Month: April 2022

Sam’s Club has a new perk for electric vehicle (EV) drivers. And, while it’s not going to make someone drive across town to join the Walmart-owned brand over its rival, it might help people decide when both chains are in similar locations relative to where they live.  Sam’s Club has a new offer with its credit card partner, Synchrony (SYF) – Get Synchrony Financial Report that should appeal to EV drivers. As of May, any Sam’s Club member who also holds the warehouse club’s signature Mastercard will earn 5% back in Sam’s Cash on EV charges at eligible EV charging stations in the United States. During “a special electric vehicle charging promotion,” cardholders will earn an additional 5 percent back on EV charges for a total of 10% back in Sam’s Cash for the entire month of May.

We write to provide an update on the progress we’ve made toward the College’s commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by 2030 through our ambitious Climate Action Plan (CAP).   Our last letter, in November, noted that our New England College Renewable Partnership’s solar energy facility went online, providing renewable electricity to meet nearly all of our purchased electricity needs and reducing campus CO2 emissions by more than 3,200 metric tons per year, or 17.5% of our carbon footprint.  We also noted that the centerpiece of CAP, the transformation of our fossil fuel-based infrastructure to a renewable energy-based “low temperature, hot water” infrastructure, had reached a design milestone, but cost estimates were considerably higher than anticipated due to pandemic-related market complications coupled with the complexities of the campus’s underground routing structure. Supply chain disruption also contributed to the College’s decision to delay the anticipated Spring ’22 Phase I start of this generational project. Despite these challenges, however, we are pleased and confident that the completion target of 2030 can be maintained.

Megatrend Spotlight: Earlier this year, 3M shared the megatrends we see shaping the next 5-10 years of life on this planet. To understand the source of these trends, and their impact around the globe, we are taking a deeper dive into their key themes and the ways our people, technology and solutions are working to improve lives.  The global economy’s linear business model depletes natural resources faster than they can be replenished and puts strain on the natural environment. As we transition to a more sustainable world, it’s important to advance circular business models which reimagine waste from one process as raw materials for another. Despite advances in waste management and recycling processes, recent events like bans on waste imports, record low oil prices, and the global pandemic have brought about new challenges.
Read the full article at: news.3m.com

To become carbon positive by 2025, we need to understand exactly how much carbon we have to reduce or offset. This also enables us to pass on our achievements to our customers by supporting them to calculate how much carbon they can save by sourcing our cocoa and chocolate.  We are looking at the carbon footprint created by our own operations (scope 1), the carbon footprint generated by the energy we use (scope 2), as well as the carbon footprint of our entire supply chain (scope 3) which also includes the production and processing of all our sourced raw materials and related land use changes (LUC).  Due to our combined carbon reduction efforts, our corporate CO2 equivalent (CO2e) footprint decreased from 9.10 million tonnes to 8.49 million tonnes in fiscal year 2018/19. This represents a reduction of –6.7%, despite an increase in production.

With their futures at stake, university and college students are driving learning leaders to strengthen the role of higher education in sustainability.   Many of the 4 million people who took part in the September 2019 youth-led climate strikes are now college-age. A 2021 Deloitte survey also showed that climate change and protecting the environment was the top priority for Gen Z.  Clearly, commitments to protect the planet have become table stakes for students. Indeed, 75% of students say that a college’s environmental commitment would influence their choice of school, according to a survey conducted by the Princeton Review.  But it’s not just students who are leading the charge. Climate action has become critical for governments globally: At COP26, the 2021 UN climate change conference held in Glasgow, 137 countries agreed to reverse forest loss, and 190 countries agreed to phase out coal power. Addressing environmental sustainability puts higher learning institutions ahead of the curve regarding regulatory pressures. 

Celebrate Arbor Day with us at this month’s Living Green workshop! Learn about all the benefits of trees for your landscape, for our communities, and for the planet. The program will cover proper tree selection, placement, watering, pruning, and more. The hands-on portion of this fun workshop will be an opportunity to participate in an Arbor Day Celebration tree planting in the Monarch Haven and Reading Sanctuary Garden located at the Red Mountain Branch Library in the NE corner of the parking lot.  The program includes a short overview of the Mesa Climate Action Plan and our commitment to making our city a greener community. Trees are a great solution for heat mitigation, and they help improve our air and water quality. Plus, they absorb greenhouse gasses and pollutants.
Read the full article at: events.mesalibrary.org

An ‘insane’ EU law forcing ride-on mowers to be covered by owners’ car insurance will be blocked by Parliament tomorrow.  Motorists would have had around £50 added to their annual insurance premiums as a result of the law, which would have also affected golf buggies and mobility scooters.  Transport Secretary Grant Shapps hailed Parliament’s move as a Brexit dividend.  Motorists would have faced £50 extra on car insurance premiums to cover mowers.  British drivers will be protected from the rules as legislation blocking the expansion of the number of vehicles that have to be insured is due to pass its final hurdle in Parliament tomorrow.

They are sold as a convenient, eco-friendly and very modern way to negotiate congested towns and cities.   There are up to a million e-scooters on British streets – even though, in the vast majority of cases, it is actually illegal to ride them on public roads or pavements.  But that’s a mere technicality to a growing army of enthusiasts.  They conjure up a futuristic world in which we trundle between coffee shops at speeds so sedate that riders and pedestrians alike are safe from harm.  E-scooters conjure up a futuristic world – but high street cowboys are making them unsafe.  Machines taking part in an official nationwide trial of e-scooters for rent are restricted to 15.5mph, for example.  There is talk of new laws limiting private e-scooters to 12.5mph.  Yet the reality is quite different – and such limits meaningless.

A local council has extended a huge loan to billionaire Matt Moulding, the founder and boss of beleaguered online retailer The Hut Group. Labour-controlled Warrington council agreed earlier this month to lend another £18million to private company Moulding Capital Limited. It was one of a series of loans worth a total of £200million made to the businessman making him the council’s largest single credit exposure. Council documents seen by The Mail on Sunday say the new loan is ‘fully secured… against a portfolio of real estate assets’. It is not known what the loan is being used for. A spokesman added that the council considered Moulding Capital Limited to be ‘a good credit risk’. 

Every day, we continuously strive to improve our culture of safety and accountability that empowers every employee to be a safety leader. Employees are committed to “Make Safe Happen” and drive safety excellence across our global operations through our “Journey to Zero,” which we define as zero accidents, zero errors and zero harm.  Our commitment to safety was fully evident throughout 2020 as we focused on keeping our employees safe and healthy. As part of our safety culture built on continuous improvement and anticipating emerging risks, Lubrizol had pandemic response plans and teams in place well before 2020. These plans and teams were activated in the early days of the pandemic, and we worked quickly to implement protocols, and evolve them over time, to ensure our sites are amongst the safest places for our employees.

The commercial aircraft market is driven by a number of factors such as skyrocketing passenger traffic, aviation network infrastructural improvements, development of quieter and fuel-efficient aircraft, and government initiatives taken by several national governments encouraging the domestic commercial aircraft market. Some of these include liberalized taxation regions, R&D investments, and measures that aid the indigenous manufacturing of commercial aircraft. The commercial aircraft market is projected to witness a modest CAGR of 4.1% for the period from 2017 to 2022.

Big fan of podcasts? You’re not alone. In 2020, more than 100 million Americans listened to at least one podcast each month.  Podcasts can provide access to on-the-go environmental education. But with millions of episodes available to download, it can be challenging to know where to start if you are new to the platform.  Below, we’ve curated a list of thought-provoking, informative, and entertaining environmental podcasts, just in time for Earth Day 2021. These podcasts will transport you to the outdoors and introduce you to fascinating stories from the world of conservation.

The U.S. military, and the federal government in general, are increasingly taking measures to ensure a robust response whenever and wherever the call arises. That includes ensuring water and power supply resilience, safety system effectiveness, and infrastructure security, in spite of any natural hazard or man-made threats. In short, reducing vulnerabilities to these critical resources, as well as providing valuable training in relevant disciplines, helps keep America safe.

On March 30, 2022, the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) and Johnson Controls signed an agreement that commits more than $125 million (CAD) to accelerate private sector decarbonization building retrofit projects across Canada.  As originally documented in the 2002 book, The Restoration Economy, the retrofitting of existing buildings is almost always far more green than demolishing old buildings and constructing anew.  “Investments in building retrofits are key to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reaching Canada’s target of net zero emissions by 2050. The CIB’s investment will enable Johnson Controls to provide participating organizations the expertise and solutions they need to make their buildings more sustainable while creating hundreds of high-quality jobs in the skilled trades,” said Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities.

When you’re enjoying a glass of beer, do you ever consider how the beverage is made and whether the process is environmentally friendly?  For Kim Dalum, brewing is a passion, and his startup company focuses on reducing the carbon emissions in craft breweries. Trelleborg Sealing Solutions contributed to make his dream of sustainable craft brewing a reality.  Trelleborg Sealing Solutions collaborated with Dalum Beverage Equipment in the development of a CO2 compressor.  The compressor is one part of a CO2 recovery plant, enabling craft breweries to recycle CO2 emitted during fermentation.  Turcon® MF6 is the optimum material in the compressor’s challenging operating environment.

Solar panels are very reliable and long-lasting investments that save consumers money and require little to no maintenance for 25-35 years. However, given the scale of deployment over the last 15-20 years, there is and will continue to be a growing demand for effective processes for removal, dismantling and recycling or reuse of solar panels at the end of their useful life.  Solar panels are removed from operation either from degradation after decades of use, system upgrades, damage from extreme weather, remodeling, or damage during transit. To date, broken or unused solar panels were being stockpiled by solar contractors, dumped in hazardous waste landfills, or worse, illegally dumped.  Up until 2021, solar panels were classified as Hazardous Waste by the State Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). In January of 2021, solar panels were reclassified as Universal Waste, making it easier and less expensive for waste management companies to haul and process solar panels for recycling.

The National Gas Company (NGC) has become the first organisation in Trinidad and Tobago to be registered as a member of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) community.  Joining the GRI network represents the latest of ‘first milestones’ in NGC’s strategy to build sustainability. The company is the first and remains the only state-owned enterprise to produce an annual sustainability report. From its first report, the NGC adopted GRI standards indicating its willingness to measure itself and perform against international standards.  The GRI network comprises over 500 large, small, private and public organisations from more than 70 countries. They work to jointly advance sustainability reporting across all regions of the world. The GRI community provides members with access to learning and knowledge-sharing opportunities that help improve the quality of sustainability reporting with the GRI Standards.

A few years ago, Isaac Larsen attended a wedding at a pioneer church in Minnesota. After the ceremony, he wandered around a cemetery by the church.  He noticed the cemetery, which had never been tilled, was at least a foot higher than a corn field just on the other side of a fence.  “That was one of those ‘lightbulb’ moments that told me that a lot of soil had been eroded from that field since the founding of the church,” Larsen said.  The University of Massachusetts Amherst geosciences professor and his co-researchers have released a new study that found topsoil in the Midwest is eroding at an average rate of 1.9 millimeters per year. They measured elevation differences between native prairie and farm fields at about 20 sites, the majority in central Iowa, with some in Illinois, Minnesota, South Dakota, Kansas and Nebraska.

Did you know that tomatoes were once thought to be poisonous? That misconception is called the ‘tomato effect.’  It’s a term that’s also used when it comes to methods of treatment for certain illnesses. Health professionals sometimes overlook proven therapies because the results contradict their previous training.  An environmental specialist is shining light on the subject and how it applies to treating cardiovascular-related disease.  “it appears as though we haven’t learned much from the tomato effect,” said Douglas Mulhall, Environmental specialist, author.  Case in point according to environmental specialist and author douglas mulhall is what often became accepted treatment for severe peripheral artery disease, or critical limb ischemia.

According to a recent report from Business Insider, a refurbisher that works with major retailers has been forced to “stockpile more than 30,000 affected AirPods over the course of just a few weeks” because users are failing unlink AirPods from their Apple ID upon return.  This means that when the refurbisher tests the AirPods, or even when the next buyer of the AirPods receives them, they see a message about an “AirPods Mismatch” from the Find My app.  The earbuds of your AirPods are linked to a different Apple ID, possibly because one of the earbuds is mixed up with someone else’s AirPods. Learn how to solve this issue by going to the article online.  goTRG, the aforementioned company that handles returns for Walmart and other retailers, says that this issue affects “about eight in 10 AirPods that come through the company’s six facilities.” Another company that sells refurbished AirPods on sites like Amazon, R2Cell, was forced to stop selling refurbished AirPods altogether because of the problem.