lockdown Archives - Zureli

Search for any green Service

Find green products from around the world in one place

Window cleaning

Singapore Safety Glass

M&S expands plastic-free refill offering as UK lockdown lifts

Posted on December 8, 2020 by dishanth

Customers visiting the retailer’s Two Rivers Shopping Centre Store in Staines will be able to choose from more than 50 lines of refillable products, including pasta, rice, cereal, confectionary and frozen fruit. Products will be housed in reusable dispensers and customers will be encouraged to bring their own reusable containers, or to use paper bags available in-store.

M&S first launched its ‘Fill Your Own’ offering on a trial basis in its Hedge End store in Southampton in the latter half of 2019. During the trial, 25 of the 44 lines outsold their pre-packaged counterparts. Across all 44 lines, more than 2,600kg of loose product was sold over a three-month period.

This success prompted the retailer to make the format a permanent offering in Hedge End, and to announce a broader rollout in March. Plans for additional stores were put on hold due to Covid-19 but have now been resumed, with new stores set to be added in 2021.

To make the offering Covid-19-safe, M&S has installed hand sanitisers near the refill stations. It has also chosen to post staff at the refill stations to help customers fill, weigh and pay safely. The business has revealed that four in ten refillable lines have outsold pre-packaged options in 2020 so far, in spite of the pandemic.

“As we continue testing and learning from Fill Your Own, it’s clear that demand for refillables remains strong; we know families particularly enjoy shopping the concept as a fun activity, so our new store in the popular Staines shopping centre is the ideal next location for Fill Your Own,” M&S Food’s director of food technology Paul Willgoss said.

“But most importantly, our customers care about the issue of plastic and this initiative is just one part of our plan to help them reduce, reuse and recycle – because we know our actions today will help to protect the planet tomorrow.”

Plastics strategy

M&S’s broader plastics packaging strategy – which is embedded in its Plan A for sustainability – is headlined by a 2022 ambition that packaging that could end up with customers will be “widely recycled”. As part of its aim, the retailer is planning to develop one recyclable plastic polymer for use across all of its plastic packaging and removing plastics from products such as clothing, cotton buds and coffee pods.

On reuse, M&S has plumped for individual incentive schemes rather than setting time-bound, numerical targets. It offers customers at all stores with cafes a 25p discount on hot drinks to go when they bring a reusable cup and offers free water refill stations at several stores. A more recent addition to its refill offering was the introduction of a 25p discount for customers bringing reusable containers for food-to-go from its Market Place counters. These can be found in 23 stores and offer both hot and cold lunch options.

Refill revolution

Given that only 9% of all plastic ever made has been recycled – and with 82% of UK shoppers now stating that the amount of plastic packaging produced by companies needs to be “drastically reduced” – M&S is not alone in expanding its investments in refill.

Waitrose & Partners’ ‘Unpacked’ scheme, launched last year, was so well-received by shoppers that it was rolled out ahead of schedule. This year saw Asda launch a similar offering at its store in Middleton, Leeds.

Amid initial lockdown restrictions in spring, many retailers were forced to close stores with refill or packaging-free offerings, including Lush and The Body Shop. Elsewhere on the high street, some supermarkets removed loose fruit and veg; some coffee shops stopped accepting refillable cups and some of City to Sea’s busiest Refill stations were closed or experienced a sharp drop in footfall.

The refill movement seems to be slowly but surely gaining traction once more – but efforts will need to scale dramatically if businesses are to rise to the scale of the global plastic pollution problem. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has calculated that just 2% of the products sold by the world’s biggest consumer goods firms this year came in reusable packaging.

By Sarah George

Source Edie

Back to work: How businesses can promote sustainable and socially-distanced commutes

Posted on May 13, 2020May 13, 2020 by dishanth

As people slowly return to work following the government’s announcement on Sunday, employers can encourage staff to embrace sustainable routes into work by launching cycle-to-work schemes, installing on-site facilities such as bike storage and showers, while working with local authorities to encourage better local walking and cycling infrastrucutre.

Business leaders could play a significant role in helping to tackle an expected uptick in road congestion and air pollution as commuters attempt to return to work while following explicit government advice to avoid public transport wherever possible.

In modest changes to the lockdown regime announced yesterday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that construction and manufacturing workers as well as other groups unable to work remotely should return to work from this week. But with the government still fearful of any uptick in the rate of coronavirus transmission, Johnson added that where possible workers should commute by car, foot, or bike in order to maintain social distancing measures critical to fighting spread of the coronavirus.

“We want it to be safe for you to get to work. So, you should avoid public transport if at all possible – because we must and will maintain social distancing, and capacity will therefore be limited,” Johnson said in pre-recorded address to the nation.

But an embrace of the car as the primary method of socially-distanced transportation for work or to travel to exercise destinations comes comes with its own host of environmental and health considerations. A sharp rise in people shunning public transport in favour of driving to work risks increasing carbon emissions and worsening air pollution – a factor that early research suggests may aggravate the coronavirus death rate – as well as increasing levels of congestion and traffic accident risks, especially as roads will also cater to a surge in the number of cyclists. The AA’s head of road policy Jack Cousens confirmed to BusinessGreen today that the group expects an increase in car, motorcycle, and bicycle usage as workers avoid public transport – a spike he said would prompt more traffic jams.

What is more, environmental and sustainable transport groups contend that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s endorsement of driving on Sunday was somewhat at odds with a historic £2bn emergency fund dedicated to short-term cycling and walking measures and infrastructure unveiled by the Secretary of Transport the day before. Johnson may have stressed that people should cycle and walk if possible, but for many commuters active transport is not yet a viable option.

Rachel White, head of policy at walking and cycling charity Sustrans, told BusinessGreen that the government’s encouragement of motoring to work and other destinations was a “concern” that was “out of kilter with the briefing the day before from the Secretary of State”.

A new £250m “emergency active travel fund” – unveiled by the Transport Secretary Grant Shapps in the government’s Saturday coronavirus briefing – is set to deliver pop-up bike lanes, wider pavements, safer junctions and cycle and bus-only corridors in England “within weeks”. The Department for Transport also said that it had fast-tracked statutory guidance that would allow councils to reallocate road space for cyclists and pedestrians, and announced that it had brought forward e-scooter trials planned for 2021 to next month in order to encourage a broader range of greener alternatives to public transport. The proposed investment, described as the largest ever boost for cycling and pedestrians, is the first stage of a £2bn investment commitment to boost active travel across the UK.

“The government is beginning to talk about cycling and walking in the same way that they talk about roads,” enthused White. “Roads often gets a huge funding settlement over five-year period and cycling and walking haven’t seen that long-term funding certainty for a long time.” She commended Shapps for the “ackowledgement that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to deliver lasting transformative change in the way we make short journeys in our towns and cities”.

Meanwhile, the government’s recently-unveiled five-year £27bn road funding programme is facing a legal challenge amid warnings that the scheme will undermine government commitments to tackling air pollution and achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

Roz Bulleid, interim policy director of Green Alliance, also pointed to the disconnect between the government’s two big bank holiday weekend announcements. “The government’s recent funding pledge indicates that it wants the public to embrace active travel,” she said. “But to make sure this happens, it must be at the heart of messages from the Prime Minister and others, not an afterthought.”

The promised space for walkers and cyclists must be delivered quickly, she argued, in order to convince commuters who are currently considering making the shift to cycling. Furthermore, Bulleid warned “the government should also be careful not to stigmatise public transport at this time: Increasing car use is not a long-term solution and will worsen the health problems associated with air pollution, as well as contributing to climate change”.

It remains to be seen whether the government will continue to promote both driving and cycling in tandem or back up its new funding programme with a longer term effort to curb car use. But in the meantime, businesses can and should take an active approach in encouraging employees to embrace commuting on foot or by bicycle, green groups told BusinessGreen.

Sustrans’ White pointed to three key ways business leaders can encourage employees that can cycle to work to do so. “Provide facilities, work with local authorities – contact them to get road layouts changed – and bring in other organisations to help with behaviour change,” she advised.

Cycle to work schemes, which give employees’ discounts on cycle equipment, are a good starting point for any corporate active transport strategy, White said, as is ensuring that offices are fitted with cyclist-friendly facilities, such as showers and secure on-site cycle parking. Proactive communication with local authorities is key to ensuring that the right cycle and foot infrastructure is in place for employees, she said, adding that groups like Sustrans can encourage employee behaviour change by delivering cycling and bike maintenance workshops, she added.

“All those things together will helpfully create an environment where it’s a natural choice to cycle where possible,” White said. “Not everyone will be able to, but it’s about minimising the turn to driving and preventing in the short-term more people driving than before because they are not taking public transport.”

Meanwhile, Darren Shirley, chief executive at the Campaign for Better Transport, said that “clear communication” between employers and staff on how to manage their commutes to work would be imperative as workplaces reopen over the coming weeks.

“Large employers should engage with their local authorities and transport operators before reopening their workplaces to high numbers of employees so as to ensure that their commuting needs can be managed against the local transport capacity and circumstances,” he said. “They should request that local authorities expand footpaths and cycleways connecting to their offices and sites to make the journey into work safer.” Free bike hire and storage should also be made available, he added, and large employees should also consider contracting socially-distanced bus services.

He also warned the government’s directive for people to avoid public transport carries a risk of causing “immeasurable and permanent damage to the public transport system leaving communities disconnected, and those on lower incomes, or who don’t drive, unable to get to work or access shops and services”. As such he argued that it was vital for the government to develop “a concrete plan for the later stages of recovery on how public transport will be renewed to allow people to continue to get to work safely and sustainably and to ensure there is still a transport industry after the pandemic”.

Commenting on the weekend’s new cycling and walking funding announcement, Nicholas Boyes Smith, executive director of urban housing research institute Create Streets, provided some pointers on what a longer-term strategy might look like for central, city, and local governments looking to break what he described as the “diabolical alliance” between cars and urban design. His suggested measures ranged from more bike lanes and on-street bike storage and the rapid legalisation of e-scooters, to free bike training sessions, cheaper off-peak commuter fares, and on-street trading for shops, restaurants and cafés.

“Good consequences can flow from awful situations,” Smith wrote. “For three generations, a diabolical alliance between cars in town centres and modernist architecture – I call it ‘traffic modernism’ – combined to make our human settlements less pleasant, less prosperous, and less popular. This can now change. And this should be the point of inflexion.”

However, as green groups today noted, such a transformation will only happen if governments, businesses, and commuters proactively pursue it. Alternatively, the coronavirus crisis risks throwing a lifeline to the polluting car-based commuter model that had appeared to be on the retreat.

Source: www.businessgreen.com

Pakistan’s ‘green stimulus’ scheme is a win-win for the environment and the unemployed

Posted on May 2, 2020August 12, 2020 by dishanth

Pakistan’s government are offering labourers, who are out of work due to the coronavirus lockdown, a chance to earn money by planting trees.
The project is part of Pakistan’s existing initiative to plant billions of trees to counter the effects of climate change.
Pakistan is badly affected by climate change, experiencing more than 150 extreme weather events between 1999 and 2018.

When construction worker Abdul Rahman lost his job to Pakistan’s coronavirus lockdown, his choices looked stark: resort to begging on the streets or let his family go hungry.

But the government has now given him a better option: Join tens of thousands of other out-of-work labourers in planting billions of trees across the country to deal with climate change threats.

Since Pakistan locked down starting March 23 to try to stem the spread of COVID-19, unemployed day labourers have been given new jobs as “jungle workers”, planting saplings as part of the country’s 10 Billion Tree Tsunami programme.

Such “green stimulus” efforts are an example of how funds that aim to help families and keep the economy running during pandemic shutdowns could also help nations prepare for the next big threat: climate change.

“Due to coronavirus, all the cities have shut down and there is no work. Most of us daily wagers couldn’t earn a living,” Rahman, a resident of Rawalpindi district in Punjab province, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

He now makes 500 rupees ($3) per day planting trees – about half of what he might have made on a good day, but enough to get by.

“All of us now have a way of earning daily wages again to feed our families,” he said.

The ambitious five-year tree-planting programme, which Prime Minister Imran Khan launched in 2018, aims to counter the rising temperatures, flooding, droughts and other extreme weather in the country that scientists link to climate change.

Workers can earn between 500 rupees and 800 rupees per day planting trees. Image: Shahid Rashid Awan, Project Director (Punjab)

Big Risks

The Global Climate Risk Index 2020, issued by think tank Germanwatch, ranked Pakistan fifth on a list of countries most affected by planetary heating over the last two decades – even though the South Asian nation contributes only a fraction of global greenhouse gases.

As the coronavirus pandemic struck Pakistan, the 10 Billion Trees campaign initially was halted as part of social distancing orders put in place to slow the spread of the virus, which has infected over 13,900 people in Pakistan, according to a Reuters tally.

But earlier this month, the prime minister granted an exemption to allow the forestry agency to restart the programme and create more than 63,600 jobs, according to government officials.

While much of the country is still observing stay-at-home orders, local police and district authorities have been told trucks carrying trees should be allowed to travel and villagers permitted to leave their homes to work with the project.

A recent assessment by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics found that, due to the lockdown, up to 19 million people could be laid off, almost 70% of them in the Punjab province.

Abdul Muqeet Khan, chief conservator of forests for Rawalpindi district, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the planting project is in “full swing”.

Much of the work is happening on 15,000 acres (6,000 hectares) of land near the capital Islamabad, he said, as well as on other tracts of state-owned forest land around the country.

This year the programme is employing triple the number of workers it did in its first year, said Malik Amin Aslam, climate change advisor to the prime minister.

Many of the new jobs are being created in rural areas, he said, with a focus on hiring women and unemployed daily workers – mainly young people – who were migrating home from locked-down cities.

The work, which pays between 500 rupees and 800 rupees per day, includes setting up nurseries, planting saplings, and serving as forest protection guards or forest firefighters, he said.

All the workers have been told to wear masks and maintain the mandated two metres (six feet) of social distance between them, he added.

“This tragic crisis provided an opportunity and we grabbed it,” Aslam told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview.

“Nurturing nature has come to the economic rescue of thousands of people.”

A recent assessment found that up to 19 million people could be laid off because of the coronavirus lockdown. Image: Shahid Rashid Awan, Project Director (Punjab)

Extended Help

According to Germanwatch, Pakistan reported more than 150 extreme weather events between 1999 and 2018 – from floods to heat waves – with total losses of $3.8 billion.

Environmentalists have long pushed reforestation as a way to help, saying forests help prevent flooding, stabilise rainfall, provide cool spaces, absorb heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions and protect biodiversity.

According to green group WWF, Pakistan is a “forest poor” country where trees cover less than 6% of the total area.

Every year thousands of hectares of forest are destroyed, mainly as a result of unsustainable logging and clearing land for small-scale farming, the group said on its website.

With 7.5 billion rupees ($46 million) in funding, the 10 Billion Trees project aims to scale up the success of an earlier Billion Tree Tsunami in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where the government has been planting trees since 2014.

About 30 million indigenous saplings have been planted in Punjab since the start of the 10 Billion Tree Tsunami – including mulberry, acacia and moringa – said Shahid Rashid Awan, project director for Punjab province.

This year, the project hopes to hit 50 million trees, he said.

Planting season usually ends in May, Awan noted, but programme organisers plan to extend the initiative to the end of June, to keep workers employed for longer.

“We can absorb all the unemployed labourers and workers who have fled the cities and returned to their villages in the past few weeks. This is unskilled work,” he said.

Recovering with Dignity

Rab Nawaz, of WWF-Pakistan, said the government’s move is “a very good idea to create green jobs and get people employed.”

But he cautioned that planting trees is just one tool in the fight against climate change, saying there also needed to be investment in improving the ability of farmers and city dwellers to adapt to the effects of a hotter planet.

“The government should be very selective on how it spends money, and focus on resilience,” he urged.

For Aslam, the green jobs initiative is a way to help Pakistan’s workers recover from the coronavirus crisis “with dignity and avoiding handouts”.

“This has taught us the valuable lesson that when you invest in nature it not only pays you back, but also rescues you in a stressed economic situation,” he said.

Written by

Rina Saeed Khan, Writer, Thomson Reuters Foundation

This article is published in collaboration with Thomson Reuters Foundation trust.org.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

This is the effect coronavirus has had on air pollution all across the world

Posted on April 28, 2020July 27, 2020 by dishanth

The coronavirus pandemic has lead to an increase in air quality all around the world. Lockdowns have resulted in factories and roads shutting, thus reducing emissions.
These 11 visualizations, using data from NASA’s Global Modeling and Data Assimilation team, show the dramatic impact lockdown measures have had on pollution levels.

To contain the coronavirus pandemic, billions of people have been told to stay at home. In China, authorities placed almost half a billion people under lockdown, the equivalent of nearly 7% of the world’s population. Many other countries have since taken similar measures, initially in hard-hit Italy and Spain, and more recently in the United States and India.

The restrictions have sent financial markets into free fall. But they have also given residents in some of the world’s most polluted cities something they have not experienced in years: clean air.

Reuters visualisations, based on data from NASA’s Global Modeling and Data Assimilation team, show how concentrations of some pollutants fell drastically after the lockdowns started.

Satellite observations record information on aerosols in the atmosphere. NASA’s model is then able to provide estimates of the distribution of these pollutants close to the Earth’s surface.

China

The maps below show how levels of PM2.5 nitrate fell in China’s Hubei province after the government imposed travel restrictions. Nitrate is one of the components that make up PM2.5, tiny particles, about 3% of the diameter of human hair, that can penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream, leading to heart disease, strokes or cancer.

Nitrate aerosols are formed from nitrogen compounds, which can be emitted by human activities, especially burning fuel and diesel.

“We may soon learn how much of an impact this temporary pause in pollution has had on human health and the environment, but the clearest takeaway from this event is how satellite measurements of nitrogen compounds can be used as an indicator of economic activity,” said Ryan Stauffer, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Ground station metrics from Wuhan, where the pandemic originated, show how certain pollutants including nitrogen dioxide were at record lows during the first few months of the year.

Some of the major sources of nitrogen dioxide are vehicle exhausts, power plants and wastewater treatment plants.

Scientists say nitrogen dioxide pollution has been steadily decreasing over the last few years. However, the lockdown may have contributed to this year’s drop.

The following charts show monthly averages of pollutants over the last seven years.

South Korea

In early March, South Korea reported a large increase in COVID-19 cases. Since then, ground stations have been measuring the lowest levels of some pollutants for seven years. Although South Korea did not impose major restrictions on residents, changes in daily activity could have contributed to the drop.

Italy

Similar patterns unfolded across Italy following the introduction of a nationwide lockdown on March 9. Restrictions had already been implemented in late February in some northern regions, where COVID-19 cases had surged.

The industrial belt across northern Italy often experiences high levels of air pollution, but estimates show otherwise this year.

Of the pollutants that fell most significantly in northern Italy, nitrogen dioxide stood out, according to data recorded at ground stations. Bergamo, one of the provinces most affected by the virus, has experienced improvements in air quality.

India

Every winter, New Delhi and other big cities in the north are enveloped in a blanket of smog as farmers burn crop residue. The air tends to clear a little in spring.

However, in the first few months of this year, India experienced a significant decline in some pollutants. The lockdown imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the country’s 1.3 billion people could be a major contributing factor. However, there may also be other factors impacting air quality, according to Pallavi Pant, an air quality scientist at the Health Effects Institute in Boston.

“Air pollution levels are often influenced by local meteorology, like temperature or wind speed. Several early analyses are showing declines in air pollution in regions where shutdowns have taken place. However, any such analyses should consider all relevant factors.” Pallavi Pant told Reuters.

Ground stations in northern India also show a downward trend in overall PM2.5, according to data from local authorities.

Beyond improvements in outdoor air quality, scientists are also curious how lockdowns have affected indoor air quality, with millions of people staying at home for far longer than usual.

“As we continue to talk about improvements in outdoor air quality, people are spending a lot more time indoors and the exposure patterns for indoor air pollution might be different at this time too,” said Pant.

Written by

Marco Hernandez, Data Visualization Developer, Reuters Graphics

This article was published in collaboration with Reuters Graphics.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

These satellite photos show how COVID-19 lockdowns have impacted global emissions

Posted on March 25, 2020August 12, 2020 by dishanth

Quarantining and lockdowns have forced many countries’ industries to shut down, with many factories closing their doors.
Nitrogen dioxide emissions are a major air pollutant, and are closely linked to factory output and vehicles on the roads.
NO₂ emissions can be a good indicator of global economic activity—and the changes are visible from space.

A dramatic decline.
Image: Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air

The Emissions Impact of Coronavirus Lockdowns

There’s a high chance you’re reading this while practicing social distancing, or while your corner of the world is under some type of advised or enforced lockdown.

While these are necessary measures to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, such economic interruption is unprecedented in many ways—resulting in some surprising side effects.

The Evidence is in NO₂ Emissions

Nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) emissions, a major air pollutant, are closely linked to factory output and vehicles operating on the road.

As both industry and transport come to a halt during this pandemic, NO₂ emissions can be a good indicator of global economic activity—and the changes are visible from space.

These images from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), as well as satellite footage from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), show a drastic decline in NO₂ emissions over recent months, particularly across Italy and China.

NO₂ Emissions Across Italy

In Italy, the number of active COVID-19 cases has surpassed China (including the death toll). Amid emergency actions to lock down the entire nation, everything from schools and shops, to restaurants and even some churches, are closed.

Italy is also an industrial hub, with the sector accounting for nearly 24% of GDP. With many Italians urged to work from home if possible, visible economic activity has dropped considerably.

This 10-day moving average animation (from January 1st—March 11th, 2020) of nitrogen dioxide emissions across Europe clearly demonstrates how the drop in Italy’s economic activity has impacted the environment.

Source: European Space Agency (ESA)

That’s not all: a drop in boat traffic also means that Venice’s canals are clear for the time being, as small fish have begun inhabiting the waterways again. Experts are cautious to note that this does not necessarily mean the water quality is better.

NO₂ Emissions Across China

The emissions changes above China are possibly even more obvious to the eye. China is the world’s most important manufacturing hub and a significant contributor to greenhouse gases globally. But in the month following Lunar New Year (a week-long festival in early February), satellite imagery painted a different picture.

With China slowly returning to work, this reduced consumption could rebound.
Image: CREA/WIND/Graphic: Jason Kwok, CNN

Back to the Status Quo?

In recent weeks, China has been able to flatten the curve of its total COVID-19 cases. As a result, the government is beginning to ease its restrictions—and it’s clear that social and economic activities are starting to pick back up in March.

With the regular chain of events beginning to resume, it remains to be seen whether NO₂ emissions will rebound right back to their pre-pandemic levels.

This bounce-back effect—which can sometimes reverse any overall drop in emissions—is [called] “revenge pollution”. And in China, it has precedent.

— Li Shuo, Senior climate policy advisor, Greenpeace East Asia

Written by

Iman Ghosh, , Visual Capitalist

This article is published in collaboration with Visual Capitalist.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.