So you’ve taken on a home improvement project and you are remodeling your kitchen or bathroom. You’ve read our articles on paints and stains as well as on flooring, and you have made eco-friendly choices for those parts of your renovation job. Now you have to choose countertops. Conventional wisdom says to go for the granite. It is beautiful and [ Read More → ]
So you’ve taken on a home improvement project and you are remodeling your kitchen or bathroom. You’ve read our articles on paints and stains as well as on flooring, and you have made eco-friendly choices for those parts of your renovation job. Now you have to choose countertops. Conventional wisdom says to go for the granite. It is beautiful and [ Read More → ]
Going green in the kitchen can mean many things. Contrary to popular belief, it does not have to mean spending a lot of money on new energy efficient appliances. While replacing older appliances with Energy Star models is certainly a green thing to do and will save you money on energy costs, there are other ways to lessen your impact [ Read More → ]
Sustainability. What is it? For the sake of definition and understanding the meaning, I am referencing Wikipedia: “Sustainability is the capacity to endure”.
In ecology , the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time. Long-lived and healthy wetlands and forests are examples of sustainable biological systems. For humans, sustainability is the potential for [ Read More → ]
Here’s an idea to reduce the costs of lithium ion batteries: split it four ways. That was one proposal given by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries senior executive vice president, Ichiro Fukue, at the 2010 Driving Sustainability conference in Reykjavík, Iceland this weekend. Here’s how it might work.
When someone buys a new electric vehicle (EV), she would pay the battery manufacturer just [ Read More → ]
LONDON, United Kingdom — As large, widespread fast food chains have been pressured and prodded to lower the environmental impacts of their businesses, the same has not been asked of independent quick-service cafes and takeout spots, resulting in many offering unhealthy food with little incentive to improve the sustainability of their operations.
The U.K.-based New Economics Foundation (NEF) writes about the [ Read More → ]
Forrester’s latest forecast for the technology economy is bullish, which by extension means good news for providers of software and services focused on improving corporate sustainability.
In our new outlook for IT spending by businesses and governments, we estimate that the market will hit $1.58 trillion in 2010, up almost 8 percent from the depressed 2009 level, and grow by a [ Read More → ]
“ULE 880 – Sustainability for Manufacturing Organizations” is a points-based standard that will feature three levels of certification. The 102 indicators aim to measure and rate the sustainability of an entire business, focusing on the full spectrum of social and environmental sustainability rather than the environment. The standard defines core metrics within five areas:
• Sustainability governance: How an organization leads and [ Read More → ]
“Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview — nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty” — Stephen Jay Gould
The Economist ran an interesting piece a couple of months ago on the charms of frugal innovation. In essence, it refers to the practice of starting with the needs of poor consumers (and those in [ Read More → ]
At its heart, sustainability is simply minimizing our carbon footprint today while still making sure that we are able to develop communities and meet our needs. Most of us aren’t able to go back to nature and live off the land or live in mud huts. Yet there is so much that we can do to create a sustainability community [ Read More → ]
PARIS, France — More than 30 companies are testing out a packaging sustainability measurement system that one group hopes becomes a worldwide standard.
The system was developed through the Consumer Goods Forum’s Global Packaging Project (GPP), and includes a list of 52 indicators (and how to measure them) like weight, recycling rates, virgin content and shelf life.
The basics of the [ Read More → ]
