3p Contributor: Gina-Marie Cheeseman
Recent Articles
What Does It Take to Achieve a Sustainable Future?
What does it take to achieve a sustainable future? The UN’s Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on Global Sustainability’s final report, released on January 30, thinks that transparency is needed. Yes, you read that correctly. The Panel’s report thinks that by making both the cost of action and inaction transparent “political processes can summon both the arguments and the political will necessary to act for a sustainable future.” The report tackles major issues, including food, water, energy, climate change, population trends, and gender equality.
In 1987, the UN World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) released a report commonly known as the Brundtland Report. The Panel’s report, which includes 56 recommendations from the 22-member panel, is both a reflection of the Brundtland Report, and an attempt to figure out why sustainable development has not been fully realized.
“The long-term vision of the Panel is to eradicate poverty, reduce inequality and make growth inclusive, and production and consumption more sustainable, while combating climate change and respecting a range of other planetary boundaries,” the report states. “In light of this, the report makes a range of recommendations to take forward the Panel’s vision for a sustainable planet, a just society and a growing economy.”
Progress Report: Dow Chemical Partners with The Nature Conservancy
Dow Chemical and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) announced a collaboration last year to help Dow consider ecosystem services in its decisions and strategies. A year after the announcement, Dow and TNC released a progress report on the partnership to which Dow has committed $10 million on top of TNC’s expertise.
The partnership will consider three Dow sites, where the company will develop and test methods to value ecosystem services. Only one of the sites has been selected so far, according to the report, and the second one is expected to be identified in Brazil later this year. The first site is at Dow’s Texas operations in Freeport, Dow’s largest integrated manufacturing site, and the largest single-company chemical complex in North America. The Freeport site manufactures 44 percent of the products Dow sells in the U.S., and over 21 percent of Dow’s products globally.
Outdated Solar Panels Considered E-Waste By EU Parliament
The EU Parliament, meeting in Strasbourg, France, voted on January 18 to update its Waste Electrical and Electronics Equipment (WEEE) legislation to include solar photovoltaic (PV) modules. Member states will have 18 months to update their laws. Under the amendments to WEEE, 85 of all end-of-life PV modules have to be collected in member states, and 80 percent have to be recycled. PV Magazine reports that the Parliament “found the commitment for the take back and recycling of photovoltaic modules by the solar industry too lax.”
“In order to reflect the very long lifetime of PV panels and the recent appearance of PV markets in Europe, an individual collection target for PV panels should be based on the quantities of end-of-life PV panels available,” said Reinhold Buttgereit, secretary general of the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA). Buttereit added, “The PV industry is ready to support the European Commission in establishing the methodology for a waste-generated approach.”
Oil Companies are Actually Planning for Climate Change
Not so long ago oil companies “bank rolled climate change denial,” as Treehugger recently pointed out. The same post acknowledges the irony of oil companies “planning for the inevitability of man-made climate change.” Oil companies really do have climate adaptation strategies in place. As Marc Gunther of Greenbiz stated in an article last week, “Even the oil and gas industry — which, of course, is a major contributor to climate change — is paying heed.”
Why would an industry that pumped so much money into climate change denial invest in adapting to it? It’s really simple: climate change will affect the company’s bottom line. A 2009 report by IBM, Acclimatise and Carbon Disclosure Project found that the oil and gas industry is not prepared for the impacts of climate change to their physical assets. Climate change impacts, according to the report, “will become more severe creating new and enhanced risks for the oil and gas sector.”
Introducing Twitter’s New Censorship Policy
Twitter is in the proverbial doghouse with many of its users. The social networking giant announced in a blog post on January 27 that it is implementing a policy to “reactively withhold content from users in a specific country—while keeping it available in the rest of the world.” In other words, if a country requested that Twitter take down or withhold a tweet, the social network may comply with the request.
Before you get upset with Twitter, and you can reserve that right in a moment or two, let me explain a few more details of the policy change. Twitter will tell users when their tweet is withheld, and a tweet will only be withheld at the request of a government. Twitter has not yet withheld tweets, but when it does it will allow Chilling Effects to publish the request to withhold content by the respective government.
How Landfills Can Provide Electricity
Landfills across the U.S. are teeming with waste. In fact, the average American throws away over 1,130 pounds of waste a year. That’s an environmental disaster because rotting garbage produces landfill gas (LFG) which is made up of 50 percent methane, a greenhouse gas with the warming potential 23 times greater than carbon. Municipal solid waste (MSW) is the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions in the U.S. In 2009, MSW accounted for about 17 percent of methane emissions according to the EPA. MSW landfills released an estimated 27.5 million metric tons of carbon equivalent to the atmosphere in 2009.
The environmental disaster can be avoided by using LFG as a source of energy to create heat or electricity. Landfills can “significantly reduce” their methane emissions through LFG projects. Over 365 landfills in the U.S. already recover methane and use it to produce electricity or heat. An LFG energy project can capture 60 to 90 percent of the methane emitted from a landfill. Generating electricity from LFG makes up about two-thirds of the operational projects in the U.S. Using LFG to offset the use of another fuel such as natural gas or coal occurs in about one-third of the operational projects.
Poverty Among the Nation’s Retail Workers
More than half of the retail workers surveyed in a study last fall earn less than $10 an hour. The Retail Action Project and Stephanie Luce of the City University of New York conducted the study of 436 retail workers in New York, a location chosen because it is the retail capital of the U.S. Most surveyed worked in stores with a national presence, which means that the study reflects conditions and practices experienced by retail workers across the U.S.
About one-third of the workers surveyed support a family member on their wages, but the median wage for the surveyed workers is only $9.50 an hour. The majority of workers (59 percent) are female. Almost one in five earns less than $8 an hour, and almost 12 percent earn minimum wage. About 34 percent rely on public assistance.
Other findings from the study include:
Venture Capital Funding For Smart Grid Dropped Last Year
Venture capital (VC) funding for the smart grid sector in 2011 was “anemic,” according to the annual and fourth quarter merger and acquisition (M&A) and funding activity for the smart grid sector for 2011 released Mercom Capital Group, LLC. The average VC funding round dropped by 50 percent in 2011 to $7.5 million compared to almost $15 million in 2010. VC funding in 2011 brought $377 million in 50 deals (24 disclosed) compared to $769M in 51 deals in 2010 (27 disclosed).
Mercom blames the drop in VC funding on “current economic conditions and uncertainty along with a lack of clear direction in the Smart Grid sector is plainly evident based on the depressed funding activity so far this year.”
California Utility Adds Over 200 Megawatts of Wind and Solar
The large California utility company, Pacific, Gas & Electric (better known as PG&E) added over 220 megawatts (MW) of wind and solar power last year. One of the largest combined natural gas and electricity utilities in the US, PG&E also signed contracts for 463 MW of new renewable energy, including 263 MW of wind. About 19 percent of PG&E’s electricity sales last year came from renewable sources, and PG&E predicts it will reach 20 percent this year. California requires utilities to generate 33 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020.
Expect PG&E to continue to add much more solar photovoltaic (PV) projects. Seven PV projects, totaling over 1,900 MW, are under construction and expected to come online by 2015, according to PG&E’s blog, PG&E Currents.
Dupont Building Innovations Achieves Zero Landfill Status
Dupont Building Innovations, Dupont’s building unit, achieved zero landfill status, the company announced on January 11, 2012. The company managed to send nothing to landfills by reducing, reusing and recycling manufacturing byproducts and waste at its manufacturing sites globally. Through its Drive to Zero landfill program, which began three years ago, the company reduced its environmental footprint from 81 million pounds of landfill waste a year to zero. Dupont Building Innovations manufactures Corian solid surfaces, Dupont Zodiaq quartz surfaces, Dupont Tyvek weatherization systems products and geosynthetic textiles.
The Drive to Zero land programs achieved its goal of zero waste by reusing or recycling the following:
- Sanding waste, which is used as a filler replacement in concrete in the manufacture of Corian and Zodiaq
- Ground-up scrap Corian sheet is used as recycled content in Dupont’s Terra Collection of Corian solid surfaces, which now contain up to 20 percent recycled content
- Crushed scrap Corian is sold for use as road sub-based material and as landscape stone
- Tyvek wrap and flushing manufacturing trim is recycled into first-grade material
- Shipping pallets are repaired, reused or ground into animal bedding
- Carrier belt film is melted and used to make adhesives
- Cafeteria waste is recycled into worm bedding or converted into energy
BP Launches Propaganda Blitz
About 20 months ago, the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, killing 11 workers and releasing over 200 million gallons of oil. The biggest offshore oil spill in US history, it seriously damaged ecosystems and caused health problems from chemical dispersants. The responsible thing for a company to do would be to own up to the oil spill, and continue to express regret for the damages caused by it. Not BP, the company that bills itself as “beyond petroleum.” Right before Christmas, BP launched an advertising campaign that touts the Gulf as the place to travel to.
One of the ads launched by BP aims to boost tourism by appealing to Americans to “help make 2012 an even better year for tourism.” Tourism has lagged since the oil spill, so the ad must be welcomed by Gulf residents. Not really. The head of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, called the ad, “BP propaganda.”
Aaron Viles of the Gulf Restoration Network said, “They might not blatantly lie in the ad, but the true story is far less shiny, and far more troubling.”
Massive Oil Spill Off Nigerian Coast May Not Be Contained
Royal Dutch Shell announced on December 21, 2011 that about 40,000 barrels of crude oil leaked into the Atlantic Ocean from the Bonga Deep Offshore Oil Fields. Shell operates the oil field, located about 120 kilometers southwest of the Niger Delta, on behalf of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation under a production sharing contract. The oil spill is reported to have occurred while a vessel was being loaded with crude oil. The Associated Press reported on December 26 that the oil spill had been contained. SkyTruth, which monitors oil spills, reported on December 27 on its website that its satellite images taken over the last few days do not contradict Shell’s claims that the spill is contained.
However, an article on the website, AllAfrica.com claims that crude oil “started arriving in the communities along the Niger Delta Coast.” Deputy Director of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Captain Warredi Enisuoh said that delegates in the Niger Delta area on December 26 cannot yet confirm the source of the crude oil. “But from what our team has just seen, it is appalling, it is not very good to see,” Enisuoh said.
Frito Lay Catches Fire for Mislabeling GMO Products
A lawsuit was filed against Frito-Lay a few weeks ago in federal court for marketing snacks as natural that contain genetically modified, or GMO ingredients. The lawsuit, filed by the law firm Milberg LLP, has one plaintiff, Julie Gengo of Richmond, California. The New York City based Milberg has offices in Los Angeles, Tampa and Detroit.
Frito Lay’s website still states: “We’re proud to make so many of the Frito-Lay snacks you love with all natural ingredients.” Last April, Frito-Lay announced that about 50 percent of its product portfolio will be made with “all natural” ingredients by the end of this year. A press release called it the “largest product transformation in the company’s history,” and went on to state that the products will not contain “any artificial or synthetic ingredients.”
Apparently GMO ingredients are considered to be “all natural” to Frito-Lay.
Congress Derails Proposed Guidelines To Restrict Marketing Junk Food To Children
A provision in the $1 trillion spending agreement reached by Congress a few weeks ago undermines the voluntary guidelines proposed by federal agencies to restrict the marketing of food high in sodium and sugar to children. The provision requires federal agencies to create a cost-benefit analysis of the proposal by the Federal Trade Commission’s Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children. Mandated by Congress in 2009, the proposed guidelines recommend voluntary regulations of food and beverage marketing for children two to 11 years old.
The FTC states that the “primary objective” of the Working Group in developing the guidelines “has been the promotion of children’s health through better diet, with particular – but not sole – emphasis on reducing the incidence of childhood obesity.”
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