Home Posts tagged "Sustainability" (Page 6)

Tag Archives: Sustainability

The SME’s Guide To Benefitting From Sustainability

Recognising that sustainability is a key business driver, a growing number of SMEs are keen to get certified sustainable, but are confronted with complex processes and high costs. Sustainability experts advise on what SMEs can do. As big corporations move forward with sustainability initiatives to save energy, improve efficiency and build sustainable supply chains, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are following suit. They no longer dismiss sustainability as merely good intentions, but as a key business driver and strategic differentiator for brands. Increasingly SMEs are trying to establish stronger standards surrounding their sustainability practices with many being keen to work with …

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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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‘Limitless Applications’: The ‘Magic Powder’ That Could Prevent Future Crises

It sounds like a distant dystopian crisis: a world where global food and water supply chains buckle under the strain of overpopulation and climate change, before being contaminated by weapons of mass destruction unleashed in a desperate fight for access to what little is left. While the crisis may not be as unrealistic or far away as it seems, scientists are already coming up with potential solutions. One is the curiously named metal organic frameworks (MOFs), a powder of nano-engineered crystals with an apparently endless variety of uses. One teaspoon of these crystals contain the surface area of an entire football field, and scientists …

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New Printed Batteries To Transform Australian Renewables

Solar panels could soon be made with their own embedded battery storage in what is an Australian global first. Batteries would be laminated to the back of the panels and deliver “in-built” storage, making it eventually standard for them to deliver energy day or night as required. It’s one of several plans for ultra-thin, flexible screen-printed batteries that could eventuate within three years and offer new opportunities for manufacturing. Currently companies such as Tesla and South Australia’s Redflow offer solar panel and battery solutions, but the batteries are separate entities. If this idea takes hold, printed-on storage could be part …

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Melbourne’s Trams To Be Solar Powered

Melbourne’s trams network will soon be powered by the first large-scale solar plant to be built in Victoria. The solar plant, which will be completed by the end of 2018, is expected to be located in Victoria’s north-west. The state government announced on Thursday that the solar plant would produce 75 megawatts of power, with about half of that production to be linked to the tram network. Energy, Environment and Climate Change Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said the government would use its purchasing power as a “large energy consumer” to boost investment in renewables. The project is expected to create 300 …

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Community Energy Opportunities in Regional Australia

In 2016 the ACT government committed to a target of 100% renewable energy by 2020, moving the target forward and reflecting a growing commitment by sub-national and local governments, and city administrations to changing their energy dependencies and the energy mix, and decentralising the energy production process (reference – Paris Council of the Parties on Climate Change in 2015). Governments are recognising the growing interest in renewable energy in their constituencies, and in fact the public is arguably leading the political agenda. The regional Victorian experience in relation to community energy is instructive. Daylesford began a conversation about two community …

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Living Pods and Naturescapes: Transforming Residential Areas into Sustainable Living Environments

As an Architect, I’m able to see a bird’s eye view of trends in design. A significant movement that continues to expand in our consciousness, is how to create a sustainable world (for ourselves and generations to come) amidst an expanding population and increasing use of natural resources. Now more than ever, we see people responding to this challenge. We are re-discovering our fundamental connection with the earth and with each other and communities are being created around environments where food, nature and aesthetics are re-united. My own work on “Living Pods”, a term I use to relate to home …

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Australian Cotton ‘Pick of the Crop’ as More Global Consumers Demand Sustainable Fibres

Consumer desire for sustainably produced goods is driving domestic and global demand for Australia’s $2.5-billion cotton crop, according to retailers and millers. Leading brands are now introducing clothing ranges made entirely from Australian cotton as an alternative to cheaper fibre mixes. “More and more international retailers and brand owners want to know the story about the production cycle,” Cotton Australia CEO Adam Kay told ABC News. “They want to know about the sustainability and the environmental story,” he said, adding the industry had worked hard for years on winning a social license to operate. “We can clearly demonstrate over 40 …

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Clever Regions, Clever Australia – Enhancing the Role of Regional Universities

Dr Caroline Perkins, Executive Director, Regional Universities Network The Australian economy is moving from a heavy reliance on mining and manufacturing to a new era in which skills, knowledge and ideas will become our most precious commodities. The jobs and industries of the future will need highly skilled university graduates who can connect regional Australia with the global, innovative economy. The six regionally headquartered universities of the Regional Universities Network (RUN), CQUniversity, Federation University Australia, Southern Cross University, University of New England, University of Southern Queensland, and the University of the Sunshine Coast, make a fundamental contribution to their regions. …

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Green Space – How Much Is Enough, And What’s The Best Way to Deliver It?

Half of the world’s people now live in urban areas. This creates competition for resources and increases pressure on already limited green space. Many urban areas are still experiencing active degradation or removal of green space. To reverse this trend and ensure the multiple benefits of green space are realised, we urgently need to move toward on-ground action. However, there is no clear guidance on how to translate the evidence base on green space into action. There is limited information to guide green-space practitioners on how much is “green enough”, or on how to manage and maintain green space. There …

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