3p Contributor: Bill DiBenedetto
Recent Articles
Landfills: From Beast to Beauty
What happens when landfills have had their fill can say a lot about a municipality’s commitment to the local environment and approach to handling trash.
In Great Kills, NY the 132-acre Brookfield landfill, an eyesore if ever there one on Staten Island, is undergoing a remarkable transformation. Phase one of a major remediation is complete and a second is underway, with residents providing input into what will eventually be a community park scheduled to open in 2017. The remediation process is set for completion in 2013.
John McLaughlin, the ecologist managing the restoration for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, quoted in a recent Grist article, says that when completed, Brookfield will be one of the largest chunks of natural landscape in the city, and the first landfill in the United States to be converted into an “ecologically functional wetland park.”
Coal-Fired Closures: More Plants Biting the Dust
In another victory for clean air in the battle against coal-fired plants, First Energy Thursday said it will retire six of its dirtiest power plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland by September 1.
The Ohio-based utility will retire these plants: Bay Shore Plant, Units 2-4, Oregon, Ohio; Eastlake Plant, Eastlake, Ohio; Ashtabula Plant, Ashtabula, Ohio; Lake Shore Plant, Cleveland, Ohio; Armstrong Power Station, Adrian, Pa.; and R. Paul Smith Power Station, Williamsport, Md.
Ernst & Young to Certify GHG Emissions Reporting
Ernst & Young, one of the Big Four accounting firms, has received approval to certify greenhouse gas emissions reporting.
One might well ask, so what? Why is this important? For one thing official GHG reporting accreditation using American National Standards Institute criteria will help ensure that CSR and similar reports are accurate and use widely accepted standards.
For another, it lends more gravitas to sustainability reporting when a major third-party firm such as Ernst & Young is on board. Ernst & Young specializes in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services.
Mixed Green Business Results
GreenBiz Group’s fifth annual 2012 State of Green Business report offers a somewhat mixed view of the current green and sustainable business landscape.
“Things aren’t going as well as we’d hoped,” says Joel Makower, principal author of the 84-page report. “For the first time since we began doing our assessment, in 2008, several of the indicators have taken a downward turn.”
Each year GreenBiz examines sustainable business by tracking 20 indicators of progress that measure such things as carbon emissions, e-waste recycling, green office space, vehicle fleet emissions, toxic emissions, energy efficiency, employee commuting, corporate reporting, and a dozen other metrics.
The report indicates a “significant decline” in progress from several of those indicators, specifically cleantech investment, energy efficiency, green office space, packaging intensity, toxic emissions, and toxins in manufacturing.
Ouch. Those items are fairly important reversals of fortune; the trend lines on them either leveled off or declined in 2011.
Online Freedom Rings: SOPA Stopped
Those of us who were gearing up for all-out rants and protests against misguided and unworkable proposals to stifle online freedom can breathe easier now that Congress has backed off – at least for the moment.
The two congressional bills — the Senate’s Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the House’s even more offensive Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) — were brought to you by the same folks who rail against intrusive government regulation while singing the praises of unfettered liberty and freedom—except when it’s not in their interest to do so.
No More Hiding: EPA’s Carbon Emissions Database Goes Live
As promised by the EPA, the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions are now mapped for all to see, and it’s not a pretty sight.
The online emissions database displays 2010 GHG emissions data from more than 6,700 large facilities and suppliers. The data includes public information from facilities in nine industry groups that directly emit large quantities of GHGs, as well as suppliers of certain fossil fuels.
Using the interactive site might actually be fun if the information itself wasn’t so disheartening.
For example, the Centralia Big Hanaford coal-fired power plant in Washington emitted 9.86 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (mmtCO2e) in 2010. In Illinois, the Baldwin Energy Complex emitted 11.8 mmt of GHGs. The EPA identified 673 total emitters in Texas, including the ExxonMobil BT Site in Baytown (10.78 mmt) and the ExxonMobil Beaumont Refinery (5.76 mmt). EPA’s database shows that 237 mmt GHG emissions came from 124 power plants in Texas and 57 mmt from 29 refineries.
MIT’s New Perspectives on Energy Innovation
When MIT spends three years studying something, it’s probably worthwhile to pay close attention to the results. In this case the university is calling for a new framework for spurring innovation in how energy is produced, delivered and used.
Basically put, think regionally for solutions because the federal government is “structurally unable” to be the horn of plenty and innovation in this arena.
MIT found that while the world really needs innovation in energy technologies, it should to be kick-started through fundamental changes in energy research and delivery. A new system of policy and investment strategies will accelerate innovation in the U.S. to achieve the trifecta of meeting energy needs; reducing carbon emissions and easing insecurity over energy supply. The solution will not necessarily rest on big ticket government-funded Manhattan Project-type programs, but rather on smaller, more local and regional projects and investments.
High Heat: Re:char Recharges African Soil
A start-up called re:char has a new take on an ancient idea that’s designed to enhance crop yields in the developing world by making biochar accessible and affordable.
Biochar is made by a process known as pyrolysis, which heats organic matter such as waste farm produce, without oxygen. Instead of releasing carbon dioxide into the air as the matter burns, the carbon is locked away in solid charcoal-like chunks.
In addition to increasing crop yields, subsistence farmers can supplement their income while trapping atmospheric carbon and enriching depleted soils. Biochar can also be used as cooking fuel instead of cutting down trees for firewood.
BP, Halliburton Go to War Over Deepwater Horizon Disaster
The legal battles surrounding the Deepwater Horizon 2010 drilling disaster promise to be just as messy—and more lengthy—than the spill incident itself.
The latest shots in this seemingly neverending exercise in passing the buck were fired last month when oil giant BP went to court in New Orleans claiming that US contractor Halliburton (yes, that Halliburton) botched the cement work on the doomed oil rig.
The lawsuit suit seeks “the amount of costs and expenses incurred by BP to clean up and remediate the oil spill, the lost profits from and/or diminution in value of the Macondo prospect, and all other costs and damages incurred by BP related to the Deepwater Horizon incident and resulting oil spill,” according to the BP filing.
BP did not put a specific number on the amount of damages it wants from Halliburton, but the oil major had previously estimated that the cleanup would cost about $42 billion. It has spent $14 billion in the Gulf coast region on spill cleanup and another $20 billion was set aside for economic claims and restoration work.
Sync City and Transportation Planning for Sustainability
Looking for a good how-to book on sustainable transportation planning? An excellent place to start is with Jeffrey Tumlin’s new book which provides a comprehensive, entertaining and profusely illustrated guide to “creating vibrant, healthy and resilient communities.”
3p obtained a review copy of Sustainable Transportation Planning, published as an e-book this month by John Wiley & Sons. The hardcover edition will be published in mid-January. Tumlin is an owner and sustainability practice leader of Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates, a San Francisco transportation planning and engineering firm that focuses on sustainable mobility.
Tumlin’s book provides ideas, case studies, tools and solutions for citizens, elected officials, transportation engineers, urban planners, pedestrians, bicyclists and more. He looks at how smart transportation investments will improve economic development, health, sustainability and quality of life.
“Transportation must be seen as inseparable from land use planning or economic development – indeed, the best transportation plan is a good land use plan,” he says.
Norquist Stance on Renewable Electricity Standards Gets Zapped
Where to start with right-wing maven Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, especially when he weighs in on the environment and renewable energy in his typically uninformed, anti-intellectual, anti-science, ideological and agenda-ridden style?
Well let’s start with the fact that Norquist and Patrick Gleason, director state affairs for Norquist’s organization, have published an op-ed article in Politico, “Rethink Energy Mandates,” which calls on states to scrap renewable electricity standards (RES).
That’s where the facts end.
RES are a successful, bipartisan policy that requires utilities to gradually increase their use of wind, solar, and other renewable power sources over time. The standards have been a primary driver for deploying clean power sources for the last fifteen years, says Jeff Deyette, assistant director of research & analysis, Clean Energy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Deyette took on the admirable task of discrediting the Norquist article. His response blows it out of the water.
Historic Mercury Regs from EPA a Boon for Health, the Environment and Jobs
A few small drops of mercury can contaminate a 20-acre lake and the fish that happen to reside there, thanks to coal-fired plant emissions.
That’s a major reason why the EPA’s decision to regulate the emissions of mercury, lead and other toxic pollutants from coal- and oil-fired plants is a major victory for the health and environmental welfare of the nation.
And please ignore the scare tactics from Big Coal and right-wing politicos about blackouts, job losses and energy security risks as a result of the rules.
CSR: Still a Question of Balance and Value
A recent article in the McKinsey Quarterly on the drivers behind corporate responsibility says that few companies are clear on how investing in social initiatives will change stakeholder behavior.
The article asserts that few companies understand the harm that a bad CSR strategy can cause.
This is a little surprising because the recent conventional wisdom has been that more and more companies are starting to “get it” when it comes to the importance and added-value of CSR.
Research by authors CB Bhattacharya, the E.ON Chair in Corporate Responsibility and dean of international relations at the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT), in Berlin; Daniel Korschun, an assistant professor at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business and Sankar Sen, professor of marketing at Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business, reveals a more troubling side of the equation.
Even the Affluent are Redefining Luxury in the Down Economy
The definitions of luxury and necessity, in these perilous and depressive economic times of the “new normal,” are changing both if you are affluent and if you are not-so-affluent, according to an AdvertisingAge news report.
For many, simply receiving a regular paycheck for a regular job with some benefits would be a great luxury, but unemployment is not what the AdAge report addresses.
Luxury or at least the pursuit of luxury is an integral part of the lives of nearly everyone, according to the article, Affluency: New Definitions of Luxury, which focuses on “Affluents,” or adults living in households with at least $100,000 in annual income. It summarizes a presentation based on Ipsos Mendelsohn survey data that says some 94 percent of Affluents have purchased and intend to purchase luxury items in at least one of 15 categories.
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