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  Green Ocean Hunters? The Environmental Effects of Fishing and Aqu ...

  September 5, 2012    1 Comment

  Shrimp farms destroy sensitive mangrove forest ecosystems, salmon escape from designated aquaculture spots and spread parasites, fish trawlers leave nothing but empty seas behind and even organic fish farming could be unsustainable due to dependence on fish meal from wild catch. When it comes to seafood, the message transmitted across mainstream media channels is devastating: there is simply nothing left we can eat responsibly, be it from the wild or aquaculture. Does that mean we all have to go vegetarian? Well, in many cases, the good news is that fish performs better than meat, when it come...

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  Carbon Neutral Online Shopping – How Green are Mail Order Compani ...

  August 29, 2012    7 Comments

  In the last 150 years, three major trends have changed the way humanity consumes. First, industrialization shifted production from self-sufficiency to consumerism. Second, ongoing economic development allowed local economies to expand across entire countries, which was followed by globalization and worldwide markets. Globalization started with colonial powers trading goods between continents and has not yet achieved its peak, even if it has been more than 30 years now since China opened its markets. The third important development marking a substantial shift in the way we consume is telephone ...

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  LCA, CF, MFCA? What to Expect From Umberto User Workshop Hamburg, ...

  August 20, 2012  

  Sustainability and efficiency: a couple of terms that couldn't be more misused and greenwashed. A pernicious conspiracy of PR and CSR departments around the globe has ridden these words down to mere meaninglessness. This is the setting in which a hero emerges from the ashes, a bright star who leaves the grey smog of empty words behind and does some straight talking. The makers and users of umberto, one of the most underestimated software tools in the professional sustainability universe, come together for a user workshop a month from now. In a concentrated time frame of two days (Sept 17+18, 2...

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  What's the Greenest 1 L Packaging? Two Powerful LCAs Give the Ans ...

  August 5, 2012  

  It was a month ago when I heard the surprising news that milk packaged in cartons has the best environmental performance as compared to other packaging materials. Do they, really? Aren't the reusable deposit bottles world famous for being green? Well, actually, milk bottles are white or brown, of course, but environment-wise their reputation is outstandingly green. In order to find some reliable information, I took the time to scan two comparative LCAs on beverage packaging, and guess what: the returnable glass bottle is far from being the best. LCA, for those who aren't familiar with the init...

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  Carbon Neutral World Cup? Green Stadiums? Really?

  July 24, 2012  

  Fancy pictures of green stadiums have been fast to hit the media since FIFA's decision to give the 2022 soccer World Cup to Qatar was published. FIFA also announced that Brazil (2014), Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022) will have to satisfy green building certificate requirements when putting up new stadiums. Looking at the carbon footprint of South Africa's 2010 World Cup, however, you learn that the stadiums only accounted for 1.1 percent of the event's carbon footprint (0.6% for construction and renovation, 0.5% for energy use during the event). Hence, it is clear that better stadium design wil...

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  The 8 Most Specific LinkedIn Groups for Industrial Ecology

  June 5, 2012  

  The social media marketing hype seems to be declining, whereas a seemingly infinite flood of mobile internet devices, smartphones and tablets conquer conference audiences and public places. What's left is a rising proportion of users who, rather than just share countless self portraits on facebook, turn the mobile technology to good account. If you form a part of the latter, or want to do so, and also work in an industry-related sustainability field, find the most relevant LinkedIn groups in this article. I bet my (old) netbook you'll find at least one useful group you haven't heard of! I am n...

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  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 be clear and precise, ignoring sustainability is of course an option, but it's a pretty silly one. Why? Because you miss enormous opportunities! As Wolfgang Wimmer, Kun-Mo Lee, Ferdinand Quella and Jo...

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  What is Carbon Footprinting and Why Does it Facilitate Effective ...

  February 18, 2012  

  Costs to the environment, generated throughout your company's production process, can be assessed in different ways, just as its financial costs can be. One of these methods, probably the most convenient and yet a still exact one, is the carbon footprint. The carbon footprint concentrates on one environmental impact factor only - this factor is the climate related emission, measured in one unit, kilogram CO2-equivalent. As I illustrated in my article on the parallels of carbon footprinting with cost accounting, there are several advantages in connection with the use of a single score method...

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  What Conclusions Can We Draw From Tesco Dropping its Carbon Footp ...

  February 4, 2012  

  A week ago, the Guardian published the news that the Tesco grocery store chain dropped its plan to put a carbon label on all of its products. I felt a little sorry for the carbon trust, but I wasn't surprised at all. Why? Because I didn't expect a true commitment to sustainability from Tesco in the first place. In this article, I tell you why, and I explain the possible conclusions you can draw from this. 1. Protected by Oligopoly, Supermarket Chains Will Never Foster Sustainability Like all the players in the oligopoly of the supermarket business, the Britain-based multinational grocery ret...

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  Getting it Straight: Exact Carbon Emissions From One Bottle of Wi ...

  January 8, 2012    5 Comments

  I bet you know how much carbon dioxide your car emits per kilometer. Maybe you are also well informed about the carbon reduction goals of the country where you live. But, when the working day is over, when you sit in a restaurant or relax at home with your partner or a friend by your side, deep in good conversation, when you start to enjoy life and when you open a delicious bottle of Spanish red wine – have you ever thought about its impact on the climate? Grupo ARCE has. The company derives its expertise from having calculated carbon footprints in the food sector and the electromechanical ...

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  How Traditional Cost Accounting Methods Resolve Carbon Footprint ...

  November 26, 2011    1 Comment

  Life cycle assessment (LCA), in simplified definition, is a task that uncovers all environmental effects a process or a product creates. It is a difficult task and one that is complex. Why is it so complex? Mainly, because the environment can be harmed in multiple ways and because emissions can have multiple levels of impact. A usual life cycle analysis focuses on six different goals or six ways in which the environment needs to be protected. To mention the most important ones: there is the greenhouse effect, the ozone hole, eutrophication, noise emission, human toxicity and eco toxicity. Incl...

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  Getting started … success factors for collaboration between Unive ...

  October 17, 2011  

  A typical situation: Let’s say his name is Michael, working for a medium sized production company, trained as an engineer and responsible for running the operation smoothly and efficient. Approximately 30% of his working time Michael uses for environment, health and safety issues, related to regulations and reporting. The company is facing challenges like high energy cost, rising cost for primary raw materials. Furthermore, a competitor provides carbon footprint information to the customer with the quotation. Michael is convinced that his operation is already very efficient, and he is also con...

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  Carbon Neutral Cities (2) - 3 Ways to Assess a City's Emissions

  October 14, 2011  

  Two 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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  What's What: Understanding the ISO 14000 Family Of Standards

  September 13, 2011    5 Comments

  Back in the year 1987, the International Organization for Standardization introduced a number of norms known as the ISO 9000 series. For the first time, there were internationally recognized quality management standards. The approach to these standards was voluntary. If you wanted the ISO 9000 certificate, you could obtain it by a third party. These quality management norms were later followed by various environmental standards that originated in the 1992 Rio conference, known as ISO 14000. As well as ISO 9000, ISO 14000 require an external verification by a third party, which is neither the o...