Archive for the ‘Green Tech’ Category
Instep Carbon & Sustainability Programme Brochure
Microsoft to Require Sustainability Reporting by Vendors
From PROCUREMENT LEADERS:
“Microsoft has announced that it will require its vendors to file annual sustainability reports.
“Starting in 2013, the software company will require a ‘cross section’ of its suppliers to provide reports on their adherence to the requirements listed in the existing Microsoft Vendor Code of Conduct.
“The new reporting mechanism will work alongside Microsoft’s existing auditing and assurance programmes, which include third-party monitoring of its contract hardware manufacturers. The reporting requirement will also drive sustainability improvements in Microsoft’s supply chain, according to the company.
“Microsoft said it will begin informing a dozen of its key vendors about the new reporting process in the coming months. Starting 2013, Microsoft will include a summary of information from the vendor reports in its annual Citizenship Report. Vendors also will be encouraged to make their reports public. The programme will continue to be evaluated in subsequent years to identify options to expand it and provide further visibility to shareholders.”
So, businesses of Singapore. Would you like to be a “key vendor” to Microsoft? I know I would. Start sustainability reporting now.
Have I mentioned I am a PC user? Ha!
EMA releases “Inaugural Singapore Energy Statistics”
The Energy Market Authority (EMA) today released the inaugural Singapore Energy Statistics (SES) report(1). The SES is an annual publication which provides an integrated one-stop compilation of Singapore’s key energy statistics (including supply, consumption, and prices) and trends in the electricity and gas sectors. This is part of EMA’s efforts to support the development of a dynamic energy sector.
Pictures from EMA:
More from Energy Market Authority.
Companies Get New Tools for Calculating Emissions
New York Times: In 2004 the World Resources Institute, a Washington-based environmental organization, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development released a final standard for Scope 1 and Scope 2. Scope 1 covers emissions from direct operations like running a factory. Scope 2 covers emissions from energy-related, indirect sources of emissions like the coal or natural gas burned to make the electricity that powers the lights at headquarters.
Scope 3 measures the emissions linked to the “value chain” of a company’s products as a whole. The life cycle emissions of individual products, including Scope 3 emissions, can be estimated using the second tool.
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Get in step with your organisation’s Carbon Footprint.
Top 5 Picks – Meanwhile in… News from around the world
Meanwhile in Germany, they have TOO MUCH WIND POWER!
From Grist: High winds — although not that high, only 15 mph — led to negative-price wind energy for nine hours on July 24, bringing Germany’s total to 31 hours of below-zero-cost energy this year.
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Meanwhile in Denmark, they have taxes on fatty foods
The Telegraph: Starting from this Saturday, Danes will pay an extra 30p on each pack of butter, 8p on a pack of crisps, and an extra 13p on a pound of mince, as a result of the tax.
The tax is expected to raise about 2.2bn Danish Krone (£140m), and cut consumption of saturated fat by close to 10pc, and butter consumption by 15pc.
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Meanwhile in New York, Zombies #occupywallstreet
TIME: Patrick Bruner, a spokesman for the group, says Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are being urged to dress in business wear with white faces and blood, and will march while eating monopoly money. He says financial workers should see them “reflecting the metaphor of their actions.”
Read the full story, and Full Coverage on Good
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Meanwhile in Japan, they’ve decided to continue killing whales. And New Zealand is not pleased.
CNA: “Japan’s decision is increasingly out of step with international opinion,” Foreign Minister Murray McCully said.
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Meanwhile in Singapore, only 1/3 of professionals clear their annual leave
Asia One: ‘The figures reflect that Singaporeans do not have a strong work-life balance,’ says Andrea Ross, Robert Walters’ managing director for Singapore and Malaysia. ‘Singapore is a fast-moving economy and to make the most of this, people tend to work longer hours so that they don’t miss out of any opportunities on the work front.’
ISO’s sustainability path from Earth Summit to Rio+20
From ISO:
ISO has just released a new brochure in preparation for the Rio+20 summit on sustainable development in 2012 on how voluntary ISO International Standards, developed through the strength of consensus among stakeholders from business, government and society, have provided tools for translating the global desire for a sustainable world expressed since the Earth Summit in 1992 into practical actions that achieve positive results.
The brochure provides a concise description of ISO and how it works, and concrete examples of achievements by the international community, who will be represented at Rio+20, working within the ISO system. The examples illustrate how ISO standards serve as tools in the three dimensions of sustainable development.
Examples include the following:
- In the environmental dimension, the ISO 14000 family of standards for environmental management which translates into action ISO’s commitment to support the objective of sustainable development discussed at the first Earth Summit
- The ISO 14064:2006 and ISO 14065:2007 standards which provide an internationally agreed framework for measuring greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and verifying claims made about them (Brief note: We provide ISO 14064 standard, and there is a grant for this for Singapore SME’s).
- More than 650 International Standards for the monitoring of such aspects as the quality of air, water, soil and nuclear radiation. These standards are tools for providing business and government with scientifically valid data on the environmental effects of economic activity. They may also be used as the technical basis for environmental regulations
- Other environment-related work includes standards for designing buildings, or retrofitting existing ones, for improved energy efficiency
- In the economic dimension, ISO standards provide solutions and achieve benefits for almost all sectors of activity, including agriculture, construction, mechanical engineering, manufacturing, distribution, transport, healthcare, information and communication technologies, food, water, the environment, energy, quality management, conformity assessment and services
- In the societal dimension, ISO standards help governments, civil society and the business world to translate societal aspirations, such as for social responsibility, health, and safe food and water, into concrete realizations. In so doing, they support the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.
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Read the brochure in it’s entirety [.pdf]
HDB announces Singapore’s first Solar Leasing Project in Punggol Eco Town
Who said Singapore can’t do renewable energy again?
Via Straits Times:
The Housing & Development Board (HDB) on Thursday announced that 45 blocks in Punggol will be fitted with solar panels in Singapore’s first solar leasing project, marking a milestone in the country’s fledgling solar industry.
Local solar manufacturer Sunseap Enterprises bagged the tender to design, finance and install the 2 MWp (mega-watt peak) solar system in Punggol Eco-Town.
HDB will foot 30 per cent of the start up costs at $3.28 million. The company will pay the rest of the cost, but will recover this over the next 20 years by selling the solar power generated from the solar panels to Pasir-Ris Punggol Town Council at a preferential rate not higher than the current electricity tariff.
HDB’s chief executive Cheong Koon Hean said yesterday that Punggol, as Singapore’s first eco-town, ‘is the ideal location for us to expand our solar PV (photovoltaic) installations through solar leasing’.
‘Serious’ Error Found in Carbon Savings for Biofuels
From The New York Times:
“The European Union is overestimating the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions achieved through reliance on biofuels as a result of a ’serious accounting error,’ according to a draft opinion by an influential committee of 19 scientists and academics.
“The European Environment Agency Scientific Committee writes that the role of energy from crops like biofuels in curbing warming gases should be measured by how much additional carbon dioxide such crops absorb beyond what would have been absorbed anyway by existing fields, forests and grasslands.
“Instead, the European Union has been ‘double counting’ some of the savings, according to the draft opinion, which was prepared by the committee in May and viewed this week by The International Herald Tribune and the New York Times.
“Farmers and fuel companies may no longer be able to use as wide a variety of crops to meet targets that were agreed upon three years ago to generate 10 percent of transportation fuel from renewable sources by 2020.
“In one example attributed to research by Mr. Tim Searchinger, a research scholar and lecturer at Princeton who has written extensively about accounting for emissions from biofuel, the committee wrote:
‘Clearing or cutting forests for bioenergy crops releases large stores of carbon into the atmosphere and may reduce ongoing carbon sequestration if the forest was otherwise still growing. Bioenergy crops will absorb carbon that offsets the emissions from their combustion, but it may take decades for this carbon absorption (which offsets emissions) to catch up to the lost carbon storage and forgone carbon sequestration of the forest.’
“The committee is not ruling out the use of biofuels, however, and in other examples it identified optimal sites for planting bioenergy crops, including former tropical forests now overrun by grasses that frequently catch on fire.”
Biofuels come in many forms. More than likely, they come from biofuel crops such as palm oil, corn, etc. Alternatively, like Veg Powered Systems in Ojai Valley, California, and Alpha Biofuels of Singapore, other biofuels are made from used vegetable oil.
The efficacy of biodiesel/biofuels aside, the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions achieved through reliance on biofuels doesn’t sound like a very complicated issue to begin with, but it seems that the EU has been taking some shortcuts on the whole due diligence thing. Carbon tax and all that cap and trade needs this to be cleared up before anyone signs up.
Where Can You Put Solar Panels? ANYWHERE [Infographic]
From Fast Company:
“They work when they’re cold, when there is no sun, and facing almost any direction. Perhaps it’s time to reconsider a few solar myths?
“If you’ve given any thought to the benefits of solar power, you’ve probably realised at least two things: You need to live in a sunny climate and, most importantly, you need to have your solar panels facing south. Without these things, the conventional wisdom goes, you’re not going to get much benefit from a solar array. A west-facing roof in Seattle? Forget about it.
“1 Block Off The Grid, dispels these notions by showing that solar power can work extraordinarily well in climates and conditions that aren’t necessarily optimum. The infographic is full of testimonials from people who live in cloudy or cold climates, noting that their solar panels are working perfectly well.”
The full infographic:
Maybe we ought to think more about how we can get high quality solar panels onto our roofs, installed by qualified engineers, maintained by educated and experienced technicians, and other controls to ensure that solar energy is adopted quicker in Singapore no?
