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From From left: Agricultural ministers Renate Knast (Germany), Ritt Bjerregaard (Denmark) and Margareta Winberg (Sweden) at the presentation of the Copenhagen Declaration at the European Conference – Organic Food and FarmingOn May 11, Agriculture ministers from 12 European countries signed the Copenhagen Declaration – it calls for the development of a European action plan for organic farming and food to be created over the next two years. Denmark’s agriculture ministry calls it a breakthrough for the European organic movement. Signatories to the Declaration are Denmark, Germany, Austria, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, Ireland and Greece, plus non-EU members Estonia, Lithuania, Norway and Switzerland. The Declaration acknowledges the important role organic food production can play in addressing food issues such as the safety of genetically modified foods, mad cow disease, dioxin in animal feeds, and foot and mouth disease in cattle and sheep. It notes that organic food is becoming a major opportunity for European food producers in light of the “growing consumer interest in certified organic products.” [sorry this link is no longer available]In the UK, organic food prices dropped dramatically in recent months, spurred by record sales last year. Supermarket chain Tesco reports that the number of organic food […]
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Find a car pool buddy in any U.S. region
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LEAP2000 (Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning), is a Windows-based software tool that helps energy and environmental professionals grasp key energy policy questions by allowing them to move rapidly from policy ideas to policy analysis. The scenario-based energy-environment modeling tool enables users to predict The Diagram view shows the main energy flows in your system from resource extraction, through conversion and transport of fuels, through to final energy demand.energy requirements, social costs/ benefits and environmental impacts of various energy systems under specific policy conditions and socio-economic settings. Earlier versions of LEAP have been used by 200 organizations in over 60 countries to develop local, national and regional energy strategies, conduct greenhouse gas mitigation assessments, and train professionals in sustainable energy analysis. LEAP 2000 offers updated information on energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other technologies. The software is on-line and is free to non-profit and governmental organizations in developing countries.LEAP2 training materials include region-specific exercises in local languages. The materials challenge participants to analyze typical energy-environment policy dilemmas, and think about the tradeoffs inherent in different policy options. The Stockholm Environment Institute, at the Boston Center, designed the tool with funding from The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Directorate General for Development Cooperation.Decision […]
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Few green businesses have branded themselves clearly in the public eye. This is an immense opportunity.
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In a research paper published by Resources for the Future, the authors examine why PROPER (Program for Pollution Control, Evaluation and Rating), the successful environmental corporate disclosure program in Indonesia, works. In 1995, Indonesia’s Environmental Impact and Management Agency (BAPEDAL) created PROPER to “honor and shame” companies into environmental compliance. The country’s command-and-control regulatory system wasn’t working due to lack of enforcement. The program publicizes company compliance with emission standards (good and bad) by assigning individual plants ratings – black, red, blue, green or gold. Ratings are assigned based on very simple, straightforward criteria. They are simple enough for the public to easily understand and to provide incentives for firms to move from one category to the next. It has been a great success and is being widely imitated.What is behind the strong correlation between company environmental performance and public disclosure? The prevailing assumption is that companies respond to external pressure from the public and media. Based on a survey of from firms participating in the PROPER program, the authors found another important contributor: by participating in the program factory managers learned about their plant’s emissions and how to curtail them. The authors suggest that both internal feedback on performance […]
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These Tomes Sum It UpEverything you ever wanted to know about sustainable development – two mammoth efforts sum it up. Our Fragile World: Challenges and Opportunities for Sustainable Development is 2240 pages long. It comes with an accompanying CD-Rom and two-year access to the web-based Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems which debuts in December 2001. It presents the vision and thinking of over 200 authors in support of efforts to solve the complex problems connected with sustainable development. There are interviews with Maurice Strong, Mikhail Gorbachev, Steven Rockefeller, Maritta Koch-Weser and many others. A large section is devoted to economics, business and public policy, and sustainable business and development. Among the many articles are: “International Commodity Policy”, “Growth, Sustainability, and the Power of Scale,” “The Role of Business and Industry,” “The Information Economy and the Internet,” and “Sustainable Economic Systems.” The Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems organizes the work of many of the world’ s foremost scholars, experts, and policy-makers in all major fields. It represents the ‘ state-of-the-art’ on virtually every aspect of the life support systems on which we depend with 200 subject themes and 6000 contributors. And there are messages from Richard R. Ernst, Nobel Laureate-Chemistry, Leon […]
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David Pimentel, a professor of ecology and agricultural science at Cornell University believes agriculture will become more sustainable when foods that cost society the most cost the most, and when foods that contribute to society the most cost the least. He advocates taxing foods with the worst environmental impact. “If one chooses to eat high-impact food, one should pay the full costs of such a choice,” he says in the book he co-edited and co-authored, Ecological Integrity: Integrating Environment, Conservation, and Health, (Island Press, 2000). High impact foods require the most resources to produce, or result in the most environmental degradation. Foods like beef and pork would cost the most and legumes, grains, vegetables, starch crops, fruits, and nuts would cost the least. The 104 million cattle in the U.S., are the largest users of grain. It takes 535,000 gallons of water to grow one acre of corn to feed cattle. And it takes seven pounds of feed to produce one pound of beef. While people in Europe and the U.S. are eating lower on the food chain, developing countries are increasing consumption of beef and pork. U.S. beef consumption, for example, has dropped from its peak of 95 pounds […]
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Here’s an example of an e-commerce model put to good use. The United Nations has launched HalonTrader, the “world’s virtual marketplace for recycled halons.” Halon seekers or sellers can search the online database to buy or sell halons by country, type of halon, and halon quantity. Halons are chemicals that contribute to ozone depletion and climate change and are being phased out under the Montreal protocol. This service helps people trade remaining halons as a key strategy to phase them out. It facilitates transactions between people who need halons for essential uses and those that have recycled or banked halons. By promoting recycling, recovery and exchange of existing halons, this matchmaking service helps avoid demand for new halons.[sorry this link is no longer available]
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The “Early Warning Signs Map” is a poster-sized map of the world that illustrates global climate change as it’s happening. It shows global warming Fingerprints (where you can see it happening now) and Harbingers (what it may well look like). Click on a continent to explore local indicators of global warming. The map was produced by seven major conservation organizations including the Union of Concerned Scientists and Natural Resources Defense Council. There is also a Curriculum Guide to use with the map. http://www.climatehotmap.orgIt might be interesting to see how this map matches the World Energy Council’s on-line database of worldwide voluntary greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Companies and organizations can publicly demonstrate what they are doing to reduce emissions by contributing to the database. It also enables financial institutions and groups seeking emissions offsets to identify promising projects that may merit financial support. The system allows emission reduction projects to be recorded and tracked as they proceed; reductions are totalled by country and by type of greenhouse gas emission. http://www.worldenergy.orgHow do you calculate greenhouse gases? The GHG Protocol Initiative shows you how. A multi-stakeholder collaboration convened by World Resource Institute and the World Business Council on Sustainable Development is testing a […]
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A May 15th New York Times article says that multinationals plan to continue reducing emissions regardless of Bush policy. In fact, many companies advocate action. For example, Peter Pestillo, chairman of the Visteon Corporation, one of the world’s largest auto parts makers, says that efforts to address environmental issues are not very expensive if identified early in the design process. Companies also continue to face strong pressure in Europe and Japan. Another NY Times article reports on government studies that conclude that depending on how aggressively the government supports efficiency gains in appliances and buildings, the growth of U.S. energy demand could drop by 20-47 percent. This would eliminate between 265 – 610 of the 1300 new large power plants the Bush Administration insists the country needs. The range also depends on the price of energy – the higher the price, the more efficient technologies become economically attractive. H Power Corp., a fuel cell development company, is bringing Residential Fuel Cells to California. They will be arriving over the next few months and will be marketed with their partner, Energy Co-Opportunity, Inc. (ECO). Altair Energy LLC, will be the non-exclusive distributor for the Southern California market, to sell, install and […]
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