BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
My family eats a mostly vegetarian diet. Some kids at school were making fun of my 9-year-old son, telling him how great meat tastes. Before diving into the challenge of dealing with childhood peers, I asked him if he knew why we’re vegetarian. When it was clear he didn’t (that’s on me), I started to tell him about the environmental impacts of meat as it’s currently produced, health benefits, and animal welfare.
CLEANTECH -
The trade organization representing investor-owned electric companies, the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), has hired a communications consultant who will help utilities rebrand themselves into something more appealing to the public. The changes will include shifts in messaging, such as from “utility-scale solar” to “community solar.” A new communication plan is expected to be presented to the organization’s members within a month.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Diamonds may be forever, but they soon could change the way we power electronics by cutting e-waste, conserving water and fighting climate change.
Today, semiconductors usually are made of silicon, which, when disposed of as e-waste, poisons children, pollutes water and releases substances like lead and methane into the jetstream.
CLEANTECH -
The landmark international climate change nearly 195-nation agreement that came out of COP21 late last year sent a message to the world that a low-carbon future is imminent.
The Paris Agreement, for the first time, brings all nations into a common cause based on their historic, current and future responsibilities. Its main aim is to keep a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius and to drive efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The 1.5 degree Celsius limit is a significantly safer defense line against the worst impacts of a changing climate.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Do you ever have that Charlie Brown moment? You know, the moment when you’ve done something again for the umpteenth time, hoping for a different result, but you get what you’ve always gotten?
That’s my current relationship with the Eco Mode on my one-year-old, fairly expensive dishwasher.
I rinse the dishes (wondering if I’m just making environmental matters worse), pop them in the dishwasher, press the Eco Mode button and hope for the best. And then I sort through the dishes when the cycle is done, pull out the ones that actually appear to be clean and leave about a quarter of them in the machine, to be washed a second time when it’s full (in Regular Wash mode).
STAKEHOLDER TRENDS AND INSIGHTS -
A new report from CDP, analyzing 15 of the world’s largest automakers with combined market capitalization of US$846 billion, has found that tightening regulations on emissions are having a significant business impact in the wake of the Volkswagen scandal last fall.
THE NEXT ECONOMY -
The latest generation of descendants of oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller have denounced the industry upon which he built their fortune.
The Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF) announced this week it has sold its holdings in Exxon Mobil and plans to dump all of its other fossil-fuel investments “as quickly as possible.” Foundation director Lee Wasserman told Bloomberg that fossil-fuel investments comprise roughly 6 percent of the RFF’s $130 million in holdings.
COLLABORATION -
Tomorrow, at a forum of the G7 Alliance on Resource Efficiency in Washington, D.C., Ford Motor Company will highlight its new Partnership for A Cleaner Environment (PACE), a program that aims to help the automaker’s suppliers minimize their impact on the environment by sharing details of Ford’s best practices for water, energy and carbon dioxide reduction.
PRESS RELEASE -
Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM), the storage and information management company, began to power a segment of its New Jersey and Pennsylvania operations with local wind energy in March under a new supply agreement arranged by Renewable Power Direct (RPD), the national green power marketer. Under the agreement, Leeward Renewable Energy, through its Jersey-Atlantic Wind (JAW) generating facility, will be the source of physical power to cover a portion of Iron Mountain’s electric load and advance corporate sustainability goals.
CLEANTECH -
When you look through a sustainability lens at Cisco’s supply chain, you see three things clearly: a focus on climate and carbon impacts, a deep concern for the protection of human rights, and an imperative around product take-back opportunities. Cisco’s approach to a responsible supply chain is structured around this impact framework.
CLEANTECH -
The energy sector accounts for around one-third of global CO2 emissions. Thus, countries’ urgent need to combat climate change is strongly related to energy companies’ ability to change from ‘black’ to ‘green.’
A Danish example is DONG Energy. The company says its cut in CO2 emissions from electricity and heat production accounts for more than half of the Denmark’s total CO2 reduction from 2006 to 2014. But how can one single company cut more than half of a country’s CO2?
PRESS RELEASE -
Helping to Create and Support Nationwide Natural Gas Market
PRESS RELEASE -
Iron Mountain Incorporated® (NYSE:IRM), the storage and information management company, today announced the signing of a 15-year wind power purchase agreement that will exchange 30 percent of its North American electricity footprint with renewable energy. Additionally, the purchase of two-thirds of the power produced by a new wind turbine farm – currently under construction in Ringer Hill, Penn. – will provide Iron Mountain with long-term rate stability and expected annual savings of up to $500,000 in utility costs.
CLEANTECH -
Regularly scheduled United Airlines flights between Los Angeles and San Francisco will be fueled by a blend of 30 percent biofuel and 70 percent traditional fuel, reducing an estimated 60 percent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared with regular fuel.
Other airlines have tested biofuel, but United says it has “made history … by becoming the first U.S. airline to begin use of commercial-scale volumes of sustainable aviation biofuel for regularly scheduled flights,” with this new initiative.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
This week, two major banks made changes to their policies regarding coal financing. The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) acknowledged their progress, but asserted that a great deal more must be done to meet the global commitment made at COP21 in December to limit climate change to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
The ‘biggest international sustainable entrepreneurship competition’ is underway! The Postcode Lottery Green Challenge is open to entrepreneurs and businesses who have a product or service which reduces CO2 emissions. Now in its 10th year, this annual business plan competition for eco-entrepreneurs aims to promote a low carbon economy by supporting “sustainable innovation in the battle against climate change.”
PRESS RELEASE -
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Center for Corporate Climate Leadership recognized Kimberly-Clark with one of only 17 Climate Leadership Awards given nationwide for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The awards acknowledge the voluntary work organizations do to manage and reduce greenhouse gas emissions throughout the supply chain.
Kimberly-Clark received the Excellence in Greenhouse Gas Management "Goal Achievement Award" for reporting and verifying organization-wide greenhouse gas inventories and achieving publicly-set aggressive greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction goals.
CLEANTECH -
Advances in renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy storage are pushing us toward a more sustainable, low-carbon future, but an outright energy revolution is being held back by the fact that the market prices of coal, oil and gas include almost none of the costs of carbon pollution.
At the national level, putting a price on carbon will transform energy investment, re-shape consumption, and sharply reduce the carbon emissions that are driving global warming, according to the Carbon Tax Center. This “upstream” tax would target the carbon contents of fossil fuels, including coal, oil and natural gas, as well as biofuels.
PRESS RELEASE -
DETROIT – Eleven General Motors facilities have earned ENERGY STAR® certification for superior energy efficiency from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. These buildings, which include seven parts distribution centers, a global headquarters office and three IT innovation office centers, have optimized their buildings to leave a smaller carbon footprint.To earn ENERGY STAR certification, buildings must perform better in energy efficiency than 75 percent of similar buildings nationwide and meet strict energy efficiency performance levels set by the EPA.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
The annual competition from the Biomimicry Insititute is spreading its wings: The Biomimicry Global Design Challenge (BGDC) is expanding to include the Living Product Prize.