Posts Tagged ‘consumption’
Exchange for Change: Ethical Sustainable Fashion
Posted in Events, Models by Kate Archdeacon on June 25th, 2010
Oxfam Australia and CarriageWorks presents Exchange for Change: The festival for a fashionable world without poverty
The latest kicks, those perfect fitting jeans, that jaw-dropping dress. We all have fashion cravings. But often our fashion sense has a flow-on effect that we don’t get to see. What are our clothes made of? Who makes them? Under what conditions? Could we be making better choices – more eco-friendly, people-friendly choices? Oxfam Australia and CarriageWorks are delighted to join forces to present a series of events that examine the workings of the fashion industry. Exchange for Change celebrates the positive steps many have made to address the environmental impacts of clothing production, as well as fair wages and safe working conditions for the people who make our clothes. Above all, the three day event will focus on what we can do in our everyday lives to make a difference.
Stitched together with a lineup of live local music, and wintry treats from the CarriageWorks café and bar, this is an event for anyone ready to evolve their fashion sense. The 3-day event features discussions, a designer showcase, and one of Sydney’s biggest clothing swaps – all for free!
Waste-chain innovation: Animal Dung Paper
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on June 23rd, 2010
Source: Worldchanging
From “From Muck to Riches: Waste-Chain Innovation in India” by Anna da Costa:
In recent years, elephant dung has grown in popularity as a niche substrate for paper that avoids the felling of trees. It is now used in a variety of countries, including Sri Lanka, Thailand, South Africa and India. Not only is it environmentally sound and based on a free material from Jaipur’s significantly sized elephant herd, but the paper can be sold at a premium. The dung is collected from stables around Jaipur. It is then washed thoroughly in a tank of water. The waste water from this stage is rich with nutrients, and goes to local farmers for use as an effective natural fertiliser. Meanwhile, the remaining fibre is cooked with salt for four to five hours to soften and clean it further and then washed in hydrogen peroxide to ensure that no bacteria remain. The dung is then dried in the sun and any non-usable fibre removed by hand.
Today, it is not just elephant-dung paper that has made it onto the market. Mahima Mehra (Haathi Chaap) is experimenting with camel muck, while Scandinavians are making elk-dung paper and an Australian company is experimenting with kangaroo waste. This story is one of an increasing number around India inspiring hope in the potential for waste-chain innovation and the creation of green jobs, where waste and recycling are predicted to become two of the next economic-boom areas for India.
Read the full article by Anna da Costa.
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Zero Carbon Britain 2030: Report
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on June 22nd, 2010
zerocarbonbritain2030 provides political and economic solutions to the urgent challenges raised by the climate science, outlining how we can transform the UK into an efficient, clean, prosperous zero-carbon society. Covering energy, transport, land use, the built environment and industry, each chapter of the report has been written by bringing together the UK’s leading thinkers in their field including policy makers, scientists, academics, industry and NGOs.
zerocarbonbritain2030 is a fully integrated solution to climate change. It examines how we can meet our electricity and heating requirements through efficient service provision, while still decreasing carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and other emissions.
The report starts by examining the current “Context” in the Climate Science and Energy Security chapters. It then moves on to how we can “PowerDown” heat and electricity demand largely through new technology, efficient design and behaviour change. The “Land Use & Agriculture” section considers the tremendous potential of the land not only to decrease emissions but also to sequester residual emissions. We then move on to how we can “PowerUp” through the use of renewable technology. Finally we examine the policy that can help bring this about and the job creation that will come with it, in the “Framework, policy and economics” section.
A full copy of the new report is available as a free pdf , or buy a printed copy from the Centre for Alternative Technology.
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Real-Time Informatics for a “New Soft City”
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on June 21st, 2010
Source: The City Fix
Image from New Soft City – Keynote presentation by Dan Hill
From “Real-Time Informatics for a “New Soft City” ” by Erica Schlaikjer
What if cities could talk? Or transit systems could tell you how they’re feeling? Sounds crazy, but it’s not that far-fetched. “Urban informatics” could change the way people understand and interact with cities, says Dan Hill, a designer, urbanist and senior consultant at Arup in Sydney. He explains the idea of projecting real-time data onto the physical environment of a city, such as a lamppost or observation tower, in order to enliven public space, improve the mass transit experience, and transform the way citizens relate to their urban surroundings. Data, which exist all around us, would be accessible to everyone, rather than contained on a mobile device, such as an iPhone or laptop.
Just imagine if you could use light projections, e-ink, or LEDs to display a “smart meter” of energy consumption on the outside of your home. What would change? Research shows that friendly neighborhood competition can actually breed energy-saving behavior.
Likewise, imagine if cities provided free wireless Internet connectivity outdoors and in other civic spaces, like atriums, libraries and shopping malls, to encourage people to spend time socializing outside of their personal bubble at work or at home. They would literally interact with the city. Public spaces could become friendlier, safer, cleaner and more attractive. It could improve people’s health and well-being. Read the rest of this entry »
Toy Rental Service for Businesses
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on June 14th, 2010
Source: Springwise
Image: dougitdesign via flickr CC
From “Toy Rental Service Targets Businesses with Waiting Rooms“:
Serving Vancouver, B.C., Lucky Duck Toy Box provides a wide assortment of toys for kids aged newborn through five years old. Parents or grandparents simply choose a subscription plan—ranging from CAD 24 to CAD 69 per month for 3 to 12 toys—and pick out which toys they’d like to start with. Lucky Duck then delivers those within days. A month later, customers login once more to choose their next set; when their delivery date arrives, Lucky Duck swaps the old ones for the new ones. For businesses, Lucky Duck Toy Box offers a like-minded solution to the problem of old, dirty, worn out toys in waiting rooms. Instead, it delivers a fresh assortment of sanitized playthings to keep businesses’ youngest customers safe and entertained. All toys are lead-tested, inspected and cleaned with environmentally friendly products. Weekly and custom delivery plans are also available.
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Regenerating Existing Development: Living City Block
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on May 18th, 2010
© Living City Block
“By the summer of 2012, Living City Block Lo Do Denver will have reduced its aggregate energy use by 50%. By the summer of 2014, LCB will become a Net Zero energy bloc, and by 2016 it will be creating more resources than it consumes. But concurrently, LCB will be working to develop a thriving urban community, one in which people of all ages and types choose to live, work and play.”
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By the year 2050, eighty percent of the world’s population will live in cities. In addition, the Urban Land Institute predicts that eighty percent of current building stock will still be in use in the year 2050. As America and the world work to build a new, sustainable foundation for the 21st century, we need new models of what our urban spaces and places can become. Living City Block will be just such a model.
Starting with a block and a half of Denver’s historic Lower Downtown (LoDo) district, Living City Block will create a demonstration of a regenerative urban center. LCB will draw on selected partners from around Denver, the U.S. and the world to develop and implement a working model of how one block within an existing city can be transformed into a paradigm for the new urban landscape.
This pilot project is taking the area of 15th to 16th, Wynkoop to Wazee and east across Wazee and transforming it into a sustainable community. First, Living City Block will work to significantly reduce the energy consumption and environmental impact on these blocks. By the summer of 2012, Living City Block Lo Do Denver will have reduced its aggregate energy use by 50%. By the summer of 2014, LCB will become a Net Zero energy bloc, and by 2016 it will be creating more resources than it consumes. But concurrently, LCB will be working to develop a thriving urban community, one in which people of all ages and types choose to live, work and play. Right retail will evolve, better and more sustainable jobs will be created and kept, and the block will take its place as a part of the economic engine that drives the city and the region.
The LoDo project is a model that will be replicated across the Western Hemisphere though our Sister Cites and Sister Neighborhood programs. The LCB Team is pursuing relationships with other neighborhoods within Denver, other cities within the US and the Western Hemisphere to establish their own Living City Blocks. The LCB Team will begin by creating “virtual” city blocks with these partners that will over time become their own actual Living City Blocks. The lessons learned and the methodologies created through our initial LoDo Denver LCB will become the model for developing many other LCB’s, and for doing so at scale and in the near future.
Read more on Living City Block.
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Urban Form & Behavior Energy Modeling
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on May 3rd, 2010
Source: PostCarbon Institute
Shanghai superblocks via afrechillo
“The result was perhaps the closest-yet attempt at modeling and thus being able to forecast the complete energy needs of a segment of urban population. This allows an integrated assessment of required energy supply and expected impacts far beyond a single structure, energy type or industry.”
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From Urban Form, Behavior Energy Modeling in China: Sim City for Real? by Warren Karlenzig
One of the great challenges in urban planning and green building has been material life cycle energy use–how steel, concrete and wood products are produced and transported. Add to that the decisions people make once construction is finished, and you can rightly conclude that development standards have only scratched the veneer of total energy and sustainability impacts. In addition to material climate and resource burdens, there are myriad consequences on life-cycle energy use that arise from commuting and transit choices, food and product consumption, and building heating or cooling.
Scientists at the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) have devised a tool that may soon provide governments and urban planners ways with which to model complete material, building and residents’ anticipated energy use. After a proof of concept was applied to a Jinan, China, housing development, LBNL has integrated building life-cycle assessment (LCA) and urban form agent-based modeling tools to capture embodied, operational and behavioral aspects of urban form energy use and emissions.
With hundreds of new cities being planned or built in China, Indonesia and India, new tools such as LBNL’s will be critical in managing and reducing the energy, climate and environmental impacts of this unprecedented urban growth era. Adding 1.1 billion people to new or growing Asian cities will produce more than half of the world’s increase in global climate change-causing greenhouse gases by 2027, according to the Asian Development Bank.
Grocery Waste Reduction Targets: Courtauld Commitment [2]
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on April 29th, 2010
Source: Food Climate Research Network
Image: scrapthispack via flickr CC
The Courtauld Commitment (UK) is a voluntary agreement aimed at improving resource efficiency and reducing the carbon and wider environmental impact of the grocery retail sector. Phase 2 follows the original Courtauld Commitment (Phase 1), launched in 2005. At the launch of the Commitment (Phase 2) on 4th March 2010, 29 major retailers and brand owners had already pledged their commitment to this voluntary agreement. Using 2009 data and working to a 2012 deadline, Courtauld Commitment 2 moves away from solely weight-based targets and aims to achieve more sustainable use of resources over the entire lifecycle of products, throughout the whole supply chain.
The three new targets are:
* Packaging – to reduce the weight, increase recycling rates and increase the recycled content of all grocery packaging, as appropriate. Through these measures the aim is to reduce the carbon impact of this grocery packaging by 10%.
* Household food and waste – to reduce UK household food and drink wastes by 4%.
* Supply chain product and packaging waste – to reduce traditional grocery product and packaging waste in the grocery supply chain by 5% – this includes both solid and liquid wastes.
The original Courtauld Commitment has succeeded in stopping growth in packaging despite increases in both sales and population in the UK. Some 500,000 tonnes less packaging was used over the period 2005 – 2009 – that’s enough waste to fill a queue of refuse trucks, bumper-to-bumper, stretching from Southampton to Newcastle.
Liz Goodwin, WRAP CEO, said: “One of the biggest challenges society faces over the next decade is reducing the environmental impact of the things we buy. This new agreement will bring about changes ranging from more efficient methods of production right through to the impact of household consumption.”
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Plastic Bag Tax: Consumption Drops By 19 Million
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on April 21st, 2010
Source: Treehugger
Image: samuel mann via flickr CC
From Plastic Bags Used in DC Drops From 22 Million to 3 Million a Month by Brian Merchant.
Washington DC’s 5 cent tax on plastic bags, instated just this past January, has already proven to have a phenomenal impact: the number of plastic bags handed out by supermarkets and other establishments dropped from the 2009 monthly average of 22.5 million to just 3 million in January. While significantly reducing plastic waste, the tax simultaneously generated $150,000 in revenue, which will be used to clean up the Anacostia River.
Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), sponsor of the bag tax bill, said the new figures show that city residents are adapting to the law far more quickly than he or other city officials had expected.
The tax, one of the first of its kind in the nation, is designed to change consumer behavior and limit pollution in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Under regulations created by the D.C. Department of the Environment, bakeries, delicatessens, grocery stores, drugstores, convenience stores, department stores and any other “business that sells food items” must charge the tax on paper or plastic bags.
I love this–I really do. A simple 5 cent tax–with revenues going towards an environmental cause voters rallied around–and consumer behavior is changed for the better in a truly big way. I love that 5 cents, which makes up a tiny percentage of total cost of your purchase even if you were just buying a bag of chips and a beverage, was enough to make consumers reconsider taking a plastic bag.
We’re going to have to wait to see if this trend continues, of course, but the results are nothing short of stunning so far–there are 19 million less plastic bags in a landfill because of this tax.
Let’s hope other municipalities–and dare I suggest, states?–are paying attention.
See the full article by Brian Merchant on Treehugger.
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E-Waste Take-Back: Retailer Service
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on April 1st, 2010
Source: Ecolect
Post: Don’t forget to e-cycle by Elizabeth Soucy
Best Buy (USA) has a new service that, no matter where you bought it, they’ll recycle it, to encourage customers to bring in their old electronics. E-waste is a growing problem in third world countries where many “recycling” programs ship our used devices to be sorted by the surrounding communities.
Best Buy certainly made a statement with their advertising. Their billboard in Times Square is composed of reclaimed electronics. To check out more on how to recycle through Best Buy and the ethical and environmental standards they strive to uphold with their program, click here.