FEATURES AND NEWS
Sustainability executives and city officials discuss rebuilding green after natural disasters at Saint Louis University’s Sustainable Disaster Recovery Conference.
SolarCity plans to open a new location in Nevada and expects to create hundreds of jobs in the state in the next several years. SolarCity says its expansion is due in large part to the efforts of Governor Brian Sandoval and the Nevada Office of Economic Development. Read more at ... Read more »
Hershey’s roadmap to sustainable cocoa also includes programs and initiatives to improve cocoa growing regions around the world over the next seven years. For example, in Mexico, Hershey and cocoa supplier Agroindustrias Unidas de Cacao SA de CV have launched the Mexico Cocoa Project, a 10-year initiative to reintroduce cocoa ... Read more »
It has found ways to re-use materials – for example, repolymerized plastic bottles feed into advanced materials for Mac Pro fan assemblies, and the aluminum stand on the iMac is made from 30 percent recycled content. In 2012, the company again met its 2010 goal of a 70 percent worldwide ... Read more »
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Brown and Yale Universities researchers say they have found a cheaper, more sustainable way to use CO2 to make acrylate, an important commodity chemical used to make materials from polyester fabrics to diapers. Chemical companies churn out billions of tons of acrylate each year, usually by heating propylene, a compound ... Read more »
The EPA has approved Arkansas’ program for permitting new and modified facilities that emit significant amounts of greenhouse gases – making the state the first in the region to replace a federal implementation plan with its own state program. This means businesses need to seek air permits from one regulatory agency ... Read more »
A California sushi restaurant has launched a program that uses edible technology — served on the sushi — to provide diners with sustainability information about the fish. Harney Sushi’s will print edible, water-based ink quick response (QR) codes on rice paper wafers and serve these codes on its sushi. The ... Read more »
Chemicals There are now scores of green-certified floor care chemicals on the market. Certification means these products meet specific criteria guaranteeing that they are safer than conventional floor care chemicals for both users and the environment. There is, however, one problem: not all green floor care chemicals have comparable performance ... Read more »
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Eager to lower operating costs and meet corporate objectives, many of today’s data center operators are implementing highly energy efficient technologies. What some don’t know, however, is that the rewards of being energy efficient can go far beyond savings on monthly energy bills. Numerous electrical utilities are offering financial rebates ... Read more »
Apple announced its data centers now run entirely on renewable energy, including its $1 billion facility in Maiden, NC, according to an environmental progress report released by the company. The tech company’s facilities in Austin, Texas; Cork, Ireland; Munich, Germany; and its Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino, Calif., have reached ... Read more »
Marcus Fister (pictured) has joined Ameresco as senior director of Energy Supply Management. He will focus on increasing market penetration in the commercial, industrial and retail business segments for Ameresco’s supply-side management services. Fister brings over 15 years of experience to Ameresco having served as director, National Energy, for Yum! ... Read more »
Nonprofit the American National Standards Institute’s Energy Efficiency Standardization Coordination Collaborative is seeking input on current or forthcoming standards, codes, guidelines, and conformance programs related to energy efficiency standardization in the built environment, as well as perceived gaps in the current energy efficiency standardization landscape. The EESCC is appealing to individuals and ... Read more »
In its annual State of the Industry report, the Association of Energy Services Professionals (AESP) reported that employment in the energy efficiency field is expected to increase in 2013, led by growth in the commercial and industrial sector. Employers cite a need for analytical skills for big data; energy engineering ... Read more »
The first highly energy-efficient US embassy – in Helsinki, Finland – has installed an organic light emitting diode (OLED) luminaire from Acuity Brands, which was customized with a unique design for the Embassy conference room. The Trilia OLED luminaire from Winona Lighting was suited to the embassy because of the ... Read more »
SolarCity plans to open a new location in Nevada, and expects to create hundreds of jobs in the state in the next several years. SolarCity says its expansion is due in large part to the efforts of Governor Brian Sandoval and the Nevada Office of Economic Development. The new location ... Read more »
Santa Cruz, Calif.’s wastewater treatment facility, which processes an average daily flow of 10 million gallons, has reduced its lighting energy use and cost by more than 50 percent. The facility recently upgraded its exterior and site lighting from high-pressure sodium (HPS) and mercury vapor (MV) fixtures to Dialight LED ... Read more »
Google employees were exposed to high levels of a cancer-causing chemical at the company’s satellite campus on a Superfund toxic waste site, an EPA report says. Between mid-November and mid-January, after workers disabled part of the air ventilation system at an office complex in Mountain View, Calif., levels of trichloroethylene ... Read more »
Ford reduced the average amount of water used to make each vehicle by 8.5 percent between 2011 and 2012, putting the company more than halfway toward its goal of using an average of 4 cubic meters per vehicle globally by 2015. The automaker says it has achieved these water savings ... Read more »
H&M has published a supplier factory list alongside its 2012 sustainability report. The retailer says it is one of the first and largest fashion companies in the world to take this step. The list of supplier factories covers about 95 percent of total production volume. H&M says the publication is a ... Read more »
UK retailers Tesco, Sainsbury, Waitrose, Asda, Morrisons, Co-operative and Marks & Spencers saw their collective organic sales drop by 3.8 percent last year, according to a report that found the number of UK organic producers and processors fell 4.9 percent in 2012 to 6,929. The 2013 Organic Market report, produced ... Read more »
UK support services and construction group Interserve has set a target to halve its absolute carbon emissions by 2020 compared to 2013 levels as part of a raft of new sustainability goals. In the mid-term, the more-than-50,000-employee company says it will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from business travel by ... Read more »
The US Supreme Court has voted 7-1 to reverse a 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that active logging roads need Clean Water Act permits to help control their runoff, the Oregonian reports. SCOTUS ruled on a lawsuit by the Oregon-based Northwest Environmental Defense Center. Last year the EPA issued ... Read more »
Food Lion, Harveys and Reid’s have cut their energy consumption by more than 31 percent since 2000 or 2.8 trillion BTUs, winning the grocery stores their 12th consecutive Energy Star award, according to parent company Delhaize America, the US division of the international retailer Delhaize Group. The supermarket group says ... Read more »