Sustainability Outlook Headlines

Rich reluctant to pay for medicines, biodiversity deal stuck

The ongoing UN biodiversity summit remained stuck here Tuesday over the reluctance of rich countries to pay more for medicines and cosmetics derived from plants in poor countries. Negotiators from 192 nations failed to meet the deadline to send a draft deal to the 100-odd ministers arriving here Wednesday.

A senior member of the Indian government delegation said negotiators had tried through the night to get rich countries to commit higher payment for medicinal and aromatic plants, but had failed, ‘though the pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies in the developed countries make... Read more..

$55 bn to flow into renewable energy in 5 yrs

India expects investments of up to $55 billion in the next five years in the renewable energy sector, which would generate 35,000 MW of power, a top official said.

India, one of the leading producers of wind power, is encouraging investment in renewable energy to curb emissions and reduce dependence on oil as the country imports nearly three quarters of the oil it consumes.

“There would be investments to the tune of $55 billion by 2015 in the renewable energy sector which is expected to produce 35 GW of power,” Debashish Majumdar, chairman and managing director, Indian... Read more..

TSE Aims to Create Asia's 1st Carbon Credit Market

The Tokyo Stock Exchange aims to create Asia's first market for carbon credit trading, TSE President Atsushi Saito said Friday.

The cost performance will be far better if trading takes place in a marketplace than through direct transactions between buyers and sellers, Saito said at the first meeting of a task force on carbon credit trading.

The task force will work out a detailed framework by the end of this year so that trading can be launched next year.

The task force is joined by officials from power firms, trading houses and financial institutions as well as... Read more..

ISRO's help sought for preparing environmental database

The Central Pollution Control
Board Wednesday asked the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to help in preparing an integrated environmental database using the Geographical Information System (GIS
).

"We will ask ISRO to help us in preparing environment impact statement (EIS) using GIS, which will be of great help to policy makers," said CPCB chairperson S.P. Gautam.

The central pollution monitoring agency Wednesday released compendium 'Studies on Pollution Mitigation', comprising of 133 research papers on various facets of pollution related matter.

... Read more..

U.N. Panel Seeks To Streamline JI CO2 Cutting Scheme

A United Nations panel has proposed merging the two tracks of its Joint Implementation (JI) emissions cutting mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol, the JI Supervisory Committee (JISC) said.

Under JI, companies can invest in carbon-cutting projects in nations that signed up to emissions targets under Kyoto, and in return receive emissions reduction units (ERUs), which can be used toward their own corporate emissions targets or sold for profit.

Currently, countries can either issue carbon credits for emissions reductions made themselves -- known as Track 1 -- or let the U.... Read more..

Maharashtra colleges and university campuses asked to go green

University and colleges in the state have been asked to replicate the ‘Green Campus’ project started by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai that aims to reduce the environmental impact of large residential campuses. On Monday, university vice chancellors and college principals were told by the state environment department that they will get financial and technical help if they build green buildings in their campuses and create facilities to conserve energy and water.

The IIT-B has been working on a ‘Green Campus’project for two years to minimise the ecological footprint of... Read more..

Delhi to be sparkling clean -- before Diwali

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) Monday asked its officials to carry out special sanitation drives to keep the city "clean and beautiful" ahead of Diwali.

MCD Standing Committee chairman Yogendra Chandolia directed officials of the largest civic agency to ensure cleaning of roads, streets and drains and removal of garbage before the Nov 5 festival.

He asked the electrical department to ensure that all the streetlights functioned and the engineering department to repair the damaged roads and to remove waste materials immediately after carrying out the job.

"Any... Read more..

Now, green carbon centre that could recycle carbon dioxide to lower eco footprint

Researchers at Rice University in the US have created a green carbon centre to bring the benefits offered by oil, gas, coal, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and other energy sources together to ensure that the world's energy future is safe and also to provide a means to recycle carbon dioxide into useful products.

"The key was to turn carbon dioxide into a useful material so that it's no longer a waste," said James Tour, professor of mechanical engineering and materials science in the university.

"We want to partner with energy companies — including oil, natural gas and... Read more..

PricewaterhouseCoopers: Chopped carbon footprint by 20% in two years

Where do you start when your company demands a 20% reduction in its carbon footprint? At PricewaterhouseCoopers, it wasn't enough to just pursue high-profile projects, such as building the LEED Gold-certified data center that came online in January. 

It was just as important to come up with grass-roots ideas and make smaller companywide changes, such as rolling out multifunction printers configured with two-sided printing as the default22222, using longer-lasting print cartridges, promoting videoconferences over in-person meetings and providing a carbon calculator that employees can... Read more..

No tax relief for green bldgs?

Green buildings or environment-friendly buildings do not find a mention in BMC's draft property tax rules. 

In 2007, the BMC had appointed the United States Agency for International Aid ( USAID), the International Institute for Energy Conservation (IIEC) and the Science and Technology Park, Pune, to formulate the technical criteria and a plan for implementing the eco-housing programme. BMC had even announced its intention to give a 50% rebate on property tax for buildings and individual houses that were environment-friendly. 

Increasingly, builders in the city are offering... Read more..

160 noise monitoring stations in India by next year

Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) member secretary J.S. Kamyotra told IANS there are just five such stations till date and efforts are on to put the number at 35 by the first week of next month as the government body "ambitiously" wants to tackle the problem of noise pollution. 

"We want to cover the entire country as far as monitoring the noise level is concerned. We are setting up 160 monitoring stations and by Diwali next year you will see a lot of changes. The data will also be made available online," the pollution control watchdog's chairman S.P. Gautam said.

A... Read more..

GM India plans to showcase ''electric car'' next year

General Motors India is strengthening its base in the country and will showcase an "electric car" next year, its President and Managing Director, Karl Slym announced today.

It would be an environment-friendly small car, and would be showcased to get experts and market opinion, Slym told in a press conference here.

It would be a battery-operated, not solar power generated, he said.

GM India is making a rapid network expansion in the wake of increasing popularity of Chevrolet in India, he said, while launching a new showroom and two workshops in Jaipur.

In... Read more..