Top Stories
Panasonic Will Invest $1 Billion in 'Green
Home' Plan.—reliability high.
"Panasonic Corp., the world’s biggest plasma-TV maker, will invest $1
billion by 2012 in a plan to make its principal business equipping
homes and buildings with solar power and energy-saving technologies,
the president said. The move focuses on solar-panel and energy-storage
technology that Panasonic will gain from its purchase of Sanyo Electric
Co., coupled with systems that Panasonic has invented" "Our growth is
not enough compared to Samsung, so we want to change our fighting ring
from our current categories to a different field." From
Bloomberg. [Does
the tightening of energy efficiency standards for TVs (as in
California), which disadvantages plasma technology, have anything to do
with this? Or is it just an industrial giant moving faster-growing,
less technologically mature industries?]
Companies,
Industries, Markets and Supply Chains
Naya Going to 100% Recycled Water Bottle.—reliability
high.
Canadian water bottler Naya "said it is the first to use a 100-percent
recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) bottle. The bottle is made
from plastic that previously was used as packaging, then recycled."
Roll-out will start in NYC and expand across all of North America by
early next year. Comments on recycled content of some other beverage
bottles. From
Environmental Leader.
Global Salmon Life-Cycle Assessment.—reliability
high.
Ecotrust, Dalhousie University and The Swedish Institute for Food and
Biotechnology have issued some of the findings of their life cycle
assessment of salmon. They found that airfreighting fresh salmon rather
than ocean-shipping frozen fish had a profound life cycle impact, much
more than the choice between organic vs. conventional or wild vs.
farmed. Also, "Growing organic salmon using fish meals and oils from
very resource intensive fisheries results in impacts very similar to
conventional farmed salmon production." "Catching salmon in large nets
as they school together has one tenth the impact of catching them in
small numbers using baited hooks and lures." See
Ecotrust site. Access report here.
[Shows that you
have to look at the whole supply chain--life cycle analysis--to see
where real impacts are. "Food miles" or "organic" don't necessarily
give useful comparisons. Salmon was chosen just as an example of such
analysis in the food system.]
Big Utility to Close 11 Plants Using Coal.—reliability
high.
Progress Energy, based in Raleigh, North Carolina, said it would close
11 coal-fired power plants built between the 1950s and 1970s by 2017,
"a step that represents a bet that natural gas prices will stay
acceptably low and that stricter rules are coming on sulfur dioxide
emissions" "The plants being closed, at four sites, have a combined
capacity of nearly 1,500 megawatts." "the long-term plan is a
nuclear backbone for the company’s generating system" See
New York Times.
World Packaging Organization Honors Bunge
Alimentos with WorldStar Packaging Award For its Biodegradable
Margarine Packaging.—reliability high.
"Bunge Alimentos in Brazil has received a 2009 WorldStar Packaging
Award for its biodegradable margarine packaging derived from a
renewable source. The thermoformed packaging used for the Cyclus
margarine tub is 100% based on Cereplast Compostables ® resins." From
PR-inside. Check here
to see how Bunge is positioning this product (Portuguese). [Of course if it
is biodegradable it must go into the composting stream (see SF item
below) rather than the landfill stream if it is not to end up in the
atmosphere as methane or CO2.]
Marks & Spencer Expands Renewable Energy
Mandate.—reliability high.
British retailer Marks & Spencer, which is already committed to
getting all of the electricity for its stores in England and Wales from
renewable sources, "has signed a four-year deal with SmartestEnergy to
purchase enough renewable energy to run all its Scottish stores and
offices. The deal takes effect in April of 2010" See
Environmental Leader. [Is all this
demand for green power driving up the price of renewable energy in the
UK?]
Government and
Regulation
Ontario gets new green license plates.—reliability
high.
Ontario will offer special license plates for plug-in hybrids and
battery-powered electric vehicles entitling them to travel in carpool
lanes until 2015 — even if only one person is in the vehicle, and to
other benefits. From
CBC News.
SF Composts More Than 620,000 Tons of Food
and Other Scraps.—reliability high.
Facts and figures about San Francisco's "green cart" compost
collection system, in place since 1996 and mandatory since October. From
GreenBiz.
UK Government promises energy labellings
crackdown.—reliability high.
"The study from the Department of Environment, Farming and Rural
Affairs (Defra) tested 24 of the best-selling washing machines, 24
ovens and 265 different light bulbs. . . . it revealed that a
large number of mandatory energy-efficiency labels could be based on
misleading information." "According to the spokesman for Defra, the
recently-appointed [National Measurement Office] is expected to lead a
crackdown on firms found to be in breach of labelling rules.
'Responsibility for energy labelling used to lie with Trading
Standards, but they have lots of responsibilities and this was not
their top priority,' he said. 'From now on the enforcement of labelling
rules will be a lot tougher.'" See
Business Green.
[Crossposted from HaraBara.com courtesy of HaraBara, Inc. Copyright © 2009 HaraBara, Inc.]