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Why Are Eco-Conscious Corporations Interested in Remote Work?

Posted on by dishanth
Why Are Eco-Conscious Corporations Interested in Remote Work?

Why Are Eco-Conscious Corporations Interested in Remote Work?

Remote work has risen in popularity over the last few years and is maintaining its status for evolving reasons. Primarily, people are noting how it’s better for the environment. Eco-conscious corporations are jumping into remote work life to better align with their values.

Here are a few reasons why they’re interested in digitizing their workforces. Companies should consider several pros and cons when making the leap to remote work.

 

What Are Eco-Conscious Corporations?

Traditional corporations have various values and goals. They may prioritize making profits or expanding their consumer base to bolster success. Eco-conscious corporations also value those things, but these goals must operate within structures that minimize the company’s planetary impact.

Corporations stand to gain from becoming eco-friendly in many ways, and consumer base increases may be most influential in the decision to go remote. Research shows that 89% of consumers have made minor to complete sustainable lifestyle changes. They want brands that won’t compromise those values, opening a market sector businesses stand to gain from joining.

Is Remote Work Eco-Friendly? 8 Pros and Cons

Corporations that want to attract and retain sustainably minded consumers may become interested in remote work due to these benefits. However, they may also face a few challenges when making the green jump. Here are the most vital points to keep in mind.

Pro: It Eliminates Commuting Emissions

When people think about working a remote position, not dealing with a commute is likely the first thing that comes to mind. Logging on from home gives them hours of their free time back. It also means they don’t have to burn gasoline to drive every day.

Breathe London found that morning and evening emissions fell by 25% and 34%, respectively, when people began working from home. Eco-conscious corporations that let 50 people work from home full time eliminate 50 carbon emissions footprints weekly. The sum can significantly affect the planet, especially if the company has a sizable employee roster.

Con: Home Offices Require Individual Electricity

People need electricity to work from home. They must access Wi-Fi, turn on lights, and use their air conditioning or heating. All those things happen in one location when people work in a commercial office space.

Remote teams transitioning to online work see electricity usage multiply by however many living spaces become full-time home offices. Some workers may prefer to think of this as sustainable consumption because it limits a person’s environmental impact to only essential needs, minimizing their planetary effects. However, power becomes an issue when a company has many employees.

Pro: Digital Work Doesn’t Need Paper

Employees print things every day when they’re in a traditional office. They might need documents before a conference call, copies of a presentation or records in filing cabinets according to company filing policies.

Remote work doesn’t need paper. Everything happens through computers, so waste disappears overnight. Employees can keep their work lives entirely on their computers or use their preferred resources, like physical planners made with recycled paper.

Con: Remote Work Encourages More Water Usage

Offices always have numerous waterlines. They’re necessary for kitchen and bathroom sinks, plus lines to other appliances like refrigerators, dishwashers and coffee machines.

Virtual teams use water when working from home, too, but they might increase their water usage in additional ways. Remote workers can do dishes and laundry throughout the day instead of limiting those chores to a few times a week after work hours. It may mean using more water than before, increasing their dependency on the limited natural resource.

Pro: Workers Create Less Product Waste

Going to an office every day creates opportunities for single-use product waste. Employees may stop at a drive-thru for a single-use cup of coffee. The workplace kitchen might have free cutlery with individual plastic wrappers.

Those things aren’t a necessity for remote workers. They can make their coffee at home with reusable mugs and compostable filters. They’ll use their silverware to eat lunch and reusable containers for snacks.

The option to order food for delivery remains when people work at home. However, having immediate access to anything they could need in their kitchens makes remote workers less likely to purchase single-use products that go immediately into the garbage.

Con: Office Furniture Goes to Landfills

When a small business hires only remote workers when it launches, there’s nothing to lose. It’s different when an eco-conscious corporation becomes interested in remote work.

The company likely already has in-person office space in one or more locations. Transitioning to an entirely online workspace leaves those buildings empty. Trash-hauling teams may need to pick up unused furniture and electronics when the business moves out. It may go directly into landfills if the corporation’s leadership doesn’t have time to sell each piece individually.

Pro: Employees Can Make Their Food

Employees don’t always eat the food they bring to the office. They might forget there’s a company-sponsored lunch or free snacks for an upcoming holiday. By the time they get home, the food in their lunch box might not be edible anymore.

Free meals provided by corporations can also be too big for employees who dislike large lunches. Both scenarios result in wasting the natural resources required to prepare food. They contribute to the estimated 30%-40% of waste in the American food supply system, but they don’t have to be an unfortunate part of every worker’s life.

Remote employees can make exactly how much food they want and any kind they prefer while at home. They might even have groceries delivered to reduce impulse buys and eliminate another trip to town that burns gas. It’s another way remote work is eco-friendly and quickly becoming more popular with sustainably minded people.

Con: Home Office Upgrades Create Waste

People may upgrade their home office when they must spend 40 hours or more there weekly. The single-use plastics and styrofoam packaging that come with new furniture pollute landfills after the desks or chairs arrive at the purchaser’s home.

Construction waste could become a new issue as well. Someone may add a room to their house or renovate an existing space to create a home office. The excess waste caused by aerosol cans, unused drywall and leftover paint fills landfills, too. None of that is necessary for in-person work where optimized office spaces are already available.

 

 

The Future Is Remote and Eco-Friendly

There are numerous reasons why remote work is eco-friendly. It’s worth noting how it helps the planet and may create new environmental challenges. By understanding both, corporations and their team members can work together to make the least environmental impact when transitioning to fully remote schedules.

 

 

 

 

Source   Happy Eco News

Climate justice and human rights movements must go hand-in-hand

Posted on by dishanth
Climate justice and human rights movements must go hand-in-hand

Both the Paris Agreement and the advancements towards mandatory due diligence have the potential for a huge, transformational effect across our economy.

The climate justice and human rights movements have been on separate paths for far too long. Both have made considerable progress in the past decade, but if we are going to see the type of transformational change that our times require in either, the two must come together.

Recent advancements indicate that this is starting to take place.

The climate movement reached a watershed moment when the Paris Agreement entered into force in 2016. Over 196 governments around the world set targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, an unprecedented challenge of coordination and action.

They also sent a bold message to actors across all sectors – from finance and business, to civil society and philanthropy – that it was time for action.

 

For instance, a company’s failure to decarbonise could be seen as contributing to human rights and environmental violations under a mandatory due diligence regime.

 

Concurrently, the field of business and human rights rapidly accelerated in 2010 when the United Nations endorsed the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), a framework to prevent and address the risk of adverse impacts of business activities on human rights.

Governments have been encouraged to translate the UNGPs into national action plans or roadmaps. At the same time, demands on the corporate sector to implement human rights due diligence, a central component of the UNGPs, intensified.

Lawmakers saw an opportunity to recognise the expectation of due diligence behaviour on the part of companies, and governments started legal mandates, including the French Devoir de Vigilance law of 2017, the Dutch Child Labour Law of 2019.

Most recently, the European Parliament indicated through a large majority the likelihood of adopting an EU-wide mandatory due diligence law that would cover human rights and environmental issues.

Both the Paris Agreement and the advancements towards mandatory due diligence have the potential for a huge, transformational effect across our economy.

As governments and the private sector race to decarbonise and minimise their harmful greenhouse gas emissions, legal requirements on mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence are being instituted that can themselves spur this action through incentives and sanctions.

For instance, a company’s failure to decarbonise could be seen as contributing to human rights and environmental violations under a mandatory due diligence regime.

The researcher Chiara Macchi has termed this merger “climate due diligence” and argues it as an emerging notion requiring corporations to assess and address risk, as well as to integrate the climate change dimension into vigilance planning, corporate reporting, external communication and investment decisions.

This concept is being tested in real-time in France. Oil giant Total is being sued by French nonprofit and law firm Sherpa together with 14 French local authorities and four NGOs.

The suit alleges that Total’s failure to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in its operations is a violation of the French Devoir de Vigilance law, France’s seminal legislation that required a duty of care from French companies for human rights and environmental harms.

Sandra Cossart, Sherpa’s Director, said: “This law specifically obliges companies to prevent the risks of human rights and environmental violations caused by their activities, and to do so in an appropriate manner. Total is legally required to identify the risks resulting from its contribution to global warming and to take the necessary measures to reduce its emissions.”

(Editor’s note: After the lawsuit was filed in January last year, Total said it regretted the legal action taken, adding it was working in compliance with national legal standards. The case is ongoing.)

The same French law is also being applied to pursue broader climate justice and just transition issues by representatives of the community of Unión Hidalgo in Mexico. The civil lawsuit against Electricité de France (EDF)’s wind park project focuses on the non-compliance of EDF with its vigilance duties to respect human rights by seeking free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous Union Hidalgo community.

(Editor’s note: The EDF did not respond to a request for comment by the Thomson Reuters Foundation about the lawsuit).

The urgency of addressing the climate crisis is clear, and avenues to accelerate needed transformation in our economy are expanding, including through legal mechanisms like mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence.

If Europe moves to a standardised mandatory due diligence approach with a right of action, this could be an incredible tool to shift momentum on corporations in addressing their greenhouse gas emissions. Two distinct paths, the Paris Agreement and the UNGPs and the resulting momentum towards mandatory human rights due diligence, are indeed converging, and this couldn’t happen soon enough.

Amol Mehra is the Director of Industry Transformation at Laudes Foundation, while Ilan Vuddamalay is a Senior Programme Manager for Labour Rights.

This story was published with permission from Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women’s rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate.

 

 

Source Eco Business

Little difference reaches big goal, planting 100,000 trees and more

Posted on by dishanth
Little difference reaches big goal, planting 100,000 trees and more

When Pete and Sophie Oswald set up their company in 2016, the Blenheim couple had a goal to help plant 100,000 trees. Four years later, they’ve managed to exceed that.

Professional skier Pete and Sophie founded the gift card company, Little Difference in 2016.

For every greeting card or other product sold, a tree is planted in Madagascar – contributing towards permanent reforestation, and creating jobs for locals in the process.

Pete said to reach 100,000 trees planted through Little Difference sales was a “crazy thing”.

“The goal of 100,000 trees planted was a goal set ages ago, years ago even, so that’s really exciting,” he said.

Sophie said they wanted to start a business that was not only low-impact on the environment, but also beneficial to the world we live in.

 

Sophie Oswald plants a mangrove, a species known for storing carbon dioxide. Source: Stuff

 

“When you borrow someone else’s stuff, we think you should try to return it better than you found it. Well, this goes for Earth too, and we are only borrowing it from our children,” she said.

Most of the trees planted were native mangrove species, which were known for their high carbon sequestration, which meant they stored carbon dioxide or other forms of carbon to either mitigate or defer global warming.

Winter this year had also been busy for Pete, following the launch of a fundraiser in June where he vowed to plant one tree for every metre he climbed on the slopes as a free skier.

By August, he had already planted about 41,000 trees, having climbed 20,000 metres.

Donations had exceeded the amount of metres he had climbed, which was 30,668 metres.

Pete said with the ski season over, the final tree count for the fundraiser was 100,241 – which meant together with Little Difference, they had nearly planted 200,000 trees. This had created 1002 work days for locals.

 

Through sheer hard graft, Pete Oswald’s efforts helped to plant more than 100,000 trees. Source: Stuff

 

“It was amazing that people were willing to make donations and plant trees in a place that’s a world away, this couldn’t have been done without others help,” he said.

“So thank you massively to people that have supported it.”

The focus now was on Christmas, and selling as many gift cards as possible in order to plant more trees.

“It’s business as usual over there [Madagascar], they’re planting millions of trees each a month, and they’ve planted all our trees too.”

Pete said the pair had a new goal of one million trees.

 

 

By Maria Hart

Source Stuff

Samsung’s financial affiliates declare end to coal investments

Posted on by dishanth
Samsung’s financial affiliates declare end to coal investments

Samsung’s financial affiliates have declared an end to new coal-related investments amid growing criticism from environmental groups.

In a joint statement released Thursday, the affiliates said that they would phase out coal-related investments. This is the first time for a collective statement to be issued by the chaebol’s financial units indicating an end to their investments in coal-related projects

Samsung has two insurance units ― Samsung Life and Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance ― which had been singled out by environmental groups as having invested the largest amount in local coal-fired power plants. Other financial affiliates are Samsung’s brokerage, asset management unit and card firm.

Samsung Life, which had decided to stop such investments in 2018, said the affiliates will draw up ESG management strategies, which will be finalized at a board meeting in December.

The insurance units stated that they will not invest in bonds issued for the construction of coal-fired power plants. The non-life insurance affiliate specified that it will not underwrite risks in the construction of such power plants.

Samsung’s financial units stated they will expand their environmentally-friendly investments such as in renewable energy and electric cars.

The collective move came as environmental organizations both here and abroad have been pressuring Samsung, vowing to boycott Samsung Electronics’ products.

As Samsung group has no control tower, each of the affiliates were responsible for coming up with their own ESG policies to better protect the environment, carry out social responsibilities and improve corporate governance.

In a related move, Samsung Electronics stated last month, when it released its third quarter earnings, that it would expand ESG investments to boost sustainable management.

The group’s construction arm Samsung C&T stated it would abandon coal investments and pledged to become a leader in ESG management.

Environmental groups welcomed the latest pledge, but noted it is important how an action plan will be drawn up, and what Samsung will do with other units’ coal-related investments.

“While the policy is a major step forward, the devil is in the details. What remains to be seen is how they implement the decision and close loopholes, namely with ongoing projects,” Korea Federation for Environmental Movements coordinator Lee Ji-eon said.

The insurance units have provided financing for a coal-fired power plant in Samcheok, Gangwon Province, which is under construction; while Samsung C&T is building a 3.78 trillion won power plant in Gangneung, also in Gangwon.

Solutions for our Climate’s Korea chapter head Kim Joo-jin said, “Samsung’s contribution to the climate crisis is still large, with many of Samsung’s affiliate are still involved in the financing of operating coal-fired power plants. Samsung Heavy Industries is a leader in the global oil and gas industry as well.”

 

 

By: Kim Bo-eun

Source: Korea Times

How Singapore’s biggest supermarket player plans to unpack the packaging waste issue

Posted on by dishanth
How Singapore’s biggest supermarket player plans to unpack the packaging waste issue

In 2018, an investigation by news outlet The Guardian found that Britain’s leading supermarkets generated about 800,000 tonnes of plastic packaging waste each year.

How much plastic and other packaging waste do supermarkets in Singapore—with a population of about 5.7 million, compared to Britain’s 66.5 million—generate?

The picture could become clearer when mandatory packaging reporting begins next year. Companies such as brand owners, importers and large retailers including supermarkets will have to collect data on the types and amounts of packaging that they place on the market.

This is the first step towards an extended producer responsibility (EPR) framework for packaging waste that the Singapore aims to roll out by 2025. It will require companies to take responsibility for the life cycle of packaging they produce.

The country’s largest supermarket chain has started preparing for mandatory packaging reporting. FairPrice Group has set up a team that is able to work with suppliers to gather the necessary information, and recently received the template for reporting from Singapore’s National Environment Agency, said its group chief executive Seah Kian Peng.

 

Tackling packaging waste earlier in the production process is a beneficial approach since it also helps the company to potentially save costs.

Seah Kian Peng, group chief executive, FairPrice Group

 

FairPrice believes the EPR framework will encourage businesses to rethink the design of their packaging, he said.

“Tackling packaging waste earlier in the production process is a beneficial approach since it also helps the company to potentially save costs,” said Seah. “Nonetheless, given the current economic circumstances due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we recognise also there might be inertia and apprehension to move out of the existing systems and infrastructure setups. Industry players, government agencies and the public will have to come together to collectively address these pertinent issues.”

FairPrice already collects some data. According to its 2019 sustainability report, it engaged waste contractors to recycle key material waste that included about 12,500 tonnes of cartons, 52 tonnes of Styrofoam boxes and 46 tonnes of stretch film.

 

Food safety and quality

While the figures may dismay zero-packaging advocates, others will note that packaging enables greater access to food by enabling it to be transported, intact, to different customers. Packaging also extends the shelf life of food, which reduces food waste and the significant amounts of water, land and other resources needed to produce the wheat, rice, vegetables and meat that people eat.

Food safety and quality is of “paramount importance” to FairPrice, said Seah.

“A variety of packaging including cling wrap, foam nets, trays, and bags is used to ensure consistency, minimise damage and preserve the quality of the product, particularly for fresh produce such as leafy vegetables and corn,” he said. “This means that we are able to prevent food wastage by lengthening the shelf life of these fresh produce.”

Vegetables are wrapped in bags to minimise mishandling and delicate fruits like mangoes and strawberries are packed in boxes to prevent bruising, he said.

Fresh produce sold by FairPrice are mainly pre-packed by suppliers before they arrive at stores, Seah added. Stores may, however, also use their own packaging to wrap pre-cut fruits and vegetables. At times, they have to re-pack some produce to replace damaged packaging or cut the risk of cross-contamination.

 

We are constantly on the lookout to explore ways to reduce packaging waste while ensuring product safety and quality.

Seah Kian Peng, group chief executive, FairPrice Group

 

Solutions to waste and pollution needed

The growing heaps of packaging waste and plastic pollution worldwide, however, mean that better solutions are urgently needed. Environmentally-conscious entrepreneurs around the world have introduced zero-waste or packaging-free grocery stores and many are on an expansion path, although they are still much smaller in scale than supermarkets in general. Some activists are also championing plastic-free supermarket aisles.

Meanwhile, major consumer goods manufacturers, which have been named as some of the world’s biggest ocean polluters, are introducing recyclable packaging or using alternatives to plastic. Critics, however, say they are not addressing the root causes of the plastic pandemic.

Singapore generated 930,000 tonnes of plastic waste in 2019, of which only 4 per cent was recycled. Of that amount, only 7 per cent was processed locally, while the rest was sent overseas.

The government, which encourages businesses to rethink production processes and eliminate unnecessary packaging, has plans to boost its plastic recycling capabilities and close the plastics loop.

 

‘No plastic bag’ pilot has been ‘encouraging’

What about plastic bags, a subject of heated public debate for more than a decade now?

Singapore has not followed in the footsteps of Thailand and more than 120 countries that have regulated the use of plastic bags in some way. However, analysts have also noted that despite curbs, plastic pollution remains a problem. This is because of uneven policies, loopholes, and other reasons. The World Resources Institute noted in a blog post last year that most countries fail to regulate plastic through its life cycle, and virtually none restricts the manufacture of plastic bags, of which an estimated five trillion are produced a year.

On its part, FairPrice launched a “no plastic bag” initiative last September, expanding it two months later to 25 of its 230 supermarkets and convenience stores for a year. Customers at those outlets are charged S$0.10 or S$0.20 for plastic bags. Asked about the outcome of the trial, Seah said results have been “encouraging” and FairPrice will announce an update later this year when it finishes assessing the pilot initiative.

He added that FairPrice works with the government, customers and civil society groups to reduce single-use plastics, and advocates the use of reusable shopping bags.

“We are constantly on the lookout to explore ways to reduce packaging waste while ensuring product safety and quality,” he said.

Eco-Business, with the support of FairPrice Group, will be organising Packaging waste: A circular future, or talking in circles? on 19 October 2020 from 3 to 4.30pm. Tune in to the live-streamed dialogue on our Facebook page.

 

 

Source: Eco Business

L’Oreal launches make-up recycling across UK shops

Posted on by dishanth
L’Oreal launches make-up recycling across UK shops

Its Maybelline brand and recycling firm TerraCycle will install the recycling points in branches of Tesco, Boots, Sainsbury’s and Superdrug.

L’Oreal’s UK boss said the firm wants to “lead the way” in creating beauty recycling habits.

But Greenpeace said without reducing single-use plastic production, firms “cannot claim they are doing enough”.

From Thursday, consumers can drop off empty make-up products from any brand at the recycling bins in participating Tesco and Superdrug stores, which can be found online.

Boots and Sainsbury’s will follow at the end of September.

Compacts, eyeshadow palettes, foundation or concealer tubes, mascara, eyeliner and lip products will be accepted, although make-up brushes, nail polish and aerosols will not.

The used items will be collected from the shops, sorted, cleaned and recycled into plastic pellets, which can be used to make other products, such as outdoor furniture.

Chains such as The Body Shop and skincare specialist Kiehl’s – also owned by L’Oreal – already offer customers rewards for returning empty products to stores to be recycled.

Vismay Sharma, country manager of L’Oreal UK and Ireland, told the BBC that the firm had the “ability to make impact at real scale”.

Nearly half of make-up wearers did not know that recycling beauty products was possible, according to a recent survey of more than 1,000 consumers by Maybelline.

Asked what differentiates Maybelline and TerraCycle’s new “Make-up Not Make Waste” scheme from other similar ones, Stephen Clarke, head of communications at TerraCycle, said that the number of stores participating meant it would be easier for consumers to recycle their beauty buys.

He also said the firm can recycle mixed materials, such as compacts with mirrors, as well as beauty items with pumps and triggers, which local councils won’t necessarily do.

 

‘Damaging our planet’

However, environmental campaign group Greenpeace said that “recycling will only ever get us so far”.

Will McCallum, head of oceans at Greenpeace UK, said: “Given the almost daily torrent of research revealing the extent to which plastic pollution is damaging our planet, it’s frustrating to see a major plastic producer like the make-up industry fail to commit to reduce its overall plastic footprint.

“Without action plans to move towards reusable packaging and reduce single-use plastic production, companies cannot claim they are doing enough.”

More than 120 billion units of packaging are produced globally every year by the cosmetics industry alone, according to the Zero Waste Week campaign.

L’Oreal told the BBC that its global consumption of plastic totalled 137,000 tonnes in 2019.

The cosmetics firm has pledged that 100% of its plastic packaging will be refillable, reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.

Mr Sharma also said that the firm was dedicating €50m (£45.4m) to investing in recycling or plastic waste-related projects.

 

 

By Lora Jones Business reporter, BBC News

Source: BBC

World’s First Plant-Based Running Shoes- by Reebok

Posted on by dishanth
World’s First Plant-Based Running Shoes- by Reebok

Reebok introduces running shoes made entirely of plant-based materials.

Running is one of those sports that are so easy to practice. All you need is a pair of great shoes, light reflecting outfit (safety first!) and off you go. No memberships, no special equipment- just the track, your shoes and you!

 

 

The statistics clearly support this. Running shoes dominate the athletic shoe market, and for a good reason. As more and more people discover the wonders of this sport, the demand increases quite a bit. Since runners should ideally change their running shoes after 300-350 miles, this could easily mean a new pair every year.

When Adidas introduced their recyclable running shoe, I was super excited. It was entirely made of reusable materials, that could be polished up, modified and made into a new shoe. I loved the idea! I mean, who would not want a shoe that lives forever!

Now, however, the competition is on! Here is the new kid on the block that gives Adidas a good run for their money. Meet the Forever Floatride GROW. The new running shoe by Reebok, which is made entirely out of plant-based materials.

The new shoe contains zero plastics. The components of it include castor beans, eucalyptus tree, bloom algae, and natural rubber. All this with absolutely no compromise regarding performance or durability.

Funny thing about runners is that they are all-pro protecting the environment, and advocate this loudly. However, they are not willing to sacrifice comfort, fit and performance levels, just because the shoe has a sustainable aspect to it. This is also why designing the shoes took Reebok roughly three years, but it was all worth it.

Reebok managed to achieve exactly what they set themselves to do. A new, sustainable shoe, which is comfortable, durable, eco-friendly and brings that extra reason to make you want to hit the running track.

Forever Floatride GROW should be available in all sports stores sometime in 2020. I am definitely looking forward to these ones!

 

 

By Mila Luleva

Source: www.greenoptimistic.com

Wetlands not Wastelands: Coca-Cola and Earthwatch announce a $600k partnership to tackle marine pollution in remote Australia

Posted on by dishanth
Wetlands not Wastelands: Coca-Cola and Earthwatch announce a $600k partnership to tackle marine pollution in remote Australia

The Coca-Cola Australia Foundation (CCAF) and Earthwatch Australia have announced a $600,000 partnership to deliver a first-of-its-kind marine pollution and wetland management program in the Lower Gulf of Carpentaria.

Together with Carpentaria Land Council Aboriginal Corporation (CLCAC) and recycling experts Plastic Collective, Earthwatch will train 20 CLCAC Indigenous Land and Environment Rangers and 30 community volunteers to help deliver the ‘Wetlands not Wastelands’ program over the next three years.

Malcolm Hudson, Chair of the CCAF, said the program was a stand-out in the Foundation’s competitive grant process to address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14 ‘Life Below Water’.

“Driven by science and delivered by the local community, this program will trial a sustainable, community-based solution to managing and recycling marine pollution in remote regions. Once this model is proven, it could potentially be replicated in many other regional and remote locations in Australia and around the world.”

Pollution is a key threat to the vast wetland system of the Lower Gulf of Carpentaria, which has little to no recycling infrastructure and has been hotspot for seasonal tourism. The area is also home to thousands of unique species including dugongs, sea turtles, migratory shorebirds and important mangrove and salt marsh wetlands that play a significant role in sequestering carbon.

Cassandra Nichols, CEO of Earthwatch Australia, said the community-led program will help reduce marine pollution risks, as well as recover and upcycle plastic waste into valuable products, creating an economic opportunity for the community.

“Thanks to this generous grant from the Coca-Cola Australia Foundation, ‘Wetlands not Wastelands’ will come to life and allow us to work directly with the CLCAC Rangers to develop a marine pollution management plan and a report card for future action to conserve this region’s precious habitat.

“We will also be able to introduce two Plastic Collective Shruders, or plastic recycling machines, into the communities of Burketown and Normanton. The Rangers will be trained in how to use the Shruders as well as how to turn plastic waste into valuable commercial products, creating a social enterprise that further supports the local community.”

The program will span hundreds of kilometres of the expansive Gulf region, from the Northern Territory border in the west, to the Staaten River on Cape York in the east. The program will also enlist the support of 30 local volunteers who will be virtually trained in citizen science methods to increase the scale of the program.

Murrandoo Yanner, CLCAC Director and Traditional Owner, said the project presents an exciting opportunity for the local community.

 

 

Source: 

Woolworths further reduces plastic packaging and reaffirms its commitment to a greener future

Posted on by dishanth
Woolworths further reduces plastic packaging and reaffirms its commitment to a greener future

Amidst COVID-19, 70% of Australians are continuing to rank taking care of the planet and making sustainable choices as important to them, according to research revealed by Woolworths Group for World Environment Day.

To make it easier for customers to continue embracing a greener future, Woolworths has introduced a number of initiatives to further reduce plastic across a wider range of fruit and vegetables, including bananas, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, broccolini, sweet potatoes & organic apples.

By moving out of plastic clamshell and into adhesive tape for bananas, replacing rigid plastic trays with pulp fibre on tomatoes, moving to a paper tag on broccolini and reducing plastic film by 30% in weight on carrots and potatoes, Woolworths has removed a further 237 tonnes of plastic packaging in the last year.

The tray Woolworths uses for its sweet potatoes and organic apples is now made of recycled cardboard, rather than plastic.

Woolworths has also commenced a trial of where it will switch plastic packaging in its popular Fresh Food Kids range of apples, pears and bananas to easy-to-recycle cardboard boxes.

Woolworths Group CEO Brad Banducci said; “Something that was very surprising during COVID was the continued relevance of the environment, with 70% of Australians saying that taking care of the planet and making sustainable choices remained important to them, even at the height of the crisis.

“This is something that we’re equally passionate about and Woolworths remains as committed as ever to creating a greener future.

“While we’ve made pleasing progress in reducing the amount of plastic in our stores, supported recycling labelling initiatives, and made improvements in energy efficiency, sustainable sourcing and reducing food waste, we know there is still much more to be done to meet our customers and our own aspirations.”

Since Woolworths removed single-use plastic bags in 2018, more than 6 billion bags have been taken out of circulation. Earlier this week, Woolworths also started to offer paper shopping bags, made out of 70% recycled paper, for customers to purchase to carry their shopping home in.

In the past year, approx 10,600 shopping trolleys worth of soft plastics have been recycled through its in-store RedCycle program. Woolworths also removed a total of 890 tonnes of plastic from its fruit, vegetables and bakery ranges over the past two years.

100% of Woolworths stores now have food waste diversion partners in place and in the last year alone, the supermarket has diverted over 33,000 tonnes of food waste from landfill to our food relief partners or donated to farmers as feed stock.

 

 

Source: 

Using Artificial Intelligence to track ocean plastic

Posted on by dishanth
Using Artificial Intelligence to track ocean plastic

There’s so much plastic in the ocean that sometimes it seems like humans will never be able to tackle it all. Apparently, there are some scientific researchers who feel the same way about humans — so instead, they are using satellites and artificial intelligence to detect ocean plastic.

Earth observation scientists from the UK’s Plymouth Marine Laboratory call their project the first successful study using satellites to detect patches of plastic pollution in the ocean. To conduct the study, which was published in the journal Scientific Reports, the scientists looked at optical data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite fleet.

The satellites were programmed to detect plastic particles larger than 5mm (macroplastics) and distinguish these patches of plastic debris from natural floating objects (like seaweed or driftwood); on average, there was a 86 percent accuracy rate. The researchers used four coastal case study sites: Canada’s Gulf Islands, the east coast of Scotland, the coastal waters off Ghana, and the coastal waters off Da Nang, Vietnam.

Generally, pieces of ocean plastic are too small for satellites to detect from far away — so how did the Plymouth Marine Laboratory team pull this off? They did so by using the satellites to detect plastic’s reflected light signature in the water rather than the plastic itself.

“You’re never going to see an individual plastic bottle floating on the sea, but we can detect aggregations of this material,” author Dr. Lauren Biermann told BBC News ahead of the study being published.

“Vegetation has a good signature that we can look for, whereas plastic has a different signature,” Biermann explained to the news outlet. “So, we can start to un-mix the pixel and say, ‘Right, how much of this pixel that I’ve detected that is nice and bright in my new floating debris index — how much of it seems to be plant material, and how much seems not to be plant material?’”

So, what will the Plymouth team do with this research? Moving forward, they have three steps planned. First, they will work on automating the manual steps for detecting and classifying plastic using the Sentinel-2. Second, they will work on making the detection algorithms more reliable in water with higher turbidity (cloudiness), where it’s harder to visually detect floating objects. And third, they plan to optimize their overall approach to satellite plastics detection, which they will do by gathering data from large rivers, tidal areas, and turbid areas.

Additionally, the researchers believe that their methods can be reproduced using various other remote sensing platforms that are similar to the Sentinel-2, such as drones.

 

Plastic pollution is a huge issue.

“Plastic pollution is a global issue,” Dr. Biermann said in a statement on Plymouth Marine Laboratory’s website. “This method will hopefully provide a stepping stone for satellites and drones to be used to tackle the marine plastics problem at the end of the product lifecycle. However, we will only ever make meaningful progress if we also tackle the source and reduce the amount of plastics produced.”

 

How many million tons of plastic are dumped in oceans every year?

Scientists estimate that a whopping 8 million tons of plastic pollution enter our oceans every year. In addition to efforts to detect and remove plastic from the ocean, humans seriously need to work on reducing our reliance on single-use plastics and therefore how much plastic enters and pollutes our oceans.

Scientists Are Using Artificial Intelligence to Detect Ocean Plastic [Green Matters]

 

 

Source: https://www.coolbusinessideas.com/

By Min Tang