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Loading ...A Scorecard for Sustainable Palm Oil
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009From the WWF: WWF to grade palm oil buyers Only one percent of the sustainable palm oil available on the market has been bought, according to new figures released by the WWF today. In a bid to speed up this “sluggish performance”, WWF will assess the world’s major users of palm oil over the next […]
Update: Easier Buying Recycled
Friday, March 6th, 2009Parana’s public entities will finally get their recycled paper products. A few months ago I posted about the problems the southern Brazilian state was experiencing in its pioneering efforts to stimulate recycling by requiring all state agencies, entities and offices to buy only paper products with high recycled post-consumer fiber content (50%). A November 2007 […]
Mexico Proposes Reforming Its Environmental Audit Regime
Saturday, February 7th, 2009I’ve written here before about Mexico’s unusual environmental audit regime. Now the Federal Environment Prosecutor (Profepa) has released for public comment a proposed reform of the regulation governing the National Environmental Audit Program (Programa Nacional de Auditoría Ambiental – PNAA). Why? Profepa says that the while the participants in the program have changed over time, […]
Caixa Will Only Loan to Construction Using Certified Legal Wood / Caixa só financiará empreendimentos usuários de madeira legal
Monday, January 5th, 2009The Brazilians have decided that if they are to ever reach their goal of wiping out illegal logging in the Amazon, they need to do more than more than just step up police raids, support sustainable wood use projects, create new parks, digitize monitoring, monitor biomass in realtime by satellite, and target key states. The […]
Colombian Palm Oil Industry Opts for Path to Certified Sustainable
Thursday, July 17th, 2008Last week the group representing Colombia’s palm oil business, the National Federation of Palm Oil Growers (Federación Nacional de Cultivadores de Palma de Aceite – Fedepalma), announced their adherence to the Principles and Criteria of the Zurich-based Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). The RSPO arose from a concept first proposed by WWF in 2001. […]
Toward a Green Building Rating System for Mexico
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007Quiz time, folks. Did you know that Mexico has one of the two Latin American buildings that are Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified? That nine other Mexican projects await LEED certification by the US Green Building Council (USGBC)? That Mexico has had its own green building council since 2005? That the Council […]
A Call for a Reality Check on Biofuel
Tuesday, September 11th, 2007If you listen to their proponents, biofuels are the answer to many environmental, energy and economic ills and can do no wrong. They are destined to unseat OPEC and free us all from hydrocarbon dependence. If you listen to their detractors, biofuels are a sham that may bring environmental disaster and servitude to multinational corporations, […]
Certifying Efficient Public Lighting
Friday, August 17th, 2007Synopsis in English: Brazil’s certification entity, the National Institute for Meteorology, Standardization and Industrial Quality (Instituto Nacional de Metrologia, Normalização e Qualidade Industrial – INMETRO) recently announced that, starting in 2008, it and the mixed capital (but majority state-owned) electricity distribution company (the largest in Latin America) Eletrobrás a certification and labeling program for the […]
Toward a Brazilian Certification Program for Biofuel
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007Synopsis in English: At the end of July Brazil’s national certification authority, the National Institute of Meteorology, Standardization and Industrial Quality (INMETRO) held a consultation at their office in Rio de Janeiro on its plan to launch a Brazilian Biofuel Certification Program. The program primarily aims at helping Brazilian biofuel exports (particularly, but not exclusively, […]
LAC Environmental Trivia
Thursday, March 22nd, 2007The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has just published the latest edition of its annual statistical yearbook for the region. As in recent years, one section covers natural resources and the environment. If you are seeking a basic set of comparative environmental data for the region, this is not […]