June 18, 2013 in Ecosystem Services
Peter Bakker, President of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, explains the connection between business and natural capital. Is your organization interested in exploring this relationship further? Take a look at our upcoming Business Ecosystems Training opportunities, and join us for Action 2020 at Yale University this July.
June 17, 2013 in By-Product Synergy, Ecosystem Services, Energy, Water
Actions led by business to achieve one or more societal or planetary goal in the Action 2020 framework will be assisted and scaled up through collaboration with industry peers, academic experts, and government representatives. Action 2020 organizers at the Yale Center for Business and Environment have assembled an esteemed group of colleagues to join us at Yale University, each committed to helping us understand the complexities of our efforts and continue driving to action. See a few standouts below, and visit our website to learn more.
Paul T. Anastas is the Teresa and H. John Heinz III Professor in the Practice of Chemistry for the Environment. He has appointments in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Department of Chemistry, and Department of Chemical Engineering. In addition, Prof. Anastas serves as the Director of the Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale.
Anastas took public service leave from Yale to serve as the Assistant Administrator for the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Agency Science Advisor from 2009-2012. From 2004 -2006, Paul Anastas served as Director of the ACS Green Chemistry Institute in Washington, D.C. He was previously the Assistant Director for the Environment in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy where he worked from 1999-2004. He is credited with establishing the field of green chemistry during his time working for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as the Chief of the Industrial Chemistry Branch and as the Director of the U.S. Green Chemistry Program.
John is manager of waste-reduction efforts at General Motors. In this role, he leads the company’s landfill-free initiative, which has resulted in 99 GM operations around the world that reuse, recycle, and convert to energy all wastes from daily operations. John is an established expert in waste reduction and recycling, and frequently mentors other companies pursuing zero-waste goals. John’s responsibilities also include directing the company’s design-for-the-environment program, implementing sustainable processes and technologies that reduce the company’s environmental impact and costs.
He collaborates with suppliers, product and manufacturing engineers, and external stakeholder groups. Under John’s leadership, GM recycled or reused 90 percent of waste generated globally through various resource conservation efforts in 2011. Between 2000 and 2010, the company reduced non-recycled manufacturing waste by 73 percent.
Marian Chertow is Associate Professor of Industrial Environmental Management and has been Director of the Industrial Environmental Management Program at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies since 1991. Her research and teaching focus on industrial ecology, business/environment issues, waste management, and environmental technology innovation. Primary research interests are 1) The study of industrial symbiosis including geographically-based exchanges of wastes, materials, energy, and water within networks of businesses. 2) The potential of industrial ecology to underpin ideas of the proposed Circular Economy law in China. 3) The application of innovation theory to the development of environmental and energy technology.
Prior to Yale, Marian spent ten years in environmental business and state and local government including service as President of the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority charged with developing a billion dollar waste infrastructure system for the state. She is a frequent international lecturer and has testified on waste, recycling and other environmental issues before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
Richard Kidd became the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army (Energy & Sustainability) on October 25, 2010. This is his third assignment as a Senior Executive within the Federal Government. In this position he is responsible for overall program direction, establishment of policies, development and refinement of strategies, and oversight for implementation of all programs and initiatives related to Energy Security and Sustainability within the Army. As the Army’s Senior Energy Executive, Mr. Kidd coordinates and integrates both installation and operational energy programs and strategies.
Mr. Kidd graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1986 and served as an Infantry Officer until 1991. After receiving a Masters Degree in Public and Private Management from Yale University, he joined the United Nations in 1993 and served in a variety of international assignments, principally in war affected regions of the world.
Anthony Leiserowitz, Ph.D. is Director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and a Research Scientist at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University. He is a widely recognized expert on American and international public opinion on global warming, including public perception of climate change risks, support and opposition for climate policies, and willingness to make individual behavioral change.
His research investigates the psychological, cultural, political, and geographic factors that drive public environmental perception and behavior. He has conducted survey, experimental, and field research at scales ranging from the global to the local, including international studies, the United States, individual states, municipalities, and with the Inupiaq Eskimo of Northwest Alaska. He also conducted the first empirical assessment of worldwide public values, attitudes, and behaviors regarding global sustainability, including environmental protection, economic growth, and human development.
June 3, 2013 in By-Product Synergy, Ecosystem Services, Energy Efficiency, Noteworthy, Water
Join business, government and academic leaders in developing action plans that address and advance key Action 2020 sustainability efforts in materials, water, energy, and ecosystems. Learn what strategies are working and how we can bring them to scale by taking part in this working meeting, hosted by the United States and the World Business Councils for Sustainable Development in partnership with the Yale Center for Business and Environment. Visit our meeting website, action2020.usbcsd.org to learn more.
The Action 2020 conference is scheduled for July 17-18 in New Haven, Conn., in Yale’s Kroon Hall, a striking showcase for sustainable design. The meeting is designed to enable attendees to build case studies and examples of what is working to address key goals in materials, water, energy and ecosystems. This will lay the groundwork for attendees to create collaborative, actionable work plans.
Plenary sessions will present pressing challenges in each of four focus areas – “must haves” that were identified in the WBCSD’s Vision 2050 report and refined this year to specific actions required to get significant results by 2020.
We’ll open an extensive toolbox full of enablers, and thought provoking examples of what’s working and how we can bring those to scale.
Yale faculty and other sustainability experts will facilitate assessment sessions to help companies gauge where they are in the sustainability spectrum and which key strategies make the most sense to be working on.
Those participants who are ready for action will work with like-minded colleagues to piece together project plans. But don’t worry if you’re not quite there yet – we’ve designed a series of exciting action labs to keep you moving down the right path.
May 23, 2013 in Energy Efficiency
Check out Ygrene’s new energy center in Sacramento – a meeting place, demonstration center and educational venue for community contractors, building owners and government officials working on Energy Efficiency.
Ygrene Energy Centers from Ygrene Energy Fund on Vimeo.
May 14, 2013 in Noteworthy, Water
Participants of the Louisiana Water Synergy Project met Monday, May 6th at Loyola University, New Orleans.
As many participants come from different sectors of industry but face similar challenges regarding water quality and quantity issues, collaborative thinking led to creative actions to address those challenges. For example, a user of traditional water treatment shared that monitoring dissolved oxygen levels in their mixing tanks helped reduce Nitrogen output, while those experienced with using wetlands as a natural nutrient and sediment removal process extolled the nutrient-cleaning benefits of their approach. Despite different approaches to treatment, both expressed interest in nutrient credit trading.
Dr. Gerard Learmonth of the University of Virginia showcased the UVA Chesapeake Bay Game. The game allows players to take on the role of a farmer, waterman, land developer, or a regulator and make land management decisions. These decisions produce true-to-life results enumerated in a Bay health grade, Nitrogen levels, and wildlife subsistence, as well as giving a profit and loss report. After playing a round of the game under different roles, Dr. Learmonth explained the process of designing a watershed collaboration tool for Louisiana. Discussion ensued regarding who the stakeholders would be, what environmental factors would be included, and where the requisite data would come from.
Dr. Mark Davis of the Tulane Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy highlighted the urgency of making proactive water management decisions in his presentation on the Mississippi River and the state of water law across the United States. Dr. Davis challenged meeting attendees to recognize how much water they use, how much they have, and how much they have to share as freshwater becomes an increasingly sought-after resource.
This meeting is an example of how the Louisiana Water Synergy Project brings together representatives from multiple industries to create a forum for regional collaboration to address water quality, quantity, and storm water challenges in southern Louisiana. Collaboration opportunities have already been identified regarding water reuse, use of wetlands for water quality improvement, and water transfer strategies. This project will be used as a format to be replicated in other regions, as water is a rising topic of concern in the US and around the globe.
Want to get involved? Plan to join us next at Action 2020 at Yale University, July 17-18, 2013 in New Haven, CT. Or, visit water-synergy.org for more information on the project.
May 13, 2013 in Ecosystem Services
In partnership with the WBCSD-US, we’re pleased to announce the launch of bet-us.org – where you can find more information and register for one of our 2013 Business Ecosystems Training workshops. The BET program provides EHS and sustainability professionals with the tools and skills needed to manage ecosystem services. BET introduces cutting-edge applications and techniques to identify business opportunities related to ecosystem services and develop meaningful projects to achieve corporate sustainability objectives.
Visit http://bet-us.org for more information, and to register for the regional workshop in your area.
May 9, 2013 in By-Product Synergy, Ecosystem Services, Energy Efficiency, Water
The US BCSD, WBCSD, and deans and professors from Yale School of Management and the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies met last week to accelerate sustainable solutions through business education. This partnership opportunity aligns the WBCSD global business community, its Regional Network, and the Global Network for Advanced Management to pursue co-development of transformative business education, extensive research opportunities, and regional project collaboration.
In the complex world of scaling up business solutions to sustainability, top universities, particularly business and management schools, have a key role to play in educating the leaders of today and tomorrow. Partnership with the WBCSD provides access to senior executives of companies who are at the forefront of corporate sustainable innovation and practices, and equally important, access to its Regional Network which provides regionally specific insights on corporate sustainability project opportunities and barriers.
The Global Network for Advanced Management brings together 23 universities from 23 countries of varying regions, cultures, and economies in different phases of development. The coalition of universities work together on four key goal challenges, one of which is sustainability. Students from participating schools travel for a week of intensive study organized around a theme, company visits, and networking. Geographically, 20 of the 23 universities are located in countries with strong WBCSD Regional Network affiliates.
By partnering with a university consortium like the Global Network for Advanced Management that shares our sense of urgency on sustainability, we’re providing our members with a groundbreaking new opportunity create innovative sustainability solutions and foster the appropriate framework conditions to bring them to scale.
May 2, 2013 in By-Product Synergy
The US BCSD’s Greater Houston By-Product Synergy (BPS) Project was honored as one of 19 finalists for a Texas Environmental Excellence Award (TEEA) at the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality (TCEQ) Awards Banquet on May 1, 2013. Susan Fernandes, the US BCSD’s Project Manager, and Houston BPS Project member Joe Rizzo, Cherry Companies, attended the Awards Banquet. The finalists and 10 winners were selected from a field of more than 150 applications state-wide. The Houston BPS project was selected in the Innovative Operations/Management Award Category.
The concept of BPS is that one company’s waste can become another company’s resource. Matching by-product streams from one facility with users at another creates new revenues or savings, and potential social and environmental benefits. Since its inception three years ago, the Houston BPS project has identified more than 18,000 metric tons that can be diverted from landfill disposal, achieved an estimated annual savings of $4.5 million in waste disposal costs and virgin materials purchases, and a wide range of other life-cycle environmental benefits. Consider joining our diverse industrial network to bring these benefits to your company too. For more information, visit: http://houstonbps.org
May 1, 2013 in By-Product Synergy, EcoPartnership
In May 2012, the US BCSD and the China Business Council for Sustainable Development (CBCSD) initiated a Hebei By-Product Synergy Project under the US-China Strategic Economic Dialogue’s EcoPartnership program. One year later, the project continues to gain momentum.
The mayor’s offices of Huainan and Qinhuangdao, as well as the Hebei provincial government, have all recently voiced their strong interest and support for the project in talks with CBCSD representatives. The project team is in the process of selecting two or three pilot industrial parks in Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province and Huainan City, Anhui Province, to develop and test the implementation procedures, select the list of participating enterprises, draw lessons from domestic and international successful practices, and screen BPS technologies.
To support the Hebei BPS project, the US BCSD is developing an online materials marketplace designed to facilitate and manage materials data and transactions for BPS projects. This marketplace will allow easy access to materials data, synergy knowledge, and potential resources available based on facility type and industry.
The BPS effort in Qinhuangdao City aligns with a National Science Foundation research project led by the Yale Center for Industrial Ecology entitled: Developing Low-Carbon Cities in the USA, China & India through Inter-Disciplinary Integration Across Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Social Sciences & Public Health. The project includes a focus on BPS as a short term intervention that would likely be beneficial both environmentally and economically, and is considered an important component of the NSF grant.
This project will produce cross-industry material reuse opportunities that ultimately bring a circular economy network to the Hebei region in China through the matching of wastes and under-valued resources at one facility with potential users at other facilities. For more information, visit: http://usbcsd.org/us-china-ecopartnership/
April 17, 2013 in Publications, Water
A changing climate with more frequent extreme weather events requires today’s businesses to plan for an unpredictable and inconsistent water supply via more sophisticated water management practices, according to a new report released on April 15th by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
The report, Sharing Water: Engaging Business, emphasizes the crucial role of business in ensuring responsible management of water resources and encourages greater collaboration across sectors. The report finds that leading companies have begun shifting their perspective beyond merely managing operational water use to becoming more conscious of how corporate actions impact local and regional water resources and, conversely, how water resources and watersheds impact business.
The US BCSD’s Louisiana Water Synergy Project is featured as an example of community and stakeholder engagement in the New Orleans to Baton Rouge Mississippi River Corridor.
“Increasing global demand and the impacts of climate change are placing unprecedented strain on freshwater resources,” said WBCSD President Peter Bakker. “In order to ensure a viable business future, companies are calling for collective management and collaboration at the watershed level to ensure continued access to water supplies among competing demands.”
