Month: November 2022

A new study, carried out by UK business connectivity provider for the transport and logistics sector. Neos Networks, has found that over half (55%) of UK companies are actively planning to adopt battery electric vehicles (BEVs) across their fleet in as little as five years to align with net-zero targets.  BEVs were over two times more popular than competing technologies such as hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), favoured by 26% of companies, or other alternative fuels, chosen by 23%. In fact, just 7% of operators don’t plan to adopt decarbonisation measures in this time period.  The 2022 Green Technology in Freight report, carried out by Neos, asked business leaders at 34 of the UK’s top logistics companies for their insight on changes made since the decarbonisation plan, what barriers they experience in meeting green targets and what the future holds for the industry.  42% of freight companies highlighted artificial intelligence (AI) and data learning across operations as key to their decarbonisation plan. One year on from the announcement of the UK government’s Decarbonising Transport plan, industry experts encourage operators to act now and ‘get smart’ to lay foundations for data systems.  Currently, just two in five companies who collect and report on primary (real-time) data of greenhouse gas and/or carbon emissions are using the data to improve operational efficiency. To truly capitalise on the information available, investment is needed in network systems, employee expertise and connectivity infrastructure.  Does the industry truly believe in net-zero targets?  The industry remains divided as to whether the UK government’s target of net-zero emissions in transport by 2050 can be achieved. Over half (55%) of respondents were positive about meeting targets, though 45% of operators are still to be convinced.  The greatest barrier to net-zero targets for three in five T&L operators (61%) is high investment costs, followed by concern that some shippers are favouring lower costs over greener practices. 35% of operators stated that low costs being prioritised over sustainability is a significant obstacle to decarbonisation.

Sustainable buildings have increased the asset values for commercial real estate managers in Europe, according to research from Deepki.  More than half of the commercial real estate managers say property values have increased between 16% and 28% because of a green premium, which is the added value of using more sustainable offerings because tenants are willing to pay more for more efficient buildings. More than a quarter of respondents say their rental yields have increased for green buildings.  The industrial sector is the most likely to use sustainable commercial real estate, according to 64% of the respondents. Healthcare followed, with 48% of respondents saying the sector is most likely to use green buildings, and retail came in at 45% according to the research. The sector having the least impact in terms of sustainable space was lodging and resorts, which came in with 4% of the responses.  A third of the respondents also say vacancies have decreased by as much as 15% for sustainable buildings, with 36% saying their void periods have fallen by up to 25%.  “Commercial real estate managers who are taking steps to understand and enhance their ESG credentials are helping to meet their net zero goals and deliver better performance for investors,” says Deepki CEO Vincent Bryant. “Buildings with better sustainability ratings are more likely to be occupied which increases their overall rental income.”

Our world is changing due to global heating at a faster rate than humanity has ever experienced before. The decisions we make now impact the future of our planet.  We want to unite people and use our unique place as a music venue to amplify positive climate action and inspire everyone to think about their impact on the earth.  To ensure we can continue to celebrate music together for generations to come, we have set ourselves the target to become the UK’s first net zero concert hall by 2030.  Here you’ll find stories, videos, and updates about the steps we’re taking to achieve this goal, and how you can help us get there too.

Three community organizations dedicated to food research and security and agricultural justice were honored by Cornell for their campus-community partnerships in 2022.  The 12th annual Cornell Town-Gown Awards – also known as the TOGOs – celebrated cooperation between the university and the greater Ithaca community at a virtual ceremony held Nov. 19. Joel M. Malina, Cornell’s vice president for university relations, hosted the event.  Speaking at the awards ceremony, Cornell President Martha E. Pollack offered her thanks and discussed the importance of community-campus partnerships.  “One of the things I love about Cornell is that even though we’re Ivy League, we’re never ivory tower,” Pollack said. “Our community is deeply connected with the communities around us. Cornell and local communities aren’t just shared – we continually shape each other in ways that make both of us stronger.”

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations are increasingly important decision-making criteria for organisations to measure their activities and report progress.  When an organisation chooses a strong ESG profile, it demonstrates strong commitment, both to codes of practice and corporate values, and to current and potential investors and lenders. It is a mark of distinction among competition, and supports an organisation’s attractiveness to employees and customers, presenting a key financial incentive. Whereas, a lower ESG profile or performance will increasingly suggest apathy towards the interests of wider society – whether intentional or not.  Accountability is a powerful element in purchasing decisions, particularly in complicated and lengthy supply chains. Consumers want to know the background of service providers. Both employees and customers expect companies to stand for something with a positive social impact. For example, more than six in ten younger consumers closely consider a company’s ethical values and authenticity before buying their products.

As a lifelong West Michigan resident and avid beach walker whose hometown draws its drinking water from Lake Michigan, Arthur Hirsch has always loved spending time along the Great Lakes.  That’s how he spotted something worrying in the water three summers ago.  Thousands of plastic pellets littered the beach’s sandy shore, just a small sampling of the 22 million pounds of plastic waste that enters the Great Lakes annually, much of it in the form of tiny “microplastics” small enough to be ingested or embedded in flesh. Hirsch had discovered nurdles, tiny plastic pellets that are melted down to create products ranging from clothing to water bottles. “I was pissed that this unknown sourced plastic material was polluting Lake Michigan and my beach environment,” said Hirsch, an activist with the West Michigan Chapter of the Climate Reality Project. 

In many ways, the seaside resort town of Sharm El Sheikh is a compelling backdrop for a global climate change conference. Perched on the south-eastern edge of the Sinai Peninsula, it is bordered by pristine coral reefs on one side and arid desert on the other – a perfect reminder of the delicate equilibrium that keeps our planet’s ecosystems alive and an eloquent portrait of everything that we stand to lose to climate change.  But the setting for the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP27, was the only thing that stood out in what was otherwise an unremarkable affair, contoured by the usual parade of delegates, an increased presence of industry lobbyists, and the growing certainty that the climate targets set in the Paris Agreement will not be achieved. If anything, COP27 produced one concrete outcome: our planet will be a much hotter place in the coming decade.

Women are responsible for half of the world’s food production; in most developing countries, women produce between 60 and 80% of food. Yet they own just a fraction of the land on which they live and work.  This week at COP27, where food security and gender are high priorities, I spoke with Esther Mwaura Muiru​, global advocacy director at the Stand for Her Land campaign and Dan Glickman, former United States secretary of agriculture.  They shared unique insights, based on their expansive advocacy and policy careers, on how women’s land rights and supportive policies can bolster climate resilience, food security, and sustainability in communities.

The Science to Action Fellowship program supports graduate students in developing a product that puts science into action, directly applying scientific research related to climate change impacts on fish, wildlife, or ecosystems to decision making about natural resources. The Science to Action (S2A) Fellowship was developed to expose graduate students to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) through the USGS National Climate Adaptation Science Center (NCASC), whose mission is to provide scientific information, tools, and techniques to help natural and cultural resource managers anticipate and adapt to the impacts of climate change on fish, wildlife, and ecosystems.

Thanksgiving is a joyous time of year to celebrate our abundance. Unfortunately, much of it goes out with the trash after the gathering. “Two hundred million pounds of turkey thrown out, alongside more than 150 million pounds of side dishes like veggies and potatoes and 14 million pounds of dinner rolls,” laments the Center for Biological Diversity, a sustainability-focused nonprofit. In addition to the tremendous waste of food and money, this organic refuse also generates methane in our landfills, a contributor of greenhouse gasses. Composting is one approach to reducing this problem.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) could be a significant player in the search for alien life after it successfully revealed the makeup of an exoplanet’s atmosphere in never before seen detail.  JWST’s powerful instruments captured atoms and molecules, along with signs of active chemistry and clouds – features Hubble and Spitzer were unable to detect when they observed the planet and those that hold evidence of signs of life. Astronomers used WASP-39b, a hot Saturn 700 light-years away from Earth, to test the telescope’s capabilities, and the telescope used its infrared capabilities to pick up colors chemical fingerprints that cannot be detected in visible light.

European agriculture, both crop and animal production, currently faces major challenges such as the need to protect biodiversity, increasing bans or limitations on the use of pesticides, soil quality degradation, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the overarching challenge of climate change. To overcome these challenges, scientific and industrial research and development in agricultural and biosystems engineering, across all areas of agriculture and nutrition, must work together to offer strategic pathways and technological solutions. The AgEng-LAND.TECHNIK 2022 conference, part of both the EurAgEng AgEng and the VDI LAND.TECHNIK conference series, brings together these competences and expertise to provide an arena to connect and drive forward the needed solutions to these global challenges.

To achieve our climate targets and ensure the long-term sustainability of our sector, agriculture is working towards the development of more climate resilient systems and the reduction of agricultural emissions. Significant transformation is needed and this requires joined up thinking and long-term strategic planning in both research and practice. This Symposium aims to raise awareness, exchange knowledge and provide research- based information on current policy approaches, farm-level initiatives and address the contribution of sustainable diets in food security debates.

The 2023 International Summit & Exhibition on Health Facility Planning, Design & Construction March 12-15, Phoenix The PDC Summit brings together thousands working in all disciplines of health care planning, design and construction to learn, network and discover ways to create value for the health care built environment. The field comes together to share their findings, challenges and best practices with the shared goal of advancing safe and trusted health care. Professionals from every stage of their careers can benefit from sessions, networking and solutions. Attend the PDC Summit and get the information you need to elevate your career and team.

Elevate is the leading authority and industry expert for compostable packaging and labels. Our clients enjoy access to the leading sustainable packaging innovations and developments – allowing them to do better for themselves while helping improve our planet.  Transparency and authenticity are at the core of how we do business.  We can provide valuable advice and direction, or work hand-in-hand with a brand seeking an innovative sustainable solution.  We sincerely hope the facts covered here provide enough information to fully describe our sustainability efforts, both with our product offerings and our company culture. If you have any unanswered questions, though, simply ask us, and we will do our best to provide you with the answers you need.  It is our ultimate goal to be your sustainable packaging company!

South Korea’s LG Chem Ltd said on Tuesday it will invest more than $3 billion to build a battery cathode factory in Tennessee, as it ramps up plans to meet rising demand for U.S. electric vehicle components.
It’s one of the first major EV-related investments announced by a South Korean firm in the United States since a new U.S. law was passed in August that puts automakers and battery suppliers relying heavily on China for sourcing at a cost disadvantage.
Mass production is set to start outside of Clarksville in the second half of 2025 and the plant will create more than 850 jobs, LG Chem said in a statement. The plant is slated to have an annual production capacity of 120,000 tons of cathode materials by 2027, enough to power about 1.2 million electric vehicles, it added.

In Pennsylvania, the Derry Township Municipal Authority (DTMA) has taken a big step on its journey toward energy and nutrient recovery from organic waste at its Clearwater Road Wastewater Treatment Facility (WWTF). Ongoing upgrades at the five million-gallons-per-day WWTF are part of a $12 million biosolids facility improvements program. These improvements will expand capacity and increase energy efficiency, boosting the plant’s sustainability.  The Derry Township Municipal Authority’s Clearwater Road Wastewater Treatment Facility. (Source: Brown and Caldwell)  Already accepting organic waste from industrial and municipal sources, and with plans to receive future additional waste streams, the DTMA has a long-term vision to recover and reuse resources, reduce landfill waste, and generate alternate revenue sources to lessen the financial burden to customers.

For several years at METSTRADE, we have been asking our Sustainability Panels the question: ‘‘How green is green in the leisure marine industry?” The topics we have covered have included disassembly, life cycle assessment, material selection for better recyclability at end-of-life, and the development of clean energy storage and propulsion solutions.  For the 2021 sustainable panel at METSTRADE, we considered the intensifying global pressures on achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. For instance, the climate change targets set out by the UN Sustainability Development Goals, and the EU Green Deal. With this in mind, we decided to narrow the focus, by homing-in on the latest innovations aimed at achieving these climate change targets.

Research from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has found that for highly glazed buildings, like the shimmering skyscrapers of big cities, photovoltaic (PV) windows make a sizable difference in the building’s carbon footprint, reducing energy use and CO2 emissions by as much as 40%.  The study, published in the journal One Earth, outlines how PV windows can be an important component for designing highly glazed buildings that reach net-zero targets. According to the study, about one-third of global energy consumption comes from buildings, showing the need to reduce energy demand and related emissions. But despite the known downsides of highly glazed buildings, like poor energy performance and thermal efficiency, they are still a popular choice in the industry.

For more than 190 years, the PHS Philadelphia Flower Show has delighted attendees with a nine-day celebration of all things floral and gardening. Year after year, this event brings joy to hundreds of thousands of people each winter as they anticipate the newness of spring.  But the Flower Show is more than just a singular event — it serves as the main fundraiser for PHS’s year-round efforts to put trees, gardens, and gardeners to work to help build strong social connections, as well as provide access to fresh food, healthy living environments, and jobs and business opportunities across the Greater Philadelphia region. When you buy a Flower Show ticket, you directly contribute to making a greener, healthier, and more sustainable region that improves health and well-being for everyone.