OpenEco is a new global on-line community that provides free, easy-to-use tools to help participants assess, track, and compare business energy performance, share proven best practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and encourage sustainable innovation. Akin to social networks, OpenEco aims to help build support for carbon-reduction strategies though sharing information among companies, government institutions …
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Category:5 Environment
Carbon auction on regulated exchange
The first carbon auction held on a regulated exchange just concluded in Brazil. 800,000 tonnes of carbon rights were sold by the City of Sao Paolo which is earning them from power generation from methane released by a massive urban landfill. The winning bidder, Fortis a European bank, paid € 13 million or about € …
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Corporate water strategy – a report
Business for Social Responsibility and the Pacific Institute teamed up to investigate corporate water strategy. We have seen increasing concern over water shortages globally including at major growth markets and economic centers in Asia, India and the US which already face a lack of freshwater. If current trends continue, freshwater resources will grow more scarce …
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Where are the green taxes going?
In the UK, the Taxpayers’ Alliance has claimed that the government is raising billions of pounds more in green taxes than it needs to remove the UK’s “carbon footprint”. In a report they say that emissions in 2005 had done damage worth an estimated £11.7 billion (covering the “social cost” of climate change to the …
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Livestock endangered by industrial agriculture too
Its not just wild flora and fauna that are endangered by the human footprint, cattle breeds and other domesticated animals are having their genetic diversity whittled away exposing them to disease. (Note the rapid spread of BSE, foot and mouth, bird flu etc.) At a recent UN summit on animal genetic resources, researchers from the …
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Antartica melting: images
Even the coldest continent on Earth is melting, say NASA scientists. These maps illustrate different aspects of seasonal melting on Antarctica. After analyzing 20 years of satellite data, scientists have concluded that persistent melting—melting that lasts for at least three daytime periods or one consecutive day and night—has been occurring increasingly farther inland and at …
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Bee CCD caused by virus and other problems
At the beginning of the year reports of colony collapse disorder of bee populations seemed to swarm around the world. Many causes were suggested. Recent research reported in Science suggests that one organism, Israeli acute paralysis virus of bees, was strongly correlated with CCD. Unfortunately, this does not mean that prevention or a cure are …
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APEC for climate change and trade
The principal messages from leaders meeting at the APEC summit recently concluded in Sydney Australia are to prioritise action to reduce climate change and to successfully conclude the WTO Doha round trade talks. These are entirely appropriate prime objectives. Unfortunately, the US, which is the largest per capita carbon emitter and world superpower, and Australia, …
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Life on earth is disappearing fast
The IUCN Red List for 2007 was published in early September with the leader: Extinction Crisis Escalates. There are now 41,415 species on the IUCN Red List and 16,306 of them are threatened with extinction, up from 16,118 last year. The total number of extinct species has reached 785 and a further 65 are only …
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10 most polluted cities
The Blacksmith Institute, a US-based independent environmental group, published its 2007 world’s most polluted places. It reports an estimated 12 million people affected by the severe pollution, which is mainly caused by chemical, metal and mining industries. Chronic illness and premature deaths are side-effects. The annual review, which debuted in 2006, is listed alphabetically, and …
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