The international Organisation that sets standards is ISO. They have set up the ISO 14,000 series of standards to cover environmental certification and this includes two major areas;
• ISO 14,001 certifies environmental practices and behaviour in a business
• ISO 14,020 series covers environmental products.

The ISO 14001 certifications are audited by trained auditors working for a variety of certification bodies with built in and transparent checks and balances.

The Product certification is administered by a series of not for profit organisations that help businesses get their products certified “following the guidelines” of ISO 14020. In Australia this is administered by Good Environmental Choice.

My question for both certifications is about the quality of the auditing process. I know that a few high profile ISO 14001 businesses that still have breaches of the law yet retain their certification cause scepticism of the benefits of ISO 14001 by some of the green groups. This is clearly an auditor problem and we had some fairly robust discussion about this at the recent Environmental management Systems Forum I attended in Newcastle NSW this week. Click here to access my paper and my PowerPoint slides on “greenwash” which was updated before delivery to reflect some of the discussion. Even in those businesses that still cause occasional breaches, my experience has been that the ISO 14001 implementation and certification process has caused a real cultural change in the business and much improved environmental practices.

The auditing process for the product certification is much less transparent and much more confusing for the public. I also have concerns about what is meant by “following the guidelines”.

It is my firm opinion that certifying management practices to ISO 14001 is the best way to go. If an ISO 14001 certified business also sells ISO 140020 certified products – they you have a good choice and there should be more overlap.

The ISO 14001 standard is very clear, the auditor’s job is to check what you say is compliant with the standard and also that you DO what you SAY. Where a business has a policy that states it obeys all legislative requirements and still has regular legal breaches, the auditor is failing in his job if he does not require corrective action to avoid loss of certification. This needs to be remedied by the auditing bodies and addressed by the ACCC (Australian Company and Consumer Commission) when investigating “green” claims.

I have much more concern about the plethora of product standards, what they mean and how they fit into the carbon cycle and the carbon auditing we are all embarking on from July 1 in Australia.

Technorati Tags:   Clarification about certifying product vs management practices, product vs management practices, ISO 14001

One has to ask whether the new Rudd government knows whether the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.

The core demographic for solar energy system purchases are households with additional discretionary income.

“It’s unrealistic to think people on low incomes, if they’re battling to pay for food or petrol, will go for a solar hot water system,” Russel Mourney, director of national solar panel installer The Solar Shop Australia, says: “It’s people with some discretionary income who are early adopters and have supported the industry to this stage.” Mourney stated that “On Wednesday morning we started getting calls from people signed up in the last few weeks and with applications not sent through, so we had lots of cancellations. We had at least 90 in the pipeline and now I think 60% to 70% will not go through, and we think we will see a drop of about 60% from the 2000 systems we would have expected to install this year.”

Treasurer Wayne Swan announced as part of Tuesday’s budget that a means test will now apply to the rebate home owners receive when they install solar panels on their homes, restricting it to households with an income below $100,000. The relatively low $100,000 household threshold set for the means test – compared to $150,000 for the baby bonus and family tax benefit B – will exacerbate the damage inflicted by the change.

This seems bizarre to me!

Is the Government’s compulsory carbon reporting to help the environment or just a tax grab from business? If they really care about the environment why cut the solar rebate??????

Technorati Tags: Australian government, solar rebate, restricting solar rebate to households with incomes below 0, 000, solar energy systems

Biochemistry professor Hervé Philippe from the Université de Montréal says that the average Canadian produces 22 tones of carbon dioxide each year - equal to the weight of about 4 large elephants. Doesn’t everyone measure carbon dioxide in elephants?

Philippe was surprised to discover that his scientific work (computers, air travel, and air conditioning) added up to 44 tons of carbon dioxide a year, or almost 9 extra elephants. Amidst reports of rapidly accelerating carbon dioxide emissions, it is not surprising that we often forget the many aspects of our life that cause carbon dioxide emissions.

Professor Philippe’s suggestion was that researchers contribution to carbon emissions should include fewer conferences, use more virtual technology for communication, and avoid research on ‘well explored topics’. Policies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions might be trendy now, but will be extremely beneficial to both the environment and the pocketbook once the externalized costs of global warming are recognized. There is a limit to how many elephants can really fit in the atmosphere, CO2 elephants that is.

I must say that I am being constantly deluged to appear at a plethora of “environmental” conferences and expos lately. Very over the top. And they all use huge power guzzling flood lights while claiming to be environmental. It is the new great thing for Expo organisers.

Certainly one of the reasons fro running Enviro Action’s online training for groups is the environmental one. It is far more energy efficient - and more Jean sustainable too!

Technorati Tags: Measuring greenhouse emission, greenhouse emissions measured in elephants, Canadian professor Hervé Philippe, Canadian carbon emissions, carbon emissions at expos

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has said pressure from the car industry will not deter California from attempting to impose strict emission rules for vehicles sold in the state. He met privately with seven car executives who requested the get-together. He told them “the train has left the station” and that they should stop challenging California rules that are intended to help slow the rate of global warming.

Mr Schwarzenegger told members of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers ‘While you’re whining, you should be creating new technologies. That’s how you meet the date.”

California wants emissions to be cut by nearly one-third for all vehicles sold in the state by 2016. That’s four years earlier than similar emission rules proposed by the federal government. Car manufacturers say the California benchmark can’t be met on time, and they have successfully blocked them from taking effect for now.

It is unusual for Mr Schwarzenegger and car executives to meet -they have been at odds for years. The industry sued California in federal court over a 2002 car emissions rule, delaying the tougher standards. Although the state successfully defended the legal challenge, the rules have been blocked by the President George Bush’s administration.

Technorati Tags: Governor Schwarzenegger, car industry, imposing strict emission rules for vehicles, pressure from car industry

If New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) goes ahead in its current form, Rio Tinto Alcan warns it may have to close its aluminium smelter. But the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development (NZBCSD) said the likely economic impact of the ETS will be low and most businesses support the scheme.

The New Zealand Government s is providing free allocation petrol and diesel into the ETS until January 2011 and defer the beginning of the phase out of free allocations by five years to 2018 to lessen the burden on businesses and households which have been facing steeply rising fuel costs. There will be 90% of free allocation for agriculture and trade-exposed industry until 2018 and would then be phased out until 2030.

Rio Tinto Alcan Asia Pacific president Xiaoling Liu told MPs hearing submissions on the emissions trading bill in parliament on Monday that New Zealand would not remain a cost-competitive place to manufacture aluminium if the ETS went ahead in its current form, the New Zealand Herald reported. The company would be forced to close its Tiwai Pt aluminium smelter in southern New Zealand as it could not compete with producers in countries that do not have a price on carbon. The closure would result in a loss of $1 billion a year in exports, Rio Tinto said.

But Climate Change Minister David Parker said the government had already addressed concerns raised by trade-exposed industries such as aluminium production by delaying the phase out of free permit allocation.

Technorati Tags: New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development, Climate Change Minister David Parker, aluminum production, businesses closing

A new survey released by the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development found that the businesses with high greenhouse emissions are having the most influence on climate change policy, according to. Some 70% of the 2,400 New Zealanders surveyed said the heavy emitters have most influence, followed by environmental groups (53%). Green Party MPs rank third (37%) and business organisations came fourth (34%).

Technorati Tags: New Zealand Business Council, businesses with high greenhouse emissions, climate change policy

It has been declared Australia’s most outstanding example of construction excellence at the 2008 Australian Construction Achievement Awards

A 144 ML per day seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant – the third largest in the world was built in an 18-month period and on a footprint of only 6.3 hectares and included the installation of intake and outfall pipelines and an intake receiving structure within the protected waters of Cockburn Sound.

The judges said that the processes for this plant were far more complex than for any conventional water treatment plant, partly because of issues relative to the corrosive nature of seawater, and also in producing a pristine quality of seawater to feed the reverse osmosis system. This was a was a large, complex, fast-tracked project.

The Judges stated that “The project achieved full environmental compliance while incorporating sustainability through design and equipment and is now exceeding the client’s performance requirements”. “It also demonstrates the viability both economically and environmentally of desalinisation.”

The key environmental challenges such as consultation, approvals and regulations, concentrate management and marine monitoring, energy and aesthetics were paramount during construction and will continue throughout the life of the plant.

Technorati Tags: Perth Saltwater Desalination Project, Australian Construction Achievement Award, seawater reverse osmosis desalination

More snippets from todays newscasts.

• Hybrid diesel has been developed in Queensland. This is a hybrid between diesel and liquid petroleum gas (LPG) and it radically increases fuel efficiency. Apparently the conversion cost is arounf A$3,000 after the Federal government rebate.
• UK suggesting increased registration tax on vehicles that use more fuel. It was causing uproar among the 4 wheel drive Mums. There is a genuine problem with child safety seats as the smaller the person the more room they take up with the current range of child restraints. I don’t buy the story that you need to drive something like a truck to fit the kids and the shopping in and to share a car run does require more legal seat space than it did when my kids were small and there was less child safety. Don’t get me wrong - my car is also cluttered up with seats to hold my grandchildren safely I am all for keeping them safe but I suggest that there could be better design here so more efficient cars can also fit in kids safely.
  I am all for tax incentives to change behaviour but recognise the pain of families who can’t afford soaring petrol prices, increased registration and vehicle devaluation because of the tax change. Probably needs a slightly slower introduction.
• Dare I say we need better public transport - that is safe with seat belts on all seats. Or is it more cost effective to just patch injured people up than to pay for seat belt installation? Refer to my accident in a bus in November.

There are increasing new ideas for transport but unfortunately the prices of conventional fuel may need to cause us a lot of pain before it becomes economically viable to develop new technologies.

In fact humans are really inventive but they usually wait until it is too painful to stay the same before they decide it is a good idea to change. It is time we got out of our comfort zone.

Technorati Tags: drive, fuel, fuel prices,   Hybrid diesel, Hybrid, liquid petroleum gas, LPG, economical, technology

I was listening to an interview with a guy from HP discussing the problem of e-Waste this morning on the Sky News Eco Report. Although the major electronics companies are offering recycling and building their computers in a way that allows them to do so and retain some value so that the recycling becomes more cost effective ( screws not glue etc helps here), there are 1.6 million computers per year going to landfill in Australia. The problem, other than the waste, is the issue of the lead and mercury in the computers ending up in the groundwater. HP said that they have been offering recycling since the 1980s.

This problem needs to be a 3 way partnership between government to set the incentives, the computer industry to offer the recycling facility and the community to hand them in instread of putting them in the bin when they are past their use by date.

Provision of recycling facilities by industry is expensive and does need both the government incentives and the will of the consumers to pay the little extra to cover this. When people buy, they have very different priorities. Some are interested in being sustainable, others want the fastest and best regardsless and others want the cheapest - plus many more criteria as well. Quite a problem for industry to supply what is wanted.

Mobile phones are another form of e-waste and there is an organization called Mobile Muster that deals with this but my old mobiles are still sitting in a bag waiting for me to find out where the nearest Mobile Muster station is. At least they are not in a bin. Recycling works better when it is easy. We are all so busy these days.

My local stationary shop has just put a big toner recycling bin inside their front door and they are astonished at how fast it fills up. It is a great service and people do stop and buy the extra bits there while they drop off the old toners.

Technorati Tags: eWaste,   Sky News Eco Report, recycling, partnership, government, recycling facility, community

There has been a mixed bag of reactions to the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’ discussions about coal sales to China, clean coal and what some people are calling the hypocrisy of our mining and selling coal to China.

I agree that the entire world needs to move completely away from fossil fuels but I am also a pragmatist and I realise the size of the industry here and the huge damage it would do to our economy if we suddenly stopped so I believe that the coal industry’s research efforts into developing clean ways to use coal make sense. And selling these technologies to China along with the coal also makes sense.

I know this makes some people very angry and someone recently said to me “clean coal – I’d like to see that!” The problem with being angry about something is that the people who are angry stop communicating and only tell. Unless the dialogue is two way, there is no communication and the differing viewpoints never meet to find the best outcome. It is a bit like swimming in a rip – fight it and you drown.

I believe we need a mix of energy sources and would like to see large scale development of solar because we have so much sun in Australia and especially at times when demand for air-conditioning is greatest. Our small scale domestic solar installations are very expensive to install and while great for the environment are out of the reach of most people.

The USA are installing very large scale and economic solar plants to power entire towns in Arizona and the large scale technology has been in use in California since the 198s and is well tested and reliable. There is a process using huge amounts of salt that can store the solar heat to enable the power generation around the clock.

When wind, wave, solar and geothermal energy is in mainstream use and alternative technologies are developed and economically viable together with attitudes and behavioural change we will able to reduce our energy use without much changing out quality of life. At that time the cost of coal and oil will rise to become uneconomical unless they can be audited as having worked out how to effective reduce their emissions. Their incentive will be the cost of their carbon emissions.

There are other very exciting new technologies emerging for retrofitting established buildings to make them energy efficient. I suspect there needs to be support to get these out into more visible demonstration sites.

Developing these technologies, including clean coal, and reducing dependence on coal and oil requires a national and global vision plus implementation and incentives.

Humans are very good at change and adaptation when they know their backs are against the wall but the problem is they do not all recognise the need for action now.

Technorati Tags: Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, coal sales to China, clean coal, mining and selling coal to China, clean coal, energy sources