizations in more than 150 countries, including over 85 of the Fortune 100 companies, are using NICE solutions. www.nice.com.

Trademark Note: NICE and the NICE logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of NICE Ltd. All other marks are trademarks of their respective owners. For a full list of NICE’s marks, please see: www.nice.com/nice-trademarks.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements, including the statements by Mr. Wooten, are based on the current beliefs, expectations and assumptions of the management of NICE Ltd. (the “Company”). In some cases, such forward-looking statements can be identified by terms such as “believe,” “expect,” “seek,” “may,” “will,” “intend,” “should,” “project,” “anticipate,” “plan,” “estimate,” or similar words. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results or performance of the Company to differ materially from those described herein, including but not limited to the impact of changes in economic and business conditions, including as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic; competition; successful execution of the Company’s growth strategy; success and growth of the Company’s cloud Software-as-a-Service business; changes in technology and market requirements; decline in demand for the Company’s products; inability to timely develop and introduce new technologies, products and applications; difficulties or delays in absorbing and integrating acquired operations, products, technologies and personnel; loss of market share; an inability to maintain certain marketing and distribution arrangements; the Company’s dependency on third-party cloud computing platform providers, hosting facilities and service partners;, cyber security attacks or other security breaches against the Company; the effect of newly enacted or modified laws, regulation or standards on the Company and our products and various other factors and uncertainties discussed in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). For a more detailed description of the risk factors and uncertainties affecting the company, refer to the Company’s reports filed from time to time with the SEC, including the Company’s Annual Report on Form 20-F. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise them, except as required by law.

Contacts

Corporate Media Contact
Cindy Morgan-Olson, 551-256-5202, cindy.morgan-olson@niceactimize.com

Investors
Marty Cohen, +1 551 256 5354, ET, ir@nice.com
Yisca Erez +972 9 775 3798, CET, ir@nice.com

Categories
Local News

First female carpenter to represent N.J. in SkillsUSA national competitions

Brittany Pochick is the first female carpenter from MCTS to represent N.J. in SkillsUSA national competition. Seen here in the wood shop using her carpentry tool.
— Lori Perlow photo

HIGHTSTOWN, N.J. — For 18-year-old Brittany Pochick, her love for mixed media art has evolved into carpentry, and has been therapeutic, especially because she excels at her crafts.

Pochick graduated from Hightstown High School this year, and is a first-year student in a two-year carpentry program at Mercer County Technical Schools (MCTS).

“She is the first female carpenter in the program to represent New Jersey at the national level competitions after winning first place in her school district and also placed first at the State level competitions for the SkillsUSA programs,” said Lori Perlow, former community liaison at MCTS.

Not only is Pochick a talented first-year carpenter, but she is also an entrepreneur with a mixed media art studio and an online business, Perlow said.

Both special student as well as a nontraditional one, Pochick uses her art and craft as therapy to deal with past traumatic life experiences, and she thrives in this male-dominated profession.

With her grandmother and her mother’s support, when Pochick was 7-years-old and needed therapy, she started exploring mixed media art forms.

She later started her business that became a legitimate or legal business when she was only 12, she said.

Currently, her mixed media altered art include “paintings, assemblage art, metals, steam punk pieces, work with paper, laces, fabric and textiles,” Pochick said.

However, as she got older she became more interested in woodwork and carpentry, which is an extension of her love for mixed media art, she said.

It started when she first entered in a Home Depot store.

“The first time I ever went into a Home Depot, I loved the smell of wood, and I like working with my hands and building things. I guess I have a little engineering in me,” she explained.

Brittany Pochick with her instructor, Mark Nace, reading a blueprint together.
— Lori Perlow photo

Pochick has been woodworking for about four years now and says she definitely knew she would like it because she likes to use wood and tools to create something amazing.

She said that even though most people find it challenging, she mostly likes building roof rafters. She said the most challenging thing for her to build in carpentry is stairs.

“For SkillsUSA, I’ll be framing out a small modular house. They may have us do interior work such as roofing, trimming and painting,” she said.

Pochick cautioned that she really does not know what she will be building for the actual competition because she will not get the blueprint until the day before the event.

However, she is confident in her skills and believes she will do well.

She said she is especially skilled at building things that others find difficult to build such as rafters because she has strong math skills and she is good at visualizing blueprints before she actually builds the items.

“She was the type of student who was very project-oriented,” said Doug Shunk, her former counselor at Hightstown High School.

“She liked creating a project and see it sit in front of her. She was very enthusiastic. She told us she wanted to get out from behind the desk and jump into the hands-on projects that we offer here (at MCTS),” Shunk said.

Perlow added that the collaboration between Hightstown High School and MCTS is very important because in the case where Shunk was Pochick’s counselor he was able to encourage her to come to the MCTS program.

Apart from relieving anxiety and stress, Pochick said her carpentry has been financially beneficial to her and that she is especially proud of her doghouse that she built this year.

She said she likes doing roofing and the finishing touches on her work where she uses the miter saw for trimmings.

Now, she is looking forward to representing New Jersey in carpentry, and to her performance at the SkillsUSA annual national competition in Louisville, Ky, on Thursday.