Wal-Mart to Reduce Phosphates in Detergents, Promote Sustainable Packaging in Americas / Compromiso de Wal-Mart reducir fosfatos en detergente, promover envase más sustentables en las Américas
Monday, January 26th, 2009From Wal-Mart: Wal-Mart Americas Aims to Reduce Detergent Phosphates 70% Company makes commitment to more sustainable packaging in the region Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. committed today to reduce phosphates in laundry and dish detergents in the Americas region by 70 percent by 2011. Wal-Mart also announced plans to accelerate its drive toward more sustainable packaging in […]
What the Other Guy Blogs About: Wind Energy in Central America
Monday, January 19th, 2009The Panama Post has published online an excellent overview of the current state of development of wind power in Central America, particularly eight new projects slated for Guatemala, one for El Salvador, six in Honduras, four in Nicaragua and five new ones in Costa Rica. My only quibble with the article: at the end of […]
Wal-Mart’s Plastic Bag Reduction Strategy in Central America
Thursday, January 15th, 2009Wal-Mart Central America is pursuing an interesting strategy to achieve its announced target of a 50% reduction in plastic bag use in its more than 500 stores in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua by 2013. Whereas its brethren in Brazil have elected to offer discounts for consumers bringing their own alternatives to […]
The Ecoclubs Movement in Latin America and the Caribbean
Friday, January 2nd, 2009A couple of years back, while I was working on a series of posts for the Green Team about Dominican cities attempting to come to grips with their litter problems, I ran into some local news posts about how the mayor of La Vega attributed some of his success in cleaning up that city to […]
“Cereal Offenses” in LAC
Sunday, December 28th, 2008If you have kids and read the labels of foods you shop for or buy, you probably know well the struggle to avoid buying breakfast cereals that are not loaded with sugar and/or sodium (salt). Sometimes even when you avoid the obvious culprits (after all, if the name is “frosted,” most of us can guess!), […]
LAC Consumer Protection Agencies Agree to Increase Cooperation
Friday, December 26th, 2008When I wrote my Overview of Consumer Law in LAC and Overview of Consumer Authorities in LAC, I somehow overlooked any mention of regional efforts to get the consumer protection authorities (where they exist) to work together. Let me rectify that first with this post here, and then with appropriate amendments to those two standalone […]
RIACT Focuses on Smoke-Free Environments
Thursday, December 25th, 2008Recently the Ibero-American Tobacco Control Network (Rede Ibero-Americana de Controle do Tabagismo – RIACT) held in Rio de Janerio its first full-fledged meeting since its creation in 2007. Attending the two-day meeting were representatives from Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay and Uruguay, and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). The […]
Progress Towards the Health MDGs in LAC / Progreso hacia los ODM relacionado con la salud en ALC
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008Recently 14 United Nations (UN) agencies* released a report (English, Spanish) reviewing the status of efforts of Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) nations toward meeting the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The report addresses the following health-specific MDGs: reducing the under-five mortality rate by 2/3 between 1990 and 2015; reducing the maternal mortality ratio by […]
McDonald’s Claims First “Ecological Restaurant” in Latin America
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008McDonald’s just inaugurated what it claims to be the first “ecological restaurant” in Latin America — well, at least, the first one of their chain, anyway. Take a look at why McDonald’s calls this an ecological restaurant and see if you agree: Arcos Dourados (“Golden Arches”), the company that manages the franchise network of McDonald’s […]
Outlook for “Green Jobs” / Prognóstico para “empleos verdes”
Monday, December 15th, 2008While the idea of creating a “green economy” with “green jobs” has been around quite a while, it really started to gain serious consideration as the climate change debate heated up, and recently moved front-and-center during the US presidential elections and the debates about how best to respond to the global financial crisis (here, here, […]
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