The Truth About the Dragon: China's Future is Inevitably Green
April 3, 2013 1 CommentWhat if every person in India drove a car? What if all Chinese were to live in their own 3-bedroom house? At the sight of a prospering global economy, many people's trust in the future has been profoundly undermined, especially in the west. Unaware of the ethical paradox, this view grants a wasteful living standard only to the citizens of well-established economies. The old, bipolar world order kn...
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4 Pressing Questions on the Ozone Hole Recovery
November 16, 2012Two months ago, newspapers around the world happily reproduced a news headline from Reuters – the ozone hole was shrinking, it said, for the first time ever. The headline followed an announcement by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol, the historic agreement to ban ozone-destroying CFCs globally. How significant is the ozone layer recovery really? Do we have a reason to celebrate? Aren't the CFC-replacing HFCs still a cause for concern, since they don't destroy the ozone layer but do accelerate climate change? Can the Montreal P...
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Burn or Bury? Analyzing Waste Management Options in Detail
November 5, 2012 1 CommentReduce, Reuse, Recycle – the waste imperative is as clear as it can get. What's less clear, however, is what we should we do with the remaining stuff. Even the greenest society is, at a certain point, confronted with the unusable leftovers of consumption. What should happen to these? Treatment of the leftovers is a well discussed question and the answer relies on three big alternatives: incineration, dumping and composting. All three have pros and cons, some of which are apparent, others rather surprising. In this article, let me introduce you to a life cycle assessment (LCA) that analyzes th...
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“A Balanced Mix of Technologies and Strategies” - The Sustainable ...
October 16, 2012When it comes to discussing ways to limit human influence on global warming, the most popular reaction is to pass the buck: So who's in charge of making the needed substantial changes in the way things run? The Other. Why? Because they pollute more, because they're more powerful, because they have a historical responsibility, because it's easier for them... There seem to be more excuses for not acting than there are carbon dioxide molecules in the atmosphere. "Technology Will Save Us" Say Efficiency Advocates Even among those who are concerned with the environment and seek a way to increas...
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Why and How the Manufacturing Industry Should Go 100% Renewable N ...
August 13, 2012 4 CommentsRenewable energy has a positive connotation in society and business, that's for sure. The Fukushima incidents have led to a run on renewable energy suppliers by private households in large parts of the western world. But what does the situation look like for industry? Do manufacturing companies meet their responsibility for taking action when everyone related to the sustainability field calls for a transition to 100% renewable energy? Manufacturing accounts for one third of the world's energy consumption. In view of countries like Sweden, which aims for 50% renewable energy generation by 20...
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The OECD Turns Green - Why Saving the Planet Pays Off
April 9, 2012 1 CommentContinued 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's 34 richest countries came together. Under the catchy title "Making Green Growth Deliver", the OECD Environment Policy Committee (EPOC) evaluated the OECD Environmental Strategy, which was put on th...
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Avoiding the Relocation of Emissions - How to Face Carbon Leakage
April 1, 2012 1 CommentIn 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 the phenomenon of carbon leakage and will suggest ways to assess emissions in a more precise way. Many western and northern European countries can serve as examples of the above mentioned “carbon ...
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Carbon Neutral Cities (2) - 3 Ways to Assess a City's Emissions
October 14, 2011Two weeks ago, in part one of this article, we got an idea of the measures that are being taken to reduce urban carbon footprints. Claiming to reduce a city's emissions, one has to be aware of the importance of appropriate data. In this second part of the article, read how to measure and compare all the greenhouse gases being emitted in a city. Obviously, this is a complex issue. German arrhenius institute for energy and climate policy is going to publish a study on carbon assessment by the end of this year, comparing different frameworks. As a draft version, provided to knowtheflow, stress...
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Effectively Managing Greenhouse Gases – Worldwide
October 4, 2011 1 CommentBusiness Follows Nature! Do companies have a conscience to fight global warming? They should have, if we all want to limit the global mean temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, scientists emphasize the need for cutting of global carbon dioxide emissions to 85 percent below 2000 levels by 2050. The question is not how to influence nature anymore, as it has been for several decades. The question is now how to reduce our influence on nature in order to be less influenced by natural disasters. These disasters will automatically become stronger and stronger, th...
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Carbon Neutral Cities - Where? When? How?
October 3, 2011 1 CommentThe city of Seattle recently announced a new goal for 2050: Achieving complete carbon neutrality. What measures are taken? What other efforts are made globally, in order to achieve the objective of a 100% climate neutral city? In this article, I shed light on the initiatives towards a new, climate friendly urbanity. Seattle: 90% Greenhouse Gas Reduction in 2050 First of all, let's look at Seattle's definition of "carbon free". The city aims for a 90% reduction in greenhouse gases in 2050, compared to 2008 levels. Following a gradual approach to the timetable, we can expect a step by step red...
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Biomass Lagging Behind Prospering Wind and Solar Markets
September 1, 2011 6 CommentsThe newest Country Attractiveness Index for Renewable Energy, conducted by Ernst & Young, rates China the most attractive country for investments in renewable energy (71 points), followed by the USA (67). As reports Business Green, “little has changed at the top of the rankings since the previous quarter.” Four times a year, analyzed countries obtain a score of up to 100 points for their national renewable energy markets and infrastructures. 65% of the total score is provided by the separate wind energy index, 18% by solar and 17% by biomass and other energies. There has been little movem...
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Carbon Neutral Online Shopping – How Green are Mail Order Compani ...
August 29, 2012 7 Comments -
Only 16.7% of Global Energy Consumption Is Renewable – Ways for I ...
June 26, 2012 6 Comments -
Biomass Lagging Behind Prospering Wind and Solar Markets
September 1, 2011 6 Comments -
How Sustainable are Europe's 5 Million E-Cars in 2020? New LCA Gu ...
February 5, 2013 5 Comments -
10 Appropriate Indicators to Measure Green Growth in Industry
December 17, 2012 5 Comments
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5 Clear-Cut Economic Benefits of Sustainability Reporting
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How to Recycle Phosphorus, the Most Least-Known Scarce Resource
May 6, 2013 1 Comment -
ISO 14051-Based Material Flow Cost Accounting in a Nutshell
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Who's Happier – The Proactive Lohas or the Spontaneous Hedonist? ...
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The Truth About the Dragon: China's Future is Inevitably Green
April 3, 2013 1 Comment
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Thanks Moritz for the interesting blog post. Recently ARTE T ...
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A very nice blog explaining the basic idea as well as the be ...
May 3, 2013 -
[...] valued the universal guidelines for all sorts of envi ...
May 1, 2013 -
[...] 5-Fold Increase in Efficiency – Not Delusional at All ...
April 22, 2013 -
[...] Diese weiße Weste verträgt ruhig ein paar Kleckse Konz ...
April 21, 2013
