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  • A Bill to Require EIAs Before Packaging Drinks in Plastic

    Saturday, May 30th, 2009

    Last year in a post about efforts in Brazil to stop the sale of beer in PET bottles, I explored some of the possible ramifications of an April 2008 rejection by a federal judge of all challenges to a 2002 ruling that brewers wishing to bottle their beer in PET or any other plastic must […]

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    São Paulo Offers Packaging Bill for Public Comment

    Friday, May 22nd, 2009

    The Environment Secretariat (SMA) of São Paulo (SP) today published for public comment on its website a draft bill for a law on post-consumer packaging. The bill would create a rather complex shared responsibility system to ensure that post-consumer packaging in SP is either recycled or reused.  Anyone wishing to submit comments or suggested changes to the […]

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    Checking on the Green Protocol

    Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

    At a ceremony today in which Brazil’s Central Bank joined public and private banks in signing the “Green Protocol” of environmental commitments, Environment Minister Carlos Minc announced that an upcoming meeting with public banks and the Brazilian Federation of Banks (Febraban) will the rules for reporting how banks are meeting their Protocol commitments.  Proper reporting, […]

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    Fuel Efficiency Labels Hit Brazilian Market

    Friday, April 17th, 2009

    Brazil today presented the first vehicles that will bear the new fuel efficiency labels developed by the National Institute of Metrology, Standardization and Industrial Quality (INMETRO). Brazil was the first to develop a fuel efficiency label for cars, although Chile is also headed in that direction. At the ceremony five manufacturers — Fiat, GM (Chevrolet), […]

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    Toward a National Waste Exchange for Brazil

    Thursday, October 4th, 2007

    Recently Brazil's National Confederation of Industry (CNI) pulled together a meeting in Curitiba, Paraná (PR) of officials from Brazil's existing 12 state waste exchanges operated by state industry associations.  Also attending were industry representatives from Argentina, Paraguay and Portugal.  The focus of discussion: a CNI proposal to link the exchanges electronically and create a de […]

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    LAC Explores Sustainable Consumption and Production Policy

    Thursday, September 27th, 2007

    This past April São Paulo State’s environment agency, CETESB, hosted Brazil’s National Roundtable on Sustainable Sustainable Consumption and Production. At the end of June the top body of the five-nation MERCOSUR (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela), the Common Market Council (CMC), adopted a binding Decision calling for an action plan, program and common policy on […]

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    A Business-NGO Pact to Seek a New Brazilian Climate Change Policy

    Thursday, April 26th, 2007

    On Tuesday the Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development (Conselho Empresarial Brasileiro para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável – CEBDS), the state-owned energy giant Petrobras, the energy-cement-chemicals-cellulose conglomerate Votorantim, Greenpeace Brasil and WWF-Brasil signed a “Climate Defense Pact.” CEBDS is the Brazilian chapter of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

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    The IDB Pushes Ethanol

    Wednesday, February 14th, 2007

    Moreno Urges US to Embrace LAC Ethanol On 07 February Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) President Luis Alberto Moreno offered a guest editorial (“op-ed”) in the Miami Herald that argued that the US should promote ethanol development in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and embrace LAC ethanol imports. Moreno argues that the trying to reach […]

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