European Union to ban single-use plastics by 2021 – National | Globalnews.ca

Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y., and other Congress members ask President Joe Biden to not exclude the Department of Defense from an executive order that aims to reduce the federal government’s carbon emissions.  The letter, which was issued on Friday, stated that DOD is the largest energy consumer in the U.S., and exempting the department from the order would make it more difficult to achieve the nation’s carbon reduction goals.  The Executive Order on Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability urges a whole-of-government approach with the goal of achieving 100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity by 2030.

The Product Platform Rulebook is an open-access guide, developed by the Construction Innovation Hub and industry leaders, for various stakeholders within the supply chain to develop and deploy Product Platforms. The Rulebook aims to enable and promote the adoption of Product Platform approaches by providing guidance, tools, and a common framework for the industry.  The construction industry needs disruption, which the innovators and early adopters have initiated over the last few decades with the adoption of Modern Methods of Construction. But we now need guidance to build confidence in the approach for the majority to follow.  A Product Platform is often referred to as a ‘Kit of Parts’ which is a group of common and repeatable assets that can be configured and combined with interoperable components to deliver a range of distinct projects.

When buying clothes, most people don’t think about the impact it has on the environment. With more and more people buying from fast-fashion empires like Zara, H&M, and Forever 21, should this be a subject of concern for the public?   Fast-fashion is a new subject for most people, emerging within the last decade. Fast-fashion focuses itself on being cheap, trendy, and reliable.  Mass production always has negative impacts;, factories almost always have high pollution levels and poor work conditions.  According to a Princeton study on the impact of fast-fashion, approximately 20% of the wastewater worldwide is produced by the process of mass producing cotton for these brands. The same study shows that 35% of all microplastics entering our oceans are from producers turning to plastics for cheaper production.