August 22nd, 2010
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is truly finding its place in commercial assessments of sustainable products. It has moved from a purely academic undertaking to a necessary part of any successful product developments in the eco-friendly space.
Greenbiz recently noted the 10 critical things innovators and organisations should know about LCA. See the full article here.
Greenbiz detailed 10 facts to help and to give a point of view on this exciting field:
1) LCA is a tool in a growing field called ‘Industrial Ecology’
2) Think “cradle-to-grave” or ideally, “cradle-to-cradle”
3) LCA is often performed to determine the impact of consumer products
4) A product carbon footprint is a type of LCA
5) To do an LCA the right way, you need to know (and communicate) the “what” and the “why”
6) LCA is data driven
7) The Life Cycle Inventory is the meat of LCA
It’s not enough to know how much – we have to place the impacts in context
9) Interpretation – An assessment has to eventually be framed by the practitioner
10) LCA is what we make of it – e.g. We shouldn’t evaluate a “bad” product and use LCA to improve it incrementally
Tags: Bioplastics, Environmental Policy, Global Industry Analysts, Greenbiz, LCA, Life Cycle Assessment, Renewable, science, Sustainability, Technology
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August 7th, 2010
Coffee producers are under pressure to find sustainable ways to deliver our favourite hot beverage.
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, one of the pioneers of adopting reusable cups in the industry, has come under increasing pressure for it’s highly successful disposable coffee pods, which are single use and made of plastics.
The coffee industry is generally finding itself in a seismic shift from traditional, oil-dependent products and supply methods, to solutions that are friendlier to the environment.
Balancing the switch to truly sustainable products while remaining profitable is tricky business, as bioplastics are an emerging market compared to matured plastics manufacturing industry.
This is particularly so in the notoriously competitive beverage industry, which as a result has generally been at the forefront of developing innovative solutions to help products compete.
For the complete news on the Coffee Conundrum, we recommend this NY Times piece.
Tags: Bioplastics, Cafes, Coffee, Corporate Responsibility, Disposal, Oil Dependence, Plastiki, Renewable Resources, Sustainability, Waste
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July 25th, 2010
The UN Environment Program estimates the plastic debris causes the deaths of 1,000,000 seabirds and 100,000 mammals every year. The entire ocean contains an average of 46,000 pieces of floating plastic per square mile.
While it’s long been known that our oceans and their natural habitats are severely affected by plastics, truly feasible and cost-competitive alternatives to oil-based plastics have only surfaced in the last 5 years. Technology has allowed us to develop biodegradable materials that aim to eliminate the negative and disruptive effects of plastics in everyday life.
An article focusing on Australian impacts can be found here.
Tags: Bioplastics, Disposal, Innovation, Oil Dependence, Resources, Waste
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July 21st, 2010
Another early-stage breakthrough in the rapidly moving world of bioplastics research, Purac has developed a process to take cell-based (’cellulosic’) waste from paper and pulp – which would otherwise divert to landfill or become residue of paper recycling streams – and create feedstock which is likely to be used in the production of lactic acid. This in turn provides the building blocks for sustainable bioplastics including PLA.
Turning paper waste into feedstock further reduces impacts along the waste chain – for further detail go here.
Tags: Bioplastics, Disposal, Renewable, Technology
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July 1st, 2010
Berlin – 1 June 2010 – Green investments are the best way to beat the crisis – This was the final summary from findings of a poll conducted by the European Bioplastics Association of its members.
The bulk of companies questioned reported healthy growth figures for 2009, in some cases considerably more than 5% up on the previous year. The figures largely fulfilled, and in some cases exceeded, expectations.
Tags: Bioplastics, Oil Dependence, Renewable, Resources, Technology
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July 1st, 2010
It must be difficult to be Oprah. Once a cause is endorsed, there are no half-way executions, everything about her lifestyle and those of the people around her and her Harpo moniker, undergo the full cause-makeover. In greening up the practices of her company, the staff at Harpo had a ‘Bring you’re own mug to work day’ as part of the Waste not, want not episode theme. Green Mountain café, definitely one of the well known coffee connoisseurs in the U.S., also got a nice plug.
(Niv: In ‘nice plug’ you can chuck this link (embed) http://www.greenmountaincafe.com/tag/oprah/
It must be difficult to be Oprah. Once a cause is endorsed, there are no half-way executions, everything about her lifestyle and those of the people around her and her Harpo moniker, undergo the full cause-makeover.
In greening up the practices of her company, the staff at Harpo had a ‘Bring you’re own mug to work day’ as part of the Waste not, want not episode theme. Green Mountain café, definitely one of the well known coffee connoisseurs in the U.S., also got a nice plug.
Tags: Coffee, Disposal, Health, Innovation, paper cup problem, Renewable, Sustainability
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August 27th, 2009
A post on the official U.N. blog Our World discusses the largely unknown environmental impacts of purchasing our daily cup of coffee in disposable paper cups. The post provides a good starting point for anyone interested in the debate regarding oil-based disposable paper cups versus materials such as corn-based plastics for consumer goods, which are seen as eco-friendly alternatives.
The largest producer of corn-based plastics for commercial and consumer goods, Natureworks, is the target of a slightly biased article referred to in the post, which is originally sourced from the Guardian. Being a new technology, corn based materials are often costlier than their petroleum based counterparts, and subsequently the technology required to make these materials compostable is also more expensive.
As a result, while certain countries (e.g. in Europe, Taiwan) are quick to adopt the technology, seeing it as an evolving step away from petroleum-based plastics, recycling industries in other countries are more resistant to change (this is touched upon in the Guardian).
For the complete post from the Our World blog – see here - http://ourworld.unu.edu/en/2009/03/03/storm-in-a-paper-cup/#more-656
Tags: Bioplastics, Coffee, Oil Dependence, paper cup problem, Resources, Sustainability, Technology
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