Sustainability Outlook Headlines

Sulabh International gets top UN consultative status

Recognizing Sulabh International's pioneering work in developing low-cost, environmental-friendly public toilet system, the United Nations has accorded its highest consultative status to the Indian NGO. 

The Chief of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) NGO office, Andrei Abramov conveyed the upgrade of Sulabh International to from 'Special' to 'General' consultative' status in a letter to Sulabh founder Bindeshwar Pathak. 

'General Consultative' is the highest status given to NGO's within the UN system which is reserved for large international NGOs with broad... Read more..

After smart phones and smart cars, now come smart cities - Economic Times

An operating system is the most vital piece of software in a computer. It makes the hardware components work together and, in large systems, ensures that programs running at the same time do not interfere with each other. Operating systems are so useful that they are now being used in devices like mobile phones, tablets, televisions, washing machines and refrigerators. They are now set to migrate to a different kind of device: the city. 

Operating systems will soon be used to manage a city in Portugal, near the tourist town of Paredes. Here, a five-year-old Swiss startup, Living... Read more..

Soon, govt vehicles will run on biogas

The Mysore City Corporation is planning to set up a biogas plant in the city to convert waste into a fuel that can be used in vehicles. A team from the corporation visited biogas plants in Eskilstuna in Sweden recently to learn about the process. 

Sweden has reached an agreement with the Union government to assist eight cities in India in various environmental related projects. Mysore has sent a proposal for setting up a biogas plant under the Indo-Swedish programme."Pune and Delhi are also in the race, and we are waiting Sweden government's reply," said sources in the... Read more..

Route to Climate Sustainable Human Population Lies in Removal of Barriers to Use of Family Planning Policies: Azad

 The Union Health and Family Welfare Minister and Chair, Partners in Population Development (PPD) Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad today addressed the opening session of the International Conference on “Population Dynamics, Climate Change and Sustainable Development” at Pretoria, South Africa. Shri Azad emphasized that the route to a climate sustainable human population, to a certain extent, lies in the removal of barriers to use of family planning and the rights-based population policies envisioned by the International Conference of Population and Development (ICPD) participants in Cairo in 1994. “... Read more..

Lanco Orders Turbines From Siemens for Solar Thermal Project

 Lanco Infratech Ltd., one of India’s biggest solar plant builders, ordered turbines from Siemens AG for a 100-megawatt solar thermal power facility.

“Turbines have the longest lead time among the components needed so we’ve ordered them already,” V. Saibaba, chief executive officer of the unit, said today in an interview in Singapore.

Axis Bank Ltd. is part of a group of about eight lenders that has agreed to finance the project, he said.

Lanco, based in Hyderabad, won one of seven solar-thermal projects that were awarded through a national auction last December and... Read more..

City company launches environment-friendly substitute for plastic

Finding an alternative to plastic has remained the biggest environmental challenge for the world. But a chemical company in Gurgaon now claims to have done just that by manufacturing a viable alternative to plastic. The liquid emulsion has been named Roithane, and is currently being used commercially for packaging purposes. 

Plastic, a substance which is highly pliable and cost-effective, has become integral to our daily existence. However, the substance poses a direct threat to the environment since it is non-biodegradable. While the users have found it difficult to discard plastic... Read more..

In Depth: All systems go for Indian PV as finance fears ease

The Indian PV market is set to add up to 400MW this year — an increase of more than tenfold on 2010 — as fears over the difficulty of obtaining project financing subside, accord­ing to industry sources. 

Concerns that India’s burgeoning solar boom would be restrained by nervous financiers reached fever pitch in the spring, when observers suggested that less than half of the projects ­allo­cated under the first round of the National Solar Mission (NSM) would reach financial close by their summer deadline. 

Those fears were well founded at the time, says Inderpreet ­Wadhwa,... Read more..

Key UN report ties climate change to extreme weather

A new UN report concludes that man-made climate change has boosted the frequency or intensity of heat waves, wildfires, floods and cyclones and that such disasters are likely to multiply in the future.

The draft document, which has been three years in the making, says the severity of the impacts vary, with some regions more vulnerable than others.

Hundreds of scientists working under the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) will vet the phonebook-sized draft at a meeting in Kampala of the 194-nation body later this month.

"This is the largest effort... Read more..

CDC to invest $50m in India's poorest states

In June, Andrew Mitchell, the international development secretary, gave a good kicking to the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) , the government's development finance arm with a remit to invest in places where others fear to venture.

Wholly owned by the Department for International Development (DfID), the CDC was told to slash bonuses for its top executives, become a "development-maximising, not a profit-maximising, enterprise", and start investing directly in projects rather than indirectly through fund managers.

Set up in 1948 to promote economic... Read more..

BRICS carbon ranking: Only 4 Indian cos in top category

A new carbon ranking of BRICS nations could provide a wake up call for levels of transparency within Indian firms when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. 

The Environmental Investment Organisation (EIO), a UK-based non-profit organisation, places firms into one of four categories based on their disclosure and verification mechanisms for carbon emissions, and then ranks them by their carbon intensity to create an overall ranking system. 

It will publish its rankings of the BRICS 300 – Brazil, Russia, India China and South Africa – along with Asia Pacific and North... Read more..

Karnataka govt picks up a fight against garbage

Bangalore resembles a giant garbage dumpyard a day after every festival. Even otherwise, residents of almost every other locality complain of garbage decaying at a crossing, or an empty plot. As per the 2011 census, more than 84 lakh people live in Bangalore and this populace, the city corporation says, generates more than 3,500 tonnes of garbage every day.

Taking note of the challenge of handling garbage in the city, the authorities have, for the first time, organised Recycling Habba. It highlights the importance of the three Rs—Recyle, Reduce, Reuse. Solid Waste... Read more..

IBM India develops solar-powered data centre

One of the biggest costs in a data centre is power cost. Power is needed to fire the servers and storage systems. And since these systems heat up, power is again required to cool the systems with airconditioning. 

In the dot-com era, data centres consumed 1 or 2 MW. Now it's common to find facilities that require 20 MW, and already some of them expect to use ten times as much in the years to come. For countries, data centre power consumption is expected to put an enormous burden on their power grids. 

Not surprisingly, an enormous amount of innovation, right... Read more..