Posted by Sustainability Editor

Marine heatwaves are getting hotter, lasting longer and doing more damage.

On land, heatwaves can be deadly for humans and wildlife and can devastate crops and forests.

Unusually warm periods can also occur in the ocean. These can last for weeks or months, killing off kelp forests and corals, and producing other significant impacts on marine ecosystems, fishing and aquaculture industries.

Yet until recently, the formation, distribution and frequency of marine heatwaves had received little research attention.

Long-term change

Climate change is warming ocean waters and causing shifts in the distribution and abundance of seaweeds, corals, fish and other marine species. For example, tropical fish species are now commonly found in Sydney Harbour.

But these changes in ocean temperatures are not steady or even, and scientists have lacked the tools to define, synthesize and understand the global patterns of marine heatwaves and their biological impacts.

At a meeting in early 2015, we convened a group of scientists with expertise in atmospheric climatology, oceanography and ecology to form a marine heatwaves working group to develop a definition for the phenomenon: A prolonged period of unusually warm water at a particular location for that time of the year. Importantly, marine heatwaves can occur at any time of the year, summer or winter.

With the definition in hand, we were finally able to analyze historical data to determine patterns in their occurrence.

Analysis of marine heatwave trends

Over the past century, marine heatwaves have become longer and more frequent around the world. The number of marine heatwave days increased by 54 per cent from 1925 to 2016, with an accelerating trend since 1982.

We collated more than 100 years of sea surface temperature data around the world from ship-based measurements, shore station records and satellite observations, and looked for changes in how often marine heatwaves occurred and how long they lasted.

We found that from 1925 to 1954 and 1987 to 2016, the frequency of heatwaves increased 34 per cent and their duration grew by 17 per cent.

These long-term trends can be explained by ongoing increases in ocean temperatures. Given the likelihood of continued ocean surface warming throughout the 21st century, we can expect to see more marine heatwaves globally in the future, with implications for marine biodiversity.

‘The Blob’ effect

Numbers and statistics are informative, but here’s what that means underwater.

A marine ecosystem that had 30 days of extreme heat in the early 20th century might now experience 45 days of extreme heat. That extra exposure can have detrimental effects on the health of the ecosystem and the economic benefits, such as fisheries and aquaculture, derived from it.

A number of recent marine heatwaves have done just that.

In 2011, a marine heatwave off western Australia killed off a kelp forest and replaced it with turf seaweed. The ecosystem shift remained even after water temperatures returned to normal, signalling a long-lasting or maybe even permanent change.

That same event led to widespread loss of seagrass meadows from the iconic Shark Bay area, with consequences for biodiversity including increased bacterial blooms, declines in blue crabs, scallops and the health of green turtles, and reductions in the long-term carbon storage of these important habitats.

Similarly, a marine heatwave in the Gulf of Maine disrupted the lucrative lobster fishery in 2012. The warm water in late spring allowed lobsters to move inshore earlier in the year than usual, which led to early landings, and an unexpected and significant price drop.

More recently, a persistent area of warm water in the North Pacific, nicknamed “The Blob”, stayed put for years (2014-2016), and caused fishery closures, mass strandings of marine mammals and harmful algal bloom outbreaks along the coast. It even changed large-scale weather patterns in the Pacific Northwest.

As global ocean temperatures continue to rise and marine heatwaves become more widespread, the marine ecosystems many rely upon for food, livelihoods and recreation will become increasingly less stable and predictable.

Originally Published by The Conversation, continue reading here.

More information on this and related studies can be found on www.marineheatwaves.org.

Q&A With LUSH Cosmetics Australia and New Zealand

At the Association for Sustainability in Business, it’s our mission to connect and collaborate with businesses and individuals passionate about sustainable business practices.

LUSH Cosmetics is one of the leaders in the health and beauty industry dedicated to minimising waste and focusing on the power of local buying.

We spoke with Elisia Gray, Buyer at LUSH Cosmetics Australia and New Zealand about LUSH’s sustainable business practices, the sLush fund and what makes LUSH a little different.

Q. What are some of LUSH’s green initiatives?

A. Sustainability is at the core of what we do at LUSH. In 2007 we created Charity Pot Hand and Body Lotion to raise money for small grassroots charities. Community contribution is entrenched in our values and part of being an ethical business with a strong sense of social responsibility. 100% of sales (minus the GST) is donated to fund grassroots charities and Not For Profit projects working on animal welfare, human rights and environmental issues.

Our 5 Pot Program encourages customers to recycle by offering a free face mask in exchange for five empty LUSH pots. We send these used black pots to TerraCycle who recycle and repurpose traditionally difficult to recycle plastics.

We’ve also tackled the environmental issues that surround the bottled water industry by banning the use of single-use plastic water bottles in January 2014 and the use of disposable coffee cups from December 2014 across the Australian business.

Q. What impacts are the cosmetics industry having on the environment and what are the long-term effects of these practices?

A. Cosmetic packaging generates an enormous amount of waste, with millions of tonnes ending up in landfills each year. By 2050, it’s estimated that there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.

LUSH is leading the way in innovative solid products, which eliminate the need for packaging altogether. Over 35 percent of our products are totally unpackaged, or as we affectionately call them, “Naked”. Our naked solid shampoo bars, conditioners, bath bombs and massage bars save millions of plastic bottles from being produced, transported and disposed of every year. At a time of increased plastic pollution and dwindling resources, there’s a chance to offer balance by offering choice to customers.

When we can’t eliminate packaging completely, like in the case of shower gels or gift boxes, we only use recycled and recyclable materials.

Q. What makes LUSH different?

A. At LUSH we see ourselves as cosmetics grocers with our fresh, handmade and inventive products loaded with the freshest ingredients and essential oils. We were founded in 1995 in the United Kingdom by a group of animal and environmental activists who didn’t want to leave their ethics at home when they went to work.

LUSH is different in that we are and will always be a campaigning company. We believe in standing up for animal welfare, environmental protection and supporting human rights, and we believe it is our responsibility to do so.

Q. How does LUSH’s ethical buying work?

A. We put an enormous amount of care into every product we make, and it’s important for us to work with suppliers who do the same. When sourcing ingredients for our products we like to know where they come from, how they’re made and how they impact the communities that produce them. To look into these questions, we have a dedicated Ethical Buying team that works hard researching and meeting with suppliers and producers to ensure that they – and the materials they sell – meet our standards.

Our buyers work to find local sources within our own communities, but when this isn’t possible, they travel worldwide to visit potential suppliers. On these trips, they trace the ingredients journey from planting to harvest to processing to ensure the process is ethical from start to finish. Through these visits, our buyers build close relationships with growers and producers, while helping to maintain sustainable practices and fair conditions for workers.

Q. Tell us a bit more about the ‘Slush Fund’

A. The Sustainable LUSH Fund (SLush) was established in November 2010 with the idea of moving our ethical buying practices beyond simply buying fairly traded ingredients, to develop supportive partnerships with the communities that produce them. The SLush Fund has enabled LUSH to go beyond a sustainable organic alternative and conventional agriculture to permaculture projects.

The mechanics of the SLush Fund are straightforward: alongside the amount LUSH spends on raw materials and packaging each year, up to £1m is donated to the fund.​ For the year ended 30th June 2017 SLush raised a total of £1,465,000 predominately to permaculture farms and to some of our suppliers to enable them to become more sustainable.

Mehmet Cetinkaya, 53 years old, airs the rose petals as they are left to dry on the factory floor. He has worked at the Sebat factory for 16 years. His son also works at the factory.

Q. What can other businesses learn from LUSH’s sustainable initiatives?

A. You don’t always need enormous gestures when you’re getting started. Incremental changes that affect daily behaviour are the best way to build it up – like when we gave staff members reusable water bottles or KeepCups. Seeing the momentum that builds can give a business more confidence to take that next step in reducing their impacts. If it is built slowly and authentically, businesses might feel emboldened to take more impactful steps towards social change and standing up for what they value.

Q. LUSH’s top three tips for sustainable buying?

1. Conduct regular farm and factory visits

By conducting regular farm and factory visits we are able to establish a relationship with suppliers built trust and collaboration. We encourage suppliers to tell us about their product and brand history along with any challenges they face. We reassure suppliers that we are willing to work with them and encourage open dialogue.

This discourse often results in LUSH becoming passionate about the issues our suppliers are passionate about too!

2. Think global and act local

Where we can, we buy local and aim to work with growers and producers. LUSH is unique in that we manufacture our own cosmetics here in Villawood, Sydney. Our staff are a diverse group, both culturally and socially, and we have a deep connection to the local community,
so it makes sense to apply the same values to the way we do business. We’ll often have suppliers stop by our office to drop off samples or talk about new developments in their business.

3. Apply permaculture principles to your business practices

At LUSH we work with suppliers who have the shared aim of fair pay, decent working conditions and protection of the animals, people and the environment.

We apply permaculture principles to our business practices which are;

  • Fair share
  • Care for people
  • Care for earth

It is a long term aim at LUSH to move beyond sustainability and become an agent of ecological change and regeneration.

How Do Food Scraps Turn Into Renewable Energy?

During a trip in India, Yair Teller, then a curious student and today the co-founder and CSO of Homebiogas, saw a family cooking on gas in a village of people who predominantly cooked over firewood. This was quite shocking.

The family used the biogas their biodigester produced from food waste to cook their food, and the fertilizer it produced to nourish flowers, which they then sold  in the market to create extra source of revenue. They got all of those benefits simply from recycling their cow’s manure in a biodigester.

Fast forward a few years and Yair was joined by Oshik Efrati (CEO) and Erez Lanzer (CFO). The three proceeded to start HomeBiogas the company in 2012, with the main goal of spreading affordable, sustainable and renewable energy to the whole world.

The Association for Sustainability in Business got the chance to speak with Yair about HomeBiogas, off the grid living and the importance of sustainable living.

Q. What is HomeBiogas?

A. Using an anaerobic process, the HomeBiogas 2.0 system takes organic waste (e.g. fruits, veggies, meat, dairy pits, seeds, animal manure etc.) and turns it into cooking gas and liquid fertilizer. This enables you to create renewable energy in your own backyard and close an eco-cycle!

Instead of throwing your food scraps in the garbage, where it will rot in landfills and will emit methane into the atmosphere, you can simply throw your food scraps into HomeBiogas 2.0. The system can accept up to 4KG of organic waste a day, and in return, produces up to 3 hours of cooking gas a day AND up to 12 L of liquid fertilizer a day. With an estimated life span of 10 years, the system is built in a modular way though, so any part can be easily replaced without replacing the entire system.

Inside the HomeBiogas 2.0 digester there is over 1,000 L of water and bacteria that consume the leftovers thrown inside the system. The bacteria break down the leftovers and emit methane, the main component of the biogas that allows the gas to be flammable for cooking.

The HomeBiogas 2.0 system arrives as a DIY (do-it-yourself) kit. You can assemble it in about an hour. To understand exactly what can you put inside the HomeBiogas 2.0 system, click here.

Q. What does it mean to live ‘off the grid?’

A. Living off the grid means being independent when it comes to resources, may it be water supply, electricity, cooking gas or even waste management.

People that choose to live off grid are self-sufficient people that rather use existing and every-day resources to live a more simple or sustainable life.

Because off gridders provide for themselves and their needs, they have a sense of freedom, independence and control over their lives.

Q. What else can you do to live more sustainably? 

A. Having an organic garden is a way of ensuring you take in all the good things that you need, and your food is free of things that can cause you harm (such as the pesticides). From an ecological standpoint- Growing food in your backyard requires much less energy than produce from the supermarket. Why? Produce from the supermarket is packaged with plastics and Styrofoam which cannot be recycled or broken down easily. This packaging is totally unnecessary for a home organic garden.

To get more information on HomeBiogas, browse the Knowledge Center.

Interested in finding out more about innovative sustainable solutions?

Explore the liveability of our metropolitan and regional urban centres at the 2018 Liveable Cities Conference this July.

This year’s conference will focus on sustainable transport solutions, greening and redesign of cities, renewing regional areas, integrating community decisions, government policy, health and wellbeing and strategies for environment implementation.

Register to secure your place here.

If We Can’t Recycle It, Why Not Turn Our Waste Plastic Into Fuel?

Australia’s recycling crisis needs us to look into waste management options beyond just recycling and landfilling. Some of our waste, like paper or organic matter, can be composted. Some, like glass, metal and rigid plastics, can be recycled. But we have no immediate solution for non-recyclable plastic waste except landfill.

At a meeting last month, federal and state environment ministers endorsed an ambitious target to make all Australian packaging recyclable, compostable or reusable by 2025. But the ministers also showed support for processes to turn our waste into energy, although they did not specifically discuss plastic waste as an energy source.

The 100% goal could easily be achieved if all packaging were made of paper or wood-based materials. But realistically, plastic will continue to dominate our packaging, especially for food, because it is moisture-proof, airtight, and hygienic.

Most rigid plastic products can only be recycled a few times before they lose their original properties and become non-recyclable. Even in European countries with strict waste management strategies, only 31% of plastic waste is recycled.

Worldwide plastic production is predicted to increase by 3.8% every year until 2030. Flexible, non-recyclable plastic materials are used in an increasing range of applications like packaging, 3D printing, and construction.

We need to expand our range of options for keeping this plastic waste out of landfill. One potential approach is “plastic to energy”, which unlocks the chemical energy stored in waste plastic and uses it to create fuel.

How plastic to energy works

Plastic is made from refined crude oil. Its price and production are dictated by the petrochemical industry and the availability of oil. As oil is a finite natural resource, the most sustainable option would be to reduce crude-oil consumption by recycling the plastic and recovering as much of the raw material as possible.

There are two types of recycling: mechanical and chemical. Mechanical recycling involves sorting, cleaning and shredding plastic to make pellets, which can then be fashioned into other products. This approach works very well if plastic wastes are sorted according to their chemical composition.

Chemical recycling, in contrast, turns the plastic into an energy carrier or feedstock for fuels. There are two different processes by which this can be done: gasification and pyrolysis.

Gasification involves heating the waste plastic with air or steam, to produce a valuable industrial gas mixtures called “synthesis gas”, or syngas. This can then be used to produce diesel and petrol, or burned directly in boilers to generate electricity.

In pyrolysis, plastic waste is heated in the absence of oxygen, which produces mixture of oil similar to crude oil. This can be further refined into transportation fuels.

Gasification and pyrolysis are completely different processes to simply incinerating the plastic. The main goal of incineration is simply to destroy the waste, thus keeping it out of landfill. The heat released from incineration might be used to produce steam to drive a turbine and generate electricity, but this is only a by-product.

Gasification and pyrolysis can produce electricity or fuels, and provide more flexible ways of storing energy than incineration. They also have much lower emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides than incineration.

Currently, incineration plants are viewed as an alternative energy supply source and a modern way of driving a circular economy, particularly in Japan, South Korea and China, where land is valuable and energy resources are scarce. In other countries, although waste incineration is common practice, the debate around human health impacts, supply issues and fuel trade incentives remains unresolved.

This article was originally published by The Conversation. Click here to read the entire piece.

Interested in the future sustainability practices of our cities?

The 2018 Liveable Cities Conference heads to Melbourne this July for two days of inspiring speakers, captivating presentations and a variety of networking activities.

Now in its eleventh year, this Conference will continue to explore the livability of our metropolitan and regional urban centres.

Find out more about this year’s program here.

From drone swarms to tree batteries, new tech is revolutionising ecology and conservation.

Understanding Earth’s species and ecosystems is a monumentally challenging scientific pursuit. But with the planet in the grip of its sixth mass extinction event, it has never been a more pressing priority.

To unlock nature’s secrets, ecologists turn to a variety of scientific instruments and tools. Sometimes we even repurpose household items, with eyebrow-raising results – whether it’s using a tea strainer to house ants, or tackling botfly larvae with a well-aimed dab of nail polish.

But there are many more high-tech options becoming available for studying the natural world. In fact, ecology is on the cusp of a revolution, with new and emerging technologies opening up new possibilities for insights into nature and applications for conserving biodiversity.

Our study, published in the journal Ecosphere, tracks the progress of this technological development. Here we highlight a few examples of these exciting advances.

Tiny tracking sensors

Electronically recording the movement of animals was first made possible by VHF radio telemetry in the 1960s. Since then even more species, especially long-distance migratory animals such as caribou, shearwaters and sea turtles, have been tracked with the help of GPS and other satellite data.

But our understanding of what affects animals’ movement and other behaviours, such as hunting, is being advanced further still by the use of “bio-logging” – equipping the animals themselves with miniature sensors.

Many types of miniature sensors have now been developed, including accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, micro cameras, and barometers. Together, these devices make it possible to track animals’ movements with unprecedented precision. We can also now measure the “physiological cost” of behaviours – that is, whether an animal is working particularly hard to reach a destination, or within a particular location, to capture and consume its prey.

Taken further, placing animal movement paths within spatially accurate 3D-rendered (computer-generated) environments will allow ecologists to examine how individuals respond to each other and their surroundings.

These devices could also help us determine whether animals are changing their behaviour in response to threats such as invasive species or habitat modification. In turn, this could tell us what conservation measures might work best.

Autonomous vehicles

Remotely piloted vehicles, including drones, are now a common feature of our skies, land, and water. Beyond their more typical recreational uses, ecologists are deploying autonomous vehicles to measure environments, observe species, and assess changes through time, all with a degree of detail that was never previously possible.

Originally Published by The Conversation, continue reading here.