The cement industry has put lots of effort into trying to show that concrete manufacturing results in less CO₂ per unit than almost all other construction materials, making it the sustainable construction material of choice. A new study by researchers in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University and the College of the Environment at the University of Washington in Seattle and published in the Journal of Sustainable Forestry finds that wood is a more sustainable construction material by a comfortable margin. GallonDaily suggests that this is by no means the last to be heard on this topic though the new research has a high degree of credibility on the topic.

In brief, the research identifies the significant value from a climate change perspective in using wood for durable (long life) products, to which construction is a significant contributor. The research identifies several pathways through which wood can potentially avoid emitting CO₂ from FF (fossil fuels) to the atmosphere:

• forest pathway (FP): sequestering CO₂ in the standing forest;
• storage pathway (SP): storing wood in the products so it does not rot or burn and produce CO₂;
• energy pathway (EP): displacing CO₂ produced by burning FF with CO₂ produced by burning energy;
• avoidance pathway (AP): substituting wood for steel, concrete, and other products that use more energy in their manufacture, thus consuming less FF and emitting less CO₂;
• landfill pathway (LP): storing waste wood in landfills where it either does not decompose or decomposes and emits methane and other greenhouse gases.

In the case of construction, findings of the research include:

• Avoided emissions (using wood in place of steel and concrete) contributes the most to CO₂ and FF savings compared to the product and wood energy contributions. Burning parts of the harvested logs that are not used for products creates an additional CO₂ and FF savings.
• Globally, both enough extra wood can be harvested sustainably and enough infrastructure of buildings and bridges needs to be built to reduce annual CO₂ emissions by 14 to 31% and FF consumption by 12 to 19% if part of this infrastructure were made of wood.
• The greatest CO₂ and FF savings from wood use are by avoiding the excess FF energy used to make steel and concrete structures (avoidance pathway). Wood products are more efficient than wood energy for CO₂ and FF savings; however, up to 37 % of the world’s annual CO₂ emissions and 27% of the FF use could be saved if all wood growth not used in construction were used for energy.
• If catastrophic fires do not occur and forest regrowth after harvest is not considered, saving CO₂ by not harvesting the forest growth is slightly more efficient than harvesting just for wood energy—but generally less efficient than harvesting for construction products. This efficiency of CO₂ storage in unharvested forests also assumes none of the wood blows over or otherwise rots in the forest—an unrealistic assumption in most of the world.
• When regrowth after harvest is considered, even wood harvested just for energy (energy pathway) can be more efficient for CO₂ sequestration than not harvesting the forest and using FF for energy.
• It may be appropriate to adjust carbon sequestration incentives and building codes to reflect the value of wood use in saving CO₂ and FF. For example, REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, a mechanism under negotiation by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and other incentives that seek to store CO₂ in forests appear to be counterproductive if curtailing harvest meant steel and concrete were used in construction instead, with concomitant high rates of CO₂ emissions and FF consumption.

Edelman is the world’s largest independently owned public relations firm. Recently an article in the UK based The Guardian newspaper suggested that Edelman works for some of the largest climate change deniers. In response, Edelman issued a press release in which it stated that Edelman:

• recognizes the reality of climate change and accepts the science behind the claim.
• does not accept clients that seek to deny climate change.
• works with clients to promote their efforts to cut emissions from operations, improve energy efficiency, use alternative energy sources and build sustainable business models.
• arranges meetings for clients with environmental NGOs, to construct mutually advantageous programs that reduce costs and cut carbon emissions.
• does not work with astroturf groups [groups created by industry lobbyists that attempt to pose as legitimate grassroots organizations] and has never created a website for a client with the intent to deny climate change.
• has partnered with many of the world’s largest companies on pioneering environmental programs, going back more than 20 years to Dolphin-Safe Tuna for Heinz StarKist.

The President and CEO of Edelman states “Sustainability has moved from philanthropy/CSR to green marketing to sustainable supply chain. The next phase, and it is one where PR can play a massive role, is changing consumer behavior. It is our job as effective PR counselors to make that happen. We are advising our clients to operate in the smart zone, beyond minimum legal standards and above public expectations, because this is where business actually can make a big difference.”

The Edelman press release is available at http://www.edelman.com/p/6-a-m/edelmans-position-climate-change/

The Climate Investigations Center is a new US-based organization set up “to monitor the individuals, corporations, trade associations, political organizations and front groups who work to delay the implementation of sound energy and environmental policies that are necessary in the face of ongoing climate crisis”. As one of its first projects it is conducting a survey of major US public relations firms to determine their position on working with climate change deniers. The survey results have not yet been analysed but some preliminary results are available at http://www.climateinvestigations.org/

It is interesting to note that CIC states that the first Edelman response to the survey was a note from the President & CEO of Edelman that was inadvertently sent to the Climate Investigations Center stating “I don’t believe we are obligated in any way to respond. There are only wrong answers for this guy.” It was only after Edelman’s supposedly incorrect position was reported in the press that Edelman updated its response to that described in the bullets of this article.

It is clear that some PR firms do work with climate change deniers. If environmentally reputable companies will decide not to work with PR firms that provide support to the climate change denial movement it might help move more PR firms away from deniers, in the same way that some environmentally reputable companies are greening their supply chain and hence helping to improve the environmental and social responsibility performance of more and more companies.

Interface, a company in the commercial carpeting business, and its late founder and Chairman Ray Anderson, have a reputation as one of the founders of the sustainable business movement but Interface is not the only organization involved in recycling of carpeting. According to the Carpet America Recovery Effort, an industry initiative, 534 million pounds of carpet, or 14 percent of the 3.7 billion pounds of total discarded carpet, was diverted from landfills last year.

CARE claims that the environmental impact of the 2013 carpet diversion effort is the equivalent of taking 40,822 cars off the road, or saving enough energy to power 17,692 homes for the year. Since its founding in 2002, CARE members have diverted more than 3.25 billion gross pounds of post-consumer carpet from landfills in the US.

In 2013, 28% by weight of recycled carpet was used to make new fibre for carpets. Another 17% of the recycled carpet was used to make backing material for new carpets. The majority of the recycled carpeting was used to produced engineered resins, specialty plastics that are used in a wide range of rigid plastic products such as are used automobiles, but the percentage going in that direction has decreased from 63% in 2012 to 49% in 2013 as a result of increased demand for post-consumer recycled carpet.

Carpet recycling is not yet a routine activity in Canada and there seems to be little interest from governments. Carpet recycling, and the associated diversion from landfill, will happen only when it is demanded by users of carpeting or forced by regulation. Large users of carpeting, especially in the institutional and commercial sectors, could enhance their sustainability performance and reputation by insisting that used carpet from their facilities is sent to recycling facilities rather than to landfill. US carpet recyclers are available to accept used carpet from Canadian sources and processors accepting used carpet for recycling can be found using the search tool at https://carpetrecovery.org/recovery-effort/collector-finder-map/  You will need to enter the name of a nearby US city and click the processor button to find the recycling companies.

CARE’s 2013 annual report can be found at https://carpetrecovery.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CARE-2013-Annual-Report.pdf

The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change is promoting the use of large scale water source heat pumps providing heating and cooling to buildings from the water in rivers across the country. The Department says that about 40 urban rivers and estuaries in cities and towns across England could provide large-scale renewable heating supplies to local communities through water source heat pumps instead of traditional gas-fired or electric domestic heating.

The Department is limiting installations to try to ensure minimal impact on the riverine environment:

• The size of each installation is limited to 20 MW, equivalent to a heat pump of about 5500 tons capacity in the units often used for North American air conditioning. A 20MW heat pump could provide heating and hot water to about 8,000 to 10,000 UK homes.
• Installations must be at least 1 km apart.
• River temperature must not vary more than 2°C, for either heating or cooling.
• Water source heat pump locations are limited to areas where heat demand exceeds 5 -10kWh/m².
• Heat pumps should avoid environmental conditions where installation might be more difficult, e.g. salmonid areas.

The information, plus a link to a map of water source heating opportunities and, via the map page, to a context and rationale document, is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/regions-given-helping-hand-to-develop-locally-sourced-heat

A new report from Dr. Dorceta Taylor at the University of Michigan, School of Natural Resources & Environment paints a not very good picture of the state of gender, racial, and class diversity in Mainstream NGOs, Foundations & Government Agencies as it pertains to the demographic characteristics of their boards and staff. While the report pertains only to US organizations, Canada’s Sustainability Network states that “most ENGOs today have very little diversity and don’t reflect or authentically engage the communities they serve. This disconnect is most apparent in Ontario where over half of Canada’s visible minorities reside and where 1 in 5 of the country’s Aboriginal peoples live.”

Among the US research findings:

• All three types of environmental institutions have made significant progress on gender diversity over the last five decades, but the gains have mostly gone to white women, and much remains to be done.
• Men are still more likely than females to occupy the most powerful positions in environmental organizations. More than 70% of the presidents and chairs of the board of conservation/preservation organizations are male. Size matters too. The presidents of the largest conservation and preservation organizations (budgets over $1 million) are overwhelmingly male (90%). Men also dominate the executive director positions in government environmental agencies. Males are far more likely than females to be on the staff of government environmental agencies.
• The current state of racial diversity in environmental organizations is troubling, and lags far behind gender diversity.
• Cross-race and cross-class collaborations are still uncommon in environmental organizations.
• Environmental jobs are still being advertised and environmental organizations recruit new employees in ways that introduce unconscious biases and facilitate the replication of the current workforce.
• Environmental organizations do not use the internship pipeline effectively to find ethnic minority workers.
• The environmental professionals interviewed felt that, in general, diversity in environmental organizations has improved over time, but significant work has to be done to make the workplace more inclusive and welcoming to a broader range of people. The dominant culture of the organizations is alienating to ethnic minorities, the poor, the LGBTQ community, and others outside the mainstream.

GallonDaily’s experience as a long-time participant in the Canadian environment sector suggests that, despite differences between Canada and the US, similar findings would apply to country.

The 175 page report. an executive summary, and a highlights document are available at http://diversegreen.org/report/ . Free registration is required to obtain the documents.

Information about the Canadian Sustainability Network’s Environment and Diversity Project for environmental NGOs can be found at http://sustainabilitynetwork.ca/environment-and-diversity-project/

Greenpeace New Zealand has won an important case before the country’s Supreme Court. While New Zealand law is not Canadian law the case suggests that the Canada Revenue Agency and the Government of Canada may face a tough time if the current government crackdown on campaigning by charities reaches the Supreme Court of Canada, as it may well do.

In 2008 Greenpeace New Zealand applied to the Charities Commission to be registered as a charity. The Commissions rejected the application on the grounds that although the bulk of Greenpeace’s purposes could be considered charitable, the purpose of promoting peace and disarmament was too political and was enough to cause the Commission to reject the application.

Subsequently the case has worked its way through the courts. In 2011 the High Court supported the Charities Commission with a decision that Greenpeace’s nuclear disarmament purposes were independent political purposes and therefore non-charitable.

A few days ago the Supreme Court of New Zealand reversed this decision and found in favour of Greenpeace. Reasons given for the decision included that a “political purpose” exclusion should no longer be applied in New Zealand: political and charitable purposes are not mutually exclusive in all cases; a blanket exclusion is unnecessary and distracts from the underlying inquiry whether a purpose is of public benefit within the sense the law

The Court also found that:

• it is difficult to see that all advocacy for legislative change should be excluded from being recognised as charitable. Promotion of law reform of the type often undertaken by law commissions which aims to keep laws fit for modern purposes may well be properly seen as charitable if undertaken by private organisations even though such reform inevitably entails promotion of legislation. Such advocacy may well constitute in itself a public good which is analogous to other good works within the sense the law considers charitable.
• even in the case of promotion of specific law reform, an absolute rule that promotion of legislation is never charitable is hard to justify. First, it is not apparent why there should be any distinction between promoting legislative change and promoting change in government policy. Perhaps more significantly, in the circumstances of modern participatory democracy and modern public participatory processes in much administrative and judicial decision-making, there is no satisfactory basis for a distinction between general promotion of views within society and advocacy of law change (including through such available participatory processes).
• a conclusion that a purpose is “political” or “advocacy” obscures proper focus on whether a purpose is charitable within the sense used by law. It is difficult to construct any adequate or principled theory to support blanket exclusion. A political purpose or advocacy exclusion would be an impediment to charitable status for organisations which, although campaigning for charitable ends, do not themselves directly undertake tangible good works of the type recognised as charitable.
• a strict exclusion risks rigidity in an area of law which should be responsive to the way society works. It is likely to hinder the responsiveness of this area of law to the changing circumstances of society. Just as the law of charities recognised the public benefit of philanthropy in easing the burden on parishes of alleviating poverty, keeping utilities in repair, and educating the poor in post-Reformation Elizabethan England, the circumstances of the modern outsourced and perhaps contracting state may throw up new need for philanthropy which is properly to be treated as charitable.
• just as promotion of the abolition of slavery has been regarded as charitable, today advocacy for such ends as human rights or protection of the environment and promotion of amenities that make communities pleasant may have come to be regarded as charitable purposes in themselves, depending on the nature of the advocacy, even if not ancillary to more tangible charity. . .  In the present case the Board has accepted that Greenpeace’s object to “promote the protection and preservation of nature and the environment” is charitable. Protection of the environment may require broad-based support and effort, including through the participatory processes set up by legislation, to enable the public interest to be assessed.

As previously stated, the New Zealand Supreme Court decision does not necessarily indicate the likely outcome of a similar Canadian case. However, much of the New Zealand decision is based on case law that is similar to that which may be placed before Canadian courts.

The full court decision and the Court’s media release can be found at http://www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/front-page/from/decisions/judgments by scrolling down to Case Number [2014] NZSC 105. The Greenpeace summary of the decision can be found at http://www.greenpeace.org/new-zealand/en/blog/greenpeaces-supreme-court-win-made-new-zealan/blog/50202/

GallonDaily is not a source of legal advice.

A new European Environment Agency report, Resource-efficient green economy and EU policies, discusses trends and policy directions relevant to growth of a green economy in Europe. It is recommended reading for any Canadian executives hoping to take advantage of a more open European market, if the comprehensive trade agreement between Canada and Europe comes into force, and even more importantly it should be read by Canadian governmental policy makers who may well find that, even with a trade agreement, Canadian access to the European market is limited by our country’s failure to achieve green business standards equivalent to those of Europe.

Among the many interesting findings of the report:

• The green economy is, today, seen as a strategic way of delivering a fairer society living in a better environment
• Green orientation is also emerging in EU strategies for international cooperation for development,
• The change in the sectoral composition of the EU economy, in particular the growth of services, has not lowered its impact on resources as was expected. Instead, it is more associated with changing trading patterns and ‘trade‑embodied emissions’, as well as an increase of the global consumption footprint above that of the EU.
• Given the present state of resource efficiency in manufacturing, ‘re‑manufacturing’ is unlikely to improve the resource efficiency of the EU economy, and major objectives, including those for climate, unless innovative and selective green re‑manufacturing are pursued.
• Green or eco‑innovation should be considered as a primary enabling factor especially as the policy framework for green innovation is already in place. Innovation can be a fundamental lever in guiding the EU energy and material‑use systems towards a radical transformation of practices.
• Adoption and diffusion of eco‑innovation are extremely important, even more so than invention, for the resource efficiency benefits of innovation to reach a macro‑level.
• Fiscal reforms, too, are important enabling factors. Economic instruments, such as environmental taxes and emission trading schemes, are policy tools that can change pricing systems, which is essential for triggering the resource‑efficient green economy transformation process.
• Transformation to a green economy requires a departure from the business‑as‑usual economic paradigm, which is socially, environmentally and economically unsustainable. The process requires long‑term vision and targets that include the societal transition perspective.
• The green economy does not mean de‑industrialisation; there is a role for innovative manufacturing in a green economy transition.
• ‘Directed’ technological change towards saving resources and reducing emissions matters more than macro‑level structural change, for example a change of sector mix, in creating a resource‑efficient economy.
• The expected flow of climate‑related spending in the near future is huge and EU Member States have pledges in place corresponding to around one third of the total global amount.

The 88-page report can be found at http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/resourceefficient-green-economy-and-eu

A new study of U.S. hotels from The Center for Hospitality Research at Cornell University examines the impact of LEED certification on revenue performance for a substantial sample of U.S. hotels and finds that LEED certified hotels demonstrate a clear advantage in revenue per available room over their non-LEED competitors for at least the first two years after certification. Most hotels’ certification is so recent that there is insufficient data at this time to gauge whether the revenue advantage continues after two years.

The study compares the performance 93 LEED-certified hotels (representing the population of such hotels in 2012) to that of 514 comparable competitors. Among the findings of the research:

• in the U.S. the number of hotels certified to the LEED standard showed an increasing trend that seems to have peaked in 2010, when 29 hotels were certified.
• from 2011 on, there has been a decline in the number of newly certified hotels.
• this trend suggests that although the LEED standard has gained increased acceptance in the hotel industry the potential benefits from LEED are not clear to the industry.
• many large hotel companies have adopted LEED certification as part of their development programs. Marriott, for example, has created a “LEED Volume Program” with a pre-certified prototype that they can build all over the world. Many independent hoteliers have also adopted LEED to differentiate their properties.
• 31% of certified hotels are luxury hotels and 84% are upscale or above. 42% of LEED hotels are franchised properties, and the remainder are split evenly between chain operators and independents.
• most certified hotels are in suburban or urban markets (71%), which is consistent with what the certification criteria of LEED would suggest (e.g., points given for serving densely populated areas with public transportation options). Smallish hotels seem to be best suited for LEED certification, as 46% of the sample’s certified hotels fall in the range of 75 to 149 rooms, with another 28% between 150 and 299 rooms. These statistics could also be simply because these are the most common hotel sizes in the U.S.
• there is a general trend toward superior financial performance for LEED certified hotels. As a group, the 93 LEED certified hotels had a somewhat lower occupancy rate (63% for the LEED group versus 67% for the non-certified hotels), but a higher average daily rate ($169 vs. $160).

The 13 page report The Impact of LEED Certification on Hotel Performance can be found at https://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/chr/pubs/reports/2014.html . Registration (free) is required to read the report.

CNA Corporation, a non-profit research and analysis organization based in Arlington, Virginia, has published two studies which show that there will not be enough water to supply world population and keep the current energy and power solutions going if we continue doing what we are doing today.

The reports indicate that, in most countries, electricity production, including coal, natural gas, and nuclear, is the biggest consumer of water. Coal fired generation with carbon capture and storage consumes even more water than conventional coal fired generating stations. By 2020, many areas of the world will no longer have access to clean drinking water and about 30-40% of the world will have water scarcity. One of the reports’ authors is quoted as stating that “It’s a huge problem that the electricity sector do not even realize how much water they actually consume”.

The researchers focussed on specific utilities and energy suppliers in France, the United States, China and India, identifying current energy needs and making projections to 2040. All four case studies project that it will be impossible to continue to produce electricity in the current way and meet overall water demand by 2040.

The reports make recommendations in six general areas:

• Promote energy efficiency and demand-side management.
• Deploy renewable energy technologies that do not require cooling.
• Avoid building new freshwater-cooled thermoelectric power plants in water-stressed regions.
• Improve monitoring, data collection, and analysis for policy, planning, and permitting.
• Increase research and development support for advanced power-sector technologies that reduce water use and provide other co-benefits.

A press release from one of the report’s authors, Benjamin Sovacool, a Professor at Aarhus Uuniversity, Denmark, and Associate Professor at Vermont Law School, USA, is at http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-07/au-wws072914.php. Links to the two reports are at http://www.cna.org/news/releases/2014-07-28.

Reports on climate change, almost all suggesting action rather than inaction, are now being published so frequently that they threaten to overwhelm GallonDaily. We know our readers are interested in the full range of environmental and sustainability issues facing business in Canada so we will deliberately limit our coverage of climate change matters to a maximum of two articles each week. We will try to select those topics which may have the greatest impact on business and on public policy affecting business.

One of the more significant reports this week comes from the U.S. President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Focussing on the economics of climate change and with an extensive bibliography, the report makes clear that costs will be substantially lower if action is taken sooner rather than later. Among the findings:

• if a delay [in action on climate change] causes the mean global temperature increase to stabilize at 3° Celsius above preindustrial levels, instead of 2°, that delay will induce annual additional damages of approximately 0.9 percent of global output. To put this percentage in perspective, 0.9 percent of estimated 2014 U.S. GDP is approximately $150 billion. The next degree increase, from 3° to 4°, would incur greater additional annual costs of approximately 1.2 percent of global output. These costs are not one-time: they are incurred year after year because of the permanent damage caused by additional climate change resulting from the delay.
• the second type of cost of delay is the increased cost of reducing emissions more sharply if, instead, the delayed policy is to achieve the same climate target as the non-delayed policy.
• any short run gains from delay tend to be outweighed by the additional costs arising from the need to adopt a more abrupt and stringent policy later. An analysis of the collective results from research suggests that the cost of hitting a specific climate target increases, on average, by approximately 40 percent for each decade of delay. These costs are higher for more aggressive climate goals: the longer the delay, the more difficult it becomes to hit a climate target. Furthermore, the research also finds that delay substantially decreases the chances that even concerted efforts in the future will hit the most aggressive climate targets.
• it is cost-effective to start with a relatively less stringent policy, then increase stringency over time, and the models typically build in this cost-effective tradeoff. However, most models still find that immediate initiation of a less stringent policy followed by increasing stringency incurs lower costs than delaying policy entirely and then increasing stringency more rapidly.
• delaying action is much costlier for more stringent targets… the median additional cost (global present value) for a 20-year delay is estimated to be $0.7 trillion for 650 ppm CO2e but a substantially greater $4.7 trillion for 550 ppm CO2e. Many of the models in these studies suggest that delay causes a target of 450 ppm CO2e to be much more costly to achieve, or possibly even infeasible.
• delay from 2010 to 2020 to stabilize CO2 concentration levels at 450 ppm by 2100 raises mitigation cost by 50 to 700 percent.

A summary of the report and a link to the full 32 page document can be found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/07/29/new-report-cost-delaying-action-stem-climate-change