Home Archive by category "Association for Sustainability in Business" (Page 7)

Category Archives: Association for Sustainability in Business

Independent Distributed Energy and Transport Systems

Electric Vehicles provide clean and efficient transport systems – bus, car, bike, ferry EV also can be used as mobile energy storage/backup energy storage – EV can be charged during day from solar to provide additional backup energy for peak day/night if required with smart systems ensuring energy left for travel the next day and top up power from off peak electricity. Integrated with solar they can provide zero emissions transport – plug in charging stations can be located almost anywhere with stations having their own battery storage to fast charge vehicles for increased range. Stations can be located at …

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World’s Largest Investors Launch Effort to Engage Global Stock Exchanges on Sustainability Reporting Standard for Companies

Sustainability advocacy group Ceres, in collaboration with BlackRock and other major institutional investors, have announced an initiative to engage global stock exchanges via the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) on a possible uniform reporting standard for sustainability reporting by all exchange members. The launch includes specific recommendations for integrating environmental and social disclosure requirements into listing rules for companies listed on U.S. and global stock exchanges. The proposal was developed by Ceres’ Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) and its member-driven Investor Initiative for Sustainable Exchanges. Over 100 institutional investors from six continents helped shape the listing standards proposal. The …

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How do we change behaviour in a consumerist society?

By Peter Newton, Swinburne University of Technology Many Australians are happy to declare their interest in sustainability, to reducing their environmental impact. But how many of them are prepared to reduce the amount they actually consume? We recently explored whether Australian households have an “attitude-action gap” on environment and consumption. We surveyed 1200 Melbourne households, examining attitudes, intentions and opinions related to the environment and urban living. We also recorded objective data on actual household consumption of energy, water, housing space, urban travel and domestic appliances. It’s not uncommon being a material green Three lifestyle segments emerged: a majority (40.3%) …

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Climate impacts– analysing infrastructure interconnectivity and flow-on effects for Australian cities

Manidis Roberts, KPMG and The Climate Institute (TCI) collaborated to undertake an exercise to credibly identify, quantify and cost, climate impacts on city infrastructure (Melbourne) as a result of extreme heat event. We modelled the impacts on infrastructure and their interdependencies under a specified climate event. This provided a case study of the flow-on impacts of the damage to infrastructure from future climate events. We explored the interdependencies that play out between businesses and infrastructure owners and operators under future climatic conditions, such as an extreme heat, sea level rise or extreme rainfall events. The exercise identified nodes of interconnectivity …

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100 Speakers at Joint Sustainability and Liveable Cities Conference Melbourne, June 2013

Over 100 Presenters over the 3 days – 17th to the  19th  of June 2013 at the Novotel Melbourne St Kilda. Confirmed keynotes presenters include; Dr Nick Fleming, Chief Sustainability Officer, Sinclair Knight Merz and Chairman of the Sustainability Taskforce of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, and a Director of the Board of the Australian Green Infrastructure Council. NSW Jason Roberts, Co-Founder, Better Block,  USA Melissa Houghton, Director, Sustainability at Work, VIC Professor Anthony Capon, Head, Discipline of Public Health, Faculty of Health University of Canberra ACT Tony Wood, Energy Program Director, Grattan Institute, VIC Simon Lockrey, Research Fellow, Sustainable Products and Packaging, …

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Local Councils responding to Climate Change – just don’t call it adaptation or mitigation!

As with many local Councils around Australia, Randwick Council in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs has been developing and delivering comprehensive environmental programs via an innovative environmental levy program for 8 years. Many of these programs involve close collaborations with neighbouring Councils and are targeting community and operational initiatives aimed at responding directly or indirectly to the impacts of human-induced Climate Change. Over the years these initiatives include: providing financial incentives for energy changes in local homes; the first attempts to establish carbon trading between 12 NSW Councils; installation of 1330kilowatts of renewable energy including small scale wind; recycled and waste water …

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Climate impacts– analysing infrastructure interconnectivity and flow-on effects for Australian cities

Manidis Roberts, KPMG and The Climate Institute (TCI) collaborated to undertake an exercise to credibly identify, quantify and cost, climate impacts on city infrastructure (Melbourne) as a result of extreme heat event. We modelled the impacts on infrastructure and their interdependencies under a specified climate event. This provided a case study of the flow-on impacts of the damage to infrastructure from future climate events. We explored the interdependencies that play out between businesses and infrastructure owners and operators under future climatic conditions, such as an extreme heat, sea level rise or extreme rainfall events. The exercise identified nodes of interconnectivity …

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Carbon price to cost trucking industry $500m

The trucking industry wants to stay protected from Australia’s carbon price legislation beyond 2014. Under current plans, fuel used by trucks on Australia’s roads is not subject to the carbon price until middle of next year. That is when the Labor government’s legislation will reduce the fuel tax credits trucking operators can claim. Australian Trucking Association chairman David Simon has said the planned reduction of about seven cents a litre amounts to a 27 per cent increase in the fuel impost. To read the full story, click here

Sustainable Investment Guidelines – linking sustainability into the investment decision

The single largest investor in capital works  is the public sector, but it’s the same sector that struggles with some of the fundamentals of sustainable investment. Key challenges include: • the prioritisation of construction over operational spends; • a lack of focus on long term benefits realisation at the expense of immediate delivery pressures; • a narrow definition of sustainability, often singularly toward environmental (as opposed to social or economic) issues; • and a fundamental disjoint between sustainability and the investment decision. Major Projects Victoria and AECOM have tackled the issue by developing guidance that explains why and how to …

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Warmer climate boosts northern crops but the bad soon outweighs the good

By Sunanda Creagh, The Conversation Climate change is creating warmer growing conditions in parts of the Earth’s northern regions, a new study has found, but experts warn that drought and heat wil soon cancel out the agricultural benefits. The international study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, analysed NASA satellite data and 30 years of land surface temperature records for 26 million square kilometres between the Arctic Ocean and 45 degrees north latitude. “Higher northern latitudes are getting warmer, Arctic sea ice and the duration of snow cover are diminishing, the growing season is getting longer and plants are …

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