EC Environmental Policy

A new study calculates that the island of Borneo lost nearly 150,000 orangutans in the period between 1999 and 2015, largely as a result of deforestation and killing. There were an estimated 104,700 of the critically endangered apes left as of 2012. The study also warns that another 45,000 orangutans are doomed by 2050 under the business-as-usual scenario, where forests are cleared for logging, palm oil, mining and pulpwood leases. Orangutans are also disappearing from intact forests, most likely being killed, the researchers say.

India's booming population and rapidly expanding urban areas have exacted a huge toll on its rivers, which are badly polluted and choked by development. But in cities across India, activists are heading to court to force municipalities and states to take action.

A number of biologists have recently made the argument that extinction is part of evolution and that saving species need not be a conservation priority. But this revisionist thinking shows a lack of understanding of evolution and an ignorance of the natural world.

There are several long-term threats to the global chocolate industry, not the least of which is climate change. Concerns over human rights have also convinced more consumers to be discerning about the choices they make when purchasing chocolate. Companies have responded in kind, as many have started to partner with nonprofits on projects ranging from mapping tools to supply chain transparency.

Drilling has been so intense near Fox Creek that its been linked to a series of earthquakes. One tremor measured 4.6 in magnitude, one of the two biggest human-induced seismic event in Canada's history.

Climate risk has arrived as a business issue to be reckoned with. Over the last year, the investment community sent a clear message that they are focused on environmental sustainability and expect companies in which they invest to do the same.

Dunkin' Donuts plans to begin phasing out polystyrene foam cups beginning this spring, planning to have completely eliminated polystyrene cups from its global supply chain by 2020. While the majority of Dunkin' Donuts' international markets are currently using paper cups, the company will work to replace foam cups with a new, double-walled paper cup throughout its US stores as quickly as manufacturing capabilities can get up to speed. Dunkin' Donuts has been searching for a suitable - and affordable - replacement for polystyrene cups since 2011.

Novo Nordisk, a global healthcare company specialising in diabetes, obesity and other serious chronic diseases, published its Annual Report 2017 online today at novonordisk.com/annualreport. It is the company's fourteenth integrated annual report accounting for the company's financial, social and environmental performance.

On Day Zero, about three months from now, Cape Town will shut off its spigots, an almost unfathomable step for a major city of 4 million people. And it might presage something bleaker for other regions that are grappling with the challenges of strained infrastructure and the effects of rising temperatures.

Environmental risks, which have grown in prominence over the 13-year history of the Global Risks Report, are an area of particular concern. The Global Risks Report 2018 looks at five categories of environmental risks: extreme weather events and temperatures; accelerating biodiversity loss; pollution of air, soil and water; failures of climate change mitigation and adaptation; and risks linked to the transition to low carbon. All of these risks ranked highly on both dimensions of likelihood and impact.

Nearly half of the municipal buses on the road around the world will be electric within seven years, with China expected to dominate the global market as it aims to cut urban pollution and support domestic manufacturers.

On January 31, The Hong Kong Legislative Council voted 49 to 4 to phase out the sale of antique ivory. As Tiffany May at The New York Times reports, the city will ban all sale of ivory, new and antique, by 2021, closing a system that poachers have previously exploited. The move will help staunch a significant player in the ivory market, which drives the destruction of elephant populations. In recent years, the United Nations estimates that poachers kill up to 100 elephants each day, which has devastated their populations.

Indonesia has reported a second straight year of declining deforestation, and credited more stringent land management policies for the trend. However, the government's insistence on counting pulpwood plantations as reforested areas has once again sparked controversy over how the very concept of a forest should be defined.

TED Talk: Can we solve the problem of ocean plastic pollution and end extreme poverty at the same time? That's the ambitious goal of The Plastic Bank: a worldwide chain of stores where everything from school tuition to cooking fuel and more is available for purchase in exchange for plastic garbage -- which is then sorted, shredded and sold to brands who reuse "social plastic" in their products. 

Hulu is in the process of migrating its data centers to a 100% renewable energy facility in Las Vegas operated by multi-tenant data center provider Switch. The video-on-demand company says the move will eliminate 265,000 carbon tons of emissions from the environment while powering millions of stable and secure streams a week.

Supply chain data gaps have inspired numerous industry-led initiatives dedicated to massive supply chain data-gathering and sharing projects, such as the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), and it has inspired dozens of cloud services specializing in traceability, ranging from EcoVadis to SourceMap. And barely one month into 2018, several of these tools are attaining new levels of maturity and transparency.

Amidst the madness of 2017, a bigger shift was missed than probably any other - right at the commanding heights of the economy: Natural gas fizzled out of the plan for the future.

Two of the world's most iconic food and beverage brands have launched ambitious initiatives aimed at significantly reducing waste and increasing the recycled and biobased content of their packaging. Together, they mark the acceleration of a yearslong war on waste.

South Africa's drought-stricken Cape Town told residents on Wednesday they would need to cut their daily water consumption by almost half from next month as authorities scramble to prevent the city running out of water as soon as in April.

Here's a sobering fact: The average American generates 4.4 pounds of trash daily, a whopping 30 percent of it packaging. Some people might read that statistic and vow to be stricter about recycling. Julie Corbett took things a tad further.