ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES - NEWS
FEBRUARY 08
2/5/08 Democrats Push Green Growth, Los Angeles Times. Democrats in Congress are seeking to add tax breaks for alternative-energy investment to the stimulus package.
DECEMBER 07
12/19/07 Closing on December 24 Good for Environment, Edie. On that basis, even better for the environment to close down the rest of the year as well. We need criteria that balance consumer convenience with environmental benefits.
12/19/07 Green Building: the Next Steps, Gotham Gazette.
12/18/08 Market-Based Environmental Initiatives, Business for Social Responsibility (BSR). Resource guide prepared with the help of four oil and gas companies.
12/14/07 Luxury Firms Said to Be Doing Too Little to Save Planet, Agence France Presse. The World Wildlife Fund UK study of the world's 10 largest publicly traded luxury firms chided them for being “slow” to recognize their responsibilities and opportunities to improve the outlook for global warming and ethical trade issues. It called on celebrities who help sell the brands to sit up and take note. Comment: The Council for Responsible Jewellery Practices quickly put out a response saying the WWF-UK study was unfair.
12/10/07 Al Gore’s Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, Huffington Post. Near to the seventh anniversary of the Supreme Court decision to stop recounting the votes in Florida.
12/06/07 Green Jobs, report by the Urban Agenda. Jobs in energy efficiency - first in a series of reports to implement some of the sustainability ideas in PlaNYC.
12/4/08 Activists Descend on 70 Sears Stores, protesting the mailing of 425 million catalogs a year made from trees from endangered forests with little or no recycled content.
NOVEMBER 07
11/28/07 Buy Nothing Day (via CSR Wire), a sustainability campaign, did not keep people from the stores - Black Friday sales rose 8 percent above the same day in 2006. Many more people came out to shop, but they spent less per person than last year. But the good enws is that Deloitte's 22nd Holiday Survey of retail spending reports 18 percent of consumers plan to buy more 'eco-friendly' products than in the past and the 2007 Cone Holiday Trend Tracker says that 49 percent of respondents say they try to buy cause-related gifts.
11/24/07 What the Energy Needs of China and India Mean for Energy Prices, Jurgen Brauer, Hull College of Business, Augusta State University. As China and India ("Chindia") start using their new economic power to consume more, Professor Brauer speculates about the impact on world energy prices. Another voice calling for stepped-up interest in alternative energy.
11/23/07 The Six Sins of Greenwashing, TerraChoice. Example: Sin #1 - Hiding environmental tradeoffs, like the ecological damage in the community to achieve some standard of recycling. He loves the Green Buildings/LEED program, but questions whether this can be extended so easily to communities.
11/19/07 Green Buildings: Yes! Green Communities: Yikes! California Planning and Development Report, Bill Fulton’s blog. He likes the Green Buildings/LEED program, but wonders how easily the approach can be applied to communities.
11/14/07 NYC Breaks Ground for First Green School, David Seifman, NY Post. The lower-to-middle school in the Battery Park area will be eco-friendly, reducing energy requirements through solar panels and day-lighting.
11/13/07 Gore to Lease Platinum-Level Green Space at One Bryant Park, Crain’s NY. The landlord at One Bryant Park, the Durst Organization, is hoping for platinum-level certification under the Green Building Council. This certification is hard to get.
11/09/07 U.S. Green-Building Materials Market to Double by 2001, Edie Report. U.S. environment-friendly construction materials sales are expected to more than double in four years.
11/08/07 EU Definition of Carbon Footprint, European Union. Detailed definition of what is meant by the term.
11/07/07 Conscious Consumer 2007 Report, BBMG. Based on a survey of 2007 consumers (get it?), BBMG has attempted to identify the attitudes and needs of the "conscious consumer" a.k.a. the environmentally conscious buyer..
11/06/07 Stop & Shop and Giant Supermarkets in LEED Pilot. The US Green Building Council (USGBC) Portfolio Program has selected two supermarkets to pilot use of LEED standards in their stores.
11/05/07 Poll: Most Would Pay Higher Bills To Help Climate, Reuters. This is based on a big sample, 22,000 people. But polls expressing willingness to pay don’t always mean the payments will be made.
11/04/07 In a Kyoto-type Pact, 728 Mayors Try to Green Their Cities, Los Angeles Times. Examples of city programs: energy use reduction through more energy-efficient buildings and promoting mass transit; buying cleaner energy; promoting alternative fuels by capturing methane gas from landfills and adding LNG fuel to municipal fleets.
OCTOBER 07
10/29/07 How to Cut Catalog Waste (revision of 2002 guide), Environmental Defense. What indivdiuals can do to reduce catalog waste - joining the "do not mail" list.
10/29/07 Consumers Union Finds More Toys with Lead, Reuters
10/29/07 GM’s New Spin: Buy a Hummer, Save Humanity, Ad Age
10/29/07 Groups Announce “Dump Soda” Campaign, Center for Science in the Public Interest and Common Dreams
10/29/07 Consumer Groups Shut Out of Congressional Hearings on Deceptive Meat Packaging, Food and Water Watch
10/28/07 The Unnecessary Suicide of the Organic Food Movement, Mallen Baker, Business Respect #115
10/26/07 Business Goes Green to Protect Rep, Not Help Environment, Says UK Poll, Edie News
10/25/07 BENNY Awards Go to Greening of Harry Potter, Campaign for Safe Cosmestics and No Dirty Gold, Corporate Ethics International
10/24/07 Insurance Industry Faces Weather Risks, Ceres via Social Funds
10/22/07 National Survey Finds Corporate Execs Favor More Govt. Regulation of Business on the Environment, Grant Thornton
10/23/07 Designing a Sustainable Future, BSR Conference, San Francisco
10/22/07 Five Easy Ways to Go Organic, New York Times
10/20/07 Dissent on Global Warming, John Stossel, ABC
10/20/07 The Green Tax: Whose Tax Is Being Gored? Fred E. Foldvary, The Progress Report
10/19/07 Study Finds Greener Businesses Outperform Rivals, Business Green
10/17/07 CSR Certificate Program, University of Toronto
10/16/07 Ethical Sourcing Forum North America 2008
10/16/07 Gap Inc. to Host 1 Megawatt Solar Power System on West Coast Distribution Campus
10/16/07 Virginia Tech Launches Energy Efficiency Partnership with Hannon Armstrong and Pepco Energy Services Aimed at 'Greening' Greater Washington DC
10/16/07 John McConnell, Earth Day Founder, Honored, UN Conference
10/15/07 2007 Solar Decathlon Feature Alcoa Building and Construction Systems' Products
10/12/07 Sustainable Business Special Report, Financial Times
10/11/07 NeighborWorks America Encourages Homeowners to Take Energy Conservation Steps
10/10/07 William Reilly and Fred Krupp on Private Equity and Environmental Protection, WEC Washington Sustainability Forum
10/10/07 GM Promotes E85 Ethanol Infrastructure in Pittsburgh
10/1/07 Sustainable Reporting Survey for Awards, Global Reporting Initiative
| ENVIRONMENT
JANUARY
1/6/08 (Blogspot): Ecotourism in the Americas. Tourism can damage or (less often) restore the environment, depending on how it is handled. If you want to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem, look for a hotel/resort that supports local conservation of the environment - i.e., a place committed to ecotourism or sustainable travel. This kind of shopping for a better world is now easier with the second edition of Go Green! A SmartGuide to Sustainable Travel in the Americas. More: Blogspot, John Tepper Marlin,
EcoTourism in the Americas.
DECEMBER
12/27 (HuffPost): LEEDing the Way to Green Buildings. Former Vice President Al Gore will reportedly take space for his investment company in a Durst building going up near Bryant Park in New York City. A selling point to him was that the building is pursuing LEED Platinum status, the highest level of environmental probity. The certification process is moving with all deliberate speed - it just may take longer than he expects.
1. Number of Buildings Pursuing LEED Certificates in the NYC Area: 250 or More
The LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program is a project of the U.S. Green Building Council, based in Washington D.C. I was asked by the Sallan Foundation to look at LEED through the prism of my work on standard-setting, accreditation and certification dating back 40 years. As their advertising and billboards suggest, hundreds of developers are pursuing LEED-certified buildings or renovations in the NYC area, with 155 projects listed on the area Green Buildings Council registry as being in the process and more than 200 additional buildings in NY State (no regional breakdown available) pursuing their certification confidentially.
2. Actual NYC & Metro LEED Certifications, 2004-2007: 14
The number of buildings actually certified to LEED standards is just 14, according to information through September 2007 I obtained from the NYC area chapter of the Green Building Council. The first NYC area certification was in April 2004 at the Gold level, the only certification that year. In 2005, one more was added at the plain-vanilla certification level. In 2006, eight more were added, including the first Platinum certification. This year, 2007, has added four more through September. The fact that only one project is certified to the Platinum level - an architect's office in the Flatiron District, not an entire building - suggests this level is very hard to achieve. More: John Tepper Marlin, Huffington Post, LEEDing the Way to Green Buildings.
12/26/07 (Blogspot): How Many Consumers Are Green? How Many Could There Be? According to BBMG, a marketing agency specializing in CSR, almost nine out of ten Americans surveyed identify themselves as "conscious consumers". BBMG said of their late-November report: "Consumers are hungry for more information about the products and services that they choose in their lives. They want companies to be transparent about product attributes and ingredients, and honest about their impact on the environment and society." On the other hand, another marketing agency, egg, puts the number of green consumers at fewer than 7 out of 10 consumers because of a sizeable group of sceptics, and the number of consumers who actually show in their buying practices a sensitivity to CSR practices of the brands they buy is down to 7-20 percent. What is the truth? 12/26/2007 Blogspot, CSRNYC, John Tepper Marlin, How Many Consumers Are Green? How Many Could There Be?
NOVEMBER
11/16 (Blogspot): Government Regulation of the Environment. Corporate executives have come to accept that greater government regulation of corporations is likely in the next few years. Some embrace it because they believe it is right. Others, like a boxer facing off against a punishing opponent, would rather embrace it than be socked by it. A national survey last month of senior executives by the Chicago-based accounting firm Grant Thornton LLP, found both (1) strong support (by 72 percent of respondents) for more environmental regulation of companies, and (2) strong expectation (by 70 percent of respondents) that this regulation will happen within the next five years. These views may reflect the reality that environmental issues are very much in the forefront of political debate. A different survey, of UK opinion leaders, by Chatsworth Communications was reported last month by Edie as concluding that one-fourth of respondents believe companies pursue green policies to protect their reputation, with one-fifth saying these initiatives result from consumer pressure and good business sense. Only 1 percent said they believed genuine concern for the environment was the main motivation for companies. Although Brits tend to be more sceptical and critical of corporations than Americans, it's clear why corporate executives on either side of the Atlantic might believe more regulation is on its way. More: 11/16/07 Blogspot, John Tepper Marlin,Corporate Executives See the Writing on the Wall.
11/16 (Blogspot): Pepsico and the Environment. With its reorganization behind it, Purchase, NY-based Pepsico, starting in FY 08, may be able to do more with its largest single division, its Americas food operations. The division has reduced the environmental impact on local communities of its Frito-Lay factories, which is terrific for the workers and the community. Now it would be wonderful if Pepsico could could give us more food options. I teach from 6 to 9 pm many evenings and the vending machines all belong to Pepsico. They do not cater to professors seeking to stay away from salt, processed sugar or anything fried. How hard would it be to include raisin-and-nuts packages? More: 11/16/07, Blogspot, John Tepper Marlin, Pepsico's Food Opportunity.
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