The internal combustion engines of vehicles have drastically improved their fuel efficiency, to the count of 60% between 1980 and 2006, yet overall vehicle efficiency has rose from 23 miles per gallon to only 27 miles per gallon over the same period. Similarly for houses in Australia, where energy efficiency has dramatically improved over the past 50 years, yet energy consumption remained stable. This paradox arose due to the increased size and consumption of cars and houses. Read more

By Ronald Bailey for Reason.com (17 July 2012):

Automobile manufacturers have been hard at work, figuring out new technologies to improve fuel efficiency. So why aren’t the cars we drive today getting dramatically improved gas mileage? Fuel economy actually increased by 60 percent between 1980 and 2006, but at the same time the average curb weight of vehicles increased 26 percent, while their horsepower rose 107 percent.

Consequently, most of the gains in fuel economy have gone into compensating for weight and horsepower. A recent study from Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Christopher Knittel found that average fuel economy actually rose since 1980 from 23 miles per gallon to only 27 miles per gallon.

And cars aren’t the only place where greater efficiency has failed to translate to reduced consumption. Looking at even longer time scales, lighting efficiency has improved by more than many thousand-fold from sputtering candles to modern LEDs over the past three centuries. The result of this vast improvement in lighting technologies, writes Jeffery Tsao from the Sandia National Laboratory and his colleagues, “has been an increase in demand for energy used for lighting that nearly exactly offsets the efficiency gains.” They note, “When lighting become cheaper, economic agents become very creative in devising new ways to use it.” In fact, they predict that as lighting efficiency improves, say, with LED lighting, over the coming decades that the increased demand for lighting will again likely swamp any gains in energy efficiency.

Another study looked at trends in space heating efficiency over the past 50 years in Melbourne, Australia. Modern houses are up to 10 times more energy efficient, yet the study found that modern Australians are collectively using just as much energy to heat their houses. Why? Modern houses are much bigger, people heat larger areas for longer, and fewer people live in each dwelling. The study notes, “The result that per-capita heating consumption has remained remarkably stable over the last 50 years.” However, modern Australians are much more comfortable in the winter than their grandparents were.

Similar results were reported in a 2006 study done for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that found that Energy Star homes in Phoenix, Arizona use 12 percent more energy than homes without an Energy Star label. The Energy Star houses actually use 16 percent less energy per square to heat and cool, but on average they are larger than non-Energy Star houses. In other words, people consumed their savings from energy efficiency by buying bigger houses.

These are all examples of the energy rebound effect where increased energy efficiency is offset by increases in energy use because increased fuel efficiency lowers the relative cost of consumption. The magnitude of energy rebound effects has important implications for strategies aimed at restraining climate change through energy conservation requirements. For example, a variety of studies suggest that improvements in energy efficiency could reduce energy consumption enough to cut global carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 by as much as 25 percent.

In a 2007 article in Science, two Princeton University researchers, Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala, calculated that seven “stabilization wedges” could prevent global carbon dioxide atmospheric concentration from rising to more than twice its pre-industrial level by 2050. “Improvements in efficiency and conservation probably offer the greatest potential to provide wedges,” they argued. One wedge (a seventh of necessary reduction) could be achieved by doubling the miles per gallon from 30 to 60 of a fleet of two billion automobiles, or by cutting half the number of miles they travel annually. Another wedge could be achieved by boosting the efficiency of coal-burning electric generation plants from 40 to 60 percent.

Wouldn’t such energy efficiency improvements result in rebounds in which consumers demand more energy, perhaps more than the amounts “saved” by increased energy efficiency? This is a highly controversial area of scholarship. Proponents of energy efficiency regulations argue that rebounds are trivial in comparison to the overall reductions in both energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, rebound theorists believe that economy-wide demand for relatively cheaper energy can “backfire,” ultimately outstripping the efficiency gains.

A new report, The Rebound Dilemma, for the Institute for Energy Research (IER) by California State University, Fullerton economist Robert Michaels analyzes the implications of depending on energy efficiency improvements to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as a way to mitigate future climate change. Michaels looks at studies of direct, indirect, embedded energy, and economy-wide rebounds. The Melbourne heating case is largely an example of direct rebound effect in which better insulation and more efficient heaters apparently resulted in no reduction of energy use. An indirect rebound occurs when efficiency improvements raise the productivity of other goods and inputs that, in turn, boost the demand for relatively cheaper energy. Embedded energy is the energy used to produce, distribute, and maintain more energy-efficient capital goods. And economy-wide rebounds result from the ways in which people use their savings on energy to purchase other goods and services that also consume energy to produce. For example, cheap gasoline enabled suburban living.

Proponents of energy efficiency point to studies of direct rebound effects that often find that they are rather small in comparison to the energy saved by increased efficiency. One classic 1992 study reported a 5 to 15 percent rebound effect for increased automobile fuel efficiency, i.e., people boosted their annual mileage only by that percentage in response to their lower fuel bills with the result that they burned a lot less gasoline. Maybe people aren’t driving all that much more, but the new MIT study finds that most of the rebound came from consumer preferences for bigger and more powerful cars.

So what did the IER report find? There are lots of studies of direct rebound effects that look at the effect of more energy efficient appliances on household energy use. The results of the studies vary considerably, but eyeballing the reported results the rebound appears to hover around 30 percent. Assuming an appliance that uses 100 kilowatt hours (kwh) per month to operate is replaced by one that uses just 50 kwh, a 30 percent rebound implies that the actual reduction in energy consumed would be 35 kwh per month. Still not bad at all since the consumer gets the extra services from the new appliance while saving cost of energy.

Indirect rebounds are much harder to calculate. One way to think of them is that whatever a consumer saves from using less energy at home can now be spent on other products and services that themselves consume energy. The money saved from driving a fuel-efficient car may now be spent on flying to a Caribbean beach vacation. Compounding these indirect rebounds throughout the economy can lead to even more energy consumption than that initially saved by introducing energy efficiency measures. The IER study cites the results of 11 econometric models that find economy-wide rebounds ranging from a low of 23 percent to a high 177 percent. Five of the studies report economy-wide rebounds of more than 100 percent. The implication of these studies is that “if energy becomes more productive, history often shows that new energy-using technologies and business models will follow.” In other words, the long-run net result is that eventually more energy is consumed than is saved.

The upshot is that energy efficiency mandates advocated by environmental activists with the aim of mitigating future man-made global warming will likely fall far short of their goals. As Michaels concludes, “Instead of imposing energy efficiency mandates, energy policy should embrace market prices and disruptive innovations to guide energy to its most valuable uses.” After all, the point of improved energy efficiency is not to forgo its use but to boost its productivity as a way to provide people with more of the goods and services they want.

Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey is the author of Liberation Biology (Prometheus).

Source: www.reason.com

Expandable polystyrene are ubiquitous in modern life, finding applications from protecting your newly purchased television to disposable plates and cups. It is composed of 98% air, making it very bulky compared to its weight and filling dumpsters quickly – leading to high disposal fees. Also, due to the low cost of manufacturing, rate of recycling of this material is low. Now, a recycling company in China has turned this waste into resource by turning discarded polystyrene into synthetic wood. Read more

From LinkedIn Think Green, Daniel Wang:

How to Reduce “Waste” Costs and profit by recycling Styrofoam!

Expandable polystyrene (EPS) and other foam plastics are 98% air making them very bulky in comparison to their weight. The high volume fills dumpsters quickly, leading to higher waste disposal costs. Foam Compactors reduce the volume of expanded foam products, and in turn, less fees are incurred through reduction. Also a benefit, compacted foam products can be shipped economically to a recycling location. Compacting foam plastics can save thousands in unnecessary waste costs!

Polystyrene, abbreviated following ISO Standard PS, is an aromatic polymer made from the aromatic monomer styrene, a liquid hydrocarbon that is commercially manufactured from petroleum by the chemical industry. Polystyrene is one of the most widely used kinds of plastic.

Polystyrene is a thermoplastic substance, which is in solid (glassy) state at room temperature, but flows if heated above its glass transition temperature (for moulding or extrusion), and becomes solid again when cooled. Pure solid polystyrene is a colourless, hard plastic with limited flexibility. It can be cast into moulds with fine detail. Polystyrene can be transparent or can be made to take on various colours.

Solid polystyrene is used, for example, in disposable cutlery, plastic models, CD and DVD cases, and smoke detector housings. Products made from foamed polystyrene are nearly ubiquitous, for example packing materials, insulation, and foam drink cups.

Polystyrene can be recycled, and has the number “6″ as its recycling symbol although the low cost of virgin polystyrene keeps recycling rates low. No known microorganism has yet been shown to biodegrade polystyrene, and it is often abundant as a form of pollution in the outdoor environment, particularly along shores and waterways especially in its low density cellular form.

Chinese company Intco Framing is committed to promote the life philosophy of environment protection, health and safety.

“We recycle 50,000 tons of waste polystyrene foam every year with advanced recycle and plastic regenerate technique”.

Intco Environmental Framing reuse resource, produce Hi-tech wood-like decoration moulding and successfully replacing the wood with recycled plastic while transfer waste into treasure. 1 million cartons of moulding can be produced every year with the recycled waste polystyrene foam, which means 2 million trees are protected.

Various sizes and designs of photo frame, framed art, mirror frame, base moulding, crown moulding and outdoor floor are produced. Intco has been collecting, recycling and reusing of EPS waste foam for over 10 years. All these waste materials are successfully reused to produce polystyrene moulding and framing products, such as photo frame, picture frame, mirror frame, skirting moulding, crown moulding and outdoor flooring. Based on the uniqueness of the wood-like looking and the competitive cost, it is growing to be a best replacement material of traditional wood moulding and frame, widely applied and welcomed in home decoration industry of the worldwide.

Since Intco Recycling Resources came to China, it has been committed to promoting environmental protection, health and safety concept of life. Every year, Intco collect, recycle and reuse huge amount of EPS foam waste and successfully make them into PS moulding by its advanced equipment and technology, which equals to saving lots of trees a year. The innovation and the concept of transforming the “White Pollution” into wall decor products have been awarded by many national government and environmental associations in China.

Intco Recycling Resources has four manufacturing bases and one trading company:

Zibo factory, established in 2005, located on NO.18, Qingtian Road of Qi Lu Industrial Park, Linzi District, Zibo City of Shandong Province.It covers an area of 158 Mu, including the 50,000㎡ Workshop, 6,000㎡ Office and Exhibition Hall, 2,000㎡ Dining Hall and 10,000㎡Employee Dormitory, It is the major production base for PS moulding and framing products.

Shanghai factory, established in 2002, located in No.1299, Hu Qiao Industries Park of Fengxian District, Shanghai. It covers the area of 35mu.It is the 2nd production base for PS moulding and framing products.

Lu’an factory, established in 2010, located in Lu’an City, Anhui Province. It covers an area of 99 Mu. It is specialized in production of PS moulding for China domestic market.

Zhenjiang factory, established in 2010, located in Da Gang City, Zhenjiang New District, Jiangsu province. It is engaged in the R&D, production and sales of compacting and recycling machinery.

Intco International (HK) Co., limited was registered in HK in 2010. It is the wholly owned subsidiary of Shandong Intco Recycling Resources Co., Ltd., and focuses on the import and export trade of company’s products.

Currently four factories totally carry over 100 PS extrusion lines and over 40 assembly lines with yearly capacity of collecting, recycling and reusing about 50000 tons of EPS waste foam and 1 million boxes of PS moulding, exporting and domestic selling over 5000 containers of PS framing products to over 80 countries and areas.

Source: www.intco.cn

The threats of climate change has been widely publicised and awareness of the problem is generally high among the public. However, this does not translate into real action aimed at mitigating the problem. The reason may lie within the way our brain works – the mental habits that help us in encountering daily challenges make it difficult to engage with the more abstract dangers posed by climate change; this according to the up-and-coming field of climate psychology. Read more

We’re All Climate-Change Idiots

By Beth Gardiner for New York Times (21 July 2012):

CLIMATE CHANGE is staring us in the face. The science is clear, and the need to reduce planet- warming emissions has grown urgent. So why, collectively, are we doing so little about it?

Yes, there are political and economic barriers, as well as some strong ideological opposition, to going green. But researchers in the burgeoning field of climate psychology have identified another obstacle, one rooted in the very ways our brains work. The mental habits that help us navigate the local, practical demands of day-to-day life, they say, make it difficult to engage with the more abstract, global dangers posed by climate change.

Robert Gifford, a psychologist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia who studies the behavioral barriers to combating climate change, calls these habits of mind “dragons of inaction.” We have trouble imagining a future drastically different from the present. We block out complex problems that lack simple solutions. We dislike delayed benefits and so are reluctant to sacrifice today for future gains. And we find it harder to confront problems that creep up on us than emergencies that hit quickly.

“You almost couldn’t design a problem that is a worse fit with our underlying psychology,” says Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.

Sometimes, when forming our opinions, we grasp at whatever information presents itself, no matter how irrelevant. A new study by the psychologist Nicolas Guéguen, published in last month’s Journal of Environmental Psychology, found that participants seated in a room with a ficus tree lacking foliage were considerably more likely to say that global warming was real than were those in a room with a ficus tree that had foliage.

We also tend to pay attention to information that reinforces what we already believe and dismiss evidence that would require us to change our minds, a phenomenon known as confirmation bias. Dan M. Kahan, a Yale Law School professor who studies risk and science communication, says this is crucial to understanding the intense political polarization on climate change. He and his research colleagues have found that people with more hierarchical, individualistic worldviews (generally conservatives) sense that accepting climate science would lead to restraints on commerce, something they highly value, so they often dismiss evidence of the risk. Those with a more egalitarian, community-oriented mind-set (generally liberals) are likely to be suspicious of industry and very ready to credit the idea that it is harming the environment.

There are ways to overcome such prejudices. Professor Kahan has shown that how climate change solutions are framed can affect our views of the problem. In one study, not yet published, he and his colleagues asked people to assess a scientific paper reporting that the climate was changing faster than expected. Beforehand, one group was asked to read an article calling for tighter carbon caps (i.e., a regulatory solution); a second group read an article urging work on geoengineering, the manipulation of atmospheric conditions (i.e., a technological solution); and a control group read an unrelated story on traffic lights. All three groups included hierarchical individualists and egalitarian communitarians.

In all cases, the individualists were, as expected, less likely than the communitarians to say the scientific paper seemed valid. But the gap was 29 percent smaller among those who had first been exposed to the geoengineering idea than among those who had been prompted to think about regulating carbon, and 14 percent smaller than in the traffic light group. Thinking about climate change as a technological challenge rather than as a regulatory problem, it seems, made individualists more ready to credit the scientific claim about the climate.

Research also suggests public health is an effective frame: few people care passionately about polar bears, but if you argue that closing coal-burning plants will reduce problems like asthma, you’re more likely to find a receptive audience, says the American University communications professor Matthew Nisbet.

Smaller “nudges,” similarly sensitive to our psychological quirks, can also spur change. Taking advantage of our preference for immediate gratification, energy monitors that displayed consumption levels in real-time cut energy use by an average of 7 percent, according to a study in the journal Energy in 2010. Telling heavy energy users how much less power their neighbors consumed prompted them to cut their own use, according to a 2007 study in Psychological Science. And trading on our innate laziness, default settings have also conserved resources: when Rutgers University changed its printers’ settings to double-sided, it saved more than seven million sheets of paper in one semester in 2007.

Simply presenting climate science more clearly is unlikely to change attitudes. But a better understanding of our minds’ strange workings may help save us from ourselves.

Beth Gardiner is a freelance journalist.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com

The field of corporate responsibility is experiencing a boom, with graduates programs offering training in sustainable business and corporate responsibility. However, very few people in this field actually have these degrees; instead following their passion to get these positions. Of those who are successful, it is found that there are traits and core skills that are shared amongst them that form important elements to that success. We couldn’t agree more with this assessment. People like us at Sustain Ability Showcase Asia (SASA) know this is true. Show by example how it works and provide case studies where the business case for sustainability is obvious. Read more

Situations Vacant: 100 Global Sustain Ability Leaders Wanted

On the subject of sustainability leadership, time is running out for nominations/recommendations for the 2012 Global 100 Sustain Ability Leaders, organised by SASA. So email your name – or who you recommend/nominate – no later than 10 August 2012 to kenhickson@abccarbon.com. See last year’s list of the noteworthy 100 – www.sustain-ability-showcase.com – and remember we’re looking for people who have made their mark and been influential  – in words and deeds – in at least one country. For more on the credentials we are looking for, read the profile article in the last issue, 170 – or go to this link:  http://abccarbon.com/profile-position-vacant/

Nine skills for success in corporate sustainability leadership

By Tim Mohin (16 July 2012):

The following is adapted from the book Changing Business from the Inside Out: A Treehugger’s Guide to Working in Corporations, by Timothy J. Mohin, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2012. Reprinted with permission.

While numerous graduate programs are popping up that offer training in sustainable business and corporate responsibility, very few people in the corporate responsibility (CR) field have these degrees. Most people working in CR positions have education and experience in some other area and have followed their passion to get to one of these jobs. After talking to several of my colleagues and thinking through my own experiences, I identified nine core skills that are important elements to success in corporate responsibility:

1. Be flexible like Gumby and curious like George

Working in CR is a lifelong learning experience that rewards the flexible and curious. Corporate responsibility touches just about every issue within the company. On a single day, you may have to field questions on your company’s human rights policy, the independence of the directors on your board, your water conservation measures, and the diversity of your workforce.

The breadth of this role can be both terrifying and exhilarating. The terrifying part is being asked to represent areas you know very little about. The exhilarating aspect is learning about all of these areas. People who are naturally curious, have a high tolerance for ambiguity, and are eager to take on new tasks tend to thrive in corporate responsibility roles. While you may have to spend significant time operating outside of your “comfort zone,” the upside is learning about other functions within the company and building relationships with managers across the enterprise.

If being curious does not come naturally, practice by seeking out colleagues from other organizations that have a stake in your CR program. Set up one-on-one meetings to understand their scope of responsibilities, their views about your company’s CR programs, and any areas of mutual interest.

2. Hold on to your core competency while learning new skills

Just about everyone in corporate responsibility started their careers in another field. Whether you come from a marketing background or environmental science, corporate responsibility is a big tent and there is always a way to apply your skills. The key to success is to walk the line between contributing knowledge from your core competencies, and being pigeonholed into a narrow role defined by these competencies.

Look for ways to leverage your existing skills to help the organization while simultaneously taking on other responsibilities that demand skill development. My view is that people with a technical background can learn some of the “softer” skills (e.g., communications and influencing) needed for success in CR more easily than non-technical people can come up to speed on the intricacies of fields such as environmental engineering. The flip side is that many of the people who gravitate toward technical fields may be less comfortable with the ambiguity in a CR role, and fewer of them may possess the communication and influencing skills needed for success in this profession.

While mastering new skills and behaviors in the workplace can be incredibly difficult, it can be accomplished with the appropriate time and attention. You have to be willing to take risks by working in new areas and be willing to feel vulnerable, or even fail. The keys are to have the desire to learn and grow, the humility to be less informed than others, and above all the passion for your cause.

3. Communicate, communicate, communicate

There is no other single skill as important as communication for success in corporate responsibility. Whether in written communications, in speaking to large groups, or in persuading a small group of internal stakeholders, communications skills are essential. The corporate responsibility professional is often in the position of communicating a fairly complex set of facts — for example, climate protection strategies — to emotionally charged, less-technical audiences. The ability to condense complicated topics into a relevant and cogent set of messages and present them skillfully can be the differentiator for your success in corporate responsibility.

At some point, most people working in CR will work on a corporate responsibility report. If you have ever had this experience, you know that the incoming data is from every corner of the company and authored by staff that are not necessarily creative writers. The ability to take this information and weave it into a compelling, readable report is the hallmark of a good corporate responsibility program.

If you were not born with these skills, do not despair. Communications is a trainable skill if you apply the proper focus. Personally, I dreaded speaking in public at the beginning of my career. When I recognized that this deficit was a barrier to advancement, I got some training and over time went from avoiding speeches to seeking them. Years later, I even served as an instructor for a public speaking course. Like playing the piano, you can build your communication skills through instruction and practice. Seek feedback and, combined with your own self-assessment, define the areas where you will take tangible actions to improve and practice, practice, practice!

4. Lead through influence

Since the corporate responsibility professional has responsibility to communicate about numerous programs that he or she has little authority to control, it is essential to lead through influence. To effectively influence others, the ability to grow productive professional relationships is essential. In practice, this means that the corporate responsibility manager must build relationships with staff from departments across the corporation in order to align their actions with the strategies, goals, and metrics that make up a credible, consistent program. Like communications, not everyone is born with this skill, but it can be learned.

Leading through influence means building relationships with internal stakeholders, which can be tricky. For example, if your company’s procurement vice president sees no value in auditing the supply chain for compliance to the company code of conduct, your job is to help him or her to understand why this is important and valuable. The discussion could include everything from reducing reputational risk to your company’s brand, to improving product quality, to just doing the right thing. By taking the time to understand the organization’s issues and priorities, you can adjust and tailor your proposal to fit their paradigm. Most functional group leaders are not keen on “outsiders” coming in and telling them what to do. Accept that you will not successfully influence internal stakeholders in every case, but never give up. The key to success is to demonstrate mutual value in the relationship.

The most important thing to remember is that the relationship is more important than any short-term victory. When confronted with resistance, look for incremental steps toward your goals. Solidify the relationship with recognition of your partner’s achievements in your company’s corporate responsibility communications and more progress will likely follow.

5. Read the system

An important skill is to understand the overarching paradigm of the business and culture you work in and how it shapes corporate behavior.

The skill here is harder to define because it refers to understanding what is not being said. For example, you might have a meeting where you come away feeling fantastic about the commitment to corporate responsibility goals, but a few months later you realize that nothing has been accomplished to implement these goals. In some corporate cultures, people would rather appear to agree, when there is some unsaid reason why they do not agree. Another common example is when people sign up for one of your regular meetings on corporate responsibility, but rarely attend or appear to be checked out throughout the session.

After a few of these experiences you need to ask yourself what is really going on. While there may be no single answer, success lies in asking the question and analyzing the situation. Depending on the circumstances and the relationships, you might directly ask the person or group why they are not attending, but often you might be better served by approaching the issue through a confidant who can help you understand the situation.

Once you do understand the “system” — or the reasons behind the observed behavior — there is a range of ways to respond. Of course, all of the possible solutions (ranging from doing nothing to escalating to your management chain) depend on the situation and the relationships.

While this skill area may seem like the least defined, doing this poorly can be the most deadly to your career. If you are not able to discern the paradigm of the group or individual you are trying to influence, or if you are unable to recognize the roots of your own behavior, the outcome can be disastrous. Doing this well, on the other hand, is a catalyst for success.

6. Learn and practice “corporate jujutsu”

A common mistake that many corporate treehuggers make is to be a bit too passionate about their cause to protect people and the planet. This can come across as overzealous and might communicate a lack of understanding or commitment to other corporate imperatives. Working on social and environmental causes within a big company is a bit like corporate jujutsu. Jujutsu is a “Japanese martial art and a method of close combat for defeating an armed and armored opponent in which one uses no weapon, or only a short weapon.” While the martial arts metaphor might seem confrontational, jujutsu is an apt metaphor for this career path. It is defined as being “gentle, supple, flexible, pliable, or yielding” (Ju) and “manipulating the opponent’s force against himself rather than confronting it with one’s own force” (Jutsu).

Working in the field of corporate responsibility, you will often find that the best pathway to achieving your results is a circuitous one. There will be numerous times when you are told “no” and given a ton of reasons why your ideas or programs won’t work. A defining characteristic of corporate responsibility is working in areas where you have no authority. In this situation, you will frequently encounter resistance to your CR programs and initiatives. The essential skill here is to absorb the force of the resistance with grace (gentle, supple, flexible, pliable, or yielding) but stick with your values and find creative alternatives to continue to work with your business partners to achieve success (manipulating the opponent’s force against himself rather than confronting it with one’s own force).

7. Be entrepreneurial

Success in corporate responsibility often means finding hidden value. The notion that a company can simply contribute to charity, volunteer in the community, or reduce its environmental footprint and expect to be a leader in corporate responsibility is long dead. These days, successful corporate responsibility programs are integrated into the business, which means that corporate treehuggers must be entrepreneurial and find the most efficient and effective ways to return value to the company. While CR programs are often given a pass on the company’s ROI test, the pressure is mounting for these programs to add more value to the business.

The need to tie corporate responsibility to business value is an essential skill. Don’t assume that, because you have a job in the CR department, your company’s leaders accept the value of your role. Success depends on being able to find, assess, and prioritize initiatives that can add value to the company. This can be done from any level in the company, but requires an entrepreneurial mindset.

Marrying corporate responsibility with the profit motive is the Holy Grail for the corporate treehugger. If you can be the connector that brings the people together to develop new programs that benefit the company and the environment, you will become a superstar. The key to success in this area is to be an idea generator. Look for ways to connect the dots within a company. Look at social/environmental problems as potential business opportunities. Ask yourself, “How could we apply my company’s core competencies to help solve a social/environmental problem?” Apply business acumen to these problems and you may discover the program that differentiates your company, and you, as a leader.

Doing this well requires comprehending a couple of basic truths: First, you need to understand that ideas are cheap and implementation is expensive (another way to say this is that all ideas are great ideas until you have to pay for them). Not all ideas are winners and you need to have a thick skin to pitch ideas to decision-makers, who will often reject them out of hand. Look for the ideas with the best return on investment and, above all, keep innovating until you find the best approach.

Second, it is important to understand that strategic ideas are not the sole province of the executive suite. In fact, in many cases, good ideas bubble up from within the organization. Any person at any level can be the spark that ignites the next great corporate responsibility program. Often good ideas incubate in a “skunk works” of co-collaborators who work under the radar to flesh out the concept before going through the normal management approvals (where most ideas go to die).

8. Pay attention to detail, discipline, quality, and results

While this topic may seem like the basis of any successful program, I am continually amazed by how often these basic building blocks are ignored, especially in corporate responsibility programs. It is fun to focus on the “shiny and new” topics that are part of any corporate responsibility program. For example, it is easy to get drawn into the latest NGO “name and shame” campaign, the latest government regulation, the newest responsibility ranking list, or the flashy design of your competition’s new corporate responsibility website. But in overreacting to the hot issues of the moment, there is an opportunity cost: losing focus on the sustaining elements of your program.

An important attribute to any successful corporate responsibility program is a disciplined management system. This means that you need to understand and clearly communicate the measurable goals that your program will deliver each year and develop the business processes that will produce these results. For example, producing an annual corporate responsibility report requires that you establish public-facing goals for each program (e.g., water use reduction, workforce diversity, supply chain audits, etc.), collect the data needed from each department, and create a compelling story for the report. To succeed at this year after year, you need to be able to establish the basics: who is providing the data, who will write the story, who will review, who is providing all of the graphics and images, as well as manage the schedule and budget for the entire endeavor.

These tasks are not sexy, but doing them well is essential to running a successful corporate responsibility program. Many people underestimate the amount of tactical work involved in managing a corporate responsibility program. Like any other corporate endeavor, the people who work in these departments often have too much to do at any given time and can be stressed. Having a disciplined program, with well-understood goals, clear roles and responsibilities, and reliable business processes will reduce this stress and produce better results. A proven success strategy is to develop a “dashboard” of key performance indicators to track the performance of your program.

Again, don’t assume that, because you may be new to the company or the job, someone else must have thought through all of these processes before. Corporate responsibility is often so new that the basic management systems are not yet in place. By organizing the programs, processes, and data in a disciplined way, you can add a lot of value.

9. Above all, passion for the cause

Whether you add value by developing detailed management systems or by running an entrepreneurial skunk works, the common element for most people in corporate responsibility jobs is passion for the cause. If you look at your profession as a cause rather than a job, you will find the energy to persevere through almost any situation. Regardless of your background or skills, the common denominator for most CR professionals is a passion to do something wonderful: to help people and the planet and to leave a legacy of a career dedicated to making the world better. This may sound trite, but it is an essential element of this career path.

There are many hurdles to being a treehugger in the corporate world, and there will be many days when you might question this career choice. But ultimately, when you can connect your time and talent to something bigger than yourself, you can achieve deep and profound satisfaction in your career. The key to success as a corporate treehugger is to nurture the flames of your passion even when the inertia of company bureaucracy douses it with cold water.

Ultimately the skills and attributes described above can be applied to add value to many career paths within a company. This is a good sign, because it speaks to the integration of the corporate responsibility function into business. Rather than being a career cul-de-sac, a position in corporate responsibility cultivates skills that are applicable to a broad spectrum of career paths.

Tim Mohin is director of corporate responsibility at AMD, a board member of Net Impact and The Green Grid.

Source: www.greenbiz.com

Profile: Position Vacant

Is it a man or is it a woman? Will the real leaders of sustainability stand up and be counted. Our search is on again for 100 Global Sustain Ability Leaders. And even the World Resources Institute asks “Will there ever be a Steve Jobs of Sustainability?” Read more

Ken Hickson puts out the call:

The search is once again on for 100 Global Sustain Ability Leaders. For last year’s list go to www.sustain-ability-showcase.com  Who was there and who was not. And who do you think deserves to be on the 2012 list.

We purposely did not rank the 100. To get on the list was an achievement in itself. And many great people in the world welcomed the new sustainability order and seeing themselves acknowledged.

But it is a new game this year. No guaranteed places. So we invite you the reader of abc carbon express to nominate or recommend who you think should be on the list. It could be you, your best friend or boss.

What’s the criteria for selection, you may well ask. We are looking for people who are having an impact at home or abroad, through their work – in companies, Government agencies, NGOs or the community – and through their influence.

We want to see action men and woman who are walking the talk for sustainability. We want people who see and put into practice the bigger picture. Climate change awareness and action, yes, but also they are applying the principles of sustainability to their daily lives and that of their organisations.

We think it goes beyond “being green”, to acknowledging the four E’s of sustainability: Energy, Economic, Environmental and Ethics. Getting all that in the right place is no tall order. But that’s what leadership is all about.

And while you’re thinking about whether you are up to the challenge or you definitely know someone you want to recommend or nominate, read the following article “Will there ever be a Steve Jobs of Sustainability?

When you are ready send me an email: kenhickson@sustain-ability-showcase.com  – and tell me in no more than 100 words why you think you or your nominee should be on the 2012 list of 100 Global Sustain Ability Leaders.

Will There Ever Be A Steve Jobs Of Sustainability?

by Manish Bapna and Kirsty Jenkinson, via WRI Insights (8 July 2012):

Where is the Steve Jobs of sustainability? The business leader with the big, disruptive ideas—and the force of will—to achieve for sustainable production and consumption what Apple’s visionary chief did for global technology and information?

This question springs strongly to mind after attending the Rio+20 conference.

Unlike the original Earth Summit 20 years earlier, business leaders were everywhere at Rio 2012. And with governments failing to make headway at the UN-led forum, there was much talk of businesses taking a greater lead in fixing the world’s environmental and development challenges.

Yet apart from Unilever CEO Paul Polman (who declared, “We have to bring this world back to sanity and put the greater good ahead of self-interest”), few corporate leaders at Rio appeared ready to take up the baton. While literally hundreds of business-led initiatives were announced, most were incremental rather than transformative. And there was limited evidence that CEOs recognize that the planet is on a fundamentally unsustainable course and the window for action is closing.

Sustainable Business Pathways

That said, Rio did see real progress in a few important areas for the private sector. In particular, assuming corporations follow through, it laid foundations for more sustainable business models and scalable partnerships between companies and governments.

Here are three Rio trends that demonstrate an emerging shift in business thinking and provide a platform that smart, forward-looking CEOs should look to build on:

1) Valuing Natural Assets

Meeting in the country that hosts the Amazon, global corporations launched multiple efforts to do something about their huge impact on nature. Taken together, these reflect a welcome shift in business attitudes toward accounting for the natural resources that underpin the global economy.

The Natural Capital Leadership Compact, signed by 15 global companies, urged action to properly value and maintain natural assets like clean air, clean water, forests, and other ecosystems. The Natural Capital Declaration saw similar commitments from a further 39 banks, insurers, and investors. And an additional 24 companies, worth a collective $500 billion, affirmed accounting for natural capital as a business imperative.

2) Corporate Reporting and Transparency

Although the final Rio communiqué watered down a proposed requirement for large companies to report on sustainability, it still provided a push for voluntary global disclosure of private sector impacts. Also significant was the UK deputy prime minister’s announcement at Rio that from April 2013, Britain will require publicly listed companies to fully report their greenhouse gas emissions. The UK move won public support from major companies—including Cisco, PepsiCo, and Aviva Investors—reflecting growing corporate acceptance of the need to be open about the private sector’s environmental footprint. Other countries are expected to follow suit.3) Public-Private Partnership Models

Around the world, interest is growing in bottom-up solutions where companies, government at all levels, and other constituents (such as NGOs and development banks) work to solve specific sustainability problems. While public-private partnerships of this nature are not new, they were a major theme at Rio, where business leaders called for swift and scaled-up collaboration. Promising initiatives were pursued around energy access and water supply in particular.

For example, 45 members of the Global Compact’s CEO Water Mandate —including the leaders of GlaxoSmithKline, Levi-Strauss, and Dow Chemical Company—announced commitments to improve water management practices and pursue public-private partnerships to solve the global water crisis. And U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched the U.S. Water Partnership, through which federal agencies and companies such as Coca-Cola will dedicate $500 million to address water challenges worldwide.

Moving forward, targeted public finance can be used to leverage private investment in such initiatives. For example, the groundbreaking commitment at Rio by eight multilateral development banks to provide $175 billion towards sustainable transport could trigger innovative public-private cooperation in a sector responsible for about one-quarter of global carbon dioxide emissions.

Government Matters

On their own, of course, approaches like these will be nowhere near sufficient to put the global economy on an inclusive and sustainable path. And while companies like GE, Siemens, Unilever, and others have shown that integrating sustainability can be good for a business’s bottom line, companies beholden to shareholders will only go so far in embracing sustainable practices.

It is therefore critical that as business becomes increasingly active in shaping the sustainable development agenda, governments put in place the policies and incentives needed to take global green markets and investment to the next level.

And, of course, it would help if one or more Steve Jobs-like business leaders emerge as paradigm-changing champions of sustainability.

Manish Bapna is the Executive Vice President of the World Resources Institute and Kirsty Jenkinson Director of the Markets and Enterprise Program at WRI.

Source: www.thinkprogress.org

Who’s right and who’s wrong when it comes to selecting the world’s most liveable – not necessarily the most loveable – cities? The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has Hong Kong at the top of its list, while the new listing from Singapore’s Asia Competitiveness Institute has Geneva in first place. What’s being measured and what means the most? All very subjective, of course. Read More

New index for ranking world’s cities

By The Straits Times (3 July 2012):

A Singapore institute has come up with its own ranking of the world’s cities, which it believes is more comprehensive than others in the market.

Its creators at the Asia Competitiveness Institute, which is part of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, also tout the index as more representative of ordinary city residents’ concerns, and also more constructive.

The Global Liveable Cities Index, which was released at the World Cities Summit 2012 yesterday, ranks Singapore third, after Swiss cities Geneva and Zurich.

Senior research fellow Woo Wing Thye said rankings typically measure either a city’s clout in the world or the comfort it offers to its inhabitants. But the new index marries both measurements.

‘We are a happy medium between the two,’ he said.

One major difference is that the index uses indicators that apply to the ordinary city dweller earning the median income, instead of a member of the social elite or an expatriate, as many other indexes tend to do.

Such a dweller has a limited budget and is concerned with issues like the average quality of education and the cost of health care, noted Professor Woo.

The index also tries to go beyond ranking just for ranking’s sake: Researchers took each city’s 20 weakest indicators and simulated its new rankings if it improved in these areas, to encourage cities to work on their weaknesses.

The Global Liveable Cities Index, which covers 64 Asian, European and American cities, is based on five categories: economic vibrancy and competitiveness; environmental friendliness and sustainability; domestic security and stability; social-cultural conditions; and public governance.

Singapore was ranked within the top five in all categories except for the environmental segment, where it placed 14th.

The co-director of Asia Competitiveness Institute, Dr Tan Khee Giap, indicated that Singapore could have done better if indicators such as water leakage in pipes and biodiversity were included. They were omitted because comparable data in other cities could not be found.

The lack of data also led to San Francisco – a strong contender as a liveable city – being left out.

To address such limitations, the researchers aim to conduct more field surveys to collect local data, and cover more cities.

To refine the index, ordinary city folk will also be polled for their own weightage of indicators. The index is scheduled to be published again in 2014.

The push for a new index came from the Government four years ago. It had ‘noticed gaps in numerous well-known liveability rankings of cities… each catering to very specific purposes and targeted audiences’, and commissioned the institute to start the project in 2008, the team said in a book on the index.

But Prof Woo dismissed any suggestion of the index being tilted in favour of Singapore, saying it gave equal weightage to all five categories of indicators used.

The new index also addresses a sticking point in some studies that rank Singapore poorly for environmental impact.

While those studies use criteria such as the amount of pavement used or the capacity to produce food, the Singapore institute’s index looks at a city’s carbon emissions measured against economic growth.

Prof Woo said ‘the goal is a higher level of income’ without polluting more than what one can take responsibility for.

Source: www.eco-business.com

Hong Kong named world’s best city in new index

AAP (5 July 2012):

HONG Kong is the best city in the world to live followed by Amsterdam, according to a new ranking focusing on green space.

The list of the world’s best cities to live in combines Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) global “liveability” rankings with new criteria that examine “spatial characteristics”.

Hong Kong was judged the best city, followed by Amsterdam, Osaka and Paris, after additional criteria including urban sprawl, connection and proximity to other cities, and pollution were taken into account.

European cities took five of the top ten ranking spots, with three cities from Asia, one from North America and one from Australia.

Amsterdam was named the world’s second best city in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Best Cities Index.

Sydney was the only Australian city to make the top 10, coming in at number five.

Its ratings in these categories pushed it down from the number two rank in the classic EIU Liveability index, but gave Hong Kong a boost from number 10 to the top spot.

“Sydney scores well for having low pollution levels and lots of green space in the additional indicators,” EIU editor Jon Copestake said in a statement.

“Although it was hampered slightly because of the isolation of Australian cities and the urban sprawl of the city.”

Hong Kong scored poorly for pollution and cultural assets, but scored on natural assets and low urban sprawl.

“Hong Kong is a very compact city that has managed to maintain its natural heritage, create a dense network of green spaces and enjoy extensive links to the rest of the world,” the report said.

“It responded very well to the addition of spatial characteristics to the liveability index.”

Tehran scored the lowest on the best cities index, followed by African cities Nairobi and Lusaka.

The index ranked 140 cities against one another.

The top 10

1. Hong Kong

2. Amsterdam

3. Osaka

4. Paris

5. Sydney

6. Stockholm

7. Berlin

8. Toronto

9. Munich

10. Tokyo

Source: www.news.com.au

Global advisory firm KPMG has selected six upcoming urban infrastructure projects in India, including the USD 90-billion Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), amongst its top 100 innovative global infrastructure projects, it announced at the World Cities Summit in Singapore. The overall winner for the Waste Management category was Singapore’s Deep Tunnel Sewerage System, Kranji to Changi, while the Edinburgh Food Waste food waste project has been named as one of 10 best waste projects from around the world, which included a number of waste to energy projects. Read More

By ZeeNews.com (3 July 2012):

Global advisory firm KPMG has selected six upcoming urban infrastructure projects in India, including the USD 90-billion Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), amongst its top 100 innovative global infrastructure projects.

The DMIC project comes under the global connectivity list and is placed as the second most-innovative project among the 100 most innovative projects.

The development of sustainable urban infrastructure is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century, the agency said while releasing the report titled Infrastructure 100: World Cities Edition here Tuesday.

The project will cut across five states, linking the Capital with Mumbai. It has an influence area of 320 million people and plans to include a high-speed rail network for freight, a six-lane expressway and a 4,000-mw power station.

The corridor includes the development of industrial production centres along its length, including nine industrial zones and 24 new cities. The plan is to create a globally competitive business environment.

The other domestic projects in the list are th% Chennai Solar Economic Zone (under the urban energy infra category) being developed by on a 312-acre site by GMR Solar. But when completed it will be a 3,700-acre zone intended to attract high-tech investment to the growth-corridor between Bangalore and Chennai.

The third is the Sabarmathi Riverfront Development Project (in the urban regeneration and environmental improvement initiative currently underway in Ahmedabad, involving reclamation of a 10.5-km stretch of the banks of the Sabarmathi to create public space for cultural and civic institutions.

The fourth project is the Gorai Dumping Ground Scientific Closure project in Mumbai (recycling and waste management), which has been used as a major dumping ground for waste. The site spans 19.6 hectares`and has been operational since 1972.

The closure has had a major social impact as the dump was located next to residential areas, posing health risks and contaminating local water supplies.

Closure of the site in 2009 involved reforming the existing heap and sealing it off with impermeable surfaces. There are plans to install a power plant at the site which will run on methane gas generated by the decomposing rubbish, said the report.

The next is the Education City Dantewada in Chhattisgarh that will provide a polytechnic, a middle school, a sports complex, an industrial training institute with workshops and residential quarters for staff and students.

The sixth project is the New Delhi Sewerage Masterplan (recycling and waste management) being developed on a PPP model with Aecom, as the Capital’s current sewerage system only connects 55 percent of its residents to the central network. The project seeks to cover the entire 1,500 sq km area of the Capital.

The report further notes that the current estimates suggest that the country’s infrastructure deficit is creating significant challenges for sustained economic growth.

The government is planning to spend USD 1 trillion or around 10 percent of the GDP in ports, airports, highways, railways and other key infrastructure projects during the next five years.

“Country’s need to boost economic growth combined with a growing population requires a globally competitive business environment with state-of-the-art infrastructure to facilitate both local commerce and foreign investment,” KPMG India head, infrastructure advisory group, Arvind Mahajan said.

The project in the Infrastructure 100: World Cities Edition are made up of around 20 projects selected by independent judging panels of industry experts from Asia Pacific, the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa and are broadly listed under 10 categories, including urban mobility, global connectivity, urban regeneration, education, healthcare, water, new and extended cities, recycling and waste management, urban energy infrastructure, and communications infrastructure.

The top-ten projects include East side access project in New York; Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor; the Oresund Regional Development project in Denmark and Sweden; the Princess Nora Bint Abdul Rahman University for Women in Riyadh and the Royal London Hospital, London.

Tuas II Desalination Plant, Tuas, Singapore; the Tianjin Eco City, Tianjin, China; the deep tunnel sewerage system connecting Kranji to Changi, Singapore; the Cidade Intelligente Bezios project under the urban energy infra scheme in Brazil; and the BRICS Cable Project in South Africa and Mauritius are also among the top 10 projects.

Source: www.eco-business.com

Ten Best Waste Projects in KPMG Top 100 Infrastructure List

Waste Management World (3 July 2012):

The Edinburgh Food Waste food waste project has been named as one of 10 best waste projects globally in the KPMG Infrastructure 100 – a league table showcasing 100 of the most innovative infrastructure projects from around the world which included a number of waste to energy projects.

KPMG said that the Infrastructure 100: World Cities Edition Report covers 10 project categories, including Waste Management.

According to KPMG – a global network of professional firms providing audit, tax and advisory services -  in making the final selection five regional judging panels from around the world assessed hundreds of submissions on criteria ranging from feasibility, social impact, technical and financial complexity, innovation and impact on society.

The overall winner for the Waste Management category was Singapore’s Deep Tunnel Sewerage System, Kranji to Changi.

North America continues to dominate top infrastructure development with 25 projects named among the most innovative ventures, closely followed by Asia-Pacific with 20, Europe and the Middle-East with 17 each, South America on 15 and Africa with 6. Nations from emerging markets also continue to feature extensively within the list.

“The league table shows that many of the world class infrastructure projects are located in North American and Asia – these regions have continued to increase their efficiency in getting projects off the ground,” explained Richard Threlfall, KPMG’s UK head of infrastructure, building and construction.

UK ‘Punching above its weight

According to Richard Threlfall, KPMG’s UK head of infrastructure, building and construction, despite a lack of private finance and dwindling construction projects, with seven UK projects in the top 100 “the UK still punches way above its geographic and economic weight with seven of the 100 most important projects in the world across a range of sectors.”

However, he also warned that: “We need to act now to develop private investment in infrastructure. This will not only to help kick start the UK economy but also to secure funding to ensure that our future infrastructure projects continue to be innovative.”

Threlfall explained that hese pioneering projects lie at the heart of solving the challenges faced by the country, from regenerating neighbourhoods to building education and health facilities fit for this century.

“The Government needs to outline a clear strategic direction if it wants to remain competitive on an international level,” concluded Threlfall.

KPMG’s Top 10 Waste Infrastructure Projects

1. Askar Waste to Energy PPP

Location: Kingdom of Bahrain

2. Yas Island Waste Management System

Location: United Arab Emirates

3. Deep Tunnel Sewerage System

Location: Singapore

4. Gorai Dumping Ground Scientific Closure

Location: India

5. Bordo Poniente Waste to Energy

Location: Mexico

6. Bio-Cancun Project

Location: Mexico

7. The Energy Garden Project

Location: Canada

8. Durham York Energy Waste Project

Location: Canada

9. Zero Waste: Edinburgh and Midlothian

Location: Scotland

10. Tonsberg Waste to Energy PPP

Location: Norway

Source: www.waste-management-world.com

With the Australian carbon price system coming into effect from this month, companies around the nation can no longer pollute the atmosphere with impunity, while sending a signal to industries to adopt stronger environmentally friendly practices. The carbon price also has the consequence of weeding out inefficient energy producers, especially traditional coal power plants, leading to a less carbon intense economy and a shift in the energy market towards cleaner alternative sources. Read more

ACF release (1 July 2012):

With the carbon price taking effect from today, big companies will no longer be able to pollute our shared atmosphere for free, sending a strong positive signal to industries that clean up their acts.

The Australian Conservation Foundation said the price on pollution was a strong step for our environment and would start Australia’s shift to a cleaner economy.

An ACF study examined all the likely places evidence should be found if companies were going to be affected by the carbon price: share prices, investment analyst views, reasons given for job cuts and listings on the stock exchange. The study found no evidence to indicate the price on pollution would hurt companies listed on the ASX.

“The price on pollution is a move towards doing what’s best for all Australians, not doing what’s best for a handful of companies that value high profits ahead of the national interest,” said ACF CEO Don Henry.

“From today Australia is finally putting its money where its mouth is on climate change – it is no longer free for big companies to pollute our shared atmosphere.”

ACF’s economic adviser Simon O’Connor said his analysis of share prices and ASX data showed the market was not expecting any value to be lost from Australian listed companies as a result of the carbon price.

“Australia’s four most exposed companies all saw their share prices increase more than the ASX benchmark when the price on pollution overcame the last major hurdle to becoming law,” Mr O’Connor said.

“In fact, BlueScope Steel’s share price went up by 5 per cent on the day of the House of Representatives vote and by 13 per cent in the week prior.

“We couldn’t find a shred of evidence to support the claims that the price on pollution will cause significant economic damage to Australian companies. It’s time to deflate the hot air and get on with the job of moving to a cleaner economy,” he said.

Source: www.acfonline.org.au

By Tristan Edis for Climate Spectator (4 July 2012):

Only four days since the carbon price has been instituted and we can chalk up some quick wins (if only the federal government would let the natural course of events actually occur).

A few days ago, Climate Spectator outlined how South Australia wouldn’t miss the fact that coal power station Playford was to be closed for good and Northern was also going to be put out of action for six months of the year.

On Friday, the bailout announced for Energy Brix suggests that it’s on its last legs too, if only the government didn’t jump in to prop the thing up for another two years.

Also the June 30 deadline for HRL to reach financial close on its new 600MW brown coal power station, in order to qualify for clean coal funding support from the federal government, has passed without any word from either the government or the company. This suggests this project proposal has finally been euthanised after being announced as the recipient of $150 million in state and federal government subsidies back in early 2007.

The carbon intensity of the project is twice that of a natural gas combined cycle power plant and no noticeable improvement on a conventional new black coal power plant. Even back in 2007, when this project was announced as a successful recipient of funding under the Howard government’s Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund (LETDF), questions were being raised about the likelihood of it raising bank financing. Indeed documents released under freedom of information and reported by The Age showed the project was initially rejected for federal funding in 2006 on the basis it was ”not realistically based” and involved ”a high degree of risk”.

In an environment where both sides of politics publicly state the need to drastically reduce emissions, it is ridiculous that any bank or government would sink hundreds of millions of dollars into a brand new power station with a lifetime of 30 to 40 years, whose original design actually had worse emissions intensity than a modern black coal power station. While infrastructure might one day be built to capture the emissions from the plant and pipe it underground, you’d be a bigger punter than Kerry Packer to allocate money on that coming true.

And yesterday we learned that Munmorah coal-fired power station, which was on its last legs having been mothballed since August 2010, will now be closed and decommissioned permanently.  While it was already slated for retirement in September 2014, what we’ve learnt since electricity market liberalisation is that businesses can manage to keep these assets going for many more years than the engineers originally envisaged, provided market conditions are conducive – Hazelwood being the most prominent example.

According to Munmorah’s owner, Delta Electricity, in 2010 they had gained planning approval for the rehabilitation of Munmorah’s turbine units 3 and 4 and associated infrastructure, which would have reduced the plant’s operating costs and allowed baseload operation at 700 megawatts. While you’d always have to doubt the likelihood of that project proceeding, the fact that it has now been ruled out is unambiguously a good thing for Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Delta Electricity provided the following explanation for closing the plant:

“Decreasing energy demand in NSW has created an excess supply situation. Munmorah’s place in the market has been overtaken by newer and more efficient generators and alternative electricity sources.

The station’s ageing infrastructure and high maintenance costs mean that it is not economically viable to operate. The carbon tax further erodes its viability.”

A carbon price of $23 per tonne of CO2 is clearly not going to lead to any kind of renewable energy nirvana, nor will it shut down coal overnight. But we now have a situation where a combination of reduced electricity demand and the 20 per cent Renewable Energy Target, and high black coal prices have created conditions that are acting to remove a lot of the food the herd of fossil fuel generators need to survive and prosper.

The carbon price is then acting much like a pack of wolves does in nature. While they tend to leave the strong within the herd unharmed e.g. Loy Yang A, they act to weed out the old, the weak, and maladapted young such as HRL’s power station proposal.

This may not be the desired end point on carbon emissions, but it most certainly represents progress over no carbon price at all.

Source: http://www.climatespectator.com.au

European cities are waking up to the idea that climate change will severely affect how they operate and are shoring up their defences to better manage them, shows a report by UK-based Carbon Disclosure Project. Now city risk assessments are leading to initiatives to better manage floods and droughts, and adaptation of infrastructure to be more energy efficient. Read more

By Nina Chestney for Reuters (28 June 2012):

European cities are planning to adapt to climate change as the risks become more severe, a report by UK-based emissions measurement organization the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and consultancy Accenture showed on Thursday.

Cities increasingly have to plan flood defenses, ways to manage water in times of drought, ensure new buildings provide natural cooling to occupants and adapt old buildings and infrastructure to become more energy efficient.

The report surveyed 22 European cities – including Amsterdam, Berlin, Istanbul, London, Manchester, Moscow, Paris and Rome – about their greenhouse gas emissions and climate change strategies.

The report comes less than a week after a United Nations’ summit in Rio de Janeiro failed to define clear sustainable development goals and left many convinced that local governments and businesses will have to lead efforts to improve the environment.

The survey found that 17 European cities out of the 22 surveyed, or 77 percent, have completed or almost completed risk assessments to understand how climate change will affect them.

Eighteen of the 22 European cities said they face “significant risks” arising from climate change and 54 percent of them see these risks as “severe” or “very severe”.

Due to these risks, cities are increasingly looking at developing adaptation plans. Fourteen European cities, or 64 percent of the 22 surveyed, already have an adaptation plan in place while two more are currently developing them.

“European cities are demonstrating leadership and best practice in managing climate change at the local level,” said Conor Riffle, head of CDP’s cities program.

“The report shows that other cities can benefit by implementing similar strategies, like annual measurement and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions.”

EMISSIONS

Global carbon dioxide emissions, one of the main greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, hit a record high last year, according to the International Energy Agency.

Eighty-six percent of the European cities surveyed have set a city-wide emissions reduction target, compared to a global average of 70 percent of cities, CDP said.

Based on the latest data given by four cities to CDP, London’s emissions fell 3.6 percent to 43.4 million metric tons (47.8 million tons) of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2010 from 2008 and Copenhagen’s dropped 5.2 percent to around 2.5 million metric tons in 2010 from 2009.

Berlin’s emissions rose 4.1 percent to over 20.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2008 from 2007 and Rotterdam’s grew by 6 percent in 2010 to 29.6 million metric tons from 2009.

“Population growth, economic activity, weather patterns, and other factors that are outside the city government’s direct control can make it difficult, if not impossible, to show steady reductions in emissions,” the report said.

European cities are also becoming more aware of the economic opportunities from climate change. Thirteen of the cities surveyed, or 59 percent, think that tackling climate change will develop new business industries in their cities.

Some cities – like Helsinki and Berlin – are using voluntary agreements with the private sector to strengthen their cities’ climate protection goals.

Source: http://www.reuters.com

Maybe the tide of opinion is turning against climate change sceptics in North America, according to the head of the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Maybe the bout of extreme weather is doing it. The recent wildfires in Colorado have been the most destructive ever on state record and part of the multiple wildfires that are burning across the United States. The hotter and drier condition resulting from climate change has been a factor for the severity of the wildfire, and could be an indicator of future re-occurrence. Read more

Ben Cubby, Environment Editor, Sydney Morning Herald (10 July 2012):

THE tide of opinion is turning against climate change sceptics in North America, according to the head of the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Escalating bouts of extreme weather appear to be behind the shift, said Jane Lubchenco, the chief of the NOAA – the US equivalent of the CSIRO.

”I think there really is a heightened awareness now, because it is something tangible, it’s something people are experiencing themselves – more heatwaves, more wildfires,” Dr Lubchenco told the Herald.

”In the US, I think that the increasing number of extreme weather-related events will help the American public understand that there is a lot at risk and that we do need to be acting more definitively.”

The east coast of the US has just endured a series of some of the most intense heatwaves on record. Altogether, record high temperatures have been recorded at more than 40,000 sites in the US. If global warming wasn’t taking place, the ratio of high and low temperature records would be roughly equal, but in the US this year, heat records have dominated by a ratio of seven to one.

”The heatwaves that we have been seeing in the eastern United States are completely consistent with what we expected to be seeing, and we expect to see more,” she said.

An agreement was signed yesterday between the CSIRO and NOAA to share data and conduct joint research into reefs, oceans and atmospheric warming. At the International Coral Reef Symposium in Cairns, specialist ocean researchers released a statement calling for greenhouse gas cuts.

”The international coral reef science community calls on all governments to ensure the future of coral reefs, through global action to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases,” the statement said.

A Stanford University professor, Steve Palumbi, said scientists had described the severity of the problem and the risks, and politicians had to take responsibility for action. ”To be honest, it’s really difficult,” he said. ”It’s a turning of a corner. It’s scientists giving up control.”

Dr Lubchenco said she did not agree with critics who thought scientists were becoming campaigners for action on climate change. ”At NOAA, all we are doing is providing the data,” she said. ”When some people don’t like the information, they criticise the providers of that information and we certainly see that playing out.”

Source: www.smh.com.au

By Blake Deppe for People’s World (29 June 2012):

Colorado’s Waldo Canyon Fire - which has forced the evacuation of 35,000 people, destroyed 346 homes, and burned for six days at the edge of Colorado Springs – is the most destructive brushfire on record for the state. According to experts, this havoc is just the beginning of what global warming will wreak in the future.

This is what climate change looks like.

Scorching temperatures and winds stoked the flames over the past few days, which has eaten up 18,500 acres of land so far. Firefighters managed to form containment lines around just 15 percent of the wildfire’s perimeter on June 28.

Elsewhere in the state, the High Park Fire remains active, and has very recently had a potentially upsetting ripple effect: it has blackened the nearby Poudre River with ash, possibly killing schools of fish beneath the now-tainted water. The river is filled with dust and debris from the fire as well. The more ash collects in the water, experts believe, the higher the fish mortality will become.

“This is going to happen over time” as the wildfire continues, said Ken Kehmeier, an aquatic biologist with Colorado Parks and Wildlife. “When the river turns black, fish are getting all that particulate matter that could affect oxygen levels. We could see fish struggling due to their gills getting clogged up with ash.”

In the case of the Waldo Canyon Fire, meanwhile, authorities say that arson cannot yet be ruled out as a culprit for the blaze. But the more likely causes for it, note scientists, are several: shorter winters with reduced snowfall, earlier springs, and extreme and early summer heat, all of which occurred this year.

“What we’re seeing is a window into what global warming really looks like,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton University climate scientist. “It looks like heat; it looks like fires; it looks like this kind of environmental disaster. This provides vivid images of what we can expect to see more of in the future.”

The aforementioned weather conditions, he added, were exactly what he and his colleagues at the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had predicted would result from a carbon-induced climate shift.

Dr. Steven Running, a University of Montana forest ecologist, noted that mountain snow generally melted two weeks earlier than average this year in the U.S. “That just sets us up for a longer, drier summer. Then all you need is an ignition source and wind. Now we have a lot of dead trees to burn, and it’s not even July yet.”

But the problem runs deeper than just disasters that have been observed this year alone. Since 1950, the number of heat waves worldwide has greatly increased, according to a report by nonprofit science outreach group Climate Communication. The “remarkable run of record-shattering heat waves in recent years,” said the report, “from the Russian heat wave of 2010 that set forests ablaze to the historic heat wave in Texas in 2011″ all serve as examples of the ongoing climate change issue.

Others understand that right-wing efforts to deny the existence of climate change, to loosen regulations on pollution, and to divert attention away from environmentalism are only going to add to the problem.

Rep. Harry Waxman, D-Calf., remarked, “Extreme events like the wildfires in Colorado are going to get worse unless the Republican-controlled Congress changes course soon.”

Source: www.peoplesworld.org