You are here: Home / Archives for Green Technology

Cars, Sprawl Are Killing Us: American Public Health Association

Posted by Green Blog on May 25, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

If there is any doubt that locating in car-oriented poor-transit served office parks and residing in likewise-vehicle-dependent low-density suburbs are injurious to our health–and one reason why healthcare costs are so high–a new report by the American Public Health Association, “The Hidden Health Costs of Transportation,” should quell them.

The report’s data indicates that if organizations truly want to make a difference in their costs, environment and quality of life that they need to get out of the “parks” altogether. For no matter how “green” the buildings in energy efficiency the dirt from the pollution and other even more deadly and expensive impacts on public health from car dependence resulting from their locations far outweigh the benefits.

This comprehensive study, prepared for the APHA by UrbanDesign 4Health examines all impacts and their staggering costs in 2008 dollars from transportation and land use that is shaped by and which shapes transportation choices. These include accidents, air pollution and obesity including administrative expenses (such as billing and contact centers) and where appropriate lost productivity and wages, property damage, travel delays and costs due to pain, suffering and lost quality of life and premature death.

The toll from cars in poor air quality alone range from $50 billion to $80 billion per year. Yet even that high amount is overshadowed by the costs of accidents that reach about $180 billion annually.

(Keep in mind that hybrids and zero emission vehicles also create pollution from extracting, refining and distributing petroleum products, in highway construction and maintenance, and in emergency vehicles responding to accidents. Like the one my paramedic stepson works out of, scraping motorists and truckers out of their vehicles and hauling them to the ER. Then again thanks to car commuters he has a great job and future.)

Then there is obesity. Car dependence: driving and driving others makes us and them fat because we’re not exercising, leading to a vast range of horrible ailments including diabetes and heart disease, and ca-chinging up to $142 billion per year.

(This is more good news from my stepson and his young family; more bad news for everyone else and society as a whole.)

The physical toll is head-shaking. Traffic crashes causes over 40,000 deaths annually, say the report. Some 35 million people live within 300 feet of a major roadway, and are at higher risk of respiratory illness due to exposure to traffic-related air pollution. At the same time about one-third of adults are estimated to be obese and another third are overweight “due in part to sedentary lifestyles and the lack of opportunity for everyday physical activity.”

Add these factors together and they are responsible for over nine percent of the U.S’s fast-rising healthcare bill: from $2.4 trillion in 2008 to $3.1 trillion in 2012, and $4.3 trillion by 2016.

 ”The consequences of inactivity, obesity, exposure to air pollution, and traffic crashes in the U.S. are staggering when viewed in terms of cost,” says the report. “Tragically, these costs are also largely preventable. “

To enable such prevention requires a serious adjustment in transportation financing and decisions. The APHA report says that much more work is needed in the area of health evaluation and cost assessment in transportation policy. There also needs to be investments in healthier transportation. It recommends a few key policy changes to achieve these objectives, among them:

* Encourage federal planning, funding practices, and decisionmaking to include health impacts, costs and benefits

* Support development of healthy communities, active transport and incentives for transportation investments that support health

* Promote measurement and evaluation of health, safety and equity in planning and development processes

* Fund research to evaluate health impacts and costs of transportation and land use actions

That means more bus, rail and ferry transit and sidewalks and bike paths as opposed to arterials and freeways and more traditional pedestrian-friendly compact development and fewer subdivisions. The report outlines several illustrative examples.

 ”Our country depends on a robust transportation system that facilitates easy, safe commutes and promotes physical activity in order to reduce the burden of death and disease and improve health outcomes of all communities,” said Georges C. Benjamin, MD, FACP, FACEP (E), executive director of the American Public Health Association. 

With companies picking up the tab for health insurance there are steps that they can take to do their share i.e. “think globally, act locally”, which benefits the bottom line while shrinking those on their employees’ physiques:

* Shrink the office by deploying telecommuting and encouraging employees to use the time saved to work out every day

* Move to offices and sites on high-transit-served corridors

* Dump the gym. They cost money, pose liability and potential harassment issues and lower-ranked staff especially (such as contact center agents) want to get the Hades out of there when their shift ends; when they clock out their time is theirs.

Instead if you own/lease employee parking then charge employees for it while level the playing field with alternative modes by paying for bike racks and transit passes

* Support transit investments and urge polluter-pay programs

By solid actions recommended by the APHA report and individual corporate practices and advocacy together we could achieve a greener, cleaner, healthier and safer environment.
 

Tags: , , , , , , ,

TrackBacks
| Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Green Blog Home | Permalink: Cars, Sprawl Are Killing Us: American Public Health Association

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Copyright Green Blog

Filed under Green Technology · Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Wealthy Biggest Driving Polluters? No, Really?

Posted by Green Blog on May 18, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

The wealthy have the means to become the earliest adopters of the latest and greatest home and office green tech devices, methods and solutions. Yet it appears that too many of them are acting otherwise when it comes to mobility, if Canada’s elite are any indication.

A Canwest New Service article printed last Friday in The Province revealed, citing new Statistics Canada figures, that “wealthy Canadians were the worst polluting drivers in 2007. While the rich, defined as having annual incomes of $100,000+ were responsible for spewing out the most air pollution per person, at 5,737 kilograms or 12,621 lbs in 2007.

“‘People in this income group were more likely to own vehicles that use more fuel, such as trucks and SUVs,’” the article cites the report.

Along with that StatsCan reported an increase of new 466,472 vehicles on the road in 2007 compared with 2006, with more than half the additional fleet made up of  (you guessed it) SUVs, trucks and vans.

Disturbingly if not surprisingly the same report said that individual vehicle pollution was up by one-third in 2007 compared to 15 years or so earlier. So much for fuel effiencies…

And if you add that up to additional driving, road wear-and-tear and resulting maintenance costs which also lead to higher pollution, it appears that any green gains in automotive technology–like the building of roads to alleviate traffic congestion–are eventually wiped out by the users.
 
One example that I hope doesn’t go this way is increased recycling in car construction. The same issue of the paper reports in a story “Working toward the Earth-friendly car” that more manufacturers want to use additional recyclable components, besides the long-recycled aluminum, copper, iron and steel that are the stuff of junkyards, shredders, dirty old railroad gondola cars and melt shops. 

“Typically, the plastics being used by manufacturers have been reinforced with materials such as glass, carbon or polyethylene fibres combined with petroleum-based resins,” says the story. “Now, however, researchers are finding those materials can be replaced with bioplastics and fibres derived from plants without sacrificing critical requirements such as strength and durability. And, with oil prices continuing to rise, these green alternatives are cost effective, too.”

The article pointed to a European study which “predicts that by 2020, bio-based plastics could replace up to 90 per cent of the total amount of petroleum-derived plastics consumed globally in 2007. 

“The auto industry consumes an average of about 135 kilograms (297 lbs) of plastic in every car it builds, so it’s no surprise automakers are looking down this road with enthusiasm, especially with the current push to make components either recyclable or biodegradable.”

The piece cites Deborah Mielewski, technical leader of plastics research in Ford Motor Company’s materials research and advanced engineering department, says the dream is to see those 135 kg of petroleum-based plastics “replaced by what we can grow. It just makes sense.”

Ford is already using natural fiber-based plastic in its Ford Flex crossover. This reportedly industry-first production-line application uses plastic reinforced with environmentally friendly wheat straw to create the Flex’s third-row interior storage bins. Using the wheat straw as a bio-filler, this application alone, says the Province story ” is reducing petroleum usage by more than 9,000 kg (19,800 lbs) per year and cutting CO2 emissions by more than 13,600 kg (29,920 lbs.) annually. It also has better dimensional integrity than non-reinforced plastic and weighs up to 10 per cent less than plastic reinforced with talc or glass.

The story adds that applications already under consideration by the Ford team include centre console bins and trays, interior air register and door trim panel components and armrest liners.

One would hope that these materials would make fully electric vehicles more viable with the wealthy being the early and fashion-leading adopters, thereby creating the market for more affordable and practical mass market versions to sell to the hoi polloi.

Then again, if the experience of SUVs and trucks are any indication–and I’ve written about automotive metals in the 1990s when these vehicles started to become popular people movers in the ‘burbs’–the savings will go into bulkier, feature-loaded craft that take up more road space and leaving us in the same choking mess or probably worse than we’re now in…

 

Tags: , , , ,

TrackBacks
| Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Green Blog Home | Permalink: Wealthy Biggest Driving Polluters? No, Really?

Tags: , , , , ,

Copyright Green Blog

Filed under Green Technology, Recycling · Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

The Green Side of The Iceland Ash Clouds

Posted by Green Blog on April 19, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

The Eyjafjoell volcano eruption in Iceland has been and may continue to play havoc with air travel, and with it stranding untold numbers of travelers, many of whom are running out of money. They have been caught in the risks and vagaries of transportation
 
There is, however, a green side to the massive ash clouds resulting from the calamity: strong demand for rail, for inter-island- and island (UK, Ireland especially)-European continent trips, marine travel and videoconferencing that are far environmentally friendlier than flying, especially for short-haul trips.
 
Many journeys that are taken by air–which have benefitted by massive direct and indirect public subsidies– can be more efficiently handled by these other methods. Rail in Europe and in China and Japan at least, but alas only between Boston, New York and Washington, D.C. and Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto has become air-competitive. International Railway Journal reports that many European rail operators have stepped in with additional services and in the case of Germany, offering vouchers for Lufthansa customers.
 
Videoconferencing is winning adherents globally– from consumers using Skype to firms deploying telepresence–as the technology improves, become less expensive and as bandwidth widens including to individual homes. As with telework, many interactions traditionally done face-to-face can actually be carried out virtually over video and for that matter by audio and web.
 
Here’s just one example of this switch to videoconferencing: a story in today’s today’s Daily Telegraph on an emergency meeting by the European Commission to deal with the air travel mess by restricting the flight ban to Iceland will be discussed “at an emergency videoconference of EU transport ministers this afternoon.”
 
Will this shift to rail and especially to video stick after air travel returns to normal? That will depend on how long lasting the disruptions are, and the experience of users with these other means, especially videoconferencing.
 
The signs are there for video, and Cisco for one must be quietly pleased. The eruption is taking place just as it is closing its deal to acquire videoconferencing firm Tandberg. It received European Commission approval April 12: just as all ‘Hades’ broke loose on air travel.
 
“The only evidence is anecdotal, but you will not get a demo room in any of the Cisco facilities,” said Fredrik Halvorsen, former Tandberg CEO and head of the Cisco Systems’s TelePresence Technology Group told Reuters, in a story that appeared today. “We have seen a huge spike in usage.”
 

Tags: , , , , ,

TrackBacks
| Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Green Blog Home | Permalink: The Green Side of The Iceland Ash Clouds

Tags: , , ,

Copyright Green Blog

Filed under Green Technology · Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Green Power Costs

Posted by Green Blog on April 12, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

I love contrarians because they make think. One great example comes by way of Margaret Wente’s recent column in the Globe and Mail on the Province of Ontario’s announcement of $8 billion worth of green energy initiatives (i.e. subsidies) on top of $7 billion already promised. Among her points:

*      The province will pay solar producers “around 80 cents a kilowatt hour for the power they sell back to the grid. That’s about 15 times more than the current spot price that consumers now pay for power. The difference will eventually show up on their electricity bills. In solar terms, Toronto is not exactly Southern California. Even there, nobody has figured out how to make solar power cheap.” 

*     “Green-energy advocates say the extra cost is worth it. Renewable energy will reduce our use of fossil fuels, cut down on greenhouse-gas emissions, and bolster the economy by kicking off a new era of green jobs.  

“Don’t bet your solar panel on it. Renewables simply can’t produce the large volumes of reliable energy that our economy needs. 

“These energy sources are so intermittent and unreliable that you have to have backup power at all times,” says Prof. Trebilcock (Michael Trebilcock, a professor of law and economics at the University of Toronto). “For every wind farm we build, we’ll have to have a coal or gas-fired power station waiting in the wings to take over when it’s 20 below. I think we’ll get next to nothing on carbon dioxide abatement.” 

*     “George Monbiot, the environmental firebrand in Britain, which has just introduced its own subsidy scheme” says that “Germany has spent €1.2-billion on solar roofs. Their total contribution to the country’s electricity supply was 0.4 per cent. Their total contribution to carbon savings is zero. “

Ms Wente and Mr. Monbiot may be right. The “green” costs don’t include the vast amount of land needed for solar panels–unless you build one on every existing rooftop–to produce the same energy as a compact natural-gas-fired steam or supplemental combined heat-power gas-turbine generator. Then there’s the land and costs for transmission and distribution systems to connect them to grids.

The answer to green power lies with most every other environmental issue: add in all the attributable direct and indirect costs including land consumption, pollution and health costs into the energy bills, and factor in peak-period-pricing and both users and generators and distributors will get smarter, and cleaner.

 

Tags: , , , ,

TrackBacks
| Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Green Blog Home | Permalink: Green Power Costs

Tags: , , , ,

Copyright Green Blog

Filed under Green Technology, GreenPower · Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Green Campus Project

Posted by Green Blog on April 8, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

Here is something worth voting for, the Green Campus Project.  It is a candidate in Pepsi’s Pepsi Refresh project where the firm is giving away $1.3 million each month to projects that gain viewers’ votes.
 
The Green Campus Project “seeks to equip student-led electric transportation projects on two university campuses in Minnesota”, explains Marty Leenhouts, Green Campus Project Administrator, with $50,000 it hopes to win from Pepsi.The goal he says is to expose some 60,000 university students to electric transportation.
 
“Each project will be equipped with a variety of electric bikes, scooters and motorcycles to use for their own personal transportation, demonstrations, and presentations to university students,” says the Green Campus Project page.  ”Additional funding will be budgeted for advertising and marketing. Exposing the entire student body to electric transportation will emphasize the personal, societal, and environmental benefits with this green technology. Each university will benefit from this project as students embrace electric transportation. Parking demands will ease, traffic noise will decrease, and student mobility will improve on campus and in the surrounding university area.”
 
Of the $50,000 the Green Campus Project is seeking $20,000 will go to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis-St. Paul for e-bikes, e-scooter and e-cycles and $10,000 to the same school for advertising and marketing, then $10,000 for the University of Minnesota, Mankato campus for the vehicles plus $10,000 for advertising and marketing.

Interested? Vote now, daily, until April 30, 2010.
 
For more information and voting go to : http://www.refresheverything.com/greencampus

 

 

Tags: , , ,

TrackBacks
| Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Green Blog Home | Permalink: Green Campus Project

Tags: , , ,

Copyright Green Blog

Filed under Green Technology · Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

The “Green Cloud”?

Posted by Green Blog on April 6, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

In my family the expression “green cloud” means the release and lingering of foul-smelling flatulence. Greenpeace appears to have a similar opinion of cloud computing as it is being applied by some companies. 

Last week, TMCnet editor Kelly McGuire wrote a great story on a report by Greenpeace on saying that cloud-computing-driving data centers could be dirtying up the air by relying on electricity from coal-fired plants. 

Greenpeace has a point: the way coal is extracted and burned in electricity generation is not exactly clean. Yet then again there are few sources that are–yes that includes Canada’s infamous tar sands– if one looks at the options, and at the total amount of environmental damages such as from transportation and distribution that all choices incur.

Then there is the other side of the coin, which is where premise-installed computers get their power from, considering that the electrical systems are on a grid. The real interesting question is which method: cloud or premises computing is more efficient and greener including the making, shipping, and recycling computers. 

Kelly’s article says the Greenpeace report’s analysts said the last thing the environment needs is more cloud infrastructure to be built in places where it increases demand for dirty coal-fired power.

Yet with the growing size of these data centers and the relative affordability and scalability of clean-burning natural gas-fired generators (the heat they produce can also be captured for hot water), would it be more environmentally and financially viable for the large data firms to go into the generating business, selling off excess as clean power to the grid and relying on the grid as backup?
 
With public resistance to large fossil-fueled plants, dams, and nuclear power stations and their consequences including ugly transmission and distribution systems i.e. NIMBYs, which some say is not exactly helping to maintain the reliability of the electrical grid that they use, such onsite power may be the way to go.

 

Tags: , , , , ,

TrackBacks
| Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Green Blog Home | Permalink: The “Green Cloud”?

Tags: , , , , ,

Copyright Green Blog

Filed under Green Technology · Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

The “Green Cloud”?

Posted by Green Blog on April 6, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

In my family the expression “green cloud” means the release and lingering of foul-smelling flatulence. Greenpeace appears to have a similar opinion of cloud computing as it is being applied by some companies. 

Last week, TMCnet editor Kelly McGuire wrote a great story on a report by Greenpeace on saying that cloud-computing-driving data centers could be dirtying up the air by relying on electricity from coal-fired plants. 

Greenpeace has a point: the way coal is extracted and burned in electricity generation is not exactly clean. Yet then again there are few sources that are–yes that includes Canada’s infamous tar sands– if one looks at the options, and at the total amount of environmental damages such as from transportation and distribution that all choices incur.

Then there is the other side of the coin, which is where premise-installed computers get their power from, considering that the electrical systems are on a grid. The real interesting question is which method: cloud or premises computing is more efficient and greener including the making, shipping, and recycling computers. 

Kelly’s article says the Greenpeace report’s analysts said the last thing the environment needs is more cloud infrastructure to be built in places where it increases demand for dirty coal-fired power.

Yet with the growing size of these data centers and the relative affordability and scalability of clean-burning natural gas-fired generators (the heat they produce can also be captured for hot water), would it be more environmentally and financially viable for the large data firms to go into the generating business, selling off excess as clean power to the grid and relying on the grid as backup?
 
With public resistance to large fossil-fueled plants, dams, and nuclear power stations and their consequences including ugly transmission and distribution systems i.e. NIMBYs, which some say is not exactly helping to maintain the reliability of the electrical grid that they use, such onsite power may be the way to go.

 

Tags: , , , , ,

TrackBacks
| Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Green Blog Home | Permalink: The “Green Cloud”?

Tags: , , , , ,

Copyright Green Blog

Filed under Green Technology · Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

The “Green Cloud”?

Posted by Green Blog on April 6, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

In my family the expression “green cloud” means the release and lingering of foul-smelling flatulence. Greenpeace appears to have a similar opinion of cloud computing as it is being applied by some companies. 

Last week, TMCnet editor Kelly McGuire wrote a great story on a report by Greenpeace saying that cloud-computing-driving data centers could be dirtying up the air by relying on electricity from coal-fired plants. 

Greenpeace may have a point: the way coal is extracted and burned in electricity generation is not exactly clean. Yet then again there are few sources that are–yes that includes Canada’s infamous tar sands– if one looks at the at the total amount of environmental damages such as from land and water resourced used, noise, effects on wildlife and on resource transportation and power distribution that the choices incur.

Then there is the other side of the coin, which is where premise-installed computers get their power from, considering that the electrical systems are on a grid. The real interesting question is which method: cloud or premises computing is more efficient and greener including the making, shipping, and recycling computers. 

Kelly’s article says the Greenpeace report’s analysts said the last thing the environment needs is more cloud infrastructure to be built in places where it increases demand for dirty coal-fired power.

Yet with the growing size of these data centers and the relative affordability and scalability of clean-burning natural gas-fired generators (the heat they produce can also be captured for hot water), would it be more environmentally and financially viable for the large data firms to go into the generating business, selling off excess as clean power to the grid and relying on the grid as backup?
 
With public resistance to large fossil-fueled plants, dams, and nuclear power stations and their consequences including ugly transmission and distribution systems i.e. NIMBYs, which some say is not exactly helping to maintain the reliability of the electrical grid that they use, such onsite power may be the way to go.

 

Tags: , , , , ,

TrackBacks
| Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Green Blog Home | Permalink: The “Green Cloud”?

Tags: , , , , ,

Copyright Green Blog

Filed under Green Technology · Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Tandberg’s FlyFree program

Posted by Green Blog on March 20, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

Air travel especially for business is an environment-killing, time-wasting, productivity-draining pain in the literal backside. If high costs, cramped seats, nonexistent food service that forces one to also juggle the grease-drenched so-called sustenance caked into landfill-bloating clamshell packaging, plus de facto strip searches, and weather and runway delays weren’t enough then there’s always labor disruptions.

And in anticipation of the latter, on British Airways (BA), Tandberg has wisely capitalized the opportunity to market its videoconferencing and telepresence solutions by offering TANDBERG FlyFree, a program that gives companies an easy and risk-free way of experiencing the power of high-definition video conferencing and telepresence.

By adopting Tandberg’s technology, it says employees “can still make critical meetings, avoid unnecessary business travel and benefit from a better work-life balance by working around personal schedules. In turn, the technology can deliver serious business advantages and consistent return on investment, regardless of the BA strikes, as well as help companies make great CO2, time and cost savings.”

“Businesses cannot afford to be slowed down by the impact of international travel disruption, especially at this time when continuity is so critical to success,” says Simon Egan, Vice President, Western Europe & Sub-Saharan Africa, Tandberg. “By accepting our FlyFree offer, businesses can still make important face-to-face meetings while maintaining productivity among employees. Our standards based solutions enable our customers to communicate with their partners, clients and suppliers so its business as usual even when working conditions are disrupted.”

Tandberg is onto something here. It should have similar offers with the green pitches launched in key seasons when North American air travel reliability goes into the toilet, like July-August and December-February and in specific markets like Atlanta, Chicago and New York/New Jersey. It should also buy billboard and monitor space in waiting lounges at LAX, Logan, Kennedy, O’Hare and in Canada, Pearson, to name a few, with images of relaxed business people in a meeting room or better yet on a home office desktop conference application with the catchline: ‘Wouldn’t You Rather Be Here?” The firm should also buy outside advertising on the Harbor Freeway, I-93, the Van Wyck, I-94 and the 401 respectively with the same message.

If more people went ‘fly free’ we could also breathe a little easier, and in more ways than one.
 

Tags: , , ,

TrackBacks
| Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Green Blog Home | Permalink: Tandberg’s FlyFree program

Tags: , , , ,

Copyright Green Blog

Filed under Green Technology, carbon footprint · Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Mining Environmental and Social Responsibility

Posted by Green Blog on March 11, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

Mining is one of the oldest industries there is and for good reason: the resources these firms extract are essential for practically every good and service we enjoy, directly and indirectly. There will continue to be mines for most elements as there is and will be for some time more demand for the products and services that the materials go into than what can be recycled and conserved. Even recycled steel melted in electric furnaces often needs bars of pig iron, created in coke (converted from coal)-fired blast furnaces.

While mining, like many industries, do pollute through both generating emissions and scouring and despoiling the earth, there is nothing intrinsically totally ‘black’ about it; holes can be filled or lessened and tailing ponds can be minimized and cleaned up. Greener processes can be brought in to lessen the environmental impacts.

Alas here is the rub. Too many mining companies don’t want to pay for the mess they make, witness the blowing up of West Virginia mountaintops, the Alberta oil sands ponds, citing ‘costs’ that they instead download to the rest of us to subsidize. Good business sense, perhaps, nonsense for society as a whole.

Yet as bad as mining practices may be in North America they are sylvan compared to those in developing countries. There, mining firms basically have carte blanche and too many of them take advantage nonexistent or ignored environmental and labor laws amidst massive corruption and grinding poverty in which individuals are willing to work in Hades just to live an abbreviated, painful existence. Much like they behaved up until the middle of the last century in the more developed nations, as any tour of a mining museum or a conversation with an elderly ex-miner or a read of George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier will tell you.

To prod the mining companies overseas there is now proposed legislation, Bill C-300, a private member’s bill introduced in the Canadian House of Commons by John McKay, a Liberal Member of Parliament who I met a few weeks ago at an Olympic party in a Vancouver suburb. As Canada fought then won what turned out to be an exciting nail-biter of a game against Slovakia, so it could earn the right to face the U.S. for the gold medal, Mr. McKay and I talked about making mining firms responsible for extracting resources like gold.

McKay’s bill is aimed at promoting responsible environmental practices and international human rights standards on the part of Canadian mining, oil and gas corporations in developing countries.  Its purpose is to “ensure that corporations engaged on mining, oil or gas activities and receiving support from the Government of Canada act in a manner consistent with international environmental best practices and with Canada’s commitments to international human rights standards. The Act gives the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of International Trade the responsibility of holding corporations accountable for their practices by submitting annual reports to the House of Commons and the Senate for review.”

The bill has been analyzed by Prof. Richard Janda at the McGill University Faculty of Law. Here is his take on one of the key contentious issues and that is whether the legislation–which Mr. McKay told me has not to no surprise been exactly applauded by the mining industry–will actually hurt mining businesses:

“There is no evidence that Bill C-300 will unfairly disadvantage Canadian extractive companies and in fact, there is strong reason to believe that the opposite is true. It is more likely to create a regulatory environment that would make Canada and Canadian extractive sector companies world leaders in the area of CSR [Corporate Social Responsibility], resulting in a competitive advantage for those Canadian companies when operating internationally. Research has shown that companies that are socially responsible–both due to mandatory measures and through complementary voluntary action– gain certain advantages over competitors that do not have in place CSR policies and programs.

“Some of the areas of competitive advantage arising from CSR include:

* Cost savings, improved productivity and operational efficiencies
* Improved risk management
* Positive effects on employee recruitment, retention, and motivation
* Attracting customers and investors
* Improved relations with the local community; and
* Better access to lenders and insurers.

Bill C-300 survived the Harper Conservative government’s decision to prorogue i.e. close and then to reopen Parliament under House rules, but whether it goes anywhere remains to be seen. Few private members’ bills ever get passed into law, and the Harper regime whose political core lies in Alberta, haven’t been cheering it on. The legislation is now in the hands of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development for further study.

Even if Bill C-300 dies that such legislation has been introduced and has been the subject of serious discussion and analysis, is a necessary first step–for other bills will follow until one gets passed–in what will be a long road to getting the mining industry to clean up its act, one that will pay off more even to these businesses than they will ‘lose’.

 

Tags: , , ,

TrackBacks
| Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Green Blog Home | Permalink: Mining Environmental and Social Responsibility

Tags: , , , , ,

Copyright Green Blog

Filed under Green Technology · Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Next Page »