Month: May 2021

Customers, consumers, and investors are now demanding businesses to consider the environmental and social impact of their products, services, and operations.1 Governments are following suit, with a 20-fold increase in global environmental regulations over the past two decades.2 Simultaneously, new technologies and business models are gradually enabling businesses to address the ecosystem shift towards sustainability.
Read the full article at: www.innosight.com

Kroger is telling its customers in stores inside the city of Cincinnati that it will no longer carry single-use plastic bags as of June 1, a month before the city’s ban takes effect.  “In cooperation with the City of Cincinnati’s Plastic Bag Ban, and as part of our Zero Hunger | Zero Waste initaitives, we’re no longer offering single-use plastic bags as of June 1, 2021,” a sign at the entrance of the Queen City Kroger in Spring Grove Village says.
Read the full article at: archive.ph

In March 2020, two human pandemics were born: one, the deadly spread of a coronavirus causing a disease dubbed COVID-19; and another, the plague of thoughts surrounding it. Now, in 2021, David Attenborough is here to save us from the thought-demic with his documentary special “The Year Earth Changed.”

A greener, more efficient rudder system, designed at the University of Strathclyde, will be demonstrated as part of a €6 million EU-funded research project.  The GATERS project led by the University of Strathclyde under the Horizon 2020 Fund, will see the ‘gate rudder’ – a novel propulsion and steering system – retro-fitted to a commercial vessel as part of a trial.  Unlike a traditional rudder which sits behind a ship’s propellers to steer the vessel, the U-shaped gate rudder – essentially two separate rudders – sits astride the propeller which, as a result, acts like a nozzle around the propeller and generates additional thrust.

For the first time in Huckletree history we’re hosting a virtual sustainability festival to address the climate change agenda, bringing together brands, leaders, entrepreneurs and investors from all corners of the globe. By 2050, experts predict that there will be 9 billion people living on the planet putting enormous stress on everything from transport infrastructure to sanitation provision, public services to energy supply, clean air to green spaces.

Researchers at the University of Oxford have made a discovery about how plants interact with soil bacteria that they claim could eventually help reduce the use of nitrogen fertilisers in farming.  The research, published today in academic journal PNAS, has demonstrated for the first time that pea plants weigh up different bacterial partners in the soil based on their ability to provide nitrogen, and then provide sugar to the best available strains.

Layla Khawatmi, senior Environmental Health Management student, Canadian University Dubai, was invited by Dr. Rashed Karkain, Founder, Sustainable Development Research and Training Institute, and Professor, Canadian University Dubai, to be a guest on his talk show “Young Environmental and Sustainability Leaders.”

SustFest is the perfect opportunity to get talking about climate action.  With your book group, your mums group, in the lunch hour at work, with friends… whatever group you’re already part of! We know it’s difficult to broach the subject but SustFest gives you the excuse, and our Climate Conversations pack gives you all the materials you need; you don’t need to be the expert. 

ASCE Excellence in Journalism Award winner Peggy Smedley doesn’t disappoint with the release of her new, green advocacy book Sustainable in a Circular World: Design and Restore Natural Ecosystems Through Innovation. With clear, precise but simply laden prose and statistics, she lays out concise arguments for the necessary regime changes in terms of governance, economic practices, industry and corporate standards, and every day, individualistic activities to create the titular, circular world model. Going green, says Smedley, is no longer a matter of opinion or debate.
Read the full article at: colin-jordan524.medium.com

What started as a 10-year-old child’s persistence has become  a career for Elisabeth Pesavento ’21.  “I told my mom that I really wanted to play the horn,” Pesavento said. “And you know, like all mothers, she’s said, ‘Oh that’s nice. It’s a very beautiful instrument.’ But I just kept asking and kept asking until finally she was like, ‘Wow, I guess she really does want to play the horn.’”  After Pesavento finally got her French horn, she traveled the world with the instrument.  

A Swedish mapmaker stumbled across a trove of well-preserved Bronze Age jewelry last month.  Tomas Karlsson was hiking in a forest outside Gothenberg when the gleam from a bronze necklace caught his eye.  Archaeologists sent to the site found 50 items in all — including bronze necklaces, rings and armbands — all more than 2,500 years old.
Read the full article at: www.dailymail.co.uk

Hats off to Oko Urban Farms, New York City’s only aquaponic farm and education center.  “We utilize aquaponics because it allows us to cultivate both …
Read the full article at: www.linkedin.com

At Nguyen Coffee Supply, we pride ourselves on our commitment to environmental, cultural, and economic sustainability. We’re thrilled to be able to champion third-wave coffee, and honored to represent Vietnamese coffee and culture on the world stage. That’s why we’ve outlined our no-nonsense, direct-trade Vietnamese coffee supply chain and the steps we take to ensure we remain culturally sustainable below. 

The Supervisory Board of Delivery Hero SE (“Delivery Hero”), the world’s leading local delivery platform, agreed yesterday evening to extend the contracts of Delivery Hero’s Management Board members. The two current members of the Management Board, Niklas Östberg, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, and Emmanuel Thomassin, Chief Financial Officer, have agreed to an extension of their contracts beyond the currently agreed term for four more years until 30 April 2026, further substantiating their belief in the company and the potential of the industry.

The shift from a traditional linear business model towards a circular approach that focuses on re-use and recycling is gathering pace. In this press release, we share thoughts on how Axis and the surveillance industry can contribute. We explore findings from a research project that will help pave the way for a more sustainable surveillance sector. Discarded electronic and electrical goods – e-waste – is the world’s fastest-growing waste stream. In 2018, it amounted to 50 million tons – equivalent to all commercial aircraft ever built. And this number is projected to double by 2050.

Montrose Port Authority awarded the contract to Aberdeen-based PD&MS Group after it submitted a bid to repurpose an existing structure from another offshore wind project, rather than fabricate a brand-new structure. PD&MS employs more than 600 people at bases in Aberdeen and Baku, Azerbaijan.  Construction of the Operations and Maintenance (O&M) base for the Seagreen wind farm is well underway at Montrose Port, with the two-storey office building currently being built at the site also repurposed, having previously been used by an oil and gas supply chain company in Aberdeen.

2020 was, without a doubt, not the year that we hoped it to be.  But members of the McGill community have taken these tumultuous times in stride, passing over and around obstacles to continue the push — virtual or otherwise — for a more sustainable campus.  The Catalyst Awards for Sustainability, celebrated each spring for the past decade, honour those achievements.

What role do businesses and households play in smart and climate-neutral energy systems? Why does this pose challenges for energy modelling? Diana Süsser (IASS) and Andrzej Ceglarz (Renewables Grid Initiative) shed light on this in their article.  The Paris climate goals, the European Green Deal and the Energy Union Strategy call for a climate-neutral economy and society by mid-century. For this to happen, our energy system must be profoundly transformed: from electricity and heat to transport and industry. That is why it is particularly important that different actors – such as companies and households – actively participate in the energy transition.

From 4-7 May, edie brings its readers Engagement Week 2021, a bumper series of podcasts, blogs, live events and interviews all focused on helping sustainability professionals achieve excellence when it comes to reporting and communications.  The edie content team will deliver a week of exclusive content focused on sustainability engagement.  Brought to you by the award-winning edie content team, Engagement Week 2021 is our themed week of editorial content and events dedicated to supporting sustainability, energy and resource efficiency professionals build personal engagement and drive meaningful change through the work that they do.

Every industry needs to step up and commit to environmental goals, but tech has a big problem – 53.6 million tonnes worth of a problem, to be exact.  According to the Global E-waste Monitor, that’s how much electronic waste, known as e-waste, was generated globally in 2019. Even worse, only 17.4% of it was correctly recycled, meaning 83% was discarded through improper means – mostly in landfills, which could leak harmful toxins into the earth.