Top Stories
Green vendors to get contracting preference.—reliability
high.
"Government contractors would have to track their greenhouse-gas
emissions or risk losing out on new contracts, under a plan released
last week by the General Services Administration. The requirement,
which few companies are currently able to meet, could take effect in
fiscal 2011 or 2012. ... One possible action Obama suggested was
requiring contractors to report their emissions and plans to reduce
them. GSA's report says that goal is not feasible, at least in the
short term. It recommends, instead, that federal contracting officers
ask companies about their abilities to measure greenhouse-gas
emissions. Their answers would be one factor in contract awards." See
item in Federal
Times. [Not
a requirement yet, but a factor. The government is even a bigger buyer
than Wal-Mart.]
Sainsbury's to plant two million trees.—reliability
high.
As part of a broad initiative that includes stricter sourcing of wood,
paper and palm oil and reduction of packaging material use, Sainsbury's
will "plant new trees so the supermarket is 'doing its bit' to increase
forest cover." Story at edie.net,
and another at BusinessGreen.
[Generally
tree-planting
schemes are greenwash, and the item mentions working with the
discredited Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, but still this may be a
step in the right direction.]
Companies,
Industries, Markets and Supply Chains
Green software standard paves way for
ubiquitous carbon footprints.—reliability high.
"The Business & Application Software Developers' Association
(BASDA) will next week launch a data exchange standard, dubbed
Green-XML, that should make it easier for developers to integrate data
on carbon emissions and water use into business software applications.
BASDA's existing eBis XML standard provides developers with a
standardised method for handling and transferring data between
different online purchasing and invoicing systems, and the new standard
will apply the same model to increasingly popular environmental
metrics." See BusinessGreen
story.
Michelin TV ad banned for making misleading
eco claim.—reliability high.
"A million pound TV ad for tyre maker Michelin has been banned for
making misleading environmental claims. 15 viewers challenged whether
the claim "can help to save up to 80 litres of fuel" was misleading,
because the ad did not specify what period of time the claim related
to. Michelin Tyres told the ASA its ad had been accepted for broadcast
by advisers Clearcast, who said their motoring consultant had confirmed
the claim was over the life of the tyre (45,000 kilometres)." The ad
can't be shown again in the UK. From Click
Green. Similar story about a Porche
ad ruled misleading. [Companies struggle
to find something green to say about their products, however obscure,
but risk censure if they aren't clear about how little that green
feature is.]
A City’s Motto: I [heart] Tap Water.—reliability
medium.
"New York City is so proud of its tap water that the Bloomberg
administration has come up with a product line to trumpet its quality
and promote it as an affordable and sustainable alternative to bottled
water. ... 'The message of the department is not to drink bottled water
because it takes energy to produce plastic bottles and the bottles end
up as litter.'" More about promotional merchandise. From New
York Times Green blog.
Government and
Regulation
Fuel ethanol production threatens food
security.—reliability medium.
"Food supply concerns triggered by the lingering drought and floods
that swept China this year have left the country in what appears to be
a dilemma about developing clean energy produced with food and ensuring
the country's food security. ... From 2004 to 2006, the price of corn
was greatly influenced by the massive production of fuel ethanol, which
drove many farmers of other crops to plant corn. The State Council,
China's cabinet, put a stop to fuel ethanol projects that were under
construction in 2007. But the subsidy was not ceased, and some fuel
ethanol projects that should have been canceled emerged again." See China
Daily. [This
was to have been a pilot program, but obviously the incentives were on
the generous side. China will have to rein it in. It would make more
sense to import ethanol from Brazil if they need it.]
Italy set to phase in solar incentive cuts.—reliability
high.
"industry sources told news agency Reuters that they expected feed-in
tariffs to be reduced by up to 30 per cent next year. ... However,
subsidies will be extended to emerging concentrated PV technologies
that were not previously eligible for incentives." More details. See BusinessGreen.
[Germany, Italy and
Spain had hot solar panel markets based on generous and unsustainable
feed-in tariffs and other subsidies. They have been puzzled how to slow
this gravy train without throwing their (subsidy-dependent) solar
industries into turmoil.]
Raising the Bar on Biomass.—reliability
medium.
Massachusetts moves to tighten carbon accounting for biomass energy:
"In a letter released Wednesday, Ian A. Bowles, the state’s secretary
for energy and environmental affairs, instructed the Massachusetts
Department of Energy Resources to draft new regulations that would
raise the bar for biomass projects angling to qualify for credits,
including a requirement that they provide 'significant near-term
greenhouse gas dividends.'" From New
York Times Green blog. [This would allow
projects that capture waste wood, but disadvantage projects based on
harvesting from renewable plantations where the CO2 release by wood
burned today won't be balanced by CO2 captured by plant growth until
years or decades later. Many wood-to-energy projects offer to turn
forests into CO2 today with more-or-less vague assurances that future
forest growth will soak up a similar amount of CO2 someday. But in the
meantime there is a big GHG bubble. Of course burning coal creates the
bubble without even the hope of neutralizing it later.]