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VICTORY! Debt Canceled to Preserve Peru Rainforests

A new agreement between Peru and the United States relieves Peru of it’s debt in exchange for protecting some 27.5 million acres of the World’s most biologically diverse rainforests. In this “debt-for-nature swap,” the Peruvian government commits to give local conservation groups the funds necessary to conserve “the heart of the western Amazon”, an area the size of Virginia or Cuba. That amounts to about $10 million in local currency. The U.S., in return, cancels $5.5 million of Peru’s debt, saving them about $14 million in future payments.It’s a first – leading U.S. conservation organizations – Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund – committed over $1 million to the transaction. This enables them to oversee and provide technical expertise on how and where the funds are used. The funds provide very important reliable long-term funding for Peruvian environmental groups to the tune of $500,000 a year. It will be used to establish and monitor protected areas, conservation training, research and provide livelihoods for indigenous people. The rainforest is threatened by logging, clear-cutting for agriculture, mining and oil and gas exploration.This is a trifling amount of money to the U.S. and yet it goes such a long […]

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Two New Sustainable Business Trade Associations:Renewable Energy & Biobased Products

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Welcome ACRE!It’s time for Renewable Energy to go mainstream and that’s the charge of the brand new trade association, the American Council for Renewable Energy (ACRE). The trade association covers all renewable energy technologies: solar, wind, hydro, biomass, geothermal and waste energy, and biofuels and hydrogen systems; and secondarily, related technologies such as energy efficiency, energy storage, and hybrid energy systems that enhance the value of renewable energy. Most importantly, ACRE plans to “open up a gateway” to the media and to the financial community long needed in the renewable energy community. An organizing conference convened on July 10-11 in Washington DC. to develop a common vision for the Renewable Energy industry. Much of the discussion at the conference focused on creating incentives for using renewable energy through the best methods to date – Federal Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) and extending Production Tax Credits (PTC) beyond wind energy. Representatives from the investment community believe these incentives coupled with strong, continued government research and development funding for promising new renewable technologies will facilitate financing and investment in new firms and large scale projects. The bottom line, though, for strong growth in this sector is the price of the technologies. American Council […]

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Whole Foods Market Unionizes

The July 13 Wisconsin State Journal reports that the Whole Foods Market in Madison, Wisconsin voted 65 to 54 in favor of joining United Food and Commercial Workers union Local 1444. This is a first for Whole Foods, the nation’s largest natural supermarket chain with 135 stores. The company’s philosophy is that it’s “a culture that makes representation unnecessary.” John Mackey, Whole Foods’ founder and chief executive officer, is an outspoken opponent of unions. The Madison store openned in 1996. Brendan O’Sullivan, a union organizer and produce employee, says workers voted for the union to give them a voice in the workplace. Company spokesperson Kate Lowery expressed their “surprise and disappointment” in a published statement. “We firmly believe that with our new regional and store leadership in place, our Madison team members would have soon realized our firm commitment to our founding core values that include team member excellence and happiness.” She also said the company remains “committed to creating and providing a work environment where our team members can flourish and succeed to their highest potential.” According to the National Labor Relations Board, Whole Foods can file an objection to the election until Friday. Local 1444 will then have […]

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Companies Asked to Get Serious About Climate Change

A new Conference Board Executive Advisory report, “Global Climate Change: Fact or Fiction? It Doesn’t Matter, The Issue is Here to Stay,” warns that regardless of whether scientific evidence is irrefutable, climate change will have a major impact on business and can’t be ignored. A recent CERES/Innovest report concludes that business may be heading into the “eye of a perfect storm that will result from the convergence of several important trends:”* scientific consensus* increasingly aggressive government action* growing shareholder interestOn the shareholder side, they point to three trends. Awareness on the part of mainstream international investment institutions such as AMP Henderson and Friends Ivory & Sime, growing market participation and globalization of pension investment, and growing shareholder activism. Increasing public disclosure requirements reinforce these trends. The bottom line is that financial stakeholders care more than they have in the past about what companies do with respect to climate change, and companys climate change policies influence their investment decisions. Another reality the report points to is that the global economy will make a transition to a less carbon-intensive economy. The only question is how quickly it will happen and who will be the winners and losers. As if more confirmation were […]

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High Performance Buildings On Your Desktop

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Wish we’d done it ourselves! It’s been on the list, but we haven’t gotten to it yet. Now the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has given us a platform to catalog and learn about high-performance building projects around the world. The High Performance Buildings Database has been seeded with about 25 projects – most of them well known – and you can add your own. You can enter a project of any size, from any country, from a campus to a home. You can search by building type, location, size, keyword, and many other parameters. There is lots of flexibility in the depth of information you enter and in the project itself: it can simply have several notable green features or be a certified LEED project. A convenient menu on the left enables you to quickly look through the project’s features: finance, land use, site and water, energy, materials, indoor environment, images, ratings and awards. One of the profiles, Stadium Australia, served as the main arena for the Sydney 2000 Olympics. The design team employed the most comprehensive energy modeling to date for a stadium project. The building systems and materials chosen optimized energy use – passive ventilation and natural […]

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Four Major U.S. Companies Advance Green Power Markets

The Green Power Market Development Group was launched in mid- 2000 to jump start the green power market by member company purchases of renewable energy. The group was organized by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and Business for Social Responsibility with the goal of creating 1,000 megawatts of new cost-competitive green power for corporate markets by 2010. So far, the group is responsible for 15 megawatts of green power generation — enough to supply 11,000 homes. Members include Alcoa Inc, Cargill Dow LLC, Delphi Corporation, DuPont, General Motors, IBM, Interface, Johnson & Johnson, Kinkos, and Pitney Bowes. Since January 2001, four member companies have implemented or signed contracts for new green power projects: General Motors started using local landfill gas to power factories in Fort Wayne, Indiana, this February and has signed contracts for plants in Shreveport, Louisiana and Michigan. The landfill gas will provide the Indiana facility about 5 megawatts of electricity generating capacity a year. IBM facilities in Minnesota and Texas purchase over 5.4 million kWh of electricity from wind per year. IBM has a 5-year agreement to buy green power for its Austin, Texas manufacturing and development facility. It buys 5.25 million kWh per year of energy […]

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