Category: Green business

Webinar: SBIR and STTR – What Are They and How Can You Partner and Benefit?

When: Dec 21, 2017, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Register at http://penntap.psu.edu/events/sbir-sttr-can-partner-benefit/

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is tasked with assisting small businesses through partnerships that can lead to research commercialization and job creation. Through a competitive process, the SBA has developed the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant programs.  Kelly Wylam, program manager with the Ben Franklin Innovation Partnerships program will explain the basics of the program and highlight the application process. There will be time for a Q&A session to help attendees understand the opportunity and whether it applies to their current initiatives.

Webinar: How to Move Your Company Toward Sustainability

When: Nov 16, 2017, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Register at http://penntap.psu.edu/events/move-company-toward-sustainability/

In order to move toward more sustainable practices, industrial managers need to understand what cultural, environmental, and economic challenges exist, and how to respond to them. PennTAP will review the link between sustainability and energy efficiency projects, and highlight the process to develop a carbon footprint, set a reduction goal, and implement projects to reduce your carbon footprint. We will also discuss methods to publicize the sustainability improvements at your facility.

Webinar: Heartland Businesses Achieve Savings with Pollution Prevention Interns

Thu, Sep 21, 2017 1:30-2:30 PM CDT
Register at https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/1352764724773046530

Heartland businesses provide stories of the successes and savings achieved by using Pollution Prevention Interns for summer projects. These trained students bring expertise to increase efficiency, save water, energy, and materials, and save money. This webinar features several projects accomplished within the last few years by pollution prevention interns and the impact of the projects.

Tattooed avocados and shampoo bars: the businesses curbing plastics waste

Read the full story in The Guardian.

Excess or unnecessary packaging is being shunned by forward-thinking firms. Here are some examples of progress.

How the factory of the future saves energy

Read the full story in GreenBiz.

When it comes to factories, manufacturing floors and industrial facilities, the interests of plant managers and corporate sustainability professionals are intimately intertwined.

Reducing energy consumption, minimizing freshwater withdrawals from local aquifers and reusing materials that otherwise might be scrapped makes sense from financial, environmental and social standpoints. Indeed, the production floor appears to be one place where efficiency-motivated capital expenditures advocated by the sustainability team actually might stand a chance of becoming reality in board rooms without too much of a fight.

That’s even more true as companies of all shapes and sizes begin to mull the impact of the circular economy — one that prioritizes a radical shift in thinking about how resources are used and spins off new revenue streams in the process.

Can Anyone, Even Walmart, Stem The Heat-Trapping Flood Of Nitrogen On Farms?

Read the full story from NPR.

Walmart has promised big cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases. To meet that goal, though, the giant retailer may have to persuade farmers to use less fertilizer. It won’t be easy.

The big whiff: How corporate America missed the climate fix

Read the full story in GreenBiz.

The sad truth is that the most revered “sustainable” companies, even the ones that aren’t undoing climate policy at night, are often part of a dangerous climate bureaucracy that appears to work furiously on the problem (and therefore dodges public scrutiny) but undertakes that work in ways that are decoupled from what it means to actually slow warming. Instead of attacking the policy fight (which is controversial, but meaningful) they attend conferences, set targets, establish carbon baselines and produce sustainability reports.