FEATURES AND NEWS
There are some 30,000 escalators in this country, most of them running constantly, according to Next American City. While some see that as a waste of energy (enough to power 375,000 homes) others see it as a necessary accommodation for people with disabilities, heart conditions, or injuries. Many countries in ... Read more »
The European Union is expected to propose a climate tax on greenhouse gases from 2013-2020. The tax could help raise $200 billion and help poor countries prepare for global warming, Reuters reports. The idea is the most specific one yet on how to persuade developing nations to agree to binding, ... Read more »
In a first step towards increasing sustainability in the dairy industry, dairy farmers are being asked to complete a survey on what they are doing to reduce emissions, Capital Press reports. The 16-page survey is expected to arrive at farms by the end of the month. It was commissioned by ... Read more »
Absolute Steel, a government contractor of steel building materials, has redesigned their marketing campaign in an effort to highlight their green products. In the past few years, the company has made a number of environmentally-friendly changes focusing on value and savings, such as using 67 percent recycled and 100 percent ... Read more »
The economic slump and new green technology are accounting for a significant drop in carbon prices, Wall Street Journal reports. And to cut down on costs for carbon-emission permits, companies are making manufacturing processes cleaner so as to emit less pollution. But there is a negative side: The lower carbon ... Read more »
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The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has released its initial Green Storage Initiative (GSI) Green Storage Power Measurement Specification for public review and comment. The preliminary specification includes a “Green Storage Taxonomy” for classifying storage products based on energy usage, application environments, and a baseline for idle power metrics. The ... Read more »
President Obama has ordered the EPA to reconsider state requests to decide their own auto emissions standards, The Boston Globe reports. Obama signed his first two Presidential Memoranda and told a White House gathering that California and several other states have tried to come up with tougher emission standards but ... Read more »
Oliver Riekenbrauk of the Microsoft Automotive Business Unit discusses the green technology that went into the Fiat 500.
Mary Nichols, California’s top air quality regulator, predicts President Barack Obama’s administration will allow the state to impose its own tough limits on GHG emissions from cars by May, eFluxMedia reports. The state asked Lisa Jackson, the new EPA chief, to revisit the Bush administration’s 2007 decision, which denied California’s ... Read more »
Last summer, Utah began testing four-day workweek for state employees. But the state says the program isn’t saving as much money as expected, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. When Gov. Jon Huntsman made the switch to a four-day workweek, he set a goal of increasing energy efficiency 20 percent by ... Read more »
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Heinz Ketchup recently announced a change in its traditional label, which has featured a pickle for the past 115 years. In its place, consumers will now see a tomato, along with the message “grown not made.” Heinz hopes that the label redesign will remind consumers that the company’s tomatoes make ... Read more »
In the past few months, EL has reported that industries like wind power and recycling have been negatively affected by the economic downturn. But it seems for consumers, going green is still the thing to do, according to research by The Hartman Group. Three in four consumers consider environment and ... Read more »
Jaguar Land Rover has unveiled its Technical Academy, which it is touting as “environmentally advanced.” Located in Warwick, U.K., the academy will be used to train technicians in the Jaguar Cars, Land Rover UK, and international dealer networks. Instead of using conventional air conditioning in the classroom areas, the 4,000 ... Read more »
To conserve water, Regency Centers, a grocery-anchored shopping center chain, has teamed up with HydroPoint Data Systems. The company will save 42 million gallons of water annually by using the WeatherTRAK Smart Water Management System to monitor weather data and closely control outdoor irrigation, according to the companies. How it ... Read more »
The trend is clear. Three external issues that are consistently rising on the CEO agenda are all related to corporate social responsibility: ? Environmental concerns—Companies are looking to improve energy efficiency, reduce their carbon footprints, and manage recyclables and waste in the supply chain, for example; ? Socioeconomic factors—Companies are ... Read more »
Wind and solar industries currently make up about 7 percent of the total renewable energy market, but they are expected to contribute more than 25 percent to renewable energy by 2030, according to Credit Suisse research forecasts. The increase will mainly be driven by the political risk of relying on ... Read more »
The city of Boston has added its city hall, the Boston Public Library and the Boston Police Headquarters to EnerNOC’s demand response network. In addition, it has has agreed to reduce non-essential electricity usage during periods of peak demand. In exchange, EnerNOC will provide the city with periodic payments. Under ... Read more »
Martin Lines, Nestle’s professional marketing director, says understanding a client’s corporate strategy is the key to the perfect CSR-focused pitch, citmagazine.com reports. Clients need to understand how CSR fits into their clients’ overall company strategies, said Lines at C&IT’s Strategic Events Annual Conference. “Agencies need to demonstrate that their solution ... Read more »
PepsiCo recently worked with the Columbia Earth Institute to calculate the carbon footprint of some of its products. The company found that a 64-ounce container of its Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice has a life-cycle carbon footprint of 1.7 kilograms. Tropicana’s orange juice received Carbon Trust certification, becoming the first ... Read more »
Ferrari unveiled a new solar panel system that will cut annual power usage by 210,000 kilowatt-hours at its facility in Maranello, Italy. Installed on the roof of the Engine Mechanical Machining plant, the system is part of the company’s larger plans to go green. Ferrari also has plans for a ... Read more »
Virgin America is now offering passengers the ability to offset their carbon footprint from traveling via the airline’s seatback in-flight entertainment system, which it calls Red. It will be the first domestic airline to do so, Virgin said. Last December, the airline partnered with Carbonfund.org to allow passengers to offset ... Read more »
Kohler has launched a viral web campaign to teach homeowners the importance and ease of saving water, and provide up to $1 million worth of water-saving plumbing products to Habitat for Humanity. For each person who visits the SaveWaterAmerica.com site and takes a 3-question quiz about their water use, the ... Read more »
The Center for Sustainable Innovation (CSI) has released a new tool to measure the ecological sustainability of an organization’s water use. Called the Corporate Water Gauge (pdf), the new tool uses GIS modeling to take into account rainfall, local topography and watershed boundaries. It then determines sustainability performance by measuring ... Read more »
Fujitsu Siemens has announced plans for their greenest PC yet, reports Network World. The Esprimo Green PC line will use zero-watts in standby mode. The line is set for official launch at the European CeBIT show in March, and the company is keeping quiet for now about how its patented ... Read more »
Antarctica is getting warmer rather than cooling as widely believed, according to a study by a group of U.S. scientists that fits the continent into the wider trend of global warming.