We're following Rio+20 closely, so it's great to see this news filtering in, of major corporations such as Dow Chemicals, General Motors, Kimberly Clark, Marriott and Xerox (along with 20 others) all signing up to look at how to better "account" for nature in corporate practices.
We earnestly believe that it's not until we account for the environmental impact of firms, that sustainability will truly succeed.
It's long, long time ago when the green movement was seen as a nerdy movement of a small minority of Birkenstock wearing "alternatives" (no offence here, I am wearing Birkenstocks as well).
By today sustainability is mainstream, and I mean this in the best possible way!
With this development, sustainability is entering more and more aspects of our lives, e.g. did you ever think of a nightclub when you where pondering about sustainability?
We learned about a Dutch nightclub the other day. The Dutch might not know how to play football, but they sure have a unique sense of creativity. Check out this sustainable dance club!
Their sustainable dance floor is remarkable. The more people jump, dance, enjoy themselves, the more energy is created and can be reused (remember the BMW post a few days ago on a similar topic?).
By now the sustainable dance club initiative takes pride in developing sustainable concepts and solutions for clubs and festivals, aided by innovative technology. We feel they are onto something big as it makes young people think about their own impact on sustainabilty and in a playful way introduces the future decision makers of our world to this critical idea.
According
to Corporate Knights, media,
research and financial products company focused on quantifying and animating
clean capitalism drivers for decision makers, “In business, sustainability is when what is good for a company is also good
for the planet, and vice-versa”, says Toby Heaps, editor-in-chief.
In other words, we can say that sustainability is a
company’s power to align efforts towards balancing money, people and the
environment.
In this sense, Corporate Knights just announced 2012- List
of the 100 World’s Most Sustainable Companies. “For us at Corporate Knights,
sustainability is closely tied to what we call ‘clean capitalism,’ which we
define as an economic system in which prices fully incorporate social, economic
and ecological costs and benefits, and actors are clearly aware of the
consequences of their marketplace actions,” says Doug Morrow, vice president of
research at Corporate Knights.
The research group evaluated 400 companies using 11
environmental, social and governance performance measures, including energy
productivity, waste productivity, CEO-to-average-worker pay ratio and employee
turnover. Premise: to assume that companies were sharing reliable information,
be objective and if there is no data available then penalize the criteria.
We love this article by the Design Observer, which looks at the evolving narrative of sustainability over the years.
There is a technological progression towards efficiency, towards creating smaller or lesser polluting systems. But that's not necessarily the solution, and in fact can perhaps get in the way of every achieving true sustainability.
The article implores us to differentiate between technologically-driven sustainability, which is where a lot of what we're talking about lies, and instead also pay attention to the broader questions of ecological sustainability. To look at and develop new models for consumption itself, not just more efficient ways of producing and consuming as we always have, being cognizant that there is a broader ecological impact of iterations within the narrow field of "efficient products".
This is a conversation we hope to have on The Green Radar over the next few weeks, and would love for you to participate.
“Ever bigger machines, entailing ever bigger concentrations of economic power and exerting ever greater violence against the environment, do not represent progress: they are a denial of wisdom. Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and beautiful.”E.F. Schumacher
As excitement about the upcoming EURO 2012 is about to burst, we can't help but post about a football topic, namely the tremendous infrastructure project of development for the World Cup in Qatar in 2022.
When we first heard about the decision of FIFA to host the 2022 World Cup in Qatar reactions ranged from disbelieve to anger. Why on earth would it make sense to host the World Cup in a country where there is no football infrastructure at all, the history of football is close to non-existent and drinking beer on the streets could theoretically be punished with lashes? Leaving all political, social and financial aspects aside, we came across this interesting (english) article at German newspaper Spiegel.de on German Architect Albert Speer and his sustainable approaches to build the stadiums and infrastructure.
Speer's firm Speer&Partners is renowned for development of large scale cities with a special focus on sustainability. Naturally, Speer was an ideal partner for Qatar and as Speer says, "Major events like the Olympics or the World Cup make the unthinkable thinkable".
And suddenly we are confronted with seemingly crazy but also fascinating ideas, e.g. all the stadiums are designed in a way so that they can be either significantly downscaled after the world cup or even completely dismantled to be shipped to developing countries as smaller sports venues. Another idea focuses on cooling the stadiums down in a sustainable CO2 neutral way using a technology called absorption cooling, using water from the Persian golf that will enable the stadium to "sweat".
So, all in all, although we are still skeptical of the idea, at least we feel that this development might turn out into an interesting playing ground for sustainable development technologies and ideas. So after we have survived EURO frenzy, we will continue to follow up closely on developments in Qatar.
The renewable energyindustry moves fast and it is well known that solar energy is one of the most trendynowadays. Probably we all know of a city, an organization or even a neighborthat is investing in this technology (to use it in a building, car or otherassets) not only because the renewable sources like the sun provide free energybut also because they are eco – friendly. I think it worth to mention that theinitial cost of implementation and other required systems might be quiteexpensive but at the end this alternative is very convenient because its regularusage has no cost.
Furthermore, thisindustry has been evolving at the same time that portable electronics. That iswhy we can find companies like Goal Zero that has a very interesting offer of productsthat by means of portable solar panels allows us to charge our devices whereverwe are. They have even developed chargeable backpacks, lanterns and “powercontainers” and they are prepared to connect to the devices by USB, DC, AC. Theprocess seems easy:
1.Collect Power in a “power pack”: Depending on the devicethat you are looking to provide power to in the future it may take a while.Imagine that you can consider from an iPod, iPhone, tablet, laptop, TV to a 12Vrefrigerator!
2.Store Power: Once the power pack is charged, you can takeit wherever you want and have it available for whenever you need it.
3.Power your device: Use your power pack to power orrecharge your device.
Once again, the initialcost is not that cheap and the size of some products is not comfortable, but Iam sure that as much as we get used to this technology, it will keep improvingon the go faster and faster.
In general, this sustainable technology, trendy and available worldwide, is very recommendable foradventurers that like to camp or hike, travelers that stay long hours waitingin the airports or train stations, students that carry several electronicdevices at the same time, and for every eco – friendly user that wants to depending on electric power at home or office.
Very motivating to all of those who wants to be part of the "green revolution" that is coming... actually, that is already around us now.
"Part of my purpose in being here... is to shout out as loudly as I can that the environment still matters, that green is as important as growth, and that the two do absolutely walk hand-in-hand."
We came across an interesting project by Marks & Spencer, referred to as Plan A.
In their own words, they describe it as
We launched Plan A in January 2007, setting out 100 commitments to achieve in 5 years. We've now extended Plan A to 180 commitments to achieve by 2015, with the ultimate goal of becoming the world's most sustainable major retailer. Through Plan A we are working with our customers and our suppliers to combat climate change, reduce waste, use sustainable raw materials, trade ethically, and help our customers to lead healthier lifestyles. Explore our Plan A commitments for 2010 - 2015.
We're doing this because it's what you want us to do. It's also the right thing to do.
We're calling it Plan A because we believe it's now the only way to do business.
There is no Plan B.
We feel that such initiatives are important. Sustainability is only going to truly become meaningful with firms when they build it into their brands -- what people expect of them, what they're known for delivering. It needs to go beyond Corporate Social Responsibility and become a key part of the Corporation itself. We look forward to more firms reengineering themselves to achieve this.
Interesting video titled "300 years of Fossil Fuels in 300 seconds" that we discovered today.
It's by the Post Carbon Institute. While the narrative occasionally gets amusingly neo-Malthusian, the issues it raises are genuine and of great concern, and something many of the projects we have looked at here on The Green Radar have looked to tackle.
In the Post Carbon Institute's own words,
Fossil fuels have powered human growth and ingenuity for centuries. Now that we're reaching the end of cheap and abundant oil and coal supplies, we're in for an exciting ride. While there's a real risk that we'll fall off a cliff, there's still time to control our transition to a post-carbon future.
We love how sustainability is getting more and more into focus with major companies and the way companies find innovative ways to promote sustainability. Today we found this nice little video of BMW promoting their new sub-brand BMW i, which stands for visionary mobility and sustainably conceived electric vehicles.
They created an exhibition at the Gare de Lyon in Paris where passers-by have the opportunity to walk over an piezoelectric floor. The clue is that each step on this piezoelectric floor generates energy, thus vividly raising awareness for energy sustainability. The energy created is made visible on the edges of the floor and culminates in the creation of the BMW i logo.
We love this article on the benefits of distributed generation and smart grids -- micro-grids, if you will. This is a pet idea for us here at The Green Radar, and we believe that smaller, self-sustaining systems are better in the long run, both in terms of efficacy and reduced environmental impact.
Check out the examples on UCSD and The New York State Center for Future Energy Systems, too.
To catch up quickly, Malta is considering a proposal by the Swedish company Hexiconto build the world’s largest floating wind farm. It would consist of 36 turbines arranged around a 460-meter-wide platform, tethered to the ocean floor by cables. The proposed site for the platform is 11 nautical miles off the island’s northeast shore. It would be far enough away to take advantage of high ocean winds (and be more or less out of sight) yet close enough that it could be connected to the country’s electricity grid without too much trouble.
This is incredibly interesting and would be a fascinating proof-of-concept for renewable energy.
It must be pointed out however, that while this design is purported to have a capacity for 54MW, that is still some distance off coal -- averaging around 700MW; or nuclear -- averaging around 850MW.
In 2010 London decided to launch a low carbon enterprise district in the East of London with the goal to serve as a role model example of sustainable urban development - and to also prove to the world, that it is possible to achieve growth in a sustainable way.
Electrical engineering company Siemens recently announced that their Siemens Urban Sustainability Center, a 30million Pound exhibition center in the heart of the Green Enterprise District, will open in the summer of 2012.
The Crystal, as the building will be called, will serve as permanent showcase for new sustainable technologies from around the globe and sight for educational learning as well as meeting point for city decision makers, planners and architects.
Besides, innovative features of the building include the use of recycled steel, photovoltaic panels, energy efficient lighting, rainwater harvesting, ground source heat pumps and many more.
The involvement of Wilkinson Eyre Architects, which are renowned for bringing together sustainable architecture with cutting edge design, is adding to the fact that there might be yet another reason besides the Olympic Games to visit London this summer.
We love to hear news about financing/funding on green projects. Specially if it isn't blind funding and directed towards something we know is usable. NIB (Nordic Investment Bank) did just that with their loan agreement to SKANSKA as they continue their project to build office buildings across Poland that meet international LEED and EU Green Building standards. "new office buildings
first ever in Poland to receive LEED Platinum certificates. "...The new
office buildings are expected to have an energy demand 25-29% below the
maximum level allowed by the national standards."
Here is a little about what SKANSKA has been up to the past few years and some insight into the process of of trying to go green.
