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Sustainable Auto Business News: Cars Go Small, Green & Local

The Hiroko is a tiny European electric and drive motors hide inside each of the four wheels. Living Journey aims to make Hertz equipment solutions and sustainable mobility an industry leader in environmental practices via a defined set of new initiatives. Significant improvements in vehicle technology have resulted in new cars in the Australian market recording their lowest ever CO2 emissions. Read More

Hertz announcement by Wes Lane (8 February 2012):

Car hire firm Hertz has announced the launch of its new global sustainability strategy.

The program, called ‘Living Journey’, aims to make Hertz equipment solutions and sustainable mobility an industry leader in environmental practices via a defined set of new initiatives, the company said in a press release this week.

Hertz has outlined three specific points in which it will work to pave the way in sustainable business practice: Smart Mobility, in which it will offer low-emission products to consumers; Environment, in which it will reduce the firm’s environmental footprint via the use of renewable energy and efficiency improvements; and Community, in which it will give back to its neighbours via volunteer and philanthropic efforts.

Mark P. Frissora, Hertz’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement that sustainability has been a part of the company’s culture for a long time, adding that last year it set precedent for the industry via its Electric Vehicle product offerings and solar generator programs at rental facilities and corporate offices.

Mr Frissora went on to say that Living Journey would continue such efforts and would encompass all of the firm’s sustainability initiatives through investments, partnerships and employee education.

The firm also noted in the statement that it had received recognition by the Global Business Travel Association for Sustainable Practice in 2011 for its hourly Hertz On Demand rental scheme.

Source: www.comparecarhire.co.uk

Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries Australia (7 February 2012):

Significant improvements in vehicle technology have resulted in new cars in the Australian market recording their lowest ever carbon dioxide emissions.

The National Average Carbon Emission (NACE) figure for 2011 is 206.6 grams of CO2 per kilometre – down 2.8 per cent compared to the 2010 figure of 212.6 grams of CO2/km.

“The average new car sold in Australia is now at least 20 per cent more efficient than it was in 2000,” the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) Chief Executive Ian Chalmers said.

All new passenger cars, SUVs and light commercial utes, vans and buses (up to 3.5 tonne) are included in calculating the NACE figure, therefore including many more vehicle types than CO2 measures used in other parts of the world, including Europe.

“This is one of the most significant yearly improvements in the NACE figure and demonstrates the industry’s commitment to continue to improve fuel efficiency and reduce carbon dioxide emissions,” Mr Chalmers added.

“The result is a combination of improvements in vehicle technology and a change in consumer buying preferences toward lower emission vehicles,” he said.

“There has been a strong uptake in new-generation diesel and hybrid powered vehicles by consumers.

“In addition, ongoing efficiency improvements in average emissions from petrol powered vehicles by almost 7% indicates that consumers are continuing to purchase more efficient across the new vehicle fleet,” Mr Chalmers advised.

“Carbon dioxide emissions from new vehicles have reduced significantly without regulation and the industry now looks forward to working constructively with the Federal Government in developing a new standard,” he said.

Source: www.fcai.com.au

By Mark Brown in Wired UK (26 January 2012):

This teeny fold-up car will be silently zipping along the streets of major European cities in 2013. It’s called Hiriko, and it was unveiled at the European Commission headquarters on 25 January.

Like a child’s stroller, the car’s chassis can collapse in on itself to dramatically reduce its size and occupy a smaller footprint when parked. When folded and stacked, three Hirikos could squeeze into one traditional parking space.

To save on space (even when unfolded it’s just 2.5 metres long), the car also has no doors. Instead you have to clamber in and out through the giant fold-up windscreen. Luckily, the steering console — which sports a spiffy LCD screen — pivots out of the way.

The car is entirely electric and drive motors hide inside each of the four wheels. The wheels can be controlled independently, allowing the car to execute tight manoeuvres, sharp U-turns and easy parallel parking in tight spaces.

The battery will get you 120 kilometres without a recharge, and can be rapidly re-juiced using relevant lithium-ion battery technologies. Also, the car’s speed is electronically set to respect city limits.

The design, originally dubbed CityCar, was dreamt up by Boston’s MIT Media Lab as an answer to urban stress, space and pollution. Since then a consortium of seven small firms from Spain’s Basque country have turned the idea into the commercial Hiriko (“urban”, in Basque).

The car will hit European cities in 2013. There are plans to make it a city-owned vehicle, up for hire like Boris bikes. Or, alternatively, it could be released for sale privately at around 12,500 euros (£10,500).

According to the AFP, several cities have shows interest, including Berlin, Barcelona, San Francisco and Hong Kong. Talks are underway with Paris, London, Boston, Dubai and Brussels.

Source: www.wired.co.uk

Posted under Express 161

Funding for Sceptics & Climate Change Deniers Exposed

A major leak exposes how Heartland Institute works to undermine climate science. Libertarian think-tank keeps prominent sceptics on its payroll and relies on millions in funding from carbon industry. It shows there is a co-ordinated effort to have an alternative reality on the climate science in order to have an impact on the policy. It also funds education to schools in the US with an alternative climate view. Read More

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent for Guardian (15 February 2012):

The inner workings of a libertarian think-tank working to discredit the established science on climate change have been exposed by a leak of confidential documents detailing its strategy and fundraising networks.

DeSmogBlog, which broke the story, said it had received the confidential documents from an “insider” at the Heartland Institute, which is based in Chicago. The blog monitors industry efforts to discredit climate science.

The scheme includes spending $100,000 for spreading the message in K-12 schools that “the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain – two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science”, the documents said.

It was not possible to immediately verify the authenticity of the documents, although Heartland issued a statement on Wednesday claiming at least one document was fake, and that it was the victim of theft and forgery. However, Anthony Watts, a weathercaster who runs one of the most prominent anti-science blogs, Watts Up With That?, acknowledged Heartland was helping him with $90,000 for a new project. He added: “They do not regularly fund me nor (sic) my WUWT website, I take no salary from them of any kind.”

Watts, in an email, did not mention the entire cost of his temperature station initiative but said: “Heartland simply helped me find a donor for funding a special project.”

“There is nothing I can tell you,” Jim Lakely, Heartland’s communications director, said in a telephone interview. “We are investigating what we have seen on the internet and we will have more to say in the morning.” Lakely made no attempt to deny the veracity of information contained in the documents.

The Heartland Institute, founded in 1984, has built a reputation over the years for providing a forum for climate change sceptics. But it is especially known for hosting a series of lavish conferences of climate science doubters at expensive hotels in New York’s Times Square as well as in Washington DC.

If authentic the documents provide an intriguing glimpse at the fundraising and political priorities of one of the most powerful and vocal groups working to discredit the established science on climate change and so block any chance of policies to reduce global warming pollution.

“It’s a rare glimpse behind the wall of a key climate denial organisation,” Kert Davies, director of research for Greenpeace, said in a telephone interview. “It’s more than just a gotcha to have these documents. It shows there is a co-ordinated effort to have an alternative reality on the climate science in order to have an impact on the policy.”

The Valentine’s Day exposé of Heartland is reminscent to a certain extent of the hacking of emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit in 2009. Those documents helped sink the UN’s climate summit later that year.

In this instance, however, the Heartland documents are policy statements – not private email correspondence. Desmogblog said they came from an insider at Heartland and were not the result of a hack.

The documents posted on Desmog’s website include confidential memos of Heartland’s climate science denial strategy, its 2012 budget and fundraising plan, and minutes from a recent board meeting.

The fundraising plan suggests Heartland is hoping for a banner year, projecting it will raise $7.7m in 2012, up 70% from last year.

The papers indicate that discrediting established climate science remains a core mission of the organisation, which has received support from a network of wealthy individuals – including the Koch oil billionaires as well as corporations such as Microsoft and RJR Tobacco.

The documents confirm what environmental groups such as Greenpeace have long suspected: that Heartland itself is a major source of funding to a network of experts and bloggers who have been prominent in the campaign to discredit established science.

Heartland is anxious to retain its hold over mainstream media outlets, fretting in the documents about how Forbes magazine is publishing prominent climate scientists such as Peter Gleick. “This influential audience has usually been reliably anti-climate and it is important to keep opposing voices out,” Heartland documents warn.

But the cache raises an equal number of questions – such as the identity of an anonymous donor that has been a mainstay of Heartland. The unnamed donor, who contributed $4.6m in 2008, has since scaled back contributions. Even so, the donor’s $979,000 contribution in 2011 accounted for 20% of Heartland’s overall budget, the fundraising plan says

According to the fundraising document Heartland hopes to bump that up to $1.25m in 2012

The importance of one or two wealthy individuals to Heartland’s operations is underscored by a line in the fundraising document noting that a foundation connected to the oil billionaire Charles Koch had returned as a donor after a lengthy hiatus with a gift of $200,000 in 2011. “We expect to ramp up their level of support in 2012 and gain access to the network of philanthropists they work with,” the document said.

Heartland hopes to cash in on its vocal support for the controversial mining method known as fracking, the document suggests.

Heartland operates on a range of issues besides the environment. But discrediting the science of climate change remains a key mission. The group spends $300,000 on salaries for a team of experts working to undermine the findings of the UN climate body, the IPCC.

It plans to expand that this year by paying a former US department of energy employee to write an alternative curriculum for schoolchildren that will cast doubt on global warming. The fundraising plan notes the anonymous donor has set aside $100,000 for the project.

The plan also notes the difficulty of injecting non-scientific topics in schools. “Heartland has tried to make material available to teachers, but has had only limited success. Principals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective. Moreover, material for classroom use must be carefully written to meet curriculum guidelines, and the amount of time teachers have for supplemental material is steadily shrinking due to the spread of standardized tests in K-12 education,” the fundraising plan said.

The Heartland Institute’s conference on climate change in 2009. Link to this videoThe documents suggest several prominent voices in the campaign to deny established climate science are recipients of Heartland funding.

They include, according to the documents, a number of contrarian climate experts. “At the moment, this funding goes primarily to Craig Idso ($11,600 per month), Fred Singer ($5,000 per month, plus expenses), Robert Carter ($1,667 per month), and a number of other individuals, but we will consider expanding it, if funding can be found,” the documents say.

Whether these funding arrangements actually exist cannot be verified. However, Heartland’s website notes that Idso, Singer, and Carter were commissioned to write a report for the organisation.

Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Posted under Express 161

10 Global Sustainability Megaforces to Threaten Business

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is encouraging more businesses to embrace the principle of sustainability in their strategies –it should be in the DNA of business culture and operations. KPMG reports that climate change could be the only global megaforce that directly affects all others, with annual output losses ranging from 1% per year, if strong and early action is taken to tackle rising temperatures, to as much as 5%  a year, if policymakers fail to act. It is but one of the 10 sustainability “megaforces” threatening your business. What about the others? Read More

By BusinessGreen staff (16 Feb 2012):

Businesses have been urged to step up their efforts to ensure they are resilient to an increasingly resource-strained world, after a new report by KPMG identified 10 “global sustainability megaforces” that could derail businesses’ plans over the next two decades.

Climate change

KPMG says this could be the only global megaforce that directly affects all others, with annual output losses ranging from one per cent per year, if strong and early action is taken to tackle rising temperatures, to as much as five per cent a year, if policymakers fail to act.

Energy and fuel

Fossil fuel markets are likely to become more volatile and unpredictable due to higher demand, shifts in the geographical pattern of consumption, supply and production uncertainties, and increasing regulation to tackle climate change.

Material resource scarcity

As developing countries industrialise rapidly, global demand for material resources is predicted to increase dramatically, says KPMG. Businesses are therefore likely to face increasing trade restrictions and intense global competition for a wide range of material resources that become less easily available. However, such scarcity also creates opportunities to develop substitute materials or to recover materials from waste.

Water scarcity

Based on a forecast that the global demand for freshwater will exceed supply by 40 per cent by 2030, KPMG warns that businesses may be vulnerable to water shortages, lower-quality water, price volatility and resulting reputational challenges.

Ecosystem decline

With global ecosystems showing signs of breakdown and stress, more companies are realising how dependent their operations are on the critical services these ecosystems provide. The decline in ecosystems is making natural resources scarcer, more expensive and less diverse, which increases the costs of water and escalates the damage caused by invasive species to sectors such as agriculture, fishing, food and beverages, pharmaceuticals and tourism.

Population growth

The world population is expected to reach 8.4 billion by 2032, increasing pressures on ecosystems and affecting supplies of natural resources such as food, water, energy and materials. KPMG maintains, however, that this population boom also provides business opportunities to grow commerce and develop new ways of addressing the demand of growing populations for agriculture, sanitation, education, technology, finance and healthcare.

Wealth

Within growing populations, the middle class is forecast to grow 172 per cent between 2010 and 2030. This presents a challenge for businesses, which will be required to provide services and goods to this new middle class market at a time when resources are likely to be scarcer and more price volatile. Additionally, increasing wealth means that many companies will no longer be able to take advantage of “cheap labour” in developing nations in the same way they have previously.

Urbanisation

By 2030, all developing regions, including Asia and Africa, are expected to have the majority of their inhabitants living in urban areas. Virtually all population growth during the next 30 years will be in cities, which will require extensive improvements in infrastructure, such as construction, water and sanitation, electricity, waste, transport, health, public safety, and internet and cell phone connectivity.

Food security

Global food prices are predicted to rise 70 to 90 per cent by 2030 as a result of growing populations, water scarcity and deforestation. Farmers in water-scarce regions are likely to have to compete for supplies with electric utilities and mining, as well as with consumers.

Deforestation

Wood products contributed $100bn per year to the global economy from 2003 to 2007, while the value of non-wood forest products, mostly food, was estimated at about $18.5bn in 2005. But the OECD predicts that forest areas will decline globally by 13 per cent from 2005 to 2030, mostly in South Asia and Africa, hitting the timber industry as well as downstream industries such as pulp and paper. However, KPMG notes that new opportunities may arise through the development of market mechanisms and economic incentives to reduce the rate of deforestation such as the UN-backed REDD+ programme.

Source: www.businessgreen.com

Hameed Shaheen in Pakistan Observer (16 February 2012):

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is encouraging more businesses to embrace the principle of sustainability in their strategies, noting that with the most of the world’s ecosystems in decline, widening social inequality and climate change, global prosperity, productivity and stability was at stake. “We need corporate sustainability to be in the DNA of business culture and operations,” said Mr. Ban in his address to a gathering in New York entitled ‘KPMG Summit: Business Perspective for Sustainable Growth, says a UN report.’

Mr. Ban pointed out that corporate sustainability is currently not properly valued, noting that many proven innovations and solutions – from energy efficiency to emissions reductions – are not supported with the right incentives.

“In fact, incentive structures still tend to encourage unsustainable behaviour. As a result, too many companies limit their sustainability efforts to pilot programmes that never take off. Even worse, sustainability becomes more a matter of public relations than how companies operate,” he added.

He lauded the nearly 7,000 corporations in 140 countries that had joined the United Nations Global Compact initiative that seeks to foster responsible business practices. Stressing the UN’s commitment to supporting companies to carry out their businesses in a sustainable way, Mr. Ban cited the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment that been embraced by more than 900 institutional investors representing at least $30 trillion in assets.

Through the UN-backed “Principles for Responsible Management Education,” over 400 business schools and related institutions are integrating sustainability into curriculum and research, he said, adding that the recently issued report of his Global Sustainability Panel also provided a blueprint for mainstreaming sustainability. Mr.

Ban also highlighted the UN’s Sustainable Energy for All Initiative that is mobilizing the private sector towards a more accessible, efficient and clean energy economy, and the fact that more than 400 business leaders had pledged their support for the Caring for Climate initiative designed to advance low-carbon solutions and help make the green economy a reality, he said.

He urged business leaders gathered at the conference to five steps to advance sustainability: Join the Corporate Sustainability Forum to be held on the sidelines of the UN Conference on Sustainable development in Brazil in June; Heed the call of a new generation of investors by publicly reporting on sustainability performance;Engage in responsible lobbying and advocacy to affirm their belief in free and fair trade; Work with governments to adopt smart regulatory frameworks and incentives that reward environmental and social performance; Work with the UN in its platforms and initiatives on sustainable business practices.

Source: www.pakobserver.net

Posted under Express 161

Ken Hickson has the last word:  Leaders’ Loss Lamented

Like the plot in a Shakespearean play, leaders have been removed from positions of power. One by a coup, one facing charges arising from a traffic misdemeanour!

We often go on a bit about leadership and the importance of having people in the world who will take a stand and push for things sustainable:  good for people and the planet.

Climate change leadership seems to come and go. We once hung our hopes on US President Obama and in Australia on opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull. But political forces – inside and outside a country – often prevent someone from showing their true colours and achieving what they set out to do.

How sad and therefore unfortunate that two strong leaders for climate change action in two very different places – the United Kingdom and the Maldives – were effectively forced out of the front line. Is there someone to step into the vacancy left by Climate Change Minister Chris Huhne or that of former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed? We provide two articles which reflect on the sudden loss of these two leaders. Read More

Michael McCarthy  in The Independent Saturday 04 February 2012

With the enforced departure of Chris Huhne the environment in Britain has lost its most intelligent and powerful defender. In his 20 months at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the MP for Eastleigh has shown not only a masterful grasp of policy, but a willingness to fight his corner in the Cabinet for the green causes he has long championed.

In particular he has stood up to the Chancellor, George Osborne, and to Mr Osborne’s intensifying attack on environmental concerns as an irrelevant side issue which only harms economic growth.

After the Chancellor’s discourse to last October’s Conservative conference, in which he roused the party faithful by crying “We’re not going to save the planet by putting our country out of business!”, Mr Huhne responded by echoing Mr Osborne’s own words back to him, asserting: “We are not going to save our economy by turning our back on renewable energy.”

It did not make him popular with his Tory cabinet colleagues – indeed, it made him hated by some, who will privately cheer his fall – but it did reassure all who care about the environment that their concerns were being upheld at the highest level.

Strange that it should be Mr Huhne taking this role, a former financier and financial journalist (he was once City editor of The Independent) who, let it be said, is a rich man with a portfolio of properties, but who could have devoted his whole life to money making and raked in millions.

He could have bought a flash country estate and taken up huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ like many an upwardly mobile hedge-fund boss of his generation. Instead, after a visit to Africa, he conceived a passion for environmental and developmental causes and went into politics full time for the Liberal Democrats.

His rise has been helped by what even his enemies acknowledge is a brilliant brain. “You should see him in negotiations with the Treasury,” a Tory colleague once murmured in admiration. “But then, he was a ratings analyst.”

This intellectual agility was never put to better use than at the Cancun climate conference in December 2010, when the laboriously constructed negotiating process appeared to be in ruins after the disastrous Copenhagen talks of the previous year.

Cancun was meant to repair the process so that the world could continue to grapple with the global-warming threat, but it too appeared to be heading for deadlock over the current emissions-cutting treaty, the Kyoto protocol: South American countries insisted on renewal, but the Japanese said Never.

Mr Huhne was put in charge of a committee to try to bridge the divide, which he proceeded to do by producing a text of such subtlety that even the opposing sides felt able to agree to it, and the process was saved.

It might seem an obscure victory – but it was a crucial one for the future. There is no doubt that Mr Huhne, as was said of Othello, hath done the state some service. He has been a genuine big beast in the political jungle, and to see him brought low is very sad. His departure is also a very great loss to anyone who cares about the environment and the green economy – especially in an administration which proclaimed it would be the greenest government ever, but which looks a paler shade of green with every day that passes.

Source: www.independent.co.uk

By Kate Sheppard in Mother Jones (8 February 2012):

The president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, resigned on Tuesday amid what has been described in some press accounts as a coup. There are plenty of questions about the circumstances of his departure from power, but what is clear is that it means the loss of one of the most powerful and visible international leaders on climate change.

Nasheed told reporters on Wednesday he was forced to resign at gunpoint, after what appeared to be a mutiny by police officers and protesters. From Reuters:

“Yes, I was forced to resign at gunpoint,” Nasheed told reporters after his party meeting a day after his resignation. “There were guns all around me and they told me they wouldn’t hesitate to use them if I didn’t resign.

“I call on the chief justice to look into the matter of who was behind this coup. We will try our best to bring back the lawful government.”

Yet the newly installed president, Mohammed Waheed Hassan, said on Tuesday that it was a peaceful transition. The change of power has sparked rioting in the streets as well. It’s not clear at this point what will happen in the country, and a United Nations political mission is expected to visit later this week.

The tiny island nation in the Indian Ocean has a population of just 395,000, and in 2008 Nasheed became the country’s first democratically elected president. In that capacity, he has been a leading international voice advocating action on climate change. To illustrate the threat that sea level rise posed to his nation, he held a cabinet meeting underwater in 2009. And in 2010 his government installed solar panels on the presidential residence and rolled out a plan to cut the country’s emissions. As Maldivian Environment Minister Mohamed Aslam told Mother Jones at the time, “We are the front line, we can start dealing with it ourselves.”

Source: www.motherjones.com

Posted under Express 160

Don’t mention the war – or climate change!

This is the work of Tom Toles, who has been The Washington Post’s editorial cartoonist since 2002. It says it all really. But not quite. Read on through the articles in this issue from around the world. The State of the Union and the state of island states. What it takes for the world’s biggest navy to go green and how bad is black carbon. Who’s on the list of the top 100 most sustainable companies – and who’s not! There is a green shift going on around the world and Kraft Foods is one good example. The UK puts smarts meters in the home. Singapore is realising that its high time to face up to higher tides and the new map of South East Asia shows what will happen if temperatures rise by 4 degrees. Electric vehicles in focus and GM cars come clean. There are words on behaviour change, social media, communication and leadership. From the World Economic Forum and closer to home. – Ken Hickson

Posted under Express 160

Profile: Ellen MacArthur

The round-the-world yachtswoman has left behind her first love to become an advocate for change in the way business operates. Her Ellen MacArthur Foundation just launched a report called “Towards the Circular Economy”, which analyses the global economic benefits of sustainability, where products are designed to be reused through refurbishment, remanufacturing and redistribution; where the cycle is endless and mirrors nature.

Jenny Purt for the Guardian Professional Network (1 February 2012):

Ellen MacArthur: ‘When you sail you gain an understanding of the definition of finite.’

In 2009, Dame Ellen MacArthur took a radical change of direction and left competitive sailing to focus on environmental issues. The move, prompted by a trip to the Atlantic Island of South Georgia to investigate the plight of the albatross, lead to her founding the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which aims to help rethink and rebuild a more sustainable future.

This week, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation launched a report called “Towards the Circular Economy”, commissioned to analyse the global economic benefits of shifting to a circular economy.

As Ellen discusses on the Guardian Sustainable Business Blog, the economy currently works on the linear model of “take, make and dispose”, which creates a culture of excessive consumerism and generates more waste than is sustainable.

The report calls for a new way of thinking – one that offers a different business model whereby products are designed to be reused through refurbishment, remanufacturing and redistribution. This cycle is endless, and mirrors nature, where resources flow continuously, with waste generated from one species becoming food for another.

Significantly the report suggests that, through adopting this circular model, companies could see both immediate and long-term economic growth.

The transition will need to be at a global scale to take the world from the current dysfunctional, linear economic model to one that is able to decouple growth from resource constraints. The report also stresses that cross-sector collaboration will play a key role in this.

In a previous article, Jo Confino wrote for the Guardian Professional Network last year:

Dame Ellen MacArthur is not so much a breath of fresh air in the world of sustainable business as a force 10 gale.

She is bringing to bear on the transformation of business the same single-minded determination and courage that won her acclaim for her round-the-world solo sailing skills.

What sets the 35-year-old apart from mainstream sustainability professionals is that she is not shy about speaking her mind and does not feel bound by normal business conventions.

That generally means that she does not take no for an answer and has a way of getting what she wants. Every one of the five companies she targeted for support for her new Ellen MacArthur Foundation fell into line – Kingfisher, BT, Cisco, Renault and National Grid.

While sustainability has its stable of stars such as Leonardo Di Caprio and more recently Rio Ferdinand, there is no-one else so well known who has given up their career to dedicate their time and energy fully to the cause of a sustainable future.

But that’s the point. MacArthur is not someone who does things by halves, as demonstrated by fulfilling the dream she had when she was just four years old to sail around the world.

While she shows a toughness borne of months spent alone facing only herself and the elements, she also reveals occasional flashes of a touching vulnerability as she questions whether she is navigating the most effective path through the choppy world of corporate affairs.

The spur to her radical change of direction was recognising that while she was out at sea, she was bound by the resources she had on board, whether food or fuel. If she did not shepherd them well, then she would be in trouble.

Back on dry land she had a Damascene moment of recognising that the human race has the same issue with planet Earth and that we are being profligate and putting future generations at risk.

“I was not looking for this, and leaving sailing behind was the hardest decision I’ve had to make but I have absolutely no regrets,” says MacArthur.

“When you sail, you take the minimum of resources and you gain an overwhelming understanding of the definition of finite. When you are 2,500 miles from the nearest town you are not going to phone someone up and ask them to drop off a few litres of diesel.

“I had never connected this to a definition of finite on land, but when I stepped off the boat after the round-the-world race, I started to think out of the box and that our world is no different.

“That began a journey of discovery. I talked to CEOs, went to sit on the government taskforce on zero carbon schools, visited landfill sites, power stations and farmers. It was an incredible journey right across the country, soaking up information and trying to learn about efficiency and resources.”

The result was the creation of her foundation, which is taking a twin-track approach, energising young people through inspiring education to rethink and redesign the future, and encouraging business to move away from its traditional wasteful approach of built-in obselesence and towards the concept of a “circular economy”.

The primary objective of the circular economy is to eliminate waste by ensuring that the biological and technical component parts (nutrients) of any product should be designed for disassembly and re-purposing. The biological parts are non-toxic and can be simply composted. The technical – polymers, alloys and other manmade materials – are designed to be used again with minimal energy.

The other key elements are a greater reliance on renewable energy and that the pricing of products should reflect the real cost of our activity, such as the use of natural resources such as water.

The cradle-to-cradle approach to manufacturing is increasingly moving from the fringes into the mainstream of debate within companies as they start to explore how to continue to grow while decoupling themselves from resource use.

Ian Cheshire, chief executive of Kingfisher, and one of MacArthur’s key supporters, is already looking at how to develop this concept in its manufacturing of products such as power tools, as well as looking at other innovations such as fractional ownership.

Richard Gillies, director of Marks & Spencer’s Plan A, is also experimenting, for example by creating a system for recycling old cashmere jumpers into new products.

MacArthur also points out that Renault is looking to rent out batteries, and the carpet manufacturer Desso has designed its products so the materials can be recovered and reused.

MacArthur says that companies’ current concentration on simply using less resources will serve only to buy us time, but is not a solution.

This linear thinking can also end up causing more problems. She gives the example of one car manufacturer which reduced the copper in its window winding mechanism so much that it became uneconomic to recover it when the motor was replaced. The company ended up by putting more copper back in the production process.

That is why MacArthur is calling for nothing less than a systems level change: “The way things are made, the way business is run, needs to fundamentally change. We work in a linear system that will never work long-term and we are seeking to develop an idea of what business will look like in 15 years.

“This is in part about creating a very positive agenda that young people can latch on to. It says this is what you can do and it works.

“From a business perspective, this moves the conversation away from the CSR department, which is looking at issues such as cycling to work, to the boardroom and the long-term future of the company.”

MacArthur says she gave a workshop on the circular economy to 1,000 managers at National Grid. “We looked at redesigning aspects of their business and the feedback was that this was the first time they had the opportunity to think beyond just CSR and what they should be doing and look at real business opportunities,” she says.

At the last foundation board meeting with the CEOs of its corporate partners, MacArthur says there was a very strong sense that there can be a business advantage in moving towards a circular economy but also a recognition of the enormous scale of change across society that is needed to embed it.

The CEOs recognise that to move to the next level needs not only business collaboration but a different set of skills for young people coming out of school and university.

“I have never sat with a CEO who says he does not get this or says it does not make sense,” says MacArthur. “But they are not saying this is a quick fix. This is about putting a process in place to drive long-term change. This is exactly what business leaders need to think about.”

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Source: www.guardian.co.uk

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Island Nations Seek Climate Change Justice

Small island nations, whose very existence is threatened by the rising sea levels, are seeking to take the issue of climate change before the International Court of Justice. Johnson Toribiong, President of Palau, said his country and other island nations had formed an expert advisory committee to bring the issue before the UN General Assembly in a move to determine the legal ramifications of climate change under international law.

By Michael Astor, Associated Press (4 February 2012):

UNITED NATIONS — Small island nations, whose very existence is threatened by the rising sea levels brought about by global warming, are seeking to take the issue of climate change before the International Court of Justice.

Johnson Toribiong, president of Palau, said Friday his country and other island nations had formed an expert advisory committee to bring the issue before the U.N. General Assembly. That would allow the world court in the Hague to determine the legal ramifications of climate change under international law.

“If 20 years of climate change negotiations have taught us anything, it’s that every state sees climate change differently. For some, it is mainly an economic issue … for others it’s about geopolitics and their past or future place in the global economy, but for us it’s about survival,” Toribiong said.

“Pacific countries are in the red zone, a swell of ocean where waters have risen two or three times higher than anywhere else in the world. That differential might explain why we speak about climate change so urgently and we look to everyone in every corner of the United Nations to find a solution,” he added.

Michael Gerrard, director of the Center for Climate Change Law at Colombia University and a member the advisory committee, said the idea is to have a court determination compelling developed nations to control emissions of the greenhouse gases believed to cause global warming in the absence of an international treaty.

Gerrad said that the big emitter nations could then be found liable under the international law principles of transboundary harm, when physical activities in one country impact adversely upon another, and the preservation of statehood — something that becomes exceedingly difficult if a country is submerged between the rising oceans.

Palau’s announcement comes just months before the United Nations is scheduled to hold a major international environmental conference in Rio de Janeiro, “Rio plus 20,” referring to the 20 years since the U.N. Earth Summit was held in that tropical city.

Unlike the 1992 Earth Summit that was devoted to climate change the June conference will discuss sustainable development, a change diplomats have said has to do with the difficulty of advancing emissions reductions in today’s political environment.

Dr. Dessima Williams, Grenada’s U.N. ambassador, said the idea of bringing the issue before the world court was to raise the level of international consciousness ahead of the Rio conference.

“We (the island nations) cannot meet the challenge of sustainable development goals if climate change is not addressed,” Williams said.

Source: www.newsinfo.inquirer.net

Posted under Express 160

US Uncovering a Great Green Fleet

Australian companies could benefit from a radical policy switch by the US Navy to wean itself off fossil fuels and tank up instead on renewable energy. One outcome of the new policy which has the backing of President Barack Obama will see a bio-fuel powered “Great Green Fleet” of US warships heading down under in 2016. Michael Richardson says the United States military is dead serious about being able to fly its planes on jet fuel derived from algae and plants and to power many of its warships on biodiesel.

Mark Dodd  in The Australian (1 February 2012):

AUSTRALIAN companies could benefit from a radical policy switch by the US Navy to wean itself off fossil fuels and tank up instead on renewable energy, a visiting US energy expert says.

Details of the US Navy’s alternative fuels strategy were unveiled yesterday at the Pacific 2012 Maritime Conference in Sydney.

One outcome of the new policy which has the backing of US President Barack Obama will see a bio-fuel powered “Great Green Fleet” of US warships heading down under in 2016.

But unlike the Great White Fleet of 1907 coal burners, these US warships will be running on green energy.

The US Navy wants half its fleet powered by sustainable energy by 2020.

Speaking during a conference session on maritime fuels sponsored by the US Studies Centre, Tom Hicks, Deputy Assistant Secretary, for Energy for the US Department of Navy, told The Australian that annual fuel consumption for the US Navy was 30 million barrels worth US$4 billion (A$3.7b).

However, price volatility affecting Middle-East fuel supplies had prompted a switch to green energy, Mr Hicks said.

Qantas and Virgin Airlines are also closely examining alternative fuel sources for their respective aircraft fleets.

And earlier today, Defence Materiel Minister Kim Carr announced that the RAAF’s C-130 fleet would begin a trial program aiming to improve fuel efficiency.

Mr Hicks said altruism was not a factor in seeking clean energy alternatives to power its warships.

“We’re not doing this to be cleaner and greener we (US Navy) need to be more effective in the use of our fuels and that provides us a tactical and strategic advantage,” he said.

Fuel price volatility affected the navy’s ability to maintain its fleet of 285 warships and 3700 aircraft, the energy specialist said. While the US was seeking to tap into a homegrown renewable energy sector, big opportunities existed for American allies including Australia, said Mr Hicks.

Alternative fuel sources currently under examination have been developed from algae, wood and paper waste, and surplus feedstock.

Encouraging results are also being obtained from ‘Camelina’ a close relative of mustard seed, a plant with a low requirement for water.

It all adds up to a potentially big market for non-US manufacturers, Mr Hicks said.

Source: www.theaustralian.com.au

US Armed Forces wage campaign to go Green

By Michael Richardson in the Straits Times (30 January 2012):

This is not a drill; the United States military is dead serious about being able to fly its combat and cargo planes on jet fuel derived from algae and plants, and to power many of its warships on biodiesel from used cooking oil and non-food-grade animal fats.

The home-grown biofuel program, which has been underway for several years, is part of a broader strategy to increase US military fuel security and reduce reliance on foreign oil by raising energy efficiency levels in the armed forces and finding cost-effective alternatives to fuel refined from oil.

To test progress, the US Navy says it will demonstrate a “green strike group” when the US and partner navies gather later this year for the biennial Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise, the world’s largest international maritime manoeuvres.

The last RIMPAC in June and July 2010 in the central Pacific off Hawaii brought together units and personnel from 14 countries, including Singapore. It involved 32 surface ships, five submarines, over 170 aircraft and 20,000 service men and women.

This time, planes on the US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, along with two escorting destroyers and a cruiser, will run on a 50-50 blend of biofuel and regular petroleum fuel during the sea exercises.

“We think that this represents a major step in energy independence for the US,” said Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, when he announced the move last month. He added that it was also a step towards “reducing our dependence on unstable sources of foreign energy, as well as reducing the budget shocks that come with buying fuel from potentially or actually unstable” countries.

The Navy plans to follow the RIMPAC demonstration by sending a carrier group on a multi-month deployment in 2016 using 50 per cent biofuel for surface ships and aircraft.

Dubbed the Great Green Fleet, after the famous Great White Fleet that the US sent around the world in the early 1900s to vaunt its growing military power, the long-haul despatch is intended to underscore the Navy’s determination to cut its oil use in half by 2025.

The US Air Force, the Pentagon’s biggest jet fuel user, is certifying fighters, bombers and cargo jets to run on a 50 per cent biofuel mix. It aims to switch half of the continental US jet fuel requirements to alternative fuels by 2016.

Combat and non-combat vehicles are next in line for biofuels and increased efficiency. The US military is also introducing solar power in place of diesel generators to provide electricity at its bases at home and abroad

The stated aim is to turn a profligate energy waster into the world’s most energy efficient major military force. The task is huge, but so is the patronage and buying power that the military can bring to bear.

The US armed forces guzzle far more petrol, diesel and jet fuel than any other organisation in the world.

Three-quarters of the Defence Department’s energy use supports military operations at home and in more than 100 countries around the world where US forces are active, including many in Asia and the Pacific.

In 2010, the Pentagon used nearly 5 billion gallons oil-based fuel in military operations. The bill amounted to US$13.2 billion, a 255 per cent rise on 1997 prices.

In 2008, when oil prices reached a record of US$147 per barrel, the US military spend nearly US$20 billion to secure the energy it needed. Every dollar per barrel rise in the oil price adds US$30 million a year to the Navy’s budget alone.

One of the most promising biofuel feedstocks of immediate interest to the US military is camelinasativa, an oilseed plant that comes from Europe. It belongs to the mustard family, along with broccoli, cabbage and canola, which yields a widely-used cooking oil.

Both US military planes and civilian airliners have made successful test flights using a blend of regular kerosene jet fuel and camelina biofuel.

Camelina is now being increasingly widely planted in the US by farmers using genetically engineered high-yield seeds.

It is an attractive crop because of growing demand, low fertiliser and water requirements, and growth of profitable co-products such as camelina meal and biomass as well as biofuel. The plant also grows well in Australia, Canada and Europe.

But if camelina is to become a well-established and reliable source of renewable aviation fuel, it will have compete on price with oil-based fuels. It will also have to be grown in commercial-scale quantities for refining.

Whatever the outcome, the US military’s search for alternative cost-competitivefuels to oil will continue because enhanced energy security is critical to power projection and military superiority.

The writer is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South East Asian Studies.

Source: www.iseas.edu.sg

Posted under Express 160

What Comes First: Black Carbon or Carbon Dioxide?

Did you know that three billion people around the world use cooking stoves that cause up to 2 million premature deaths every year and contribute to global warming? Black carbon – or soot- is the big problem.  In fact, it accounts for about 18% of all global warming emissions, second only to CO2. The beauty of eliminating black carbon is that it deals with multiple threats afflicting the developing world, from the long-term loss of water from disappearing glaciers to out-of-control child mortality to declining yields from agriculture. Read More

 

See also article about Black Carbon on the UK Met Office website by Jonathan Leake, Science Editor for the Sunday Times: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/blog/leake

By George Black on Onearth.org (27 January 2012):

Three billion people around the world use cookstoves that cause up to 2 million premature deaths every year and contribute to global warming.

Listening to President Obama’s State of the Union address, I found myself thinking about black carbon — even though he never once used the phrase. Until recently, in fact, I doubt that many people had even heard of it.

Black carbon? Maybe it’s the stuff that’s left over on the barbecue after you’ve finished grilling the hot dogs?

But the reduction of black carbon emissions has suddenly moved to the center of the climate debate — and the beauty of it is that it’s unnecessary to utter the word climate at all, because getting rid of black carbon brings so many other benefits.

Even the egregious John Tierney, who can never resist a swipe at the advocates of a global carbon treaty, has come on board. In his regular column last week in the New York Times, Tierney was one of the many commentators to draw attention to an article about black carbon emissions by two dozen distinguished scientists from around the world in the January 13 issue of Science magazine.

So what is black carbon? The easy shorthand is that it’s soot, and in the developing world it’s largely the product of burning wood, animal dung, or crop residues in primitive cookstoves. It isn’t a greenhouse gas; it comes in the form of countless billions of tiny, dark particles that absorb sunlight — and that means that the net effect on atmospheric temperatures is much the same.

By depositing dark soot on white snow and ice and increasing their absorption of sunlight, black carbon accounts for a substantial amount of the melting of glaciers and ice sheets from the Arctic to the Himalayas.

In fact, it accounts for about 18 percent of all global warming emissions, second only to carbon dioxide.

The nastiest thing about this newcomer to the climate debate is that its effects are not limited to the warming of the atmosphere. Visit a poor household in South Asia or Africa, and you’ll see blackened kitchen walls and women choking over the smoke from their stoves. Go to the local clinic, and you’ll find children dying of preventable respiratory diseases. As the authors of the report in Science point out, getting rid of black carbon could save anything from 0.7 to 4.7 million lives a year. And that’s not all. The stoves that generate black carbon also generate ozone, a ground-level pollutant that causes billions of dollars in crop losses in the developing world.

The beauty of eliminating black carbon, then, is that it deals with multiple threats afflicting the developing world, from the long-term loss of water from disappearing glaciers to out-of-control child mortality to declining yields from agriculture. This is where Tierney has to get in his obligatory swipe: environmentalists don’t care about the huddled masses struggling to grow rice, because of their “lack of glamour.” The plight of the poor, he says, “is less newsworthy than negotiating a global treaty on carbon at a United Nations conference.”

Ah, those glamorous U.N. conferences on climate change! All those long, pre-dawn hours spent wrangling over every comma in resolutions taking note of this, and cognizant of that, and gravely concerned by the other, and calling for steps to facilitate the effective implementation of appropriate mechanisms to… whatever. Personally I’d rather have a root canal.

Tierney’s argument, aside from being spiteful, is based on totally false premises. First of all, why are we worried about climate change in the first place? Because we want the planet to remain habitable. In other words, we want people to have sufficient water, produce food in a sustainable way, and minimize the escalating threats to their health. Second, the decision to take action against black carbon emerged from the highest levels of the climate treaty crowd that Tierney so disdains.

At the most recent U.N. climate conference, in Durban, South Africa, in December, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme, Achim Steiner, declared that black carbon would be the centerpiece of the agency’s “fast-action agenda” against climate change.

The most ambitious effort in the world to curtail black carbon emissions is in India, and it grew directly out of conversations between one of the world’s leading climate experts, Veerabhadran Ramanathan (who is also one of the authors of the article in Science), and Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

It’s called Project Surya (the word surya means sunlight in Hindi), and it involves the replacement of traditional mud stoves with clean-burning stoves. (I went to see the project just a couple of days after meeting with Pachauri in New Delhi last November, and I’ll be writing more about it in the next issue of OnEarth magazine.)

Ramanathan’s reasons for launching Project Surya, and Pachauri’s enthusiasm for working with him, were twofold. One, Ramanathan is a world-class climate scientist who saw a way of sidestepping the obstacles to a global carbon treaty. (And because black carbon only remains in the atmosphere for a matter of days — CO2 lingers for more than 100 years — getting rid of it brings almost instant results. Two, he’d been haunted since childhood by the image of his grandmother coughing and wheezing over the dung stove in the smoke-blackened kitchen of the family home in South India. Slowing climate change and protecting public health were inseparable goals for him, in other words.

While the president never used the words black carbon on Tuesday night, two things brought it to mind: first, his acknowledgment that, “The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change,” and second, the moment when the camera panned briefly across the grim visage of Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the most obdurate of all climate deniers.

The beauty of eliminating black carbon is that it can bring a smile even to Inhofe’s face. Because it’s a local matter, and has such obvious humanitarian benefits, it avoids the political third rail of a carbon treaty at the U.N. and legislation in Washington. Surprising as it may seem, Inhofe was one of the co-sponsors of a bipartisan bill in 2009 (on Earth Day, no less!) directing the EPA to study the impact of black carbon emissions on public health and global warming.

So does it matter what words we use? Public health or climate change? Cynics or purists will probably say it does: that talking about dying babies in Asia and Africa is a weasely cop-out, an act of political surrender, an evasion of our responsibility to educate the public about the coming apocalypse. But surely it’s the results that count, and we need to buy as much time as we can to bear down on the ultimate problem of rallying the public, and the world, once and for all against CO2. Attacking black carbon does that. Public health, climate change: to me, the rose, by either name, smells just as sweet.

George Black, OnEarth’s executive editor, has reported from five continents, chronicling civil war in Central America, the democracy movement in China, and climate change in countries from Bangladesh to Peru. His next book, Empire of Shadows, to be published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2012, is on the 19th century exploration of Yellowstone.

Source: www.onearth.org

Posted under Express 160

Ranking Corporate Ambassadors for a Better, Cleaner Kind of Capitalism

The number one ranked company in the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the world for 2012 was Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical firm. Property pioneer City Developments Limited (CDL) emerged as the only Singapore company listed for three consecutive years. The list includes companies from 22 countries encompassing all sectors, with collective annual sales in excess of US$3.02 trillion and 5,285,645 million employees. Who’s listed and who’s not? Read More

CDL reports:

Property pioneer City Developments Limited (CDL) emerged as the top Singapore corporation to be listed in the prestigious Corporate Knights Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations 2012. It is the only Singapore company listed on this global ranking for three consecutive years.

This was announced at Davos World Economic Forum, at a private dinner hosted by Corporate Knights and Inflection Point Capital Management, on 25 January 2012. Listed for the third consecutive year, CDL’s ranking improved from 100th position in 2011 to 62nd place this year. This accolade is a testament to CDL’s ongoing and concerted sustainability efforts over the years. It is also significant as it places Singapore on the global map for sustainability.

“We are excited to be part of Global 100 for the third consecutive year. This recognition benchmarks us against the very best global sustainability leaders and affirms that we are moving in the right direction. Our improved ranking reflects our concerted effort to integrate sustainability into our corporate DNA. This global inclusion serves as an encouragement that spurs us to make further improvements in our sustainability journey,” said Mr Kwek Leng Joo, Managing Director of CDL.

For years, CDL has set the benchmark as Singapore’s leading green developer, attaining its financial objectives with responsible corporate citizenry through its Triple Bottom Line approach: balancing financial performance with environmental stewardship (championing the development of green buildings in Singapore) as well as social and community engagement (through key signature programmes that are focused on helping society’s less fortunate, championing youth development and promotion of the arts). These efforts have made CDL the only Singapore developer listed on both FTSE4Good Index Series since 2002 and the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (globally and regionally).

CDL is also honored to be the developer with the most number of Green Mark awarded properties, and accorded the Built Environment Leadership Platinum Award in 2009 as well as Singapore’s only Green Mark Platinum Champion in 2011 by Building and Construction Authority.

A champion for sustainability reporting in Singapore, CDL was the first local company in 2008 to publish a report that was successfully checked by Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), using its G3 Guidelines. GRI is the world’s most widely-used sustainability reporting framework for organisations to measure and report their economic, environmental and social performance.

In CDL’s Sustainability Report 2010, the Company also achieved the AA1000AS (2008) Assurance Standard, making it the first local company to be assured under this internationally accepted standard which not only establishes the credibility and reliability of CDL’s sustainability performance, but also raises the bar in CSR reporting in Singapore.

Last year, CDL became the first Singapore corporation to address the international ISO 26000 framework in its latest Sustainability Report. CDL’s current and previous Sustainability Reports are available online.

Source:  www.cdl.com.sg.

Corporate Knights Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations Announced in Davos

Report by Corporate Knights from Davos, Switzerland (25 January 2012):

Corporate Knights, the company for clean capitalism, announced its eighth annual Global 100 list of the most sustainable large corporations in the world.

Toby Heaps, CEO of Corporate Knights, says, “in a year in which Wall Street was occupied and capitalism became a bad word, the Global 100 companies serve as ambassadors for a better, cleaner kind of capitalism which, it also turns out, is more  profitable.” From its inception on February 1 2005 to December 31, 2011, the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations has achieved a total return of 41.70%, outperforming its  benchmark,  (the MSCI All Country World Index at 29.30%) by more than 11%.

The Global 100 was recently recognized for its industry-leading standard of transparency and objectivity by a meta-study of corporate sustainability rankings (Rate the Raters by  the consultancy SustainAbility).

The number one ranked company in the Global 100 the world for 2012 was Novo Nordisk. The Danish pharmaceutical firm, which had revenues of DKK 60.7 billion  (US$10.5 billion) in 2010, is on record that access to essential medicines is a human  right, and sells human insulin (the most basic kind) to 33 of the world’s poorest countries,  at no more than 20 per cent of the average price in the western world.

On the key clean capitalism metrics measured by Corporate Knights, Novo Nordisk scored top quartile performance in energy productivity ($4,851 in revenue generated per unit of energy  consumption, compared to a pharmaceutical sector average of $3,603), carbon  productivity ($68,585 in revenue generated per unit of carbon emitted, compared to a  pharmaceutical sector average of $56,414) and pay equity (CEO/average employee  remuneration ratio of 15 vs. a pharmaceutical sector average of 93). Novo Nordisk is the  only pharmaceutical company within the Global 100 to report linking CEO remuneration  to corporate performance on clean capitalism KPIs.

The 2012 Global 100 tapped intelligence from the world’s largest sustainability research alliance put together by Legg Mason’s Global Currents Investment Management and  Phoenix Global Advisors LLC to isolate the top ten per cent of companies from a  universe of 3,500 global stocks, which were then transparently ranked based on 11  indicators, with data collected by Corporate Knights Research Group and verified with  The BLOOMBERG PROFESSIONAL® service.

The Global 100 includes companies from 22 countries encompassing all sectors of the  economy, with collective annual sales in excess of $3.02 trillion, and 5,285,645 million  employees. Among the 22 countries, the United Kingdom led the way with 16 Global 100 companies  (five more than they had in 2011). Japan followed with 11 (down from 19 in 2011).

France and the United States tied for third place with each claiming the headquarters of  eight Global 100 companies. Rounding out the top ten scoring countries with at least  three Global 100 companies were: Australia (seven), Canada (six), Germany (five)  Switzerland (five), Denmark (four), Netherlands (four), Norway (four), Sweden (four), and  Brazil (three). Sixty-eight per cent of the 2011 companies remained on the list in 2012.

2012 Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World

Rank  Company Name  Country  Sector

1  Novo Nordisk A/S   Denmark   Health Care

2  Natura Cosmeticos S.A.   Brazil   Consumer Staples

3  Statoil ASA  Norway   Energy

4  Novozymes A/S   Denmark   Materials

5  ASML Holding NV   Netherlands   Information Technology

6  BG Group Plc   United Kingdom   Energy

7  Vivendi S.A.   France  Telecommunication Services

8  Umicore S.A./N.V.   Belgium   Materials

9  Norsk Hydro ASA   Norway   Materials

10  Atlas Copco AB   Sweden   Industrials

11  Sims Metal Management Ltd   Australia   Materials

12  Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV   Netherlands   Industrials

13  Teliasonera AB   Sweden   Telecommunication Services

14  Westpac Banking Corp.  Australia   Financials

15  Life Technologies Corp.   United States   Health Care

16  Credit Agricole SA   France   Financials

17  Henkel AG & Co. KGaA   Germany   Consumer Staples

18  Intel Corp.   United States   Information Technology

19  Neste Oil Oyj   Finland   Energy

20  Swisscom AG   Switzerland   Telecommunication Services

21  Toyota Motor Corp.   Japan   Consumer Discretionary

22  Centrica Plc   United Kingdom   Utilities

23  Koninklijke DSM N.V.   Netherlands   Materials

24  Geberit AG   Switzerland   Industrials

25  Roche Holding AG   Switzerland   Health Care

26  Schneider Electric SA   France   Industrials

27  Sap AG   Germany  Information Technology

28  Hitachi Chemical Company Ltd.  Japan   Materials

29  Anglo American Platinum Ltd   South Africa   Materials

30  POSCO   South Korea   Materials

31  Vestas Wind Systems A/S   Denmark   Industrials

32  Dassault Systemes SA   France   Information Technology

33  BT Group Plc   United Kingdom   Telecommunication Services

34  Tnt N.V.   Netherlands   Industrials

35  Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.  Japan   Industrials

36  Scania AB   Sweden   Industrials

37  Acciona SA   Spain  Utilities

38  Adidas AG   Germany   Consumer Discretionary

39  Tomra Systems ASA   Norway   Industrials

40  Aeon Co. Ltd.  Japan   Consumer Staples

41  Siemens AG   Germany   Industrials

42  AstraZeneca Plc   United Kingdom   Health Care

43  Kesko Oyj   Finland   Consumer Staples

44  Yamaha Motor Co. Ltd   Japan   Consumer Discretionary

45  L’Oreal S.A.   France   Consumer Staples

46  Logica Plc  United Kingdom   Information Technology

47  Corporate Express Australia Ltd   Australia   Industrials

48  Suncor Energy Inc.   Canada   Energy

49  Repsol YPF S.A.   Spain   Energy

50  Prudential    United Kingdom   Financials

51  Renault SA   France   Consumer Discretionary

52  Unilever Plc   United Kingdom   Consumer Staples

53  Allianz SE  Germany   Financials

54  StoreBrand ASA   Norway   Financials

55  Iberdrola S.A.  Spain   Utilities

56  Omv AG   Austria   Energy

57  Daiwa House Industry Co. Ltd.  Japan   Financials

58  Industria De Diseno Textil S.A.   Spain   Consumer Discretionary

59  Agilent Technologies Inc.  United States   Information Technology

60  Danone SA   France   Consumer Staples

61  Banco Bradesco S.A.   Brazil   Financials

62  City Developments Ltd   Singapore   Financials

63  Stockland Australia   Australia   Financials

64  Johnson Controls Inc   United States   Consumer Discretionary

65  Vodafone Group Plc   United Kingdom   Telecommunication Services

66  Procter & Gamble Co.   United States   Consumer Staples

67  H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB   Sweden   Consumer Discretionary

68  Swiss Reinsurance Company   Switzerland   Financials

69  International Business Machines  Corp.  United States   Information Technology

70  Kingfisher Plc  United Kingdom   Consumer Discretionary

71  Enbridge Inc.  Canada   Energy

72  Ricoh Co. Ltd   Japan   Information Technology

73   Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd   South Korea   Information Technology

74  Glaxosmithkline Plc   United Kingdom   Health Care

75  Stmicroelectronics N.V.   Switzerland   Information Technology

76  Encana Corp.   Canada   Energy

77  Sysmex Corp.   Japan   Health Care

78  Electrocomponents Plc   United Kingdom   Information Technology

79  Insurance Australia Group   Australia   Financials

80  Nissan Motor Co. Ltd   Japan  Consumer Discretionary

81  Petrobras Petroleo Brasileiro   Brazil   Energy

82  Pennon Group Plc   United Kingdom   Utilities

83  JCDecaux S.A.   France   Consumer Discretionary

84  Coloplast A/S   Denmark   Health Care

85  Ibiden Co. Ltd   Japan   Information Technology

86  Baxter International Inc  United States  Health Care

87  CapitaLand Limited   Singapore   Financials

88  London Stock Exchange Group Plc   United Kingdom   Financials

89  Nexen Inc.   Canada   Energy

90  Prologis   United States   Financials

91  Sun Life Financial Inc.  Canada   Financials

92  HSBC Holdings Plc   United Kingdom   Financials

93  Lawson Inc.   Japan   Consumer Staples

94  J Sainsbury Plc   United Kingdom   Consumer Staples

95  Royal Bank Of Canada   Canada  Financials

96  Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A.  Italy   Financials

97  Origin Energy Ltd   Australia   Energy

98  Dairy Crest Group Plc  United Kingdom   Consumer Staples

99  Ramsay Health Care Ltd   Australia   Health Care

100 Reliance Industries Ltd   India   Energy

Source: www.corporateknights.com/global100