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A group of socially concerned shareholders are pressing the Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. to live up to their 1990 announcement that they would use 25% post-consumer plastic in their bottles. Concerned amount the enormous environmental problems posed by millions of discarded plastic bottles, Walden Asset Management, As You Sow Foundation, Domini Social Investments, Trillium Asset Management, and lifelong Coke shareholder Lewis Regenstein are also asking the companies to support or institute programs to achieve a recycling rate of 80 percent for their beverage containers sold in the United States. The shareholders hold about $50 million worth of Coke shares. Working Assets has printed action alerts on 300,000 customer phone bills and numerous local governments have passed resolutions targeting Coke’s recycling waste. We decided to take this action because the plastic bottle waste problem is growing rapidly and overall beverage container recycling is dropping, said Conrad MacKerron, director of the Corporate Accountability Program at As You Sow. Investors have engaged Coca-Cola management in a substantive dialogue about these problems over the past year but the company has not agreed to commit publicly to recycling goals.Technology is not the problem. Coke uses 25 percent recycled plastic in Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland […]
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The Sydney Futures Exchange and its subsidiary, the New Zealand Futures and Options Exchange are launching a global exchange market for carbon credits. Initially, these credits will be sourced from certain forest sequestration activities. Credits are available for forests planted after January 1 1990 that result in a land use change (for example, from grazing to forestry). As of January 2001, residential and small business customers will be able to choose their electricity supplier in Australia. Large companies already have this choice. 15 Australian energy companies have joined to form the agreed to Green Electricity Market (GEM) Project on the Internet to facilitate member green power trades. a major boost to Australias renewable energy sector as it prepares to meet requirements arising from the federal Renewable Energy Target, as well as to meet retail customer demand for green power. It will be online by early 2001 and is expected to give a real boost to the renewable energy market in Australia. GEM will allow members to meet the mandatory target of providing 9,500 GWh of renewable energy. They will be able to track their generation and build an efficient market for renewable energy certificates. The company developing the exchange is […]
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Dexia, a French-Belgian banking group, is launching a venture capital fund to invest in companies that mitigate global warming. The fund is raising 150 million euros to invest in projects in central and eastern Europe. Investors will earn carbon emission credits in addition to typical equity returns. Bank Sarasin, a leading bank in Switzerland, is setting up a $113 million fund to finance renewable energy businesses worldwide. It plans to list New Energies Invest on the Zurich stock exchange by 2003. They plan to fund 10-20 businesses with a special focus on Germany and the U.S. Merrill Lynch recently announced a $281 million fund to finance companies in this field, with a focus on publicly listed businesses. For Dexia, contact envirobank@aol.com
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Since 1988, Canada’s “Environment Choice” ecolabeling program has certified environmentally sound consumer and commercial products. TerraChoice Environmental Services Inc., based in Ottawa, runs the program and has published “The EcoBuyer Catalogue: The Official Guide to Environmental Choice Products and Services”. It lists certified products from 180 suppliers in categories such as: green power, automotive, construction , office, cleaning, marine, and printing. http://www.environmentalchoice.com
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The world’s first commercial wave power station opened for business this month. LIMPET (Land Installed Marine Powered Energy Transformer) is connected to Britain’s national grid and will generate 500 kW of energy – enough to power 400 homes. It is located on the Island of Islay, off the West coast of Scotland. “To see a new renewable energy source reach this stage is an important day for all people involved since its beginning,” says Philippe Schild, a European Commission scientific officer. “LIMPET is there to prove energy can be extracted commercially from the ocean.” The EU financially supported the project which was developed by WAVEGEN and Queen’s University Belfast. Because a LIMPET station is simple to build and operate company officials believe it may help many coastal communities replace diesel generation. They estimate that UK’s coasts could supply the country’s entire demand through wave power. [sorry this link is no longer available]
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According to the ECS Land Reuse Report, “brownfields redevelopment is now a mainstream real estate trend.” The report looks at national and regional trends in the reuse of contaminated land, which currently amounts to 47,600 acres across the U.S. Although Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan and Massachusetts have the most progressive approaches to land reuse, brownfields are being re-developed across the midwest, northeast and mid-atlantic states. Over half the sites are being constructed for mixed uses – commercial, cultural and residential. The authors conclude that communities and developers now feel more comfortable with these development opportunities, and states are increasingly encouraging them. http://www.ecsinc.com/landreuse
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Customers purchase products because they want the service delivered by a product, not the product itself. We don't want washing machines, we want clean clothes. Servicizing means that manufacturers make money by satisfying customers' service needs, rather than selling more product. Good for the economy and our environment.
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Should public policy aggressively promote burning of plant matter to generate electricity? That question is at the center of a growing national debate.
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The general tone was deep disappointment as the COP-6 climate change negotiations closed unresolved. Unfortunately, 183 governments need more than two weeks to settle how the world will contend with such a complex issue. The next round of negotiations will continue in spring 2001 – in the meantime, the world keeps heating up. Much of the criticism focuses on U.S. intransigence – its insistence on using carbon sinks as a primary method to reduce emissions, rather than direct reductions. It has been shown over and over again that emission reductions are well within our means through simple measures such as energy efficiency standards. But, as Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change points out, it took about 10 years to pass today’s international trade rules and the U.S. Clean Air Act. Many observers indicate that much of the groundwork as been laid to settle the outstanding issues – sinks, supplementarity, compliance, and funding – in the next round of talks. Before the talks began, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change distributed a draft of the first full-scale update of the state of climate change since 1995. The report takes a stronger stand now on the cause […]
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A 2,800-panel, 100 kW multi-celled thin-film PV system is now installed at the U.S. General Services Administration’s Suitland, Maryland Federal Center. Through the Million Solar Roofs initiative over 100,000 solar roofs have been installed since 1997 – nearly double the goal of 51,000 solar roofs by 2000. The federal government also exceeded the goal set forth in President Clinton’s Executive Order 13123, which requires 2,000 solar energy systems be installed on federal buildings by the end of 2000. 2,100 systems are operational now – the government plans to meets its goal of 20,000 PV system installations by 2010. In early 2002, the U.S. EPA’s Environmental Science Center – the federal government’s principal environmental laboratory – at Fort Meade, Maryland will be powered by the most efficient on-site power plant in the world. The fuel cell-gas turbine hybrid power system will be built by the Siemens-Westinghouse Power Corporation. Says U.S. DOE Secretary Richardson, “The Fort Meade project will preview a future of ‘good neighbor’ power generators that can be sited at or near the customer.” The power plant will combine a solid-state fuel cell (powered by natural gas) and a microturbine. It will generate 1,000 kilowatts of electricity at about 60% […]
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