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INFOGRAPHIC: Decarbonization

CK Staff — Tue, 16 Jun 2015 10:00:16 +0000

This article was originally published by Ensia.

Can the world’s nations afford to make the changes needed to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions and avoid catastrophic climate change? Yes, says the World Bank Group — if we start now and incorporate three important components into our strategy.

In a new report, “Decarbonizing Development: Three Steps to a Zero Carbon Future,” the development bank lays out a three-step plan for reaching zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2100:

Plan for the long term: fund needed research and technology development now, avoid locking in carbon-intensive investments, and shift to low-carbon development.
Get prices and policies right: place a price on carbon and implement other carbon-reducing policies.
Smooth the economic transition: provide support for the poor (using funds gained from replacing fossil fuel subsidies with carbon-limiting incentives) and help businesses weather the changes ahead.

Perhaps the most important message in the 182-page report is “the sooner, the better.” Wait just 15 years to get our act together on this one, the report notes, and price tag for reaching the 2100 goal soars 50 percent. Not only that, but a delay would also lock us into more carbon-intensive infrastructure as cities expand and retool in the next few decades. In the words of the report: “The key to feasibility is affordability, and affordability requires early action.”

Click to enlarge:

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INFOGRAPHIC: Solar energy

CK Staff — Wed, 10 Jun 2015 11:00:24 +0000

Click on the infographic to enlarge:

Illustration & design by Kellen Hatanaka

Sources: Let it shine: The 6,000-year story of solar energy, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Bundesverband der Energie- und Wasserwirtschaft, U.S. Energy Information Administration, Metro Lyrics, International Renewable Energy Agency, BHE Renewables, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, GTM Research & FERC.

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Commuting in top U.S. cities a mixed bag of awesome and horrible

CK Staff — Sat, 30 May 2015 13:00:50 +0000

Michael Sivak, a research professor at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute, has done a great job of tracking driving, transit and car-ownership trends in the United States. His latest paper gives us a detailed look at who’s commuting — as well as how and when — in America’s 30 largest cities. With this research, we learn that New Yorkers have the longest commute times, Boston has the highest percentage of residents walking to work, Louisville, Kentucky, has the highest percentage of residents driving to work alone, and Portland has the highest percentage of residents working from home and cycling to work.

Corporate Knights has put some of the data recently released by Sivak into two handy spreadsheets you can use to rank cities on each indicator from highest to lowest.

City	Population	Median Earnings $	% Workers w/o Vehicles	% Who Work At Home	% Who Drive Alone to Work	% Who Carpool	% Who Take Transit to Work	% Who Walk to Work	% Who Bicycle to Work	Mean Travel to Work (Min)
Austin, TX	885400	33,304	4.2	7.1	73.7	9.9	4.2	2.4	1.4	23.5
Baltimore, MD	622104	35,706	15.9	2.5	61.3	9.2	18.8	6.4	0.7	30.5
Boston, MA	645966	37,674	21.9	3.4	40.6	5.4	33	14.5	1.9	29.5
Charlotte, NC	792862	31,979	4.5	5.8	75.5	10.7	4	2.2	0.3	24.1
Chicago, IL	2718782	34,518	16.4	4.4	49.7	8.5	27.8	6.7	1.4	33.7
Columbus, OH	822553	31,774	3.6	3.6	79.3	9.2	3.3	2.8	1	21.4
Dallas, TX	1257676	30,208	4.3	4.4	75.8	11.8	3.8	1.9	0.3	25.8
Denver, CO	649495	35,831	4.3	7	69.8	8.3	7.4	4.5	2	24.8
Detroit, MI	688701	22,888	11.5	3.8	70.1	11.9	8.1	3.5	0.6	26.8
El Paso, TX	674433	25,021	2	3.1	79.5	11.4	1.7	1.6	0.1	22.1
Fort Worth, TX	792727	31,815	1.8	3.7	80.9	11.1	0.8	1.2	0.2	26.5
Houston, TX	2195914	30,252	4.6	3.7	75.3	12.2	4.2	2.2	0.8	26.3
Indianapolis, IN	843393	30,372	3.7	3	81.2	10.2	2.3	1.9	0.4	22.6
Jacksonville, FL	842583	31,715	3.2	4.4	81.4	9.1	1.6	1.4	0.4	24.3
Las Vegas, NV	603488	30,411	4.1	2.9	76.7	12	4.5	1.8	0.4	24.9
Los Angeles, CA	3884307	27,550	6.8	5.4	67.1	9.9	10.8	3.6	1.2	29.9
Louisville, KY	609893	31,466	4.9	2.4	82.9	8.2	2.7	2.1	0.5	21.6
Memphis, TN	653450	28,373	4.9	2.1	79.5	12.4	2.2	2.2	0.4	21.9
Nashville, TN	634464	31,371	2.8	4.9	81.1	8.5	1.9	2.3	0.3	23.3
New York, NY	8405837	37,333	46	4.1	21.4	4.9	56.7	10	1.2	39.7
Oklahoma City, OK	610613	30,667	2.5	3	82.6	11.3	0.7	1.3	0.3	20.7
Philadelphia, PA	1553165	31,852	18.9	2.9	49.9	8.5	27.2	8.1	2.3	32
Phoenix, AZ	1513367	31,002	4	4.6	74.7	12	4	1.8	0.6	24.7
Portland, OR	609456	35,903	7.1	7.1	57.4	9.9	11.9	6.1	5.9	25.3
San Antonio, TX	1409019	27,500	4.1	3.2	78.9	11.1	3.6	1.7	0.3	23.4
San Diego, CA	1355896	37,280	3.2	6.2	74.9	8.7	4.2	3.7	0.8	23.3
San Francisco, CA	837442	51,329	18.6	6.8	36.4	6.8	32.7	10.9	3.8	31.5
San Jose, CA	998537	42,022	1.8	3.9	75.8	11.8	4.5	1.7	1	27.3
Seattle, WA	652405	46,125	8.5	6.7	50.5	8	20.9	9.1	3.5	26.2
Washington, DC	646449	52,310	27.7	4.4	32.3	5.3	38.5	13.6	4.5	29.9

City	Population	Median Earnings $	% Workers w/o Vehicles	% Who Work At Home	% Who Drive Alone to Work	% Who Carpool	% Who Take Transit to Work	% Who Walk to Work	% Who Bicycle to Work	Mean Travel to Work (Min)
Austin, TX	885400	33,304	4.2	7.1	73.7	9.9	4.2	2.4	1.4	23.5
Baltimore, MD	622104	35,706	15.9	2.5	61.3	9.2	18.8	6.4	0.7	30.5
Boston, MA	645966	37,674	21.9	3.4	40.6	5.4	33	14.5	1.9	29.5
Charlotte, NC	792862	31,979	4.5	5.8	75.5	10.7	4	2.2	0.3	24.1
Chicago, IL	2718782	34,518	16.4	4.4	49.7	8.5	27.8	6.7	1.4	33.7
Columbus, OH	822553	31,774	3.6	3.6	79.3	9.2	3.3	2.8	1	21.4
Dallas, TX	1257676	30,208	4.3	4.4	75.8	11.8	3.8	1.9	0.3	25.8
Denver, CO	649495	35,831	4.3	7	69.8	8.3	7.4	4.5	2	24.8
Detroit, MI	688701	22,888	11.5	3.8	70.1	11.9	8.1	3.5	0.6	26.8
El Paso, TX	674433	25,021	2	3.1	79.5	11.4	1.7	1.6	0.1	22.1
Fort Worth, TX	792727	31,815	1.8	3.7	80.9	11.1	0.8	1.2	0.2	26.5
Houston, TX	2195914	30,252	4.6	3.7	75.3	12.2	4.2	2.2	0.8	26.3
Indianapolis, IN	843393	30,372	3.7	3	81.2	10.2	2.3	1.9	0.4	22.6
Jacksonville, FL	842583	31,715	3.2	4.4	81.4	9.1	1.6	1.4	0.4	24.3
Las Vegas, NV	603488	30,411	4.1	2.9	76.7	12	4.5	1.8	0.4	24.9
Los Angeles, CA	3884307	27,550	6.8	5.4	67.1	9.9	10.8	3.6	1.2	29.9
Louisville, KY	609893	31,466	4.9	2.4	82.9	8.2	2.7	2.1	0.5	21.6
Memphis, TN	653450	28,373	4.9	2.1	79.5	12.4	2.2	2.2	0.4	21.9
Nashville, TN	634464	31,371	2.8	4.9	81.1	8.5	1.9	2.3	0.3	23.3
New York, NY	8405837	37,333	46	4.1	21.4	4.9	56.7	10	1.2	39.7
Oklahoma City, OK	610613	30,667	2.5	3	82.6	11.3	0.7	1.3	0.3	20.7
Philadelphia, PA	1553165	31,852	18.9	2.9	49.9	8.5	27.2	8.1	2.3	32
Phoenix, AZ	1513367	31,002	4	4.6	74.7	12	4	1.8	0.6	24.7
Portland, OR	609456	35,903	7.1	7.1	57.4	9.9	11.9	6.1	5.9	25.3
San Antonio, TX	1409019	27,500	4.1	3.2	78.9	11.1	3.6	1.7	0.3	23.4
San Diego, CA	1355896	37,280	3.2	6.2	74.9	8.7	4.2	3.7	0.8	23.3
San Francisco, CA	837442	51,329	18.6	6.8	36.4	6.8	32.7	10.9	3.8	31.5
San Jose, CA	998537	42,022	1.8	3.9	75.8	11.8	4.5	1.7	1	27.3
Seattle, WA	652405	46,125	8.5	6.7	50.5	8	20.9	9.1	3.5	26.2
Washington, DC	646449	52,310	27.7	4.4	32.3	5.3	38.5	13.6	4.5	29.9

Also recently released, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) has put out its 2015 City Energy Efficiency Scorecard, which ranks Boston as the most efficient city in the United States, followed by New York City and Washington, DC. The least efficient? That title goes to Birmingham, Alabama, though Raleigh, Detroit and New Orleans also landed at the bottom of the pack. The ACEEE report goes into great detail explaining its scoring methodology, which is based on an assessment of five policy areas: local government operations, city-wide initiatives, building policies, performance of energy/water utilities, and transportation policies.

Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Seattle were the most-improved cities compared to the last edition, with many showing double-digit scoring improvements. “The increased availability of their policy data accounted for some of their improvement, but these cities also have made real strides in efficiency,” according to the report. “Chicago, for example, enacted a new commercial benchmarking ordinance. Los Angeles is another good example. Whereas California requires municipal utilities to achieve 10 per cent of their supply through energy efficiency by 2023, Los Angeles’ municipal utility adopted a more stringent target of 15 per cent by 2020.”

Below you’ll find a map showing each city’s ranking. Click to enlarge and see full map.

The post Commuting in top U.S. cities a mixed bag of awesome and horrible appeared first on Corporate Knights.

INFOGRAPHIC: Kids these days

CK Staff — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 12:00:31 +0000

Sources: UNICEF, Euromonitor International, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, SFIA/Physical Activity Council, uSwitch, Clinton Global Initiative University-Microsoft Pulse, University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, Because I Am A Girl, Statistics Canada.

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Toronto in 2040: Hotter days, more heat waves, increased flooding

CK Staff — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 11:24:34 +0000

The City of Toronto’s Subcommittee on Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation held its first public meeting in early March. More than 300 citizens attended the meeting, where city staff presented a background document outlining the city’s GHG reduction targets, progress to date, and the current sources of city emissions. Also highlighted were the risks to public health and city infrastructure as a result, partly, of increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. So what can Torontonians expected over the next few decades when it comes to extreme weather? It doesn’t look good.

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INFOGRAPHIC: Food waste and labeling

CK Staff — Fri, 27 Feb 2015 14:32:51 +0000

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INFOGRAPHIC: The millennial workplace survey

CK Staff — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 15:00:55 +0000

This infographic is part of Deloitte’s 2015 Millenial survey. Click the image to enlarge or click here to access the full survey results.

The post INFOGRAPHIC: The millennial workplace survey appeared first on Corporate Knights.

INFOGRAPHIC: Sustainability and hospitals

CK Staff — Fri, 26 Dec 2014 14:53:05 +0000

The post INFOGRAPHIC: Sustainability and hospitals appeared first on Corporate Knights.

INFOGRAPHIC: Transportation in Asia

CK Staff — Mon, 15 Dec 2014 18:00:14 +0000

Sources: Indian Railways, Jetsolution International Services Ltd., Indonesian Motorcycle Industry Association, China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, ICRA, China Automobile Dealers Association, Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation, Tokyo Metro, International Chamber of Commerce’s International Maritime Bureau.

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