thecirculareconomy

The University of Padova is revolutionizing forestry education with a free online course focused on gender equality, diversity, and inclusion. Participants will gain unlimited access to a wealth of resources including articles, videos, and quizzes, along with the opportunity to earn a PDF Certificate of Achievement. This initiative coincides with the International Day of Forests, emphasizing the global importance of forest conservation. Additionally, the XXVI IUFRO World Congress 2024 in Stockholm will highlight a shift towards greater global equity, with a significant representation from the Global South, aligning with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals to foster inclusive partnerships. This course and congress represent pivotal steps towards inclusivity in forestry education and practice.

Seismic Therapeutic has completed a $121-million Series B financing, with proceeds set to fund development of its two lead programs through Phase I proof-of-mechanism trials.

Throughout the year, we’ve shared a ton of small businesses we’re proud to support on our blog and I’ve had the distinct pleasure of interviewing several entrepreneurs whose dedication to their work has been inspiring. In fact, getting to know them has been my favorite part of this job. These brands are doing a myriad of amazing things, from uplifting their communities, ushering in more representation in their respective fields, creating products they’re passionate about, and focusing on sustainability.  As you buy gifts for your loved ones in the coming weeks, we encourage you to support these businesses because, along with doing a lot of good, they also sell some pretty awesome products. That’s why we’ve crafted this gift guide to make your shopping experience a little bit easier this holiday season. We hope you enjoy these brands as much as we do!  The below brands all ship items to the U.S. and may deliver to other countries as well.  For the snack lover – Is it really the holidays if you’re not indulging in delicious foods? These tasty treats are sure to put a smile on anyone’s face.  Cinnamon spice loaf from Rize Up Bakery – Rize Up Bakery’s Cinammon loaf – Rize Up Bakery is unlike any other bakery you’ve come across. Not only does the San Francisco business have roots in social justice activism, but they make some pretty unique sourdough flavors, including Ube, Garam Masala, and K-Pop Gochujang loaves.  But this cinnamon spice loaf bread is bursting with holiday flavors and is the ideal gift for the sourdough lover in your life.  Hear Rize Up’s founder speak to us about taking a stand with his business in season two, episode seven of Small Business, Big Lessons.  Made in Michigan gift basket from Zingerman’s Community of Businesses – The made in Michigan basket from Zingermans – Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Zingerman’s Community of Businesses has several restaurants throughout the area. The brand deeply values community, which is why they’ve committed to only opening businesses in Ann Arbor. Fortunately, they do ship certain food items so anyone can enjoy their treats.  This made-in-Michigan gift basket contains a wide range of tasty snacks – cherry preserves, peanut butter, chocolate, bread, pasta, and more!

Even for the most environmentally conscious, coping with the growing mound of waste most households produce can be a daunting and dispiriting task.  But David Grant and his wife Yvonne Faulkner-Grant have found an answer to the mountains of plastic detritus left behind by modern consumers.  Step forward Scruff, a border collie with a knack for recycling.  Their 13-year-old pet has taken to picking up any discarded plastic bottle he sees on his daily walks around Nuneaton, retrieving more than 1,000 over the course of the past year.  The couple noticed Scruff’s special ability when he began to turn his attention from twigs and branches to the empty plastic bottles littering the road.  He would pick one up in his mouth, but then drop it when his eye caught another one for him to retrieve.  The couple hit on the idea of putting each one he picked up and dropped again into a bag, with the idea of eventually taking them along to their local recycling centre. Scruff enjoyed picking up sticks before developing an interest for plastic bottles Credit: Joseph Walshe / SWNS   Mrs Faulkner-Grant, 47, said: “It seemed wrong that he would pick the bottle up and then drop it again. So we got him to start bringing the bottles to us and we put them in a bag and then count them up at the end of the walk.   “Now, he will see one on the other side of the road and look at me as if to say: ‘Can I get it?.’”   Mrs Faulkner-Grant, an Aldi warehouse deputy team leader, first bought Scruff home in Dec 2009 after buying him from a farm in Wales.   She met Mr Grant in 2018 through her running club and the couple were soon taking Scruff on two five-mile long walks each day.   “I’d say he will have collected at a least 1,000 this year. We get such a good reaction on Facebook, where Scruff has been dubbed an eco-dog,” she said.  Mr Grant, 48, added: “People have said he should be working for the council, and everybody loves it when they see him in the street.  “He is such an obedient dog and very friendly – your typical sheep dog. When we go on walks, he always picks up plastic bottles and likes to play with them. He never chews the bottles or the lids.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and your calendar is probably filling up with holiday parties and festive gatherings. While a time for enjoying food and sharing gifts with loved ones, the holidays are also a disproportionately wasteful time; between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, it’s estimated that Americans produce 25% more waste than any other time of the year.  No matter what the occasion, here’s how to throw a holiday party that’s both festive and better for the planet.  Get Cooking – Instead of buying plasticized snack and dessert trays from the grocery store on unrecyclable platters – or pre-made meals and main dishes from the frozen section – make as much party food as you’re able.  The processing, packaging, and transportation of food all use energy and contribute to global greenhouse gas emissions. Consider a pre-made vegetable platter sold at a grocery store: the vegetables are prepared and assembled, the dish is packaged in plastic, transported by truck or plane, and then kept refrigerated until it’s sold. According to FoodPrint, about two billion pounds of food are wasted during the processing/manufacturing stage alone, usually in the form of edible portions of food being trimmed off and not reused for animal feed or otherwise repurposed. By making the same vegetable platter yourself, you create no extra waste from packaging, have the option to choose local and sustainable ingredients, and can use those ingredients as efficiently as possible. Prepping food at home also gives you liberty to utilize ingredients you might already have on hand, rather than shopping for entirely new things. Not to mention, ultra-processed foods are generally much less nutritious than fresh, homemade dishes.  Of course, you might not be able to make absolutely everything for a party – potato chips, crackers, and bread might not be up your alley – but think about what you can make. Instead of jarred salsa or packaged cookies, try your hand at making them yourself, or ask guests to contribute a homemade dish. Main dishes and appetizers are a good place to focus your energy. 

One of the main dangers of plastics is the harm that their production and incineration can do to the health of the people who live nearby. Plastics plants are one of the main factors polluting the air of Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, for example.  Now, a group of U.S. lawmakers are seeking to address this environmental justice issue through the newly introduced Protecting Communities from Plastics Act.  “Plastic pollution isn’t just a problem for our oceans and climate — it’s a massive environmental injustice, directly impacting frontline and fenceline communities throughout the plastics lifecycle,” U.S. Representative Jared Huffman (D-CA), who introduced the bill, said in a statement emailed to EcoWatch. “My bill will protect the health of our communities, reduce greenhouse gas emissions fueling the climate crisis, and stop the fossil fuel industry’s petro-dictatorship as it eyes plastics as a safety net. The clock is ticking, and we will keep working on this next Congress — but we are sending a message here and now to put oil and gas companies on notice. Our communities must come first.”  Huffman introduced the bill Thursday alongside Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Representative Alan Lowenthal (D-CA), who are the legislative team behind the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act. The bill would both tighten health and environmental regulations for plastics makers and set national targets for reducing the production of certain single-use plastics and for encouraging reusable materials in food and other packaging.  The bill’s sponsors also emphasized the contribution that the production and use of plastics — which are set to double over the next 10 years — make to the climate crisis.  “As we transition to clean and renewable energy, fossil-based plastic production threatens to derail our efforts to address the climate crisis,” Booker said in a statement emailed to EcoWatch. “In fenceline communities that are near plastic production plants, residents suffer from the release of harmful pollutants and increased rates of debilitating health conditions such as cancer and heart disease. To address these environmental injustices, I am proud to introduce this legislation that will create nationwide targets for plastic source reduction and put a pause on the permitting of new and expanded plastic facilities while the EPA updates regulations for plastic facilities.”

In an attempt to deal with the growing plastic waste problem in the UK and the planet, the UK government is set to ban additional single-use plastic items like plates and cutlery in England, after banning straws, stirrers and cotton swabs there in 2020.  From November of last year to February of 2022, a public consultation regarding a plan to prohibit the supply of single-use plastic items and polystyrene food and drink containers was held by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), reported The Independent.  “We are determined to go further and faster to reduce, reuse, and recycle more of our resources in order to transform our waste industry and deliver on our commitments in the ambitious 25-year environment plan. Cutting our reliance on single-use plastics is crucial,” said a spokesperson for DEFRA, as The Guardian reported.  Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Thérèse Coffey will announce plans to replace the single-use plastic items with biodegradable alternatives, reported the Financial Times.  Scotland imposed a similar ban earlier this year, and last week Wales approved a ban on single-use plastic products beginning in 2023.  Every year, 4.25 billion single-use cutlery items and 1.1 billion plates are used in England, which is equal to 75 pieces of cutlery and 20 plates per person, the government said, but only 10 percent of it gets recycled, CNN reported.  Most plastics are made from fossil fuels and produce greenhouse gas emissions, which speed up the rate of climate change.  All of the single-use plastic products have reusable or non-plastic alternatives, Welsh Minister for Climate Change Julie James told the Financial Times.  “It’s not a lot more expensive at all, and as people realise how harmful these products are, more alternatives will come on stream at a cheaper price,” James said, as reported by the Financial Times.  DEFRA is also looking at how to deal with other single-use plastic items like tobacco filters and wet wipes.

Just a few weeks ago Gartner analysts said that sustainability and issues around it  would transcend all of the strategic technology trends for 2023.  This week at its IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies Conference Gartner described how corporate data centers might make sustainability a practical reality.  “IT leaders must avoid wasting value through the premature replacement of IT infrastructure,” said Philip Dawson, vice president and analyst at Gartner, at the conference. “They can do that by using real-time health analytics to maximize the useful life of data-center assets.”  “On-premises data centers and cloud providers are extending infrastructure lifecycles from three to five years and from five to seven years to help maximize OPEX cycles and reduce CAPEX investments tied to refresh,” Dawson stated.  Above all, the most-effective way that sustainability can reduce costs is through greater energy efficiency and optimized power consumption. It is paramount that infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders identify where and how data-center infrastructure can be optimized to consume less power, without hindering necessary business operations, Dawson stated.  Organizations need a sustainable-technology framework that increases the energy and material efficiency of IT services, and it must enable enterprise sustainability through traceability, analytics, renewable energy, and AI. The framework should also call for the deployment of IT solutions that help organizations achieve their own sustainability goals, distinguished vice president and analyst at Gartner Frances Karamouzis said earlier at the research firm’s IT Symposium/Xpo 2022.  “Targeting areas such as data-center power consumption is low-hanging fruit because it’s easy to measure,” Karamouzis said. “What enterprises need to look at is what to deploy as they get more and more data. Are they looking at buying more storage the same old way or are they looking at optimizing that system by looking at things like DNA storage and looking at the level of redundancy they need and implementing technology with a sustainable mindset.”  Environmental sustainability on CEOs’ radar, with 9% of them putting it among their top three business priorities, Gartner stated. Nearly 70% of them who Garnter surveyed plan to invest in new sustainable products and in make existing products more sustainable, the analysts stated.