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"This 18th edition of Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics evaluates leading consumer electronics companies based on their commitment and progress in three environmental criteria: Energy and Climate, Greener Products, and Sustainable Operations. The Guide scores companies on overall policies and practices - not on specific products - to provide consumers with a snapshot of the sustainability of the biggest names in the industry. This Guide is not an endorsement for buying products from one company or another. Read"

"The Green Directory - Promoting Sustainable Living The Green Directory is Australia's bone fide online resource for locating genuine green business, products and services. All businesses in the categories below have been selected for their "green" attributes and sustainable business practices. Select from the categories on the left or you can perform a search in the field above. The Green Directory is Australia's premier online green directory, providing links between a broad range of producers and consumers wanting to do business in an environmentally sustainable way. It is the most popular and most visited directory for sustainable products."

Tired of hearing that sustainable construction has to cost more, Josh and his colleagues want to prove that resource efficient homes can be built at comparable cost and timeframes to regular houses. The homes will be thermally comfortable year round, without the need for air conditioning or additional heating. They will generate more electricity than they use, and will harvest and recycle water. In addition to private garden areas, a common productive garden will supply both houses with fresh food. What sets this project apart from many others is that the building designs have achieved a 10 Star energy efficiency rating*, whilst intentionally using conventional building materials and construction methods so they can easily be replicated by industry and the wider community. The project also demonstrates a more sensitive approach to residential subdivision that has considered maximising effective garden area around the homes to allow for natural shading, children's play spaces and local food production - important health and lifestyle benefits that are rapidly disappearing from our suburbs. Construction started in November 2012 and is scheduled for completion by May 2013.

"Several studies have shown that global crop production needs to double by 2050 to meet the projected demands from rising population, diet shifts, and increasing biofuels consumption. Boosting crop yields to meet these rising demands, rather than clearing more land for agriculture has been highlighted as a preferred solution to meet this goal."

MobileMuster started in late 1998. As the mobile phone industry's official product stewardship scheme, its aim is to keep old mobiles out of landfill and to recycle them in a safe, secure and ethical way.  It is the industry's program to takeresponsibility for its products at the end of their useful life.

"Last week, the New York Times reported that venerable Dow Jones Industrial Average component Coca-Cola Co. was awakening to the impact of climate change on its business. The increase in unpredictable weather, droughts, floods and other climate-related events was disrupting the company's product supply. Some of their "essential ingredients" are now under threat. Global warming, according to the article, is being seen "as a force that contributes to lower gross domestic products, higher food and commodity costs, broken supply chains and increased financial risk." This debate is no longer about whether global warming is real (it is) or whether humans are the most likely cause (you are), but rather, some very interesting and different questions that might be more professionally relevant to finance: How is this going to affect business? What are the investing consequences? Who will be the financial winners and losers of climate change?"

"The ISO 14000 environmental management standards exist to help organizations (a) minimize how their operations (processes etc.) negatively affect the environment (i.e. cause adverse changes to air, water, or land); (b) comply with applicable laws, regulations, and other environmentally oriented requirements, and (c) continually improve in the above. ISO 14000 is similar to ISO 9000 quality management in that both pertain to the process of how a product is produced, rather than to the product itself. As with ISO 9000, certification is performed by third-party organizations rather than being awarded by ISO directly. The ISO 19011 audit standard applies when auditing for both 9000 and 14000 compliance at once."

"# WaterMark confirms the product complies with the requirements of the Plumbing Code of Australia and is fit for purpose for installation under that Code. # WELS relates only to the water efficiency of the product. "

""Sustainability: A Comprehensive Foundation" is a free, open-source textbook available for viewing online or as a download for use on e-readers or printing. First and second-year college students are introduced to this expanding new field, comprehensively exploring the essential concepts from every branch of knowledge - including engineering and the applied arts, natural and social sciences, and the humanities. As sustainability is a multi-disciplinary area of study, the text is the product of multiple authors drawn from the diverse faculty of the University of Illinois: each chapter is written by a recognized expert in the field. Designed for the new generation of e-readers, the book can also be viewed in a browser, saved as a pdf, or printed."

"The decline of wild bees and other pollinators may be an even more alarming threat to crop yields than the loss of honeybees, a worldwide study suggests, revealing the irreplaceable contribution of wild insects to global food production."

"Bottled water producers are facing increasing pressure as the product falls from favour among the industry's most loyal buyers. Figures provided to Fairfax by Roy Morgan Research show that in the 12 months to September last year 30 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds said they drank bottled water, compared with 36 per cent in 2007. In the 14 to 25 age group, 33 per cent drank bottled water compared with 35 per cent in 2007."

"Many Australian consumers and businesses are working on ways to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. For some, the carbon tax meets their needs: it's designed to specifically motivate changes in behaviour by raising the costs associated with the production of pollution. But others are looking for more direct measures. Do offsets fit the bill?"

"THE Customer DATA centers run by Apple are now entirely fueled by renewable energy, as are 75% of all its corporate facilities, according to the company's recently released 'Apple and the Environment` report. But despite the commitment demonstrated by building one of the world's largest solar arrays, as well as a biogas plant, beside its new iCloud facility in Maiden, North Carolina, the annual review of environmental impact also acknowledges that the total greenhouse gas emissions attributable to Apple's products and operations rose by 34% in 2012."

"Alcoa (NYSE: AA) announced today that its $21 million Alcoa Wheel and Transportation Products casthouse expansion at its Barberton, Ohio plant is expected to cut in half the total amount of energy used to recycle aluminum for forged wheels, reducing greenhouse gases and increasing the overall efficiency and sustainability of the company's manufacturing process. The recycling facility, the first of its kind in North America, uses advanced technology to produce wheels from re-melted and scrap aluminum. Construction of the 50,000-square-foot facility began in July 2011. It is now up and running at full capacity and has created more than 30 full-time jobs."

"Forest ecologists like a challenge however, and there have been several attempts at estimating the forest carbon "sink". According to this analysis, intact forests and those re-growing after disturbance (like harvesting or windthrow) sequestered around 4 billion tonnes of carbon per year over the measurement period - equivalent to almost 60% of emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production combined."

"Australia is on the cusp of a solar energy revolution. First, a recent study suggests that the country could power its entire national domestic infrastructure using only solar (while slashing the price of home electricity by 70 percent). Now, the University of Melbourne has introduced a new organic PV cell printer that rolls out a functional binder page-sized sheet of solar panel every two seconds, making the production of all those cells cheaper and a whole lot faster."

Social Traders is a small nonprofit organisation established in 2008 to support and encourage the establishment of commercially viable social enterprises throughout Australia. Working with government, community, business and research partners, we aim to: * Raise awareness about social enterprise and demonstrate its benefits * Open up markets for social enterprise products and services * Increase finance available to start and develop social enterprises * Build capacity of social enterprises to trade successfully * Support the coordination of social enterprise development in Australia.

Today, we produce about four billion metric tonnes of food per annum. Yet due to poor practices in harvesting, storage and transportation, as well as market and consumer wastage, it is estimated that 30-50% (or 1.2-2 billion tonnes) of all food produced never reaches a human stomach. Furthermore, this figure does not reflect the fact that large amounts of land, energy, fertilisers and water have also been lost in the production of foodstuffs which simply end up as waste. This level of wastage is a tragedy that cannot continue if we are to succeed in the challenge of sustainably meeting our future food demands.

"Gadgets get discarded at ever faster rates and account for millions of tons of consumer electronic waste every year. To feed production, more and more resources are claimed and we are beginning to suffer from the immense burden on the natural and social environment. What is the purpose of driving the technological advancement? Does it help us create something that will last? Where are we going so fast? We don't know. Or do we?"

"The troubles of electric-car-maker Fisker Automotive have fueled another round of debate about whether plug-ins can live up to their promises. The California start-up, which had already halted production and laid off most of its employees, missed a federal loan paymentMonday and told a congressional hearing on Wednesday that it may not be able to avoid bankruptcy. This is probably the end of the road for Fisker. But definitely not for electric cars. Let me dispel some of the myths."