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2006 11 01
Do You Have A Black Cloud Over Your Head?
2006 10 30
3.1 Billion Pounds of Exhaust To Bury 1.5 Billion Pounds Of Solid Waste
Dump image from York University’s Environmental Studies web site Mayoralty candidates Stephen LeDrew, Rod Muir, and Jane Pitfield joined the Alphabet City Trash Festival crew Saturday night at the MaRS Centre on College Street to discuss the city’s garbage crisis (Mayor Miller declined the invitation to attend). In spite of what many people in our city seem to think about political candidates in general, those people who came to listen and ask questions found that the three performed well - they had ideas that might even work to reduce our city’s ecological footprint. While researching my preamble to the evening’s discussion - I moderated the event - it occurred to me that the real cost in environmental impact terms of shipping tons of garbage hundreds of kilometers was never made public. I wanted to know how much air pollution a truck creates when carrying one ton of cargo one kilometer. With that information in hand it would be easy to determine how much invisible damage our NIMBYism was inflicting on the environment. According to a study sighted by the Victoria Transit Policy Institute, in 2002 transport trucks produced on average 12.7 pounds of pollution emissions per ton per mile (or roughly 8 pounds per kilometer). The Michigan dump site is about 260 miles from Toronto or 418 kilometers. In 2005 we sent 86 trucks a day 365 days of the year to Michigan. They carried a total of 750,000 tons of Toronto garbage. That is 1.5 billion pounds of solid waste. So, let’s do the math. For the sake of fairness, we will reduce the pollution generated on the empty return trip to Toronto to one-quarter. To do that we will say the trucks travelled only 100 kilometers on the way back. Total trip length 418 + 100 = 518 kilometers (...read more...)
2006 10 27
Wind Energy Financing Makes A Breakthrough
Image from www.dailkos.com of the North Hoyle wind turbine installation.
Corporate Knights editor Toby Heaps’ story this issue on green power in Ontario got me thinking about how antiquated methods of project financing are a major barrier to the wider development of sustainable energy sources. So I did some research on who in the international financial community is leading the way in green energy project financing. This announcement is about the first non-recourse financing for off-shore wind farms in the industry:
Ontario and Canada’s potential for these kinds of wind projects is virtually limitless as long as we have the financing on the front end and an adequate distribution network on the back end. The Dutch financing is a breakthrough and will no doubt become a reference standard for green financing in the future. If, as Toby writes, Canadian investors like the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board are indeed looking for large, green infrastructure projects, they will reference Rabobank, Dexia, and EKF’s move as an indication that institutional funds are moving in the right direction.
2006 10 26
Smart Cars and Bicycles
With 100 MPG for the car and about 750 calories each per hour for the bikes, a quick calculation suggests that this combo can displace about six or seven normal cars. Not bad really. It’s economical too.
2006 10 25
Offsetting Your Company’s Carbon Footprint
http://www.cleanairpass.com
http://www.offsetter.ca
http://www.self.org
http://www.econeutral.com
http://www.carbonneutral.com
http://www.bullfrogpower.com
2006 10 24
The Greening Of Barcodes
A QR Code is a matrix code (see the above image) allows its contents to be decoded at high speed. In Japan, camera phones with QR Code reading software are increasingly changing the way consumers access product information. Wireless Watch Japan ran a story last year about the use of QR Codes in supermarkets.
 Using their cell phones, Japanese consumers can get detailed product information about the food they consume. For example, they can determine the
Magazine ads and articles frequently contain the codes. They are also an essential part of business cards in Japan. The benefits are obvious. Consumers can obtain large amounts of information without the need to enter the data. A local company, Semacode, is offering solutions for the market. Here is one of their codes in action in a non-traditional way:
2006 10 23
Hollywood’s Social Conscience - From Claudia Stoicescu’s Report
 Corporate Knights Magazine contributor, Claudia Stoicescu, reviewed the recent generation of Hollywood films and rated their social consciousness. Here are some of Claudia’s bottom-line comments:
The Constant Gardener
Syriana
North Country
Crash
Capote
Good Night, Good Luck
Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room
2006 10 20
How Did We Arrive At Brian Mulroney Being Canada’s Greenest Prime Minister?
“I decided to assemble a jury of prominent Canadian environmentalists that represent the national organizations, and asked them which prime minister did the most for the environment,” Corporate Knight’s Editor Toby Heaps said in an interview. “The replies started rolling in and I almost fell off my chair, because I started seeing Brian Mulroney’s name coming up again and again.”
2006 10 19
The Coffee Footprint
 Coffee is, in dollar terms, the world's leading agricultural product. Coffee requires a lot of water. Coffee's "water footprint" is roughly described as the amount of water needed to create those pots of java we all seem to love so much. In a study done in the Netherlands, it was found that for drinking one standard cup of coffee meant about 140 litres of water was required. That's not only to brew a cup but to water the coffee beans. Total coffee consumption in the Netherlands alone requires a total of 2.6 billion cubic metres of water (or almost 700,000,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools). The Dutch people account for 2.4 per cent of the world coffee consumption. For more information look at http://www.waterfootprint.org/WaterFootprintCalculator.htm
2006 10 18
Top Ten Ways To Keep Water Clean
 Our readers wanted to know the top ten ways to keep our fresh water just that—fresh. Here they are beginning from number ten to the number one best way to keep our water clean:
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Read what people are saying about the environmental issues that impact us all
Blog posts about wind energy
Blog posts about sustainability
Blog posts about green investing
Blog posts about hybrid autos
Blogs mentioning Zerofootprint
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The best green news sources on the Net
Hugg
Green Car Congress
Green Girls Global
Grist
Eco Worrier
Inhabitat
Lime
Real Climate
Treehugger
World Changing
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Anyone who does a lot of travel between Asia and North America knows that countries like Japan and South Korea offer consumer technologies years ahead of those available here. It is not surprising then to discover that barcodes (and their graphical derivatives like QR codes) are saturating the consumer marketplace in Asia in ways that are yet to be adopted here.
There is no secret to this selection. We asked Canada’s foremost environmentalists: Which PM accomplished the most on the environment front? It turns out Mulroney’s government got things done on acid rain and the Montreal Protocol. All Canadians benefit from those achievements.