Asked about the EIO and how it operates, 20 year old Katherine Belben, the NGO’sCommunications Coordinator, explained, "The EIO is the product of the current environmental and political climate. On the one hand we face impending environmental catastrophe which requires immediate action; and on the other we have world governments who appear incapable of reaching unified consensus to address the problem. The EIO has galvanised the support of a generation of people who, as well as wanting to glean knowledge and experience in an area set to become the growth engine of the 21st century, are simply not going to stand back and watch as that happens.”
“The required emissions reductions and investment in low carbon technologies can be achieved by creating a system which influences share price according to the environmental costs of a company’s actions. This is precisely what Environmental Tracking seeks to do,” added Sam Gill, Operations Director, Environmental Investment Organisation.
TheEnvironmental Investment Organisation (EIO), a UK based NGO supported by a global research network, aims to persuade more companies to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and report to higher standards with the launch of four new regional Carbon Rankings this week.
The series of Environmental Tracking (ET) Global Carbon Rankings, featuring over 1,200 of the world’s largest companies, is part of a broader strategy to create a global market mechanism designed to tackle climate change.
By pioneering an open source approach to collaborative working the EIO has made it easy for those eager to be part of the climate solution to contribute, hold the world’s biggest companies to account, and, implement a powerful mechanism.
Kicking off with the release of the ET North America 300 today at 11am (GMT+1) Monday 24.10.11, the EIO will be releasing a regional Ranking each day this week. The ET Asia Pacific 300, ET BRICS 300 and an updated ET Europe 300 will follow on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Each of these Rankings has been designed to put the spotlighton standards of public GHG emissions reporting across the world.
The Regional Rankings act as a precursor to the eagerly awaited ET Global 800, which looks purely at the largest 800 companies across the world without any geographical bias.This will go live at 11am (GMT) on Tuesday 1.11.11.
With the introduction earlier this month of the long awaitedNew Scope 3 Standard from theGreenhouse Gas Protocol (released 4.10.11), the EIO has taken a proactive approach to incentivise companies to adopt this important new standard in GHG Reporting. The finalised standard has been the result of a three year global multi-stakeholders process that included more than 2,300 participants and road-tested by 60 companies in 17countries.
The Environmental Investment Organisation (EIO) is a UK-based non-profit research body working in the field of eco-financial innovation. Seeeio.org.uk
Environmental Tracking 3.0, the short publication outlining the concept behind the Carbon Rankings is available as a digital download or in hardcopy fromLulu.com
The EIO held an advance briefing on the launch of its Regional and Global Carbon Rankings last Friday 21.10.11 at theCarbon Show, London.
Current live Indexes:
TheET UK 100 Index can be viewed on Bloomberg by searching “ETETUKP:IND”; and,
TheET Europe 300 Index can be viewed on Bloomberg by searching “ETETEURP:IND”.
The Environmental Tracking (ET) Carbon Rankings are compiled from publicly available emissions data taken from company sustainability reports, annual reports and websites. The Rankings and the fully transparent methodology behind them can be viewed online ateio.org.uk
The rankings are comprised of four data bands according to the status of a company's data: A) complete, public, verified; B) complete, public but unverified; C) incomplete; and, D) no public data. In cases where there is no data available, companies are benchmarked against the worst performer in the same sector. Once in their respective categories, companies are ranked according to emissions intensity (emissions divided by turnover). Additionally, companies are advantaged according to the number of Scope 3 categories disclosed.
(Mountain View, CA.,) "California is the perfect birthplace for this Institute, but ultimately its reach is global, and it has been our long-held wish to see the principles of Cradle to Cradle applied globally," said William McDonough, co-founder of the Green Products Innovation Institute.
...for a safer and healthier world for ALL children of ALL species...
"Even before Michael and I wrote Cradle to Cradle in 2002, we have wished and worked for a safer and healthier world for ALL children of ALL species. That world is not just a wish anymore-it is here now, thanks to Gov. Schwarzenegger, the donors and supporters of the Green Products Innovation Institute, and the people of California," continued McDonough.
GPII will work to advance the framework outlined in the book "Cradle to Cradle," authored by architect and designer William McDonough and Dr. Michael Braungart, co-founders of GPII.
Governor Schwarzenegger announcing first-in-the-nation Green Products Innovation Institute. From left to right: Schmidt Family Foundation President Wendy Schmidt, YouTube Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Chad Hurley, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry Co-Founder William McDonough.
Photo Credit: Justin Short
GPII will help transform how companies design, manufacture and use chemicals - driving a new era in research, innovation, economic growth and competition in the green chemistry sector.
"This Institute will revolutionize the way we design products and serve as a benchmark for those who aspire to set new standards of environmental and human health and safety for all products sold in California," said the Governor of California.
In More Breaking Environmental News Today:
West Coast Governors' Agreement on Ocean Health
The Governors of California, Oregon, and Washington today released eight issue-specific work plans to improve and sustain the health of the three states' shared coastal and ocean resources and the communities that depend on them.
More On GPII: The Institute will help implement this framework by working with industries to create cleaner water and eliminate the concept of waste while creating healthy products.
"California has the most comprehensive Green Chemistry program in the world, and our leadership in ensuring the products we use every day are safe for our families and environment has resulted in the Green Products Innovation Institute choosing to headquarter here in California," said Governor Schwarzenegger.
Nationally-renown design consultancy firm, MBDC (McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry), has given the certification mark along with the Cradle to Cradle ® protocols to the Institute, which will now be responsible for certifying products. Companies from a wide range of industries have already demonstrated the viability and benefits of designing products according to the Cradle to Cradle framework, such as Herman Miller, Shaw Industries, Ford Motor Company, Aveda and Method Laundry. To date, more than 300 products and 90 companies have engaged in the Cradle to Cradle certification (CM) process.
Governor Schwarzenegger has made California a leader in green chemistry and in 2008 signed legislation to establish the first green chemistry program in the United States.
Speakers at this morning's event includedCalifornia Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger; William McDonough, Co-Founder of the Institute; Michael Volkema, Chairman, Herman Miller; Chad Hurley, co-founder and CEO, YouTube;Vance Bell, CEO, Shaw Inc.; Matt Petersen, Executive Director, Global Green; Professor Martin Fischer, Stanford University :www.gpinnovation.org.
This is a tough question. My gut reaction is to say, “no, it’s not the right choice.” However, I have to admit I don’t know all the details behind Obama’s recent announcement. I know the basics, the information we’re allowed to have. It’s the information we are not privy to that makes me have concerns about the motives behind this decision. The risks and dangers that go along with offshore drilling seem too great to me. If accidents didn’t happen and we were 100% secure that all would be well, I’m sure we could stand behind it to an extent. But the reality is that we could ruin hundreds of miles of coastline, kill thousands of sea life and leave our oceans devastated. The thought of what that picture looks like is too horrifying. So in the end I have to say no.
Not that long ago Obama was saying “no” too. That concerns me. It’s a big swing in the opposite direction. How does that happen? Unfortunately we call that politics and it’s a game with too many players at the table. Here is a video of Obama opposing offshore drilling just a little over a year ago.
If this concerns you too, take a moment to send a letter to our president. You can use the form letter or write your own. I was hoping that once Obama was in office I could sit back, relax and feel confident that I could stand behind all his decisions. That was me being naive and hoping to be politically lazy. Change is indeed gonna come and we need to be a driving force!
"Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting." - Mark Twain
30 scheduled screenings of Tapped followed by a town hall Q & A - will kick off in Los Angeles on March 22nd en route to New York City. The Tapped truck can be tracked online - featuring celebrity guest columns by Ed Begley Jr and David de Rothschild, a public service announcement by Grammy Winner Jack Johnson, and daily videos and bonus clips from the film.
Beginning World Water Day (March 22nd) Tapped’s Producer Sarah Olson and Director Stephanie Soechtig will take their mobile showroom on the road, collecting pledges from people to reduce their bottled water use and trading empty plastic water bottles for reusable stainless steel Klean Kanteens. This mobile translucent recycling container will begin the “Get Off The (h20) Bottle” tour in Los Angeles with an empty cabin that will be filled with the public’s empty water bottles by the time the team ends up in New York City on Earth Day (April 22nd, 2010).Director Stephanie Soechtig says about the tour, “1,500 bottles of water end up in landfills every second – that’s 30 million bottles of water a day! We wanted to show people just how much waste is generated by bottled water - so if that means we have to drive city to city to get the point across than that’s what we’ll do!”The stops along the tour will include San Diego, CA (March 22nd), Tempe, AZ (March 23rd), Tucson, AZ (March 24th), Santa Fe, NM (March 26th), Salida, CO (March 27th), Denver, CO (March 30th), Boulder, CO (March 31st), Omaha, NE (April 2nd), Lawrence, KS (April 5th) Norman, OK (April 6th), Dallas, TX (April 7th), Austin, TX (April 8th), Houston, TX (April 9th), New Orleans, LA (April 10th), Atlanta, GA (April 13th), Nashville, TN (April 14th), Bloomington, IN (April 15th), Chicago, IL (April 16th), Goshen, IN (April 17th), Washington, DC (April 19-20) and New York City (April 21-23nd).Tour Sponsors include Klean Kanteen, Food and Water Watch, Multi-Pure water filters, and Aveda. ABOUT TAPPEDIs access to clean drinking water a basic human right, or a commodity that should be bought and sold like any other article of commerce? Stephanie Soechtig's debut feature is an unflinching examination of the big business of bottled water.From the producers of Who Killed the Electric Car and I.O.U.S.A., this timely documentary is a behind-the-scenes look into the unregulated and unseen world of an industry that aims to privatize and sell back the one resource that ought never to become a commodity: our water.From the plastic production to the ocean in which so many of these bottles end up, this inspiring documentary trails the path of the bottled water industry and the communities which were the unwitting chips on the table. A powerful portrait of the lives affected by the bottled water industry, this revelatory film features those caught at the intersection of big business and the public's right to water.For more information please go to www.tappedthemovie.com.
BONUS
FREE SCREENING March 24th, Santa Monica High School, Barnum Hall, Santa Monica, CA. 4:00pm Open To The Public Sponsored by The Daily Ocean.
March 21 - Kelowna, British Columbia March 22 - Annandale, VA March 22 - Guelph, Ontario March 22 - Mill Valley, CA March 22 - San Diego, CA March 22 - Burnaby, British Columbia March 22 - Auckland, New Zealand March 22 - Manchester, United Kingdom March 22 - Durham, NC
March 23 - Laie, HI - hosted by Jack Johnson and Kokua Hawai'i Foundation March 23 - Tempe, AZ March 24 - Tallahassee, FL March 24 - Fredericksburg, VA March 24 - Standish, ME March 24 - Santa Monica, CA March 24 - Tuscon, AZ March 24 - Keene, NH March 24 - Fountain Valley, CA March 25 - San Diego, CA March 25 - Puerto Rico March 26 - Santa Fe, NM March 27 - Salida, CO March 28 - Mill Valley, CA March 30 - Denver, CO March 31 - Incline Village, NV March 31 - Aspen, CO March 31 - Boulder, CO March 31 - Breckenridge, CO April 2 - Omaha, NE April 5 - Lawrence, KS April 6 - Norman, OK April 7 - Dallas, TX April 8 - Austin, TX April 8 - North Charleston, SC April 9 - Houston, TX April 10 - New Orleans, LA April 14 - Nashville, TN April 14 - Beverly Hills, CA April 15 - Coeur d'Alene, ID April 15 - Bloomington, IN April 16 - Chicago, IL April 17 - Goshen, IN April 20 - Missoula, MT April 22 - New York, NY April 22 - Keene, NH April 22 - Rye, NY April 23 - Greenwich, CT April 24 - Roswell, GA April 24 - Austin, TX April 24 - Honolulu, HI April 26 - Madison, WI April 29 - Los Angeles, CA April 30 - Truckee, CA May 6 - Salt Lake City, UT May 6 - Santa Cruz, CA May 12 - Sacramento, CA May 17 - Plano, TX June 4 - Mendocino, CA September 26 - Terrace, British Columbia October 22 - Antigonish, Nova Scotia
What is more dangerous, climate change orterrorism?
We are all too familiar with the consequences of terrorism and few deny the earth’s climate is changing. In today’s social discourse both ideas are loaded and politicized. Neither phenomenon is universally defined and the approach to each is emotional and controversial.
Consider the causalities of each to determine which is more dangerous. As expected there is a fair amount of difficulty in calculating how many people die from either terrorism or climate change. The data is far from perfect, but is important to compare the threats each pose. Unfortunately, both suffer from ambiguous definitions and each is riddled with disagreements of their effects. For instance, some figures include fatalities in the war zone of Iraq when considering terrorism. Others might consider deaths from hunger as circumstance of climate change. Conversely, terrorism might occur in a war zone while malnutrition can be a result of climate change.
Joe Magee is the co-founder of PineMark.com, a Southern California based environmental start-up. PineMark is the first green lifestyle certification, think LEED for people. They incentivize individuals to reduce their ecological impact while rewarding those who commit to sustainable living. Twitter @PineMark
In the Anatomy of a Silent Crisis, released by the Global Humanitarian Forum, it is estimated that 300,000 people die per year due to climate change. This is a conservative estimate that mainly accounts for weather-related disasters such as drought, floods, heat waves, desertification, and rises in sea levels.
The Worldwide Incidents Tracking System, a counter terrorism database, recorded about 11,400 deaths as a result of terrorism in 2009 and 15,800 in 2008. The National Counterterrorism Center that operates the database defines terrorism when “groups or individuals acting on political motivation deliberately or recklessly attack civilians/non-combatants."
The Problem:
If climate change is predicted to kill almost 25 times more people than terrorism, why does the US spend upwards of 15 times more money on combating terrorism than researching climate change? ($55 billion projected in 2011 on counter-terrorism versus a yearly average of $3.4 billion spent on climate change research and technologies). The fact is 99% of causalities relating to climate change occur in developing nations. It is an absolute tragedy that 50 of the least developed nations emit less than 1% of the world’s carbon (Anatomy of a Silent Crisis). The media and our government share some responsibility for the perception of these problems. Regardless, as global citizens we have a duty to be informed about the consequences of our actions.
It is expected that the US would dedicate more money to counter-terrorism. The United States has an obligation to protect its citizens and the immediacy of terrorism is a grave threat. However, if the numbers tell us anything about climate change, it is that we need to dedicate more resources to its solution. Domestically we might not experience the adverse effects of climate change for a few decades. This is all the more reason to start addressing the problem immediately.
The Solution:
The unpredictable nature of climate change and terrorism make them difficult to prepare and anticipate. In addressing these issues one would hope for better data and analysis because both are linked much more closely than previously thought. The Pew Charitable Trust recently created a separate institute to discover the intersection of terrorism and climate change; I previously posted the video they released, Climate Patriots. This is at the crux of solving these global issues. No matter what your political views or how you previously felt about “global warming”, climate change has a direct link to terrorism. The fact is that climate change creates disasters; disasters create civil unrest, and civil unrest breeds terrorism.
Terrorism and climate change are not so far removed from our daily lives. It boils down to how we as a community view and address these issues. You do play a role in their solutions. We, as citizens of the greatest country in the world, have an obligation to demand the truth and be informed of the causes and consequences of both climate change and terrorism. Try to step back from your preconceived notions of each and search out different points of view, weight conflicting statistics, and always consider the source of your information. The more these issues are discussed, argued, and challenged the more transparent they become and progress is made.
Advertise WithThe Green Blog Network Please contact us for sponsorship and advertising rates. Email:GreenBloggerInfo [at] gmail dot com
Search This Blog
Green Blog Network
We're a network of green bloggers from across the nation and around the world who write on green topics we're passionate about. Check us out at Green Blog Network and Here and Here. Write for us, query: GreenBloggerInfo [at] gmail dot com
Twitter
Green Blog Network On Twitter
Green Blog Network on Clear Channel
Listen to Green Blog Network on Clear Channel Radio
Posts
