Day: November 26, 2022

Stadium 974 – the first fully demountable tournament venue in FIFA World Cup™ history – has achieved a five-star rating under the Global Sustainability Assessment System (GSAS), which is administered by the Gulf Organisation for Research & Development (GORD).  The 40,000-capacity venue is a landmark in sustainable stadium design and construction, having been built with prefabricated and modular steel elements such as standard certi­fied shipping containers. This reduced the waste generated during the production of stadium components and the waste created on site during construction. The use of modular elements also reduced the venue’s construction duration. Water efficiency methods ensured that 974 reduced water use by 40% compared to a conventional stadium development.  As a result, 974 achieved a five-star rating for GSAS Design & Build and a Class A* rating for GSAS Construction Management. Executives from the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy received the certificates during a special event on Wednesday. The SC delegation included Eng. Ghanim Al Kuwari, Deputy Director General, Technical Services; Eng. Bodour Al Meer, Sustainability Executive Director; Mohamed Al Atwaan, Facilities Management Director, Stadium 974; and Jassim Al Jaidah, Sustainability Communications Manager.  As the f­irst-ever FIFA complaint stadium that can be fully dismantled and re-purposed post-event, 974 sets new standards in the building and usage of sustainable venues. This includes f­lexibility in the design to rebuild the stadium with the same capacity in a different location or build multiple smaller venues using the same materials. A study into the environmental impact of Stadium 974 was published earlier this year.  Located in Doha – close to Hamad International Airport and opposite the stunning West Bay skyline – Stadium 974 hosted its first match on 30 November 2021 during the FIFA Arab Cup™.  Eight stadiums will host matches during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™, which will take place from 20 November to 18 December. Each venue has achieved a minimum four-star rating under GSAS, which was adopted as a sustainability rating system by FIFA and will ensure all tournament-related infrastructure meets stringent environmental standards.  Stadium 974 will host seven matches up to the round of 16 stages during Qatar 2022, starting with Mexico versus Poland on 22 November.

If you were asked what makes Advent the most magical time of the year, we would probably get pretty similar answers. Festive lights and decorations, lively festive fairs, gift shopping, exquisite culinary delights and socialising with friends would probably be at the top of the list. But also the euphoria and crowds of December, which can sometimes be quite exhausting, can’t they? Why not make this a time to pause for a moment, think about the true meaning of the holidays and discover the magic of Advent in a different way? Also, by thinking ahead and embracing the joys of Advent in a more sustainable way. Here are some of the things we are trying to do in Slovenia to bring some “green” consciousness to the Advent fairy tale.  In the glow of festive lights – Slovenian cities and towns shine with thousands of festive lights in December. Despite the lavish lighting, energy-saving strings of lights are mostly used and in some places additional energy-saving measures are being taken. In Celje, more attention will be paid to the daytime decoration of the city and its bars and lighting elements will be replaced by non-illuminated features that are less energy-consuming. Murska Sobota, Maribor, Kranj and Slovenj Gradec have also decided to switch off their New Year lighting at night, and the light decorations in Koper will be partially switched off at night, while Jesenice will keep its lights on for a shorter period than usual. Additional or non-essential lighting was also given up in many towns.  Festive decorations for homes and towns.  In addition to the lights, decorated Christmas trees and other types of decorations, mostly made from natural or recycled materials, decorate the towns. Instead of cut down Christmas trees, you will find so-called living trees, which are planted in special pots. In Ljubljana, 10 spruce trees and 79 evergreen trees will be placed on four streets in the city centre and returned to nature after the holidays. Children from local schools and kindergartens often take part in decorating the trees. For example, the children will decorate the forests around Ljubljana and they have invited the city’s residents to contribute their own decorations. In Maribor, you can also join the citizens in decorating the urban woods.

Norwegian life sciences companies are finding new ways to extract useful compounds from marine residual materials, leading to innovations in health, medicine and food production while building a blue circular economy.  In terms of mass, 35 per cent of the harvest from fisheries and fish farms is residual materials. These are biological “leftovers” after the primary product has been extracted – for example, skin, guts, heads and bones from fish and shells from shellfish.  “Both aquaculture and pelagic fisheries create a high volume of residual material,” explains Hanne Mette Dyrlie Kristensen, CEO of The Life Science Cluster.  “For example, only about two thirds of a salmon’s weight can be sold as fillets. The question is: What do we do with the rest? Do we throw it back into the ocean, sell it as pet food, or can we find new, higher value use for it?”   The Life Science Cluster is a network for companies and organisations in industries for which the life sciences are key. The cluster promotes the development of new technology and higher value products in health, medicine, and the marine, agriculture and forestry sectors. This includes the use of marine residuals, which contain proteins, oils and other compounds that can be extracted and made into valuable products.  Norwegian companies are already adept at not letting marine residuals go to waste. Approximately 82 per cent of the harvest from Norwegian fisheries and fish farms is utilised in one way or another. Nevertheless, Kristensen would like to see an even higher percentage.  “We want to increase the use of marine residuals because it is a way of ensuring sustainable and circular resource use. Making sure to use every ounce we harvest is also a way of showing respect for marine life.”   Norway is a world leader in “blue” life science.  There are many products that can be made from marine residuals. Kristensen explains that Norwegian companies are continuously discovering untapped potential, based on synergies between industries.  “A good example is Arctic Bioscience, a company that uses herring roe to extract useful compounds for pharmaceuticals and nutritional supplements. Herring roe is a new resource in this respect; previously it has been discarded completely during the processing of herring.”

The tight labor market is prompting more employers to eliminate one of the biggest requirements for many higher-paying jobs: the need for a college degree.  Companies such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Delta Air Lines Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. have reduced educational requirements for certain positions and shifted hiring to focus more on skills and experience. Maryland this year cut college-degree requirements for many state jobs—leading to a surge in hiring—and incoming Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro campaigned on a similar initiative.  U.S. job postings requiring at least a bachelor’s degree were 41% in November, down from 46% at the start of 2019 ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to an analysis by the Burning Glass Institute, a think tank that studies the future of work. Degree requirements dropped even more early in the pandemic. They have grown since then but remain below prepandemic levels.  The shift comes as demand for workers remains high and unemployment is low. Job postings far outpace the number of unemployed people looking for work—10.7 million openings in September compared with 5.8 million unemployed—creating unusually stiff competition for workers.  The persistently tight labor market has accelerated the trend that builds on a debate about the benefits and drawbacks of encouraging more people to attend four-year colleges and as organizations try to address racial disparities in the workplace.  Some occupations have universal degree requirements, such as doctors and engineers, while others typically have no higher education requirements, such as retail workers. There is a middle ground, such as tech positions, that have varying degree requirements depending on the industry, company and strength of the labor market and economy.  Lucy Mathis won a scholarship to attend a women in computer science conference. There, she learned about an IT internship at Google and eventually dropped out of her computer science undergraduate program to work at the company full time. The 28-year-old now makes a six-figure sum as a systems specialist.  “I found out I had a knack for IT,” she said. “I’m not good at academics. It’s not for me.” 

The main purpose of this webinar is to discuss the importance of Eucalyptus globulus as a differential element for innovation and the creation of a disruptive product that opens the way for a new packaging paradigm.  Industry experts Angela Graham-Brown (WBCSD), Fabienne Sinclair (PEFC), and Jonathan Tame (Two-Sides) will discuss forests, biodiversity, sustainability, the importance of PEFC, the growth of the circular bioeconomy with forest products, the myths, and facts about paper packaging and the role of virgin fibre.  gKRAFT aims to be the solution that guarantees the reduction of the use of fossil materials, as is the case with most plastics, in favour of renewable and biodegradable forest-based materials to help build a sustainable future.  The Navigator Company’s packaging solution includes three sub-brands targeting specific market needs: FLEX was designed to develop flexible packaging for the food industry, catering, and pharmaceutical trade; BAG is intended for retail product packaging already used by major international brands; finally, BOX (focused on paper for corrugated cardboard boxes) is intended for more resistant industrial and retail packaging, namely food retail, where there is a growing need for shelf-ready packaging, particularly in refrigerated environments, with high-quality printing to attract consumers and differentiate brands from the competition.

The cherry trees on the Tidal Basin need care and tending year round.  For more than a century, the cherry trees on the National Mall have been a beloved cultural symbol and popular tourist destination that draws visitors from around the world to our nation’s capital. Living symbols of friendship and diplomacy, the trees have adorned the National Mall waterfront since 1912, when the Mayor of Tokyo gifted cherry trees to the United States.  The iconic trees on the Tidal Basin, a beautiful but fragile wetland ecosystem, require year-round care and tending to bloom. The changing climate and rising sea-level of the Tidal Basin, coupled with damage from weather and ever-increasing foot traffic pose a growing threat to health of the trees. The Trust for the National Mall is proud to partner with the National Park Service and friends like you to steward the trees.  The cost to maintain the Cherry Trees exceeds the federal funds available to provide for their care.  But with your help, the Trust for the National Mall and the National Park Service can provide care for the trees and ensure they will endure and flourish for years to come.  The Trust for the National Mall has partnered with the National Cherry Blossom Festival to launch our Adopt a Cherry Tree Campaign with a goal to raise over $3.7 million to care for the 3,700 cherry trees and create a maintenance fund to care for the trees all year long.  We seek ambassadors like you who share our commitment to environmental sustainability and are willing to join our mission to preserve this cultural landscape and living symbol of friendship and diplomacy.  The future of this annual spring tradition is becoming increasingly uncertain as the trees face damage foot traffic from the millions of visitors, the growing impacts of the changing climate and daily flooding caused by the rising sea level that damages their root systems. Now more than ever, the Cherry Trees need support to ensure they will continue to bloom and thrive for generations to come.

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…

The Tibet delegation pointed out that the Chinese government is responsible for the worsening climate situation in the region which is already affected by global warming.  The all-women Tibetan representative at the 27th UN Climate Change Conference (Cop 27) raised the climate crisis that is threatening Tibet and the degradation of the environment due to Chinese projects, Tibet press reported. They demanded that world leaders acknowledge Tibet’s ecological significance and adopt a rights-based strategy that gives frontline communities power.  According to the Tibet press, China imprisons and sentence the Tibetans who defend and protect their environment be it against the constant damming projects – adhering towards it so called Hydro-Hegemony, mining extensively without any recovery time, needless development of grasslands and Greenwashing – which sees large number of Tibetans relocated from the ancestral lands in the name of development and for its realization, Beijing has directed a large sum of governmental finances (taxpayers money) which instead could have been utilized consciously in preserving the environment. The Tibet delegation pointed out that the Chinese government is responsible for the worsening climate situation in the region which is already affected by global warming.  This is further accelerated by the policies implemented in Tibet by Beijing that pushes for development but neglects sustainability. Tibetan environmentalists have been sentenced without any legal justification by China. Environmental activists Nya Sengdra and Karma Samdrup are in prison to preserve and protect Tibet’s fragile and unique ecology and also that both have been sent to prison without formal legal procedures.  In 2010 Human Rights Watch submitted a report to the Chinese government requesting to rescind the accusations against the philanthropist and environmentalist Karma Samdrup and his brothers. It states “these people embody the characteristics the government says it wants in modern Tibetans – economically successful, lending support to only approved cultural and environmental pursuits, and apolitical – yet they, too, are being treated as criminals.” This illustrates what the Chinese think of Tibetans who are not only apolitical but are trying to bring upward mobility to not only Tibetans but also the Chinese residing in Tibet especially in terms of the quality of life which is intertwined with the state of the environment. Lobsang Yangsto , the programme and environment coordinator at the International Tibet Network (ITN) along with 4 other Tibetan women at the CoP27, highlighted the desecration and destruction of Tibet’s fragile and vital ecosystem under the illegal Chinese occupation.

The Madhya Pradesh government and Central Nodal Department on Saturday organised workshops on Urban infra, urban transport, roads and logistics, informed a Finance Ministry press release. “The in-person workshop on Track 1 – Urban Infra, Urban Transport, Roads & Logistics, Power, and Industrial Infrastructure of Sub-Theme 2 – Infrastructure & Investments under Pillar 1 – Growth and Job Creation, in the run-up to the 2nd Conference of Chief Secretaries, was organised by the track-lead State of Madhya Pradesh and the Central Nodal Department i.e., the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), Ministry of Finance, Government of India,” the Ministry of Finance said in the release.  As per the release, the workshops witnessed participation from 16 State Governments and Union Territories. The workshop saw participation from over 60 senior officials from the State Governments and Union Territories and also representatives from industry and academia. The workshop was inaugurated by the Chief Secretary, Government of Madhya Pradesh, Iqbal Singh Bains, and Secretary, DEA, MoF, GoI, Ajay Seth.  They suggested utilising this opportunity to enable a centre-state and inter-state discussion on ideas, potential solutions and exchange of learnings and best practices. They also emphasised the need to bring forth practical recommendations that are of utmost relevance to the State/UTs and aligned to the theme for this year’s conference – ‘Viksit Bharat – Reaching the Last Mile’, the release added. In his context-setting address, Principal Secretary, of the Urban Development and Housing Department, Government of Madhya Pradesh, Neeraj Mandloi, apprised of the background and steps leading to today’s in-person workshop, such as preparation of concept notes, background paper and video conference meeting held earlier this month.  As per the release, the session also witnessed the launch of the scheme guidelines for the financial support for Project Development Expenses of PPP Projects – India Infrastructure Project Development Fund (IIPDF) Scheme (The Scheme was notified on 3rd November 2022). During the workshop, presentations were made by representatives from industry and academia, State Governments and Union Territories followed by an open house discussion on major implementation models, ideas and experiences across projects, schemes and the way forward, the Ministry further stated. (ANI)

For more than 30 years, our scientifically tested and proven GORE‑TEX materials have been keeping people dry and warm so they can spend longer in the outdoors. At the heart of GORE-TEX fabrics is an extremely thin membrane called ePTFE that is durably waterproof, windproof and breathable. PTFE is a fluoropolymer.  Fluoropolymers are extremely valuable materials that have unique properties and enable high performing products. For example, the use of fluoropolymers will enhance the durability of a product, enabling a longer life and lowering its environmental footprint. This fluoropolymer is inert, insoluble in water, extremely stable and not biodegradable. Therefore, it does not degrade to become a source of PFCs of Environmental Concern.  GORE FABRICS’ GOAL AND ROADMAP FOR ELIMINATING PFCS OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN*  As part of its commitment to continuously improve the environmental footprint of its consumer fabrics products while maintaining a high level of durability and performance, Gore Fabrics has set the goal of eliminating PFCs of Environmental Concern from the life cycle of its consumer fabrics products.  Gore Fabrics intends to eliminate PFCs of Environmental Concern from its consumer fabrics products. This is an important milestone in a long-term journey to continuously reduce the environmental footprint of its products throughout their full life cycle. Gore Fabrics is working towards the elimination of PFCs of Environmental Concern from its Durable Water Repellent (DWR) treatments and membrane manufacturing processes.  The original target for completion of the elimination of PFCs of Environmental Concern from its consumer Fabric products is the end of 2023. Gore Fabrics is proud of the significant progress we have made on this journey with significant changes in DWR chemistries, supplier engagement and alternative materials developed. Despite Gore Fabrics’s focus and progress to date, it is now clear that completing the transition of its entire portfolio by the original target date will not be possible due to product development and scaling challenges. Gore Fabrics is still fully committed to the PFCec-Free goals, and now is on track to transition the vast majority of its consumer portfolio by end of 2025. *PFCs (per and poly-fluorinated chemicals) is a term with no commonly agreed definition, and like PFAS (per and poly fluorinated alkyl substances), generally refers to a broad group of highly fluorinated compounds with vastly differing physical attributes and properties. So, in communicating about PFCs it is important to be specific about the particular PFC or group of PFCs being discussed.