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Category Archives: Healthy Environments

Architectural Design Making a Positive Impact on Sustainability in your Liveable City

If you are faced with the question; “Are you part of a liveable city”, would you know how to answer? Many would consider any city that they live in as a liveable city, but what does that really mean? The answer revolves around a few simple words that some of us are well versed with, while others are not. – sustainability, conservation, environmentally friendly, eco-friendly and carbon friendly (to name a few). Creating a more liveable city comes down to several factors, beginning with residential and commercial designs that offer sustainable features. Modern technology is now proving that there are …

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The Healthiest Destinations in the World Have Been Revealed

When it comes to health, you’d think London would be leading the pack with its extensive amount of spas, gyms and health-centric eateries. But, according to a new list, no UK city even makes the top 10. TravelSupermarket has just revealed its list of the world’s healthiest cities, taking into account the number of spas, fitness centres, gyms, yoga studios, pilates studios and parks they have, along with restaurants with vegan options, health food shops, the city’s average daylight hours and how much it costs to stay for a night. All of these things considered, the site revealed Paris to be the world’s healthiest …

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How to Use Queensland’s New Container Recycling Scheme

There are doubts within the waste industry that Queensland’s new recycling scheme can be ready for launch at the start of next month. From November 1, Queenslanders can claim a 10-cent refund for most plastic drink containers, beer bottles and aluminium cans at one of 232 collection points from Coen to Coolangatta. The state’s first-ever container exchange refund scheme is run by a not-for-profit company called COEX (Container Exchange) and branded as Containers for Change. Recycling companies see future recycling business from “cleaner” recycled glass, plastics and cardboard that comes in through the collection depots. But some large waste lobby groups, represented by …

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Act now on health impacts of climate change: experts

Public health professionals welcome a state plan addressing the health impacts of climate change, but say national action is ‘urgently needed.’ The Queensland Government’s new Human Health and Wellbeing Climate Change Adaption Plan provides guidance to health, aged care and childcare services on ways to manage the threats that climate changes poses to human health through extreme weather, drought and increased disease outbreaks. Consultation with various stakeholders to inform the plan revealed concern among health professionals about the “policy gap” in the area. The Public Health Association of Australia says that Queensland’s plan is an example of the type of …

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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 …

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Yellow Fridges Are A Great Anti-Waste Solution!

The start-up collects any meals not served in company canteens and gives them away. A clever solution that helps tackle food waste. Canteens waste a lot of food. According to ADEME (the French agency for the environment and energy management), collective catering is responsible for wasting 540,000 tonnes of food every year in France – that’s more than 1 million meals lost! Recovering food waste To fight this particular source of food waste, the “yellow fridge” (lefrigojaune) start-up set up in 2016 by Laurence Kerjean, found a very clever solution. A yellow fridge for the meals not eaten at lunch, which employees can then …

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Greening the Concrete Jungle: How to Make Environmentally Friendly Cement

Cement is the world’s most widely used material apart from water, largely because it is the key ingredient in concrete, the world’s favourite building material. But with cement’s success comes a huge amount of greenhouse emissions. For every tonne of cement produced in Australia, 0.82 tonnes of CO₂ is released. That might not sound like much, especially when compared with the 1.8 tonnes emitted in making a tonne of steel. But with a global production of more than 4 billion tonnes a year, cement accounts for about 8% of the world’s CO₂ emissions. The electricity and heat demands of cement production are responsible for …

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Philanthropy’s Role in Creating Sustainable Cities

Philanthropy has an important role to play in creating “time and space” for cities to become sustainable, according to the program director for the sustainable development grantmaking program at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Michael Northrop is set to give the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation’s annual Inspiring Philanthropy oration discussing the role of philanthropy in creating sustainable cities. Northrop, who also serves on New York City’s Sustainability Advisory Board, told Pro Bono News philanthropy had created soft capital that allowed cities to innovate. “The most important actors in a city are going to be your mayors and your city councils and …

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Volunteering for the Environment

It’s official! Volunteering makes you happy. Research has shown that just a few hours of volunteering can make a difference to mood and happiness. Better still, sustained volunteering is associated with improved mental health. Volunteers sleep better, are healthier, and have a greater sense of well-being than those who don’t volunteer. In-fact, the altruistic emotions and behaviours associated with volunteering can even help you live longer. Environmental volunteering benefits the whole community and is a great way to get outdoors and experience our unique natural environment. Volunteers are rewarded with the knowledge they are making a meaningful contribution to preserving …

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Innovations in Healthy Environments: Maximising your biggest asset (and cost)

The National Sustainability in Business Conference will be held in Brisbane next week from the 23-24 March 2017. Mr David Baggs, CEO at Global GreenTag Pty Ltd joins us next week to discuss ‘Innovations in Healthy Environments: Maximising your biggest asset (and cost)’. Staff in any businesses are their biggest asset. They are also the major driver to business efficiency. Recent changes to the way projects are being delivered has demonstrated significant improvements in workplace efficiency and able to be delivered when the quality of the indoor environment is designed and specified to optimise worker comfort and health. According to US DOE …

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