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Monday, 21 May 2012

7 Measures for Efficient Climate Control on the Factory Floor

May 15, 2012 1 Comment

How, exactly, can a medium-sized industrial company save on energy without negatively affecting production? What are the concrete measures that were taken by a textile company in Germany to increase energy efficiency by ten percent? What approach is needed to calculate the true amortization period for investments in efficiency? Find the answers in this article. Tobias Viere, the brain behind th...

To Harvest Green Business, Feed Eco Incentives to the Decision Makers

May 7, 2012 1 Comment

Incentive-based pay isn't new; it's been around for centuries. Ship captains transporting prisoners from England to Australia were once rewarded, not on passenger counts, but on how many survived the journey. Nowadays with major companies, it's usually linked to financial performance. But unless companies begin to connect compensation to sustainable environmental and social performance, they will ...

Environmentally Harmful Subsidies: Behind the Scenes of a $400 Billion Waste

April 30, 2012

Ever since the 1980s, during the early years of the environmental movement, there has been a call to abolish harmful subsidies. Technologies and industries harming the environment should no longer be funded by the public was the message. In the course of the last 20 years, especially since the 1990 Rio summit, this call has received more and more attention from the political mainstream, culminatin...

Last Chance for a Powerful Shift – On Quarrels About the EU's Energy Efficiency Directive

April 23, 2012

In July 2011, knowtheflow covered the possible failure to reach the EU's energy efficiency target. Of all 20-20-20 goals, efficiency was the only one in danger of not being achieved. In the meantime, not much has changed; energy efficiency remains as much an issue in Europe as before. What's more, there is a currently proposed revision of the energy efficiency directive that threatens to seriously...

9 Months of Certified Energy Management: ISO 50001 Starts Out

April 15, 2012

In July 2011, the promising ISO 50001 energy management standard was launched. This certificate rewards companies and public organizations willing to continuously reduce their energy consumption by providing a guideline on energy management systems. This article explains how the norm works, which companies have adopted it and what achievements have been made since its introduction nine months ago....

The OECD Turns Green - Why Saving the Planet Pays Off

April 9, 2012 1 Comment

Continued degradation and erosion of natural environmental capital is expected to 2050, with the risk of irreversible changes that could endanger two centuries of rising living standards. What sounds like a new warning by the classic Club of Rome, is actually not a statement delivered by concerned scientists. Instead, it is one of the outcomes of a meeting where Environment Ministers of the world...

Avoiding the Relocation of Emissions - How to Face Carbon Leakage

April 1, 2012

In the course of the last 20 years, some of the more developed countries achieved a remarkable reduction of carbon emissions. However, taking a closer look at this, we see that a reduction in one place can be closely correlated to an increase of emissions in another. A scope of “one country” is incomplete, since both goods and emissions circulate all around the world. In this article, I'll explain...

Why SMEs Should Foster, Not Fear the Corporate Carbon Footprint

March 22, 2012

Most firms are occupied with selling products and meeting payroll and feel they don't have time or aren't all that impassioned about "saving the world." However, ignoring sustainability is not really an option. So states Blair Gifford in the book "A Simple Path to Sustainability: Green Business Strategies for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses". Needless to say, I totally agree. Well, in order to ...

"Everybody Should do Their Share" - The Long Road to Sustainability in Turkey

March 17, 2012

knowtheflow: Prof. Dr. Inci Gökmen, you offer a course named "Sustainable Living and Green Chemistry" at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara. Prof. Dr. Inci Gökmen: Yes, I just started, this semester. Does it provoke a positive response? Yes, I think so. First, I started with a discussion on the "limits to growth". I guess everybody knows that there are limits in this world. We w...

Post Growth Economy or Resource Efficiency Revolution – How Should We Face the Limits of Our Planet?

March 11, 2012 1 Comment

Economic growth is a means of producing wealth. No doubt about that. However, there are two central problems linked to this logic. First, the term "wealth" loses its meaning, when you exclusively apply it to financial abundance. Wealth, considered from a holistic viewpoint, does not only include the presence of money, but also other vital elements that help guarantee a certain quality of life, e.g...

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