One of our mantras at GallonDaily is that recognition should not be given for environmental initiatives until they have been implemented and proven. Too many simply run into trouble before producing results. Today, however, in recognition that ships take a long time to build and because another reputable organization has given recognition, we will set aside the rule and pass on the news that Canadian merchant marine company Fednav Limited has won the inaugural Lloyd’s List North American Maritime Environment Award for its efforts to improve its environmental performance.

The citation states that Fednav recently ordered twelve new highly efficient ships for delivery in 2015 and 2016. These vessels will produce 28% less GHG emissions than vessels built for Fednav 10 years ago, ships among the highest performers of their time. Additionally, the new engines will reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by approximately 33%. In 2008, Fednav was the first shipping company in Canada to publish an environmental policy for its vessels that included annual targets and expected results. Fednav’s fleet is regularly inspected by an independent third-party verification body that provides detailed inspection reports under an Environmental, Quality, and Safety Inspection system.

Formerly Federal Commerce & Navigation Company Limited, Fednav was founded in Toronto in 1944 and moved to Montreal in 1953. Fednav owns a fleet of 23 ships and operates 41 short- and long-term charters. Many of the ships operate in the arctic. Fednav has been a leader in the greener shipping industry for some years and is a founding member of Green Marine, a voluntary binational initiative in an industry sector that regular readers of Gallon Environment Letter will recognize as one that truly needs green leadership. GallonDaily encourages readers to add Fednav to the list of companies that they think of as green leaders in North America.

Announcement of the award and a link to Fednav’s environment page is at http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fednav-receives-inaugural-lloyds-list-environment-award-246362501.html 

A new website with the provocative title Wildleaks is encouraging people who know about wildlife and forest ‘crimes’ to report them anonymously so that the group can turn them into actionable items while protecting the identity of the whistleblower. The site is operated by a group of individuals with funding from the California-based Elephant Action League.

The site defines forest crime as illegal logging and the international trade in illegally logged timber. It states that forest crime:

• has a significant Human Toll as it impedes sustainable development in some of the poorest countries of the world.
• costs governments billions of dollars, promotes corruption, and funds armed conflict.
• is responsible for up to 17% of all human-made greenhouse gas emissions, 50% more than that from ships, aviation and land transport combined.
• can also have huge financial implications for a country. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, in Indonesia illegal logging and forest-sector mismanagement resulted in losses to the Indonesian government of more than US$7 billion between 2007 and 2011.
• creates social conflict with indigenous and local populations and leads to violence, crime, corruption, human exploitation and human rights abuses. It is estimated that some 1.6 billion people worldwide depend on forests for their livelihood and 60 million peoples depend on forests for their subsistence.

Poaching and illegal trade of wildlife is said to be a cause of:

• people dying and getting injured (e.g., rangers, law enforcement officers, villagers, poachers).
• people encouraged or forced to engage in criminal activities (e.g., breaking the law, possession and use of weapons, bribery, corruption).
• exploitation of vulnerable and disadvantaged communities.
• families losing the breadwinners (e.g., due to death, injury, incarceration) – orphans & widows.
• conflict (e.g., financing terrorism and rebel militia).
• other related criminal activities (e.g., threatening the rangers and their families, money laundering, tax evasion).

The site uses the Tor browser, software built to enable people to navigate the Internet anonymously, in order to facilitate the submission of information without revealing the identity of the sender.

Wildleaks is at https://wildleaks.org/

The Jan/Feb 2014 issue of the US-based Sierra Club magazine, Sierra, highlights on the cover page an article with the eye-catching headline Don’t Eat That! Five Foods That Are Killing the Planet. While we are not endorsing the selection of foods to avoid, it is already clear that US retailers, and possibly some Canadian retailers, are experiencing the impact of this kind of article. A few impacts are visible at the retail level:

• a few, but not too many, customers will turn away from the listed products.
• a higher percentage of customers, still small but indicative of a trend, will ask about the environmental aspects of the listed products, sometimes just requesting information but sometimes asking whether alternatives are available.
• competitive products that avoid, or hopefully avoid, the harmful environmental effects, will more aggressively advertise their green benefits.

It is interesting how small a percentage of customers, often less than 10%, can sometimes influence brandowner and retailer behaviour. Articles like this one in Sierra play a significant, though not necessarily a comprehensive role, in greening of the marketplace.

The five foods that Sierra Club says we should not eat are:

• bluefin tuna, of the sushi bar variety [Greenpeace Canada ranks canned tuna for sustainability]
• conventional coffee, but organic shade-grown coffee is OK
• factory-farmed beef
• genetically modified corn
• palm oil

Much more information [again not all endorsed by GallonDaily] is in the Sierra Club article at http://sierraclub.org/sierra/201401/enjoy-five-foods-killing-the-planet.aspx

The Greenpeace Canada ranking of canned tuna sustainability is at http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/campaigns/ocean/Tuna/Get-involved/2013-canned-tuna-sustainability-ranking/

The Edison Electric Institute, the major US association of shareholder-owned electricity companies, has, in partnership with major US environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, signed a joint statement to state utility regulators that could become a model for many other industry sectors, especially those involved in selling commodity goods. Key elements include the electricity companies agreeing to sell energy services instead of electricity; The joint statement includes the following concepts:

• the retail electricity distribution business should not be viewed or regulated as if it were a commodity business dependent on growth in electricity use to keep its owners financially whole. Instead, utility businesses should focus on meeting customers’ energy service needs.
• payments for use of grids by owners and operators of distributed generation systems.
• rates that reward customers for using electricity more efficiently.
• performance based incentives tied to benefits delivered to customers by cost effective initiatives to improve energy efficiency, integrate clean energy generation, and improve grids.
• working together to ensure that energy efficiency services reach underserved populations,
• helping electricity users take advantage of all cost-effective energy efficiency opportunities through an integrated combination of financial incentives to customers and minimum standards governing the performance of buildings and equipment; and
• asking regulators to support significantly enhanced utility investment in ‘smart meters’ and a ‘smart grid’ that focuses on delivering new energy management tools to customers, enabling increased energy efficiency, supporting efficient new technology such as plug-in electric vehicles, and reducing the cost of integrating renewable energy generation with variable output into resource portfolios.

The complete Joint Statement can be found at http://docs.nrdc.org/energy/files/ene_14021101a.pdf. The press release is at http://www.nrdc.org/media/2014/140212.asp

We know from recent years that an omnibus federal budget implementation bill, released subsequent to the Budget itself, may contain environment-related initiatives that are not apparent from the budget documents released along with the Finance Minister’s budget presentation. Hence the following extract from the 2014 Federal Budget should be considered preliminary. Canada Federal Budget 2014 environment and energy related initiatives, in no particular order, include:

According to WRAP, the UK’s Waste and Resources Action Programme, the clothing industry represents the fifth-biggest environmental footprint of any UK industry after transport, utilities, construction, and food. To reduce this footprint, WRAP today launched a Sustainable Clothing Action Plan and has obtained the commitment of companies representing 40% of UK clothing sales and many leading charities and recyclers.

Committed companies, which include such household names as Tesco and Marks & Spencer, pledge to achieve by 2020 a lifecycle:

• 15% reduction in carbon footprint;
• 15% reduction in water footprint;
• 15% reduction in waste to landfill; and
• 3.5% reduction in waste.

The companies also commit to:

• use a common assessment tool, developed by WRAP, to measure baseline position and track changes in footprint over time.
• reduce the environmental footprint of clothing through fibre and fabric selection.
• over the longer term, work with supply chain partners to reduce the environmental footprint of their processes.
• extend the useful life of clothes and reduce the environmental impact of clothing in use through our product design and services.
• develop effective messaging to influence key consumer behaviours which will reduce the environmental footprint of clothing.
• increase re-use and recycling to recover maximum value from used clothing.
• develop actions that help keep clothes out of landfill.

This is one of the most aggressive large industry sector environmental initiatives that GallonDaily has seen. We will watch its progress with interest but we have a hunch that it will be a success.

Lots more details are available at http://www.wrap.org.uk/SCAP2020targetstraderelease and through links from that page, the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan itself is at http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/sustainable-clothing-action-plan-1, and an interesting report Valuing our clothes: the true cost of how we design, use and dispose of clothing in the UK, is at http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/valuing-our-clothes

To GallonDaily’s knowledge there is no program anything like the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan anywhere in North America.

For years now the link between weather and climate has been somewhat foggy and confusing. A recent paper from the UK Met Office and the UK’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology has explored the link between climate change the severe storms being experienced in many parts of the UK this winter.  The conclusions:

• There is an increasing body of evidence that shows that extreme daily rainfall rates in the UK are becoming more intense.
• The rate of increase is consistent with what is expected from fundamental physics.
• Although formal attribution is still challenging, it is possible to identify a contribution from climate change for some major flooding events, there is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly heavy rain events.
• It is still not yet not possible to give a definitive answer on whether climate change has or has not been a contributor to this year’s winter storms.
• The attribution of changes in storminess and daily/hourly rain rates to anthropogenic global warming requires climate models of sufficient resolution to capture storms and their associated rainfall. Such models are now becoming available and should be deployed as soon as possible to provide a solid evidence base for future investments in flood and coastal defences.

Although the report is for the UK situation, it is interesting to the Canadian situation because it links the unusual weather in the UK to changes. specifically ocean warming, in the Pacific Ocean and tracks weather patterns from the Pacific across North America to the UK.

The report also notes that the sea level along the English Channel has already risen by about 12cm in the last 100 years. With the warming we are already committed to over the next few decades, a further 11-16cm of sea level rise is likely by 2030. This equates to 23-27cm (9-10½ inches) of total sea level rise since 1900.

GallonDaily suggests that the report provides support for the idea that the time for analysis of the impact of climate change on business operations is here.

A summary of the report and a link to the full document are available at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/2014/uk-storms-and-floods

The Met Office is the UK’s National Weather Service. It has a long history of weather forecasting and has been working in the area of climate change for more than two decades. It is a Trading Fund within the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, operating on a commercial basis under set targets. The Met Office claims to be a world leader in providing weather and climate services, employing more than 1,800 at 60 locations throughout the world.

In an indication of the overall direction being taken by some courts towards environmentally negligent companies, a court in South Africa has committed the managing director of a clay mining company to five years in jail, suspended for 5 years on condition that the damage done by the mining operations is rehabilitated within 3 months. Whether or not environmental rehabilitation sufficient to meet the court’s conditions is possible within 3 months is presently unknown.

According to the Centre for Environmental Rights, a non-profit company and law clinic based in Cape Town, this is the first case in the country where a sentence of direct imprisonment has been imposed on the director of a licensed mining company for mining-related environmental offences, without the option of a fine. Both Blue Platinum and its managing director pleaded guilty to contravention of section 24F of the National Environmental Management Act.

Blue Platinum Ventures 16 Pty Ltd has been mining clay for bricks in the province of Limpopo since 2007, causing widespread environmental degradation. Blue Platinum has undertaken none of the rehabilitation measures required by mining and environmental laws. The cost of rehabilitating the damage caused has been estimated at approximately R6.8 million ($CDN680,000).

After the government failed to take action against the company the community linked up with the Centre for Environmental Rights in a private prosecution of the Company.

One of the directors of the company is the wife of the former provincial premier. Local media have suggested that the Managing Director pleaded guilty in order to avoid any risk that the former premier’s wife would be found guilty and jailed. Charges against all of the directors except the Managing Director were dropped.

Some details of the court decision are at http://cer.org.za/news/breaking-news-mining-company-director-convicted-of-environmental-offences-suspended-sentence-linked-to-cleanup. A statement by the head of the national environment practice at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, one of South Africa’s largest commercial law firms, is at http://www.polity.org.za/article/sa-statement-by-cliffe-dekker-hofmeyr-one-of-south-africas-largest-commercial-law-firms-court-imposes-prison-sentence-on-a-director-of-a-company-that-has-caused-environmental-harm-07022014-2014-02-07

The Network for Business Sustainability, housed within the Ivey Business School at Western University in London, Ontario, convened a panel last Fall to identify the 8 Sustainability Challenges for Canadian Business in 2014. The results of the panel deliberations have just been published. According to this panel, the critical sustainability issues facing business in Canada this year are:

• How can businesses act for tomorrow today?
• How can companies design resilient sustainability programs that can survive leadership changes, economic downturns, political shifts and other setbacks?
• How can companies most effectively engage with activist groups and NGOs on controversial issues?
• How can companies combat consumer apathy to build active support for sustainability initiatives?
• How can firms create a pragmatic connection between sustainability and innovation?
• How can firms improve overall performance by embedding sustainability throughout their value chains?
• What are the appropriate metrics for sustainable development in a natural resource, export-based and growing economy such as Canada’s?
• What are the best ways for businesses to incorporate Aboriginal perspectives on sustainability, and include Aboriginal communities in discussion of projects that affect their interests?

The organizations participating in this NBS process are:

• 3M
• BC Hydro
• Canadian Pacific
• the Co-operators
• Environment Canada
• Holcim
• Industry Canada
• International Institute for Sustainable Development
• Loyalty One
• the Pembina Institute
• Suncor Energy
• Target
• TD
• Teck
• Tembec
• The Home Depot
• Tim Hortons
• Unilever, and
• Westport Innovations

GallonDaily finds some of the issues selected to be quite interesting and perhaps illustrative of other challenges within the Canadian business community. We will be providing our discussion of the NBS panel comments in the February 2014 issue of Gallon Environment Letter. Meanwhile we invite our readers’ comments by using the link below. Note that we may publish a selection of the comments from our readers that we find to be the most interesting.

The brief NBS report is available at http://nbs.net/knowledge/simplifying-complexity-the-8-sustainability-challenges-for-canadian-business-in-2014/

New regulations in the State of Massachusetts will prohibit some landfilling and incineration of food waste effective October 1st of this year. The rules will apply to supermarkets, colleges, universities, hotels, convention centres, hospitals, nursing homes, restaurants and food service and processing companies that dispose of more than one ton of organic material per week. Organizations will be required to donate or re-purpose an usable food and to send the inedible waste to animal feed, composting, or anaerobic digestion.  The Mass Department of Environmental Protection will enforce the rule which will not apply to households. The regulations appear to make Massachusetts the first state or province in North America to implement a disposal ban on food waste.

The purpose of the ban is:

• to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill. Food waste and organics make up 20-25 percent of the current waste stream going to landfills and incinerators.
• to give impetus to production of biogas from anaerobic digestion facilities in the state. Also to give impetus to the construction of AD facilities and the resulting economic spin-offs.
• to reduce the State’s contribution to climate change. Food waste is one of the largest sources of high greenhouse gas potential methane from landfills.

For announcement of the new rules visit http://www.mass.gov/eea/pr-2014/food-waste-disposal.html . A link on that page connects to the regulations.