Read the full post at GreenBiz.
Energy efficiency isn’t sexy — but that doesn’t mean it can’t be sold if positioned correctly.
Day: September 11, 2015
Low-carbon cities are a $17 trillion opportunity
Read the full story at GreenBiz.
The disparate efforts of cities around the world to take climate action were amplified on the international stage late last year when more than 2,000 municipalities around the world signed the Compact of Mayors, which focuses on scaling up climate resilience efforts, energy efficiency programs, resilient financing mechanisms and public carbon emissions reporting.
Pursuing such low-carbon policies actually could have a hefty payback, according to new research from the New Climate Economy. Investing in public and low emission transportation, building efficiency and waste management in cities could generate savings with a current value of $17 trillion by 2050.
These low-carbon investments also could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 3.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (Gt CO2e) per year by 2030 — more than the current annual emissions of India.
What If Your Sneakers And Yoga Mats Were Made From Algae Instead Of Plastic?
Read the full story at Fast Company.
Algae is already being used to make clothing, power buildings, suck up highway pollution, and feed farmed animals. Soon you may be hitting the gym with algae-based products too.
A new business called Bloom Foam plans to use algae to make the ubiquitous flexible foams that are found in yoga mats, sneakers and sandals, luggage, and even bath toys.
New wearable technology can sense appliance use, help track carbon footprint
Read the full story from the University of Washington.
In today’s smart home, technologies can track how much energy a particular appliance like a refrigerator or television or hair dryer is gobbling up. What they don’t typically show is which person in the house actually flicked the switch.
A new wearable technology developed at the University of Washington called MagnifiSense can sense what devices and vehicles the user interacts with throughout the day, which can help track that individual’s carbon footprint, enable smart home applications or even assist with elder care.
In a study to be presented this week at the 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing, MagnifiSense correctly classified 94 percent of users’ interactions with 12 common devices after a quick one-time calibration, including microwaves, blenders, remote controls, electric toothbrushes, laptops, light dimmers, and even cars and buses. Even without the calibration, MagnifiSense was still correct 83 percent of the time.
Poll: ‘Overwhelming’ support for EPA smog rule
Read the full story in The Hill.
Nearly three-quarters of United States voters want the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to put further limits on the ozone pollution that causes smog, a new poll found.
The survey was commissioned by the American Lung Association (ALA), which supports the EPA’s proposed ozone rule, and found that 73 percent of voters favor stricter ozone limits.
In Colorado, a green fleecing worth millions
Read the full story in High Country News.
At a 2009 conference in Centennial, Colorado, Wayde McKelvy, a former offensive lineman at the University of Northern Colorado stood in front of a room full of potential investors for a green startup called Mantria.
Mantria was building the country’s first “carbon-negative” housing development in rural Tennessee, powered entirely by renewable energy, investors heard. What’s more, it was developing a substance that turned garbage into usable materials and produced something called biochar, a carbon-negative fertilizer made from charcoal.
The company was “on the cusp of revolutionary technology that’s going to change the world,” McKelvy promised, “and you guys can benefit from it by putting money in and getting stinkin’ wealthy.”
McKelvy was the pitchman for a green utopic offered by Mantria’s two founders, Troy Wragg and Amanda Knorr. And if Mantria’s promise sounded too good to be true, that’s because it was: a few months after the conference in Centennial, the Securities and Exchange Commission shut down the company, alleging Mantria had bilked investors out of tens of million of dollars in a widespread ponzi scheme. Now, after years of legal delays, federal prosecutors have indicted McKelvy, Wragg, and Knorr with wire and securities fraud and conspiracy.
College Students School Industry on How to Make Greener Products
Read the full story at Take Part.
When executives at Method, the maker of eco-friendly cleaning products, wanted to make their dish soaps and hand cleansers even safer for the environment and people, they turned to a group of graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley.
Proceedings Available for EPA’s Webcast Series on Climate Change, Heat Islands, and Public Health
Audio recordings, presentation files, questions and answers, and transcripts are now available for EPA’s recent webcast series on climate change, heat islands, and public health.
The first webcast, held on July 22, 2015, focused on communicating the connection between climate change and heat health. The second webcast, held on August 19, 2015, explored the topic of improving heat health resilience through urban infrastructure planning and design.
Change the Course: Lessons from a water stewardship movement
Read the full post at GreenBiz.
WhiteWave, Coca-Cola, Cinemark and Waste Management have joined us in restoring 4 billion gallons of water to depleted rivers and wetlands.
Bringing ‘dark data’ into the light: Best practices for digitizing herbarium collections
Read the full story at Phys.org.
Imagine the scientific discoveries that would result from a searchable online database containing millions of plant, algae, and fungi specimen records. Thanks to a new set of workflow modules to digitize specimen collections currently preserved in herbaria, something like that might be within reach. The modules are provided by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio), which is facilitating a collective effort to unify digitization projects across the nation…
According to recent estimates, approximately half of U.S. herbaria and universities have yet to begin mobilizing data. Nelson coordinated the development of the workflows, working alongside 28 other contributing authors, to provide guidance to institutions just beginning digitization programs as well as those seeking to streamline and tweak their current digitization configuration.
The 14 modules, each organized in seven to 36 easy-to-follow and customizable tasks, cover everything from setting up an imaging station to georeferencing. They also include methods to organize outreach events for public participation in imaging and data transcription. They are downloadable as Portable Document Format (PDF) and editable word processing files on GitHub and as PDF files at iDigBio. A full description of the workflows and their development, along with editable word processing files of the workflow modules, is available in the September issue of Applications in Plant Sciences.
From Pepsi to Unilever, 5 circular economy strategies for consumer goods
Read the full story at GreenBiz.
Do you remember when Patagonia told us, “Don’t buy this jacket” and started focusing on repairing, reusing and recycling used gear?
Patagonia’s Common Threads Initiative is a great example of “circular economy” or “closed loop” principles at work; when people no longer need their Patagonia gear, the company takes it back and makes it into new gear.
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