Top Stories
Sodexo to Audit 39K Client Sites Worldwide
for Sustainability Goals.—reliability high.
"Sodexo this week announced an ambitious plan to assess the current
environmental performance of 39,000 of its clients' sites in order to
create a roadmap for sustainability efforts for the company itself as
well as its customers. ... "The inventory is a crucial step in
assessing the Group's situation and will involve measuring our current
performance, setting realistic goals, identifying priorities, and
setting up a timetable for our 33,900 client sites," Damien Verdier,
Sodexo's Chief Marketing Officer, said in a statement." See GreenBiz.
[Customers are
part of the lifecycle too.]
What the BP Gulf Oil Spill Means for India.—reliability
medium.
"BP’s exploration disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, which has resulted
in a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the region, may soon have
repercussions for India’s oil and gas sector, ranging from tougher
regulatory rules to higher operating costs." From Wall
Street Journal Indiarealtime blog. [New regulations
and more careful drilling procedures will increase oil exploration and
extraction costs a bit in many parts of the world. Disasters beget
regulations.]
Companies,
Industries, Markets and Supply Chains
DOE Aims to Make 'Low E' Windows a Must-Have
for Home Construction.—reliability high.
"Energy Department officials are trying to propel so-called low-E --
for low-emissivity -- windows to popularity by bringing down prices.
... DOE's new tool to do so is a pedestrian-sounding volume purchase
program that certifies suppliers whose products meet certain thermal,
structural and cost targets and lists them on a single Web page. That
page acts as a gateway for buyers, hopefully making the best products
easier to find and driving up demand." Story at New
York Times from Greenwire. DOE window site here. [By increasing
volumes for preferred suppliers DOE hopes to bring costs down and
increase adoption, as it did for CFL bulbs.]
China ties with US as top location for
renewable investment.—reliability high.
"China has officially tied with the US as the most attractive location
to invest in renewable energy projects in the latest edition of Ernst
& Young's Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices, which is
to be launched later today. According to the 30-page report, China has
climbed two points in the indices after recent figures showed that it
has invested $34.6bn (£23.7bn) in clean energy projects in the past 12
months, delivering almost double the US level of investment." See BusinessGreen.
BP Removed from Dow Jones Sustainability
Indexes.—reliability medium.
"The oil company responsible for the worst environmental disaster in
U.S. history was removed from the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes
(DJSI) effective May 31, 2010. ... In a press release, Dow Jones and
SAM (Sustainable Asset Management) Group stated 'The extent of the
oil-spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico and its foreseeable
long-term effects on the environment and the local population – in
addition to the economic effects and the long- term damage to the
reputation of the company – were included in the analysis leading up to
BP’s removal.'" From The
Inspired Economist. [Of course one
must wonder why an oil company was on a sustainability index in the
first place.]
Clean Energy Patents Hit Record High In
First Quarter-Clean Energy Patent Growth Index.—reliability
high.
"The Clean Energy Patent Growth Index (CEPGI) provides an indication
of the trend of innovative activity in the Clean Energy sector since
2002 in the U.S., along with Leading Patent Owners and Leading Country
and State information. Results from the first quarter of 2010
reveal the CEPGI to have a value of 379 granted U.S. patents which is
the highest quarterly value since the tracking of the CEPGI began,
along with being up 42 from the fourth quarter of 2009 and up from a
value of 243 in the first quarter of 2009." See Renewable
Energy World. Full report here.
Fed appeals court dismisses greenhouse gases
suit.—reliability high.
"The lawsuit alleges that greenhouse gas emissions from energy and
chemical companies contributed the intensity of Hurricane Katrina.
Filed by landowners in U.S. District Court in Gulfport in September
2005, the lawsuit had been dismissed in 2007 and later reinstated. The
companies appealed the reinstatement. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals ruled May 28 that it didn't have a quorum - or majority - of
judges available to hear the companies' appeal after many of them
recused themselves." Story at Bloomberg Businessweek
from AP. [The
court said the landowners and the companies could petition the U.S.
Supreme Court to hear the case. United States Court of Appeals for the
Fifth Circuit sits in New Orleans and apparently many of its judges
have ties to the energy companies that were defendants in this suit. A
more detailed article on the ruling here.]
Government and
Regulation
E.P.A. Tightens Sulfur Dioxide Limits.—reliability
high.
"The Environmental Protection Agency issued a new health standard on
Thursday for sulfur dioxide emissions, the first such revision in
nearly 40 years. The agency said the new standard, adopted under the
Clean Air Act, would prevent 2,300 to 5,900 premature deaths and 54,000
asthma attacks a year. ... The current standard calls for
concentrations of no more than 140 parts per billion, averaged over 24
hours. The new rule reduces the ceiling to 75 parts per billion,
measured hourly." From The
New York Times.
Bay Area air board approves guidelines to
limit greenhouse gases from development.—reliability high.
"The [San Francisco, California] Bay Area's air pollution board on
Wednesday adopted the nation's most far-reaching local development
review guidelines aimed at limiting greenhouse gases and toxic air
contaminants. Planning for new Bay Area houses, apartments, gas
stations, sports arenas, chemical plants and shopping centers could be
affected. The guidelines approved by the Bay Area Air Quality
Management District give cities and counties numerical pollution
thresholds to use in deciding whether to require developers to conduct
studies on ways to remove pollution during the land-use review
process." Story at San
Jose Mercury News. PDF of board's press release here.
[Crossposted from HaraBara.com courtesy of HaraBara, Inc. Copyright © 2010 HaraBara, Inc.]