An avid traveler, canoeist and truth-teller, Peter helped pioneer environmental journalism in Canada through his work at the Toronto Star. Over the last decade, he wrote regularly for Corporate Knights, on subjects as varied as biogas, advanced battery technologies and urban flood risks, although his passion was electric vehicles. Former CK editor Tyler Hamilton remembers Peter as dependable, soft-spoken and thoughtful: “Skeptical, as any good journalist should be, but not to the point of being jaded.”

Corporate Knights contributor Shawn McCarthy fondly recalls his friendship with Gorrie. “He and I worked at The Star together – we were once partners in a baseball rotisserie league and worked the environment beat together after I went to The Globe. He was a prince of a guy.”

“Peter was a gentle and practical soul with a deep love for our planet who cared about getting the details right,” recalls CK founder and publisher Toby Heaps. “One of his last assignments for us involved working through a complex spreadsheet that would properly gauge the total cost of ownership of an electric car versus its gasoline-burning equivalent. We went back and forth over many e-mails to get to a point where he was satisfied the model was accurate. It ended up being a beautiful story about the electric car you thought you couldn’t afford, and was one of the most-read articles in Corporate Knights’ history.”

Says Heaps: “Peter will missed by many, and will always be an inspiration for current and future journalists covering the plight of mother nature.”

The post Remembering Peter Gorrie appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Natura certification marks big milestone for B Corp program

Natura, the Brazilian cosmetics company with nearly $3 billion in sales and 7,000 employees, has become the first publicly traded and billion-dollar company to become a certified B Corp. The news marks a major milestone for the B Labs-run program, which has certified nearly 2,000 companies worldwide – including Corporate Knights. Most of those companies are small, privately owned ventures. Natura ranked 23^rd on CK’s 2014 Global 100 Most Sustainable Companies ranking and was the top-ranked Household and Personal Products company. The fact it has now joined the B Corp pack represents a massive breakthrough that could lure other big-name, publicly traded companies to the standard. Members of the B Corp community commit to high standards of environmental and social stewardship and transparency, and are subjected to random, periodic audits. Prior to Natura, companies such as Kickstarter and Ben and Jerry’s were among some of the better-known B Corp members.

Paulson Institute dissects China’s energy policies, future

Henry Paulson could be described as a mainstream Republican, so when the former U.S. treasury secretary and Goldman Sachs chief executive argued in a commentary last summer in favour of a U.S. carbon tax, it created a stir in conservative circles. Now the Paulson Institute, an independent think tank he founded at the University of Chicago in 2011, has released a new paper that focuses attention on China’s own carbon dilemma. Institute fellow Damien Ma argues that Chinese policy in recent years has directly responded to the urgency of the country’s energy and environment woes. The challenge, he writes, is the reality that economic growth – and therefore growth in energy demand – will continue for decades to come. How China expects to solve that conundrum makes this paper an interesting read. Meanwhile, China’s highest court this week announced it would lower how much it costs environmental groups to sue Chinese companies caught polluting air, land and water.

Sustainable jobs to get boost in 2015, says recruiter

Executive recruiter Ellen Weinreb has a commentary in the Guardian that predicts significant shifts in the sustainable job market as more companies wake up to the importance of corporate social responsibility. “Demonstrating earnestness in sustainability will be essential in 2015,” Weinreb writes. “It has already been established that consumers prefer to do business with responsible organizations. A new driver – the need to attract competitive employees – has also added pressure for companies to broadly integrate sustainability into their operations.” Weinreb adds that more chief sustainability officers are expected to report directly to the C-suite while companies are likely to embrace the use of more contract or part-time sustainability professionals.

Deutsche Bank bullish on solar stocks, despite low oil prices

There’s a strange psychology in the marketplace when it comes to energy stocks. When oil prices are low, shares of renewable energy companies tend to suffer – despite the fact that solar and wind farms are a direct replacement for coal and natural gas, not oil. But Deutsche Bank, while it recognizes this impact of low oil prices, is quite optimistic about how solar stocks will perform in 2015. Particularly, it’s bullish on SunEdison, Solar City, SunPower and Vivant Solar, with expectations that within the next 12 months shares in these companies will jump by 80 to 100 per cent. Indeed, Bloomberg New Energy Finance is reporting that clean energy investment rose for the first time in three years in 2014. “The impact of cheaper crude will be felt much more in road transport than in electricity generation,” said BNEF advisory board chair Michael Liebreich.

Oil’s slippery slope: Is the petro armour weakening?

Corporate Knights editor-in-chief Tyler Hamilton writes about the latest events that have destabilized the fossil-fuel sector, and more importantly, the once untouchable oil industry. Citing McKinsey sustainability guru Jeremy Oppenheim, Hamilton argues that the future of the fossil fuel industry will be marked by increased infighting as oil, natural gas and coal companies jockey to be the least impacted by increasingly strict carbon policies and regulations. “A sure sign of disruption in a sector is when its key players begin to turn on each other, like the survivors of a remote mountain plane crash trying to figure out who gets eaten first,” Hamilton writes. “Coal, as the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, is that flabby dude who ends up roasting in the campfire.” But all that will do is delay the inevitable, he adds, pointing out that the oil industry’s belief that humanity will dither on serious climate action is a big gamble that could sting investors.

The post Jan. 9, 2015 appeared first on Corporate Knights.

A report released yesterday by ForestEthics shows that a forest certification system called the Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI) is misleading and lacks rigour. Peeling Back the Eco-Labels compared SFI to another leading certification system called the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and analyzed audit reports from the past 10 years. It found that SFI was “dramatically less transparent,” its audit teams were smaller and took less time to conduct audits than FSC.  Not only did SFI miss important data, it rarely required logging companies to improve their operations when a problem was found. “Corporate customers and the public rely on forest certifications to know that the paper, fiber, and lumber they buy is responsible,” said Todd Paglia, ForestEthics executive director, in a statement. “These labels should allow consumers to avoid products that destroy forests, poison waterways and wildlife, and violate human rights. In the case of SFI, the label is misleading.” None of this should be surprising since SFI is governed and financed by the logging industry, said Paglia. “It’s bunk, plain and simple,” he added.

Much of Canada’s oil will have to stay in the ground

New research published in the journal Nature is adding to the oil industry’s woes by showing that trillions of dollars of extractable coal, oil and gas will have to stay in the ground if global warming is to stay below 2 degrees Celsius. Most of Canada’s oil sands, all Arctic oil and gas and much potential shale gas cannot be burned, the Guardian reported yesterday. “We’ve now got tangible figures of the quantities and locations of fossil fuels that should remain unused in trying to keep within the 2C temperature limit,” Christophe McGlade, lead researcher for the study, told the Guardian. The study assumes that the cheapest fossil fuels will be burned first, with more expensive fuels eventually being priced out of the market as carbon emissions are increasingly restricted. This is particularly bad news for Canada’s oil sands. The model assumes that cheaper conventional oil will be burned first, leaving Alberta’s crude oil unused before the carbon limit is reached.

New York City bans foam containers and packing peanuts

Many restaurants offering take-out in New York City will have to find new containers for their food as of July 1. The city has banned the use of plastic foam cups and containers, as well as the sale of packing peanuts within the city limits. This is a victory for Mayor Bill de Blasio who has failed to pull through on other promises, such as banning horse carriages, the New York Times wrote yesterday.  The move is being praised by environmental groups, such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, which have argued that foam containers are needlessly piling up in landfills when more environmentally friendly alternatives exist.

Australia’s power sector is getting dirtier

Australia’s National Electricity Market, which serves the eastern part of the country, has seen an 11 per cent increase in emissions since June. The latest Cedex report by energy consultants Pitt & Sherry found that the share of coal in the company’s energy mix had risen to an 18-month high of 74.5 per cent by the end of 2014.  This is simply a matter of coal displacing hydro, Hugh Saddler, principal consultant with Pitt & Sherry told the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday. Low rainfall has cut storage levels for hydro companies across the country, including Hydro Tasmania which saw its production drop to a five-year low of 32 per cent.  All of this comes after the Australian government scrapped its carbon price and shifted its sights to a $2.55 billion fund that pays polluters to cut emissions. This scheme will only become more expensive if pollution from the electricity sector jumps, the Sydney Morning Herald pointed out.

Denmark’s power sector sets a clean energy record

While Australia was creating more emissions from dirty power generation, Denmark was busy setting a world record for wind production. After deriving 39.1 per cent of its overall electricity from wind turbines in 2014, the country is well on track to meeting its 2020 renewable energy target of 50 per cent.  Denmark achieved this feat by installing around 100 new offshore wind turbines last year. If it continues down this path, it could even end up fossil fuel-free by 2050. Rasmus Helveg Petersen, Denmark’s climate and energy minister, was even more optimistic: The record “shows that we can reach our ultimate goal, namely to stop global warming,” he said.

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The post January 8, 2015 appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The Pakistani government has instituted a bold new agenda over the past year to expand solar energy capacity. Roadblocks holding back grid-connected solar energy and rooftop solar installations have been eliminated and innovative financing models for residential solar panels have been approved by parliament in a bid to both reduce carbon emissions and expand energy access across the country. A 32.5 per cent tariff levied on imported solar equipment has also been eliminated. “The initiative will help scale up demand for solar energy across Pakistan, and we hope the increased demand will also result in sufficient decreases in the price of solar equipment,” said Asjad Imtiaz Ali, chief executive officer of the Alternative Energy Development Board in an interview with Reuters. Energy blackouts are common throughout the country, with frequent power cuts of eight hours or more a day.  The total power capacity gap stands around 6,000 megawatts.

After Obama vows to veto Keystone XL legislation, are the oil sands in trouble?

White House Press Secretary Josh Ernest issued a stern veto threat on Tuesday regarding pending Keystone XL legislation working its way through Congress. “I can confirm for you that if this bill passes this Congress, the president wouldn’t sign it either,” Earnest said. So what does this mean for the short-term health of the Alberta oil sands? Bloomberg Businessweek points out that most projects that are currently under construction or already operational will continue to move forward, as the costs of the project are largely up-front. In other words, once an oil sands play is operational or significant money has already been spent by investors, the cost of maintaining extraction is much lower. Continued low oil prices and a growing lack of export infrastructure are likely to discourage new projects from getting off the ground in the future, but that will only impact production capacity years down the road. Fourteen new oil sands projects in Canada are scheduled to start in 2015 with a combined capacity of 266,000 barrels a day.

Israeli biogas start-up aims to tackle food waste

If homeowners can install solar panels on the rooftops of their houses, why can’t they have micro biogas units in their backyards? The two young founders of an Israeli startup, HomeBioGas, are doing exactly that. Yair Teller and Oshik Efrati have designed a backyard-sized biogas machine that turns organic kitchen waste, garden waste and pet droppings into pressurized renewable gas that can be hooked up to a gas barbeque or burned indoors for heat. The system, called TevaGas, also produces a clear organic liquid fertilizer than can be spread on gardens. “We are addressing two market segments…underserved, off-the-grid, urban and rural communities, and more affluent environmentally conscious and aware homeowners,” said Ami Amir, the company’s head of marketing and business development.

Brazilian president picks climate sceptic as minister of science

President Dilma Rousseff, fresh off her close re-election victory, has appointed Aldo Rebelo as minister of science. He is well-known as a long-time outspoken skeptic of climate science, although he vowed in his swearing-in ceremony that his personal views would have no bearing on policy decisions made by his ministry. Environmentalists expressed strong disapproval with the appointment. “At first I thought this was some sort of mistake, that he was playing musical chairs and landed in the wrong chair,” Márcio Santilli, a founder of Instituto Socioambiental, one of Brazil’s leading environmental groups told The New York Times. “Unfortunately, there he is, overseeing Brazilian science at a very delicate juncture when Brazil’s carbon emissions are on the rise again.”

Impact investing lags in U.K. compared to rest of Western Europe: study

Impact investing incorporates a range of emerging investment products, such as social impact bonds, microcredit financing, green building mortgages, social venture funds and so on. These products are mostly being adopted by private foundations, with banks beginning to embrace them as well. Yet, according to National Director of Oikocredit UK, Monica Middleton, the U.K. is struggling to keep up with the growing adoption of impact investing in other western European countries, despite being the birthplace of the first Social Impact Bond. “Yet our latest research, conducted by Tooley Street Research, shows that UK investors are significantly lagging behind their European neighbours, with those at the top of the league table investing almost 24 times more than U.K. investors in social impact products,” she writes. Middleton is encouraged by recent government support expressed in the recent Fall Statement, but calls for more participation in impact investing by middle-class U.K. residents that is in line with the recent boom in other sustainable lifestyle choices made by U.K. consumers.

The post January 7, 2015 appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The Indian government has installed over 500,000 new toilets over the past three months as part of its plan to eliminate open defecation across the country by 2019. The initiative, launched in October, aims to change the habits of the roughly 620 million Indians that still go to the bathroom outdoors. Yet, many citizens that have recently gained access to latrines are not using them. A study by the Delhi-based Research Institute for Compassionate Economics revealed a common misconception that latrines are less healthy than the outdoors. The Modi administration announced last week that it will begin sanitary inspections across the country to ensure compliance with the open defecation initiative. Healthcare advocates are torn as to whether forcing residents to change their habits is the most effective way to go, but everyone is in agreement that the initiative is long overdue.

Who’s to blame for climate change?

The fossil-fuel industry blames consumers. Consumers point their fingers at fossil-fuel suppliers. Everyone gripes at government. Figuring out who to blame for climate change is little more than a thought experiment, writes Corporate Knights’ assistant editor Ashley Renders, mostly because its causes and effects are so diffuse and rarely clear-cut. Still, figuring out where responsibility lies is critical to finding effective solutions to the problem, because we can’t win the battle unless we have a common enemy. Her conclusion: by the time we figure out who is to blame, it may be too late.

Could carbon pricing lead to a north-south clean energy corridor?

With talk of nation-wide carbon pricing heating up and provinces, such as Ontario and Quebec, pushing province-driven solutions, it’s worth considering the medium to long-term implications of such a scenario. A price on carbon could act as the catalyst for a massive export opportunity that would dramatically reduce North America’s greenhouse gas footprint, significantly improve air quality and create thousands of jobs. Scott Vaughan, current CEO of the Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development, writes in iPolitics (subscription) that a North American carbon market would incentivize both countries to work toward displacing U.S. coal with clean Canadian electricity.

Corporate Knights has written extensively about the potential for a north-south clean energy corridor. Our most recent coverage looks at preliminary research conducted by energy consultancy London Economics International (LEI), which found that clean power generated in Canada – mostly from new wind and hydropower projects – could generate $14 billion in annual export revenues by 2030.

California Governor emphasizes green shift during inauguration for an unprecedented fourth term

In the aftermath of an easy re-election victory in November, Democratic Governor Jerry Brown laid out an aggressive environmental agenda that accelerates California’s shift toward clean energy. His inauguration speech focused on continued fiscal prudence and the establishment of a “rainy day fund,” which is appropriate for a state that is famous for its fiscal boom and bust cycles. He also announced a new goal for California to generate 50 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources in the next fifteen years. This moved California’s clean energy transition time table up by ten years. California currently generates roughly one third of its electricity from renewables, including large hydropower dams. “We must demonstrate that reducing carbon is compatible with an abundant economy and human well-being,” Brown said during his inauguration speech. “So far, we have been able to do that.”

California cap-and-trade plan grows to cover fuel retailers

Despite fierce pushback by the oil industry, California’s cap-and-trade program expanded this week to cover companies that sell fuel to drivers. Fuel retailers will be required to either provide lower-carbon fuels or buy permits for the pollution generated by the fuel that they sell. Gas prices rose slightly in California in the days following implementation of the new rule, according to the Sacramento Bee. Oil industry lobbyists have been fighting a high-profile battle for the past year over the rule change, arguing that it amounts to a hidden gas tax that could hike gas prices by as much as 75 cents per gallon.

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The post January 6, 2015 appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Garment factories in Bangladesh have undergone extensive safety inspections since the collapse of Rana Plaza in 2013, which killed more than 1,110 people. While these inspections are necessary and long overdue, hundreds of smaller factories cannot afford the structural, electrical and fire safety upgrades that are necessary to bring their buildings up to standard. Small factory owners say they are experiencing a slide in orders and an increase in minimum wages, making it even harder for them to finance safety upgrades. Corporate Knights reported in October that one way to improve health and safety standards in the garment industry is to take a long-term view of investment and give workers a voice in health and safety reviews. This means that companies will have to stop demanding higher quality goods, at cheaper prices in less time. The garment industry currently makes up over 80 per cent of Bangladesh’s exports and employs more than 4 million people, Reuters reported yesterday.

Pope Francis expected to take strong stand on climate change

Pope Francis is preparing to implore 1.2 billion Catholics to act on climate change following his visit to Tacloban, a town in the Philippines that was badly damaged by super typhoon Haiyan in November. The announcement is likely to be released through an encyclical that will be distributed to the world’s 5,000 bishops and 40,000 priests, ThinkProgress reported last week. The Pope is also expected to attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September where he will lobby political and faith leaders ahead of the climate negotiations in Paris in December. “If we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us!” Pope Francis warned a crowd in Rome last May.

Madrid plans largest street-lighting overhaul in the world

The City of Madrid has announced a massive upgrade to its street lighting system. It will replace 225,000 light bulbs with energy efficient LED lights, 84,000 of which will be manufactured locally. The entire system, which is being supplied by Phillips, will be controlled from a central command panel that will adjust the intensity of the bulbs as needed. This is the world’s largest street-lighting upgrade to date and will save the city 44 per cent in energy costs. According to Philips, these savings should cover the costs of the entire system.

New GM crops being developed outside the jurisdiction of regulators

Several companies are developing genetically modified crops using techniques that are outside the jurisdiction of regulators. New methods of genetic modification, such as genome editing and synthetic biology did not exist when the rules were written, meaning U.S. regulators have no authority over them, the New York Times reported. Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, the world’s largest marketer of lawn and garden products, plans to release a genetically modified grass that requires less mowing, is a deeper green and is resistant to Roundup, a popular weedkiller. The company tried to market the seed in 2003, but failed to get government approval after the seed escaped from test plots into the wild. This time, the grass will bypass federal approval and go straight field testing and market. “They are using a technical loophole so that what are clearly genetically engineered crops and organisms are escaping regulation,” Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at Consumers Union, told the New York Times. The grass “can have all sorts of ecological impact and no one is required to look at it,” he added.

Food recommendations could take climate change into account

The latest version of the U.S. government’s dietary guidelines may urge Americans to eat more plant-based foods – not only because they are healthy, but because they are better for the environment.  A panel that advises the Agriculture Department has been discussing sustainability in public meetings, and a draft of its latest recommendations mentions the benefits of a sustainable diet, the Associated Press reported last week. The beef and agriculture industries are fighting back, saying environmental concerns should not be included in health guidelines.

The upcoming Winter 2015 issue of Corporate Knights highlights a Chatham House report that supports the Agriculture Department’s decision to include environmental concerns in its guidelines. Livestock: Climate Change’s Forgotten Sector, released in December, finds that there is a lack of public awareness about the link between meat consumption and greenhouse gases, which currently account for about 14.5 per cent of global emissions. The report calls on governments to improve awareness of the food-GHG link and says climate change must become a primary consideration in food choice.

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The post January 5, 2015 appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The American Public Transportation Association has recorded the highest number of transit riders since it began collecting data in 1974. About 2.7 billion people took rides on public transit in the third quarter of 2014, which is an increase of about 1.8 per cent or 48 millions trips compared to the same period last year. San Francisco, Chicago and New York have shown consistent increases in ridership thanks to improved reach, trip frequency and quality of transportation. The trend is especially notable because gasoline prices have been low, the New York Times reported yesterday. “While previous spikes in transit use resulted from increased gasoline prices, and people would typically get back in their cars when gas prices retreated, that relationship is unraveling as transit services improve,” said Michael Melaniphy, the president of the association.

Including women in climate change solutions

An analysis by the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) found that only three climate change mitigation decisions made at the U.N. climate negotiations in Peru earlier this month address gender. Thanks to greater awareness that women suffer disproportionately from climate change, ten decisions on adaptation considered gender. This shows that the technical side of climate change – energy technology, transportation, carbon trading – is still very much a man’s world, Thomson Reuters Foundation reported on Friday. “With the big fixes – often because of the power structures we live in – women are not working in those spheres…most of the decision makers are men,” said Eleanor Blomstrom, program director for WEDO.

Abbott makes the opposite case for women’s involvement in climate change

Tony Abbott, Prime Minister of Australia, made a somewhat offbeat connection between women and climate change yesterday. When asked on Nine’s Today to name his greatest achievement for women while in office, he pointed to his government’s decision to repeal the carbon tax. “As many of us know, women are particularly focused on the household budget and the repeal of the carbon tax means a $550 a year benefit for the average family,” he said. Abbott is already being criticized for the comment, as well as his government’s decision to cut service to women, such as legal aid in domestic violence cases and housing support, the Guardian reported yesterday. “He might as well have said that by abolishing the carbon price he’s been able to give women more money to buy a new iron and stay at home and do the ironing more often,” said the leader of The Greens party, Christine Milne.

Naomi Klein calls out Michael Bloomberg

Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything: Capitalism versus the Climate, spoke with Allen White, Senior Fellow at the Tellus Institute, about the root causes of the problems facing the planet. In the process, she calls out Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City, for putting profits over the health of the planet. Corporate Knights wrote about the Risky Business report released earlier this year by Bloomberg, Tom Steyer and Henry Paulson, which makes an economic case for acting on climate change. Klein points out that the firm that manages Bloomberg’s money specializes in oil and gas investment. She said Bloomberg’s hypocrisy demonstrates that the attraction of high profits in the short-term outweighs longer-term considerations “even for the most ‘enlightened’ of businesspeople.”

Can the U.S. military solve climate change? 

Sharon Burke and Sharon Squassoni of The Weekly Wonk asked whether we should turn to the U.S. military for help with speeding up the development of low-carbon energy technologies. There are reasons to think this could work: the U.S. military has a direct stake in limiting the catastrophic effects of climate change, it is the largest single consumer of fuel in the United States and it has an interest in decreasing dependence on the global market. But the authors are pessimistic, mostly because of the way the military uses energy. “[Seventy five percent of the Department of Defense’s] energy use is liquid fuels for military operations. That means the Pentagon’s top priority for that energy is going to be to fight wars, not save on the electricity bill or lower greenhouse gas emissions or even to promote innovation,” they said. Climate change is not Sputnik, they conclude. Corporate Knights’ managing editor Jeremy Runnalls wrote in 2012 about the Pentagon’s many reasons for embracing renewable energy.

The post December 22, 2014 appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The U.S. Environmental Protection agency has been accepting comments regarding its Clean Power Plan, a proposal that would reduce carbon emissions from U.S. power plants by 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. This plan is a critical part of President Barack Obama’s efforts to combat climate change, so the EPA’s process is being followed closely. Paying particular attention is the Canadian Electricity Association (CEA), which is worried the U.S. regulator won’t allow clean power imports from Canada to count toward emission-reduction efforts. In a comment to the EPA this week, CEA president and chief executive Jim Burpee urged that the door be open to Canadian hydro, wind and even nuclear power. “The interconnection of the Canadian and U.S. electric grids serves as a valuable and advantageous platform from which to maximize reductions in carbon emissions across North America,” wrote Burpee. “With a national electricity mix that is already comprised of approximately 80 per cent non-emitting resources, Canada is therefore well positioned to support our American partners in fulfilling their carbon-reduction objectives.”

Developing countries most affected by pharma pollution

Pollution from drugs, everything from antidepressants and antibiotics to cancer medication and painkillers, ultimately end up in our waste and wastewater systems. We either toss them out or excrete and flush them, or they exist as effluent from pharmaceutical manufacturers. Unlike pathogens and heavy metals, which are destroyed or captured by most treatment technologies, the molecules in the drugs we produce and consume often slip through. This is messing up the ecology of lakes and rivers – from bugs, amphibians and fish to the creatures that eat them – and it’s why new technologies are emerging to tackle the problem. But developing countries are the least likely to use these technologies, making them more vulnerable, according to research from Rai Kookana, a scientist with the Common Wealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. Speaking to ABC News in Australia following release of new research, Kookana said China and India are particularly impacted. “Nearly 60 per cent of the generic drugs of the world are produced in China and India,” he said, adding that developed nations have a responsibility to help developing countries combat the problem.

Harper challenged on climate, carbon tax comments

Proponents of carbon pricing in Canada were stunned this week after listening to an end-of-year interview with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on the CBC. Harper has previously called any mention of carbon pricing as an attempt to force a “job-killing tax” on Canadians, but now he was singing a different tune. He talked about Alberta’s carbon levy, generally recognized as weak and ineffective, as a model he could see spreading across the country. And perhaps as a nod to Stephen Colbert, he stretched the definition of “truthiness” by taking credit for Canada’s falling emissions. He even suggested this whole climate problem would be under control if the world just followed Canada’s lead. Critics were quick to pounce, including Glen Murray, Ontario’s environment and climate minister, who on Twitter called the CBC exchange an “odd interview.” In addition to pointing out Harper’s carbon pricing flip-flop, Murray said the prime minister was disingenuously taking credit for Ontario’s coal-plant closures. Canada’s emissions did fall slightly during the economic downtown, and while it has leveled off, this is largely because of Ontario’s coal phase-out. As the CBC reported, Harper’s comments are “more about politics than policy – an attempt to soften his image on the environment in an election year when climate change is again becoming a hot political topic.”

Odd interview @petermansbridge did w/ @pmharper who provided no support 4 coal plant closures & opposed carbon pricing now supports both???

— Glen Murray (@Glen4Climate) December 19, 2014

Study says world’s food production at great risk

Rising global temperatures resulting from climate change could see up to a fifth of world food production destroyed by 2050, according to a new study from researchers at the International Institute of Applied System Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria. The study, appearing in the journal Environmental Research Letters, said the biggest challenge will be managing water resources to adapt to changing rainfall patterns. With the right investment in infrastructure and irrigation – for example, expanding the reach of irrigation by 25 per cent – the researchers suggested it is possible to eliminate most food-production impacts. However, doing so may requiring moving production to different geographies, such as northern Europe, where warming and increased precipitation may increase agricultural output.

Junior exploration companies aim to de-risk the mining industry

Corporate Knights’ assistant editor Ashley Renders wrote today about a new generation of junior exploration companies that is trying fix the mining industry’s social license problem. By experimenting with profit-sharing schemes and engagement programs, junior companies are trying to make a good first impression on community members. In the event that they find a large deposit, juniors are banking on the assumption that majors will pay a premium for a pre-established relationship with the community. They are essentially aiming to “de-risk” the industry, which is crucial to the future financial success of the industry. But even though their intentions may be good, there are certain pitfalls that these companies will have to navigate if they want to redefine the way that the mining industry does business with local communities.

The post December 19, 2014 appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act officially came into law on Tuesday. In an attempt to eradicate bribery and corruption in the extractives industry, governments around the world, including the United States and the European Union, have introduced mandatory reporting requirements to increase revenue transparency and accountability for resource extraction companies. Companies are required to begin reporting in 2017. The specific parameters of the law have yet to be determined and will be decided through a multi-stakeholder consultation process. Civil society actors are concerned that the reporting requirements will be watered down during the negotiation process. “For data-users in the more than 100 countries where Canadian extractive companies are active, Canada must ensure a strong reporting standard, aligned with global best practice,” says Claire Woodside, Director of Publish What You Pay Canada. “This includes public project-level reporting of payments with no exemptions.”

Barrick suspends Zambian operations after royalties hike

Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest gold mining company, announced that it will suspend operations at its Zambian copper mine after the government announced changes to its royalty regime. The Zambian government passed a new law that increases required royalty payments from 6 per cent to 20 per cent, starting in 2015. “The introduction of this royalty has left us with no choice but to initiate the process of suspending operations at Lumwana,” Barrick’s co-president Kelvin Dushnisky said in a statement. The company had previously threatened to halt work at the mine if the law passed.

New York State bans hydraulic fracturing

After years of delays, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration announced a ban on all forms of hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking. The acting state health commissioner, Dr. Howard A. Zucker, explained that the decision was based on the possibility of the general public being exposed to “significant public health risks” through in-state fracking operations. A portion of New York State sits atop the Marcellus Shale formation, a rich source of natural gas in neighbouring states, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. A well-organized grassroots anti-fracking movement has emerged in New York State over the past several years and has been instrumental in pressuring the administration to take a hard line on development. New York is the first state with sizeable natural gas reserves to institute such a ban.

Jeb Bush is a climate change denier

Now that former Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush has (sort of) thrown his hat into the 2016 Republican presidential sweepstakes, journalists and opposition researchers are hard at work outlining his various public policy positions. The Guardian’s Suzanne Goldenberg, for one, has unearthed strong evidence that Jeb Bush is a climate change denier. An early adopter of the “I’m not a scientist” line now infamous among Republican office holders, she also points readers to an instructive 2011 interview he conducted with Fox Business. “It is not unanimous among scientists that [climate change] is disproportionately manmade,” he said. “What I get a little tired of on the left is this idea that somehow science has decided all this so you can’t have a view.” With President Obama busy rolling out an ambitious climate change agenda, the issue of environmental regulations promises to be front and center during the 2016 presidential race.

12 reasons for climate optimism this holiday season

Events in 2014 have provided ample reason for climate change and environmental optimism, writes the Centre for Global Development’s Jonah Busch. The Ozone layer has begun to bounce back in certain places, while solar energy prices continued their unprecedented tumble downwards. Levels of deforestation have slowed in Brazil, while a dozen jurisdictions in North America now have some form of price on carbon pollution. States and provinces, such as Washington and Ontario, could be next to roll out similar policies.

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The post December 18, 2014 appeared first on Corporate Knights.

A Natural Resources Canada spending report shows that Stephen Harper’s government let over $321 million lapse last year for environmentally responsible programs. Meanwhile, the government managed to spend more than $438 million on research, market development and government advertising for the oil and gas sector. Parliament had earmarked over $298 million for renewable energy development, alternative transportation fuels, energy efficiency and technology innovation, the Hill Times reported on Monday. Among other projects, the report shows that Natural Resources Canada failed to spend almost all of the $22 million that had been allotted for a satellite earth observation that would have provided data on “the baseline condition of lands, water and vegetation in Canada” with a focus on “the oil-sands region as well as other oil/gas regions, including the North.”

Chemicals leaking through the supply chain 

Corporate Knights’ assistant editor Ashley Renders wrote yesterday about a new online tool that aims to benchmark reporting on toxic chemicals in the global supply chain for the first time. “[Corporations] talk about carbon, water and waste. But there has been no metric around chemicals because it’s a much more complex issue,” said Mark Rossi, co-director of Clean Production Action. The Chemical Footprint Project asks corporations to disclose their strategy for managing chemicals in their supply chains and gives them a score. It also provides recommendations for improvement and talking points for internal discussions around the topic. The hope is that companies will incorporate reporting on chemicals into their regular business practices so that they can more easily adapt to new regulations and consumer demands.

White House guides hospitals on climate change

The U.S. government released a set of guidelines on Monday aimed at helping hospitals mitigate and adapt to climate change. The report, written by the Department of Health and Human Services, addresses the increased risk of extreme weather and sea level rise, as well as other impacts that are considered risks to public health, USA Today reported. Included in the recommendations are using combined heat and power and fuel cells to reduce energy consumption. The report also proposes taking future climate change impacts into account before building new hospitals. Earlier this year, Corporate Knights looked at whether hospitals and health care professional are ready for the diseases and extreme weather that will accompany climate change.

New alliance promises market-based solutions to climate change

Two non-profits joined forces on Tuesday to start an “energy revolution that can unlock the greatest wealth-creating opportunity in modern history.” Together, the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and Carbon War Room (CWR) aim to “leverage the agile power of markets to combat climate change, bolster economic prosperity and tackle other social and environmental issues created by the global dependence on fossil fuels.” In other words, they will use their collective power to speed up financing for low-carbon technologies. The Ten Island Challenge is their first joint project and aims to transition the Caribbean islands from a reliance on imported diesel to renewable energy sources. In the latest issue of Corporate Knights, Tyler Hamilton looked at the efforts of small islands to transition to renewable energy and found that economics is just as important as fighting rising sea levels.

Boeing to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy

Boeing announced on Tuesday that it will work toward an all-renewable energy mix at its factory in Washington State that assembles 737 commercial airplanes. The aerospace company has partnered with a utility, Puget Sound Energy, which currently uses 50 per cent hydro, wind and other renewables, and 50 per cent natural gas and coal. Boeing will pay a premium to buy wind power credits to make up for the 50 percent of fossil fuels in its energy mix, CBC reported today. “It will cost us a little more in the short term. We think the investment makes sense for the environment, our employees and the community,” Beverly Wyse, vice-president and general manager of the 737 program told CBC.

Canada’s wealth gap is worse than people think 

The Broadbent Institute asked Canadians what they think about inequality in Canada and what the ideal wealth distribution would be. The study, released on Tuesday, found that Canadians vastly underestimate inequality in Canada and want a much more balanced distribution. The poll of 3,000 Canadians showed that the ideal wealth distribution would include 60 per cent of Canadians in the middle class, owning around 60 per cent of the country’s wealth. The poorest would make up 20 per cent of the population and would own 11.5 per cent of wealth. In reality, the poorest group of Canadian owns no wealth at all, while the richest owns over 67 per cent. These views held true across the political spectrum, including responses from Conservative voters.

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