EC Environmental Policy

repairable electronic waste to be exempt from the international Basel Convention hazardous waste trade control procedures.

developing countries cannot control the junk electronic computers, faxes, printers and TVs flooding into their countries from North America and Europe

digital dump

Recyclers can make money from selling scavenged metal from electronic

equipment,

These so-called recyclers have found that that they can make a lot more money just exporting this material, because the U.S. laws completely allow it to happen

requiring New Yorkers to separate their food scraps for composting

it is hiring a composting plant to handle 100,000 tons of food scraps a year

Sanitation officials said 150,000 single-family homes

The automotive leader has a strong track record of water use reductions in its manufacturing operations and an aggressive goal to reduce water use even further – by 30 percent per vehicle by 2015. But many at Ford and a number of its stakeholders (including the company’s Ceres stakeholder advisory team) see growing water competition and scarcity as a potential economic game-changer – with big implications for the auto industry.

But water is critical to a number of manufacturing steps, including vehicle painting, where large volumes of water are traditionally used to rinse cars, ensuring that not a speck of dust ruins that perfect paint job. Water use also can be high in the automotive supply chain, particularly in making raw materials such as steel and aluminum. Ford also has identified that the energy sources used to power its vehicles (gasoline, electric power or biofuels) play an incredibly important role in determining the water footprint of its vehicles, because of the large amounts of water required for fuel production and power generation.

Yet, in the southeastern U.S., the massive fuel needs of these energy companies could double logging rates and increase carbon emissions significantly –- contributing to climate change at a time when we need to be rapidly cutting our carbon pollution

Burning whole trees is worse than burning coal

Our southern forests are exported to produce electricity overseas

"Most of the activity that actually touches society is happening in the supply chain," says Polman, "and that's why we take responsibility from sustainable sourcing to sustainable living." The company looks to find materials from sustainable sources, but then also looks to encourage sustainable choices on the consumer end.

A similar effort is aims at ending illegal deforestation. Unilever and other companies "made a commitment not to sell anything anymore from illegal deforestation by the year 2020 -- soy, paper, pulp, beef, palm oil. And if a big association representing $3-4 trillion of consumer sales makes that commitment, it sends a very strong signal into the whole value chain," he says

Unilever and other companies "made a commitment not to sell anything anymore from illegal deforestation by the year 2020 -- soy, paper, pulp, beef, palm oil.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report 2013 placed water scarcity among the top four global risks, in terms of likelihood and greatest impact – ranking ahead of issues such as food shortages, terrorism and climate change. And water scarcity is already constraining the growth plans of many companies that desire to expand in emerging markets.