Less than 1.2% of all water on earth is available for human use, and the UN projects a 40% shortfall in meeting demand for global water by 2030. More efficient use of water is critical to addressing this shortfall, as well as mitigating the impact of increasing droughts and floods resulting from climate change. Companies play a central role in how water is used, especially in industrial, agricultural, and food industries.
Source: ethos.so
You can hear it in her voice, during a breakfast-time conversation about her attention-getting research on the unseen and unacknowledged relationships between humans and nature. An ecosystem ecologist jointly appointed to the Bieler School of Environment and the Department of Natural Resource Sciences, she’s up early and deep into a description of the data-gathering she’s doing for Canada’s Census of Environment, the first-ever national register of the country’s ecosystems and the services they provide.
Bennett is the principle investigator for NSERC ResNet, an interdisciplinary network of Canadian researchers and other specialists who examine the many different facets of our country’s ecosystems (she also chairs ResNet’s scientific committee). Along with her ResNet colleagues, she is busy developing new ways of understanding and assessing the present state and future possibilities of the country’s highly complex landscapes. She hopes to make useful contributions as Statistics Canada prepares the census (she was asked to join the external advisory committee for the census).
But as she homes in on a specific local problem of what should be done with Nova Scotia’s costly, vulnerable dikelands, which have long separated encroaching sea water from developed agricultural areas, she realizes she’s hit on an issue that both bothers her and excites her about the limitations of big-budget scientific research on the national scale.
“In helping to nudge Canada’s Census of Environment towards being as useful as possible to as many decision-makers as possible, one thing we’ve been thinking about is finding ways to engage actors at a very local level and assist their decisions even as we are also collecting national-scale data. How do we provide data that’s useful to federal and provincial decision-makers, but also useful in a very particular way to these local decision-makers?
“Scientifically I don’t think we know how to do that yet,” she adds, and now the measured, pensive delivery of McGill’s Canada Research Chair in Sustainability Science suddenly takes a passionate and intellectually impulsive turn. “And anywhere that I hear ‘We don’t know how to do that,’ I think, Oooh, that’s a neat idea.”
“Neat idea” may not be an official term…
As part of our Mission Possible campaign, EDIE brings you this weekly round-up of five of the best sustainability success stories of the week from across the globe…
Aviation Sustainability is the Middle East’s new forum dedicated to accelerating the aviation economy with sustainability. Launching on the 25 November 2020 it will uncover how improving operational efficiency and reducing emissions can help airlines simultaneously protect the environment and their business. Bringing together the entire aviation sustainability ecosystem Aviation Sustainability will dive deep into significant subjects including economically viable fuels, engine design and technology innovation through a series of interactive workshops, roundtables and enhanced networking programs.
As the G7 Summit wraps up—with the achievement of a decarbonized electric sector and the emphasis toward solar, wind and renewable energy agreed-upon goals—the vision of a green future is gaining momentum. Beyond the political arena, the movement toward net zero can also be seen in the C-suite, as business leaders understand the importance of taking action to curb climate change. A recent Gartner CEO survey, for instance, shows that about half of CEOs see climate change as having a major impact on their business. According to Gartner analyst Tiny Haynes, there are many factors that can help IT leaders achieve a sustainable future. “The idea of simply using renewable energy is not sustainable in its entirety,” he said.
Steve Skurnac sat down with Waste360 to discuss the need for innovative recycling technologies and strategies for OEMs and producers.
A new report analyzes existing problem areas in cannabis regulations and business practices.