Nov 22, 09
Fairtrade is the Best Hope for India's Tea Producers
by Nick Mathiason The Chamraj estate in Tamil Nadu is thriving thanks to the Fairtrade Foundation - but the same cannot be said for the south Indian tea industry The price of basic farm commodities has been hammered over the past 40 years, placing unbearable pressure on farmers. At the bottom of the food chain are smallholders. With processors, brokers, auctioneers, speculators and retailers all taking a cut, there is little left to pay the producer. The situation adds to the rural...
Gaming Cap and Trade: Should We Worry?
A look at the evidence - and a path forward. Worries about “gaming” or market manipulation sometimes crop up as an objection to cap and trade, often with reference to recent shenanigans in the financial markets. Some fear that a cap-and-trade system could be manipulated to artificially raise—or lower—permit prices to generate profits for a few at the expense of consumers. While distrust and concerns about scamming a carbon market are understandable, they’re not warranted. To put...
U.S. Awards $3.4 Billion to Create a "Smart" Electric Grid
The Obama administration is awarding $3.4 billion in grants to modernize the national electric grid. One-hundred companies, utilities, manufacturers, and cities will receive the grants — ranging from $400,000 to $200 million — for projects that help build a “smart” grid that cuts energy costs, reduces blackouts, and has the capacity to deliver more wind and solar energy to American homes and businesses. Calling the nation’s grid system “dilapidated,” Carol Browner, the Obama...
Apple Joins Chamber of Commerce Exodus Over Climate Change Skepticism
Technology firm becomes latest in line of high-profile departures after federation opposes efforts to reduce emissionsArticle by Suzanne Goldenberg Exelon's nuclear power plant in Byron, Illinois. Apple has now joined the utility firm in quitting the US Chamber of Commerce over its stance on climate change. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images Apple has become the latest in a growing list of companies to quit the US Chamber of Commerce over its policies on climate change. In a letter...
More Corporations Are "Greening" Supply Chains
Savvy business sometimes requires only a flip of a lid. When Stonyfield Farm switched from plastic to foil lids six years ago, the organic yogurt company avoided 16 percent of the energy costs associated with producing its containers. Similar savings have been discovered throughout Stonyfield's manufacturing, transportation, and packaging divisions since the company began measuring its carbon footprint in the early 1990s, according to Chairman Gary Hirshberg. "Our carbon footprint is...
Companies Urge US Senate to Pass GHG Reduction Bill
Bumble Bee, Dell, DuPont, FPL, Google, HP, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss, Nike, PG&E and Xanterra urge the Senate to pass a bill this year that will cut GHG emissions and “jumpstart a clean energy economy”: “A rapidly changing climate is reshaping the American landscape and poses a long-term threat to our nation’s economy and to our children’s future.” The U.S. Senate is about to begin an historic debate over whether to pass comprehensive legislation to create a clean energy...
Sticker Shock: Walmart’s labeling scheme will be costly, but will it be effective? Two views.
Eco-labeling is becoming globally hot, thanks in part to Walmart. Here are two perspectives. The first is from Stephen Stokes of AMR Research, by way of Climate Inc., edited by David Levy, Professor of Management at UMass, Boston. Addressing climate change and other environmental issues requires real action at the facility and process level – just creating product labels may not be effective Walmart’s product environmental labeling aspirations went public in the New York Times and...
The Four-Day Work Week Works
by Pete Davies Utah’s experiment shows happier employees and environmental benefits 17,000 Utah state employees have been working four-day weeks since last August. Non-critical government and agency staff have worked ten-hour days Monday-Thursday and then taken three-day weekends. Some of the first findings from the experiment are in: Nine months in, the state had saved $1.8 million on energy and cleaning bills (the savings are likely to be even higher over the summer as the air...
Shoe Brands Get Tough On Leather Suppliers To Save Amazon Rainforest
by Damian Carrington and Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro Crackdown against 'environmental criminals' follows Greenpeace report Slaughtering the Amazon from Greenpeace UK on Vimeo. Some of the world's top footwear brands, including Clarks, Adidas, Nike and Timberland, have demanded an immediate moratorium on destruction of the Amazon rainforest from their leather suppliers in Brazil.The move is the first major development since the Guardian revealed a three-year undercover investigation by...
Big Polluters Turn Tree Huggers
by Lisa Stiffler The quest to curb climate change has polluters embracing trees. Carbon-dioxide consuming forests are helping control climate change -- and that's turning some polluters into tree huggers. Businesses that emit greenhouse gases want to be able to pay forest owners to save their trees in order to receive credit for cutting pollution. And while there's no question that trees remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, there's plenty of debate over how to value those reductions,...
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