THE GALLON ENVIRONMENT LETTER
Canadian Institute for Business and the Environment
Fisherville, Ontario, Canada
Tel. 416 410-0432, Fax: 416 362-5231
Editorial: editor@gallonletter.ca
Subscriptions: subscriptions@gallonletter.ca
Vol. 12, No. 7, July 9, 2007
Honoured Reader Edition
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This is the honoured reader edition of the Gallon Environment Letter and is distributed at no charge: send a note with Add GL or Delete GL in the subject line to subscriptions@gallonletter.ca. Paid subscribers receive a more complete edition without subscription reminders and with extensive links to further information following almost every article. Organizational subscriptions are $184 plus GST and provide additional benefits detailed on the web site. Organizational subscribers also receive the monthly Sustainable Technology & Services Supplement. Individual subscriptions are only $30 (personal emails/funds only please) including GST. If you would like to subscribe please visit http://www.cialgroup.com/subscription.htm If you feel you should be receiving the paid subscriber edition or have other subscriber questions please contact us also at subscriptions@gallonletter.ca. This current free edition is posted on the web site about a week or so after its issue at http://www.cialgroup.com/whatsnew.htm. Back free editions from January 2007 are available at http://www.cialgroup.com/whatsnew-a.htm
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THE GARY GALLON MEMORIAL SWIM
Most Canadians will be familiar with polar bear swims: the groups of crazy guys and gals who take an icy plunge into a lake or ocean to mark each New Year. Now World Wildlife Fund UK's Ambassador, explorer and endurance swimmer Lewis Gordon Pugh, is planning to take a polar bear dip on July 15th. Unfortunately most of the northern hemisphere's lakes and oceans will have warmed up a bit by then so Pugh is turning to the one place he might find cold water - the North Pole. If he succeeds he claims he will be the first person ever to swim at the Geographic North Pole, and, though he expects the water temperature to be minus 1.8° centigrade, the freezing point of sea water, he will be wearing only the standard polar bear outfit of swim suit, goggles, and cap.
Pugh claims, and we have no reason to disagree, that this will be the coldest water a human has ever swum in, even though global warming is the reason that this new ecotourism opportunity has opened up.
GL wonders why it is the UK division of WWF that is taking the lead in what should so obviously be a crazy Canuck project. Gary Gallon, founder of Gallon Environment Letter, was a master swimmer, and a good one at that, for many years before his untimely death on July 3, 2003. We know that Gary would be proud of what Lewis Gordon Pugh is attempting to do, and, without permission from Pugh or WWF-UK, we would like to designate Pugh's effort as the 2007 Gary Gallon Memorial Swim. Gallon Environment Letter will be sending a donation to WWF-UK in Gary's memory.
Lewis Gordon Pugh swims where no man has swum before, in epic 'North Pole Challenge' http://www.wwf.org.uk/climatechange/lewispugh.asp
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ABOUT THIS ISSUE
Life Cycle Assessment (or Analysis) is gaining popularity in Canada and in the US as a tool for developing environmental policy and programs and as a mechanism for decision-making when encountering forks in the road. Put simply, LCA means quantifying and analysing every aspect of the environmental impact of an activity or material good from cradle, generally defined as the obtaining of the necessary raw materials and other inputs, to grave, or the final disposal of the product or residues at the end of their usable life. LCA, however, though it seeks to be as science-based as possible, is far from a simple tool. Applied properly it can certainly help make policy decisions and improve choices. Applied improperly, it can be just another greenwash that confounds decisions and puts us on yet another unsustainable path. In this issue we provide some of the background to the relatively new science of Life Cycle Assessment and we provide a few examples of how helpful it can be in study of matters such as biodegradable bags and biodiesel. For reasons that environmental veterans will understand, this issue focusses a little more than is environmentally warranted on the LCA of diapers. The conclusions may surprise all but the most memory-enhanced veterans. We'll be covering more about LCA and how it can be used in future issues - we hope the background on LCA in this issue will mean that we can jump right into LCAs of products and services without having to revisit the methodologies by which this tool is applied.
Sometimes, as we have previously pointed out, industry leaders say and do some pretty silly things. This time the foolishness comes from the coal industry, where at least one senior leader is urging a boycott of companies that want to do something about climate change. Our editorial points fingers and wonders why only one Canadian company is on the coal industry's boycott list.
With this issue we introduce a new feature called 30 Second Summaries. In this feature we will regularly provide a quick update on mostly non-commercial news from readers. The 30 second Summary in this issue includes some snazzy items from CCPA, Charles Caccia, and from our first EcoCouncillor award winner, who has recently published a new book.
While thinking of the Canadian Chemical Producers' Association, they are seeking input into their development of a new concept of chemistry. Scroll down to the article containing the name Brian Wastle to see what they are thinking and how you or your organization can help them.
Finally, some input to our On Readers' Bookshelves feature from Rick Findlay at Pollution Probe, an invitation to submit an entry to Ekotopfilm 2007, a job opening at Stratos, a most timely upcoming conference entitled "Keepers of Water II: Keeping the Peace", and our concluding funny story about a green bank robber.
Organizational subscribers also receive our Sustainable Technologies and Services Supplement with a lot more information about LCA, Eco Design, green asphalt, and how a recent court decision on tobacco warning labels could in future set a precedent for environmental and health impacts of other products.
In our next issue we plan to look at what is one of this year's most controversial environmental topics, especially in Europe: air travel. You can be sure that we will be doing our best to view it through the lens of Life Cycle Assessment.
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US COAL INDUSTRY LEADER DECLARES BOYCOTTS AS FAIR GAME
Conventional industry groups, and the governments that pander to them, have generally argued strongly against the use of consumer boycotts as a tool to influence corporate behaviour. For example, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, which was signed into law by President Bush in November of last year, makes it a criminal offence to cause economic or other damage to any business that raises, uses, or sells animals. While aimed at animal rights protestors, and so far untested in the courts, the Act might well make it a crime to call for a boycott of a fast food company. Penalties are based on the effectiveness of the action. United States exporters are prohibited from participating in any boycott of any country or person who is considered "friendly" to the United States. Periodically, US legislators seriously discuss banning consumer boycotts of all kinds, though one has to wonder how effective such a ban could possibly be. The negotiators for the now dead Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) proposed, with Canada's support, to outlaw boycotts of companies which do business in third countries, potentially fine for Canadians who do business in Cuba but what about when Canadian companies do business with regimes that have more egregious human rights or environmental records?
We are discussing boycotts because Robert Murray, Chairman and Chief Executive of a US coal company that is reported to produce about 30 million tons of coal a year, told a recent coal industry conference that companies that belong to the US Climate Action Partnership, are 'un-American'. His company, Murray Energy Corp, has even launched a boycott of one of them, refusing to buy from Caterpillar, a major supplier of equipment to the coal mining industry.
USCAP members include not only Caterpillar, but 21 other companies that are calling on the US federal government to quickly enact strong national legislation to require significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. The other companies are Alcoa, American International Group
(AIG), Alcan, Boston Scientific, BP America, Caterpillar, ConocoPhillips, Deere & Company, The Dow Chemical Company, Duke Energy, DuPont, FPL Group, Inc., General Electric, General Motors Corp., Johnson & Johnson, Marsh, PepsiCo, PG&E, PNM Resources, Shell, and Siemens. USCAP also includes six major environmental groups.
GL is more than just amused that US industry is now fighting among itself on the issue of climate change regulation. While Robert Murray is, to put it politely, a 'coal industry veteran', we have no doubt that many other companies will join his Coal-based Stakeholders Chief Executive Officers Group. That will provide both government and voters with some clarity as to which companies support climate change action and which oppose.
One of the arguments against boycotts is that many innocents, workers, suppliers, and communities, get caught in the fray. When the cause is important enough, that may be one of the unavoidable costs of economic action to advance a cause. Patrick Carson, a good friend of GL's editor who is very familiar with the history of Ireland, from which country the Englishman Captain Boycott was reportedly ostracised, advocates the buycott as an alternative to the boycott. Maybe preferentially purchasing from USCAP members is one way for supporters of climate change action to show that they appreciate that at least some companies are supporting the right kind of action on climate change.Which leaves us with only one question: where is the Canadian equivalent of the US Climate Action Partnership, or are all our companies, except Alcan, in bed with Robert Murray?
Colin Isaacs
Editor
Paid subscribers see links to original documents and references here.
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LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT
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WHAT IS LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT?
Life Cycle Assessment is the methodical environmental profiling of a product, process or service which takes into account all (GL: in theory at least) the stages of its life cycle from "cradle to grave", from the extraction of materials to its end-of-life, considering also the in between stages such as production, transportation, and use. Sometimes some stages are omitted, for example a manufacturer might do a "cradle to gate" LCA which accounts for stages only to the point of sale. In the long term, the objective is use LCA to produce closed loop systems "from cradle to cradle" so that there are few or no emissions to the environment. Different terms are also used which may be synoyms or may indicate some different approaches to LCA; such terms include life cycle analysis, ecobalance, eco-profile or often used for fuel, well to wheel or well to tank.
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WHAT ARE THE MAIN PARTS OF LCA
There are four overall parts of the LCA methodology: goal definition and scope, inventory, impact assessment, and interpretation. The initial part is important so the LCA can be kept manageable and reasonable, ie the researcher doesn't bite off more than s(he) can chew and so the reader can determine whether the conclusions are consistent with what the LCA set out to do. It is very tempting for companies to draw conclusions in favour of their product even if the LCA never measured the impacts to support the conclusions.
Parts 2 and 3 often form the largest part of an LCA: the inventory, which identifies inputs and outputs such as what raw materials, processes, emissions are used/released at each stage of the lifecycle, and the impact assessment step, which identifies the environmental impacts of all of the inputs and outputs.
The impact assessment step under International Standards Organization standards includes the following steps, with the first two being an essential part of the process and the others sometimes done optionally:
Interpretation includes how uncertainties were dealt with to reach conclusions and recommendations in relation to the goal and scope of the study.
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METHODOLOGY ISSUES
Because everything is connected to everything else, there need to be assumptions to deal with at least the important issues to both limit and account for complexities. Among some of these issues are:
System boundaries: the guide is that one should go back to nature e.g. the raw materials extracted from nature. In practice, there are limits e.g. an LCA on ethanol may include the fuel used by the tractor in growing the soybeans but would stop there and not include the lifecycle of the tractor itself, the natural source of the tractor steel, its manufacture, disposal, etc.
Co-Allocation: An allocation rule is often used so the impacts are distributed if there are several products from one process. For example, in making biodiesel, a saleable product of glycerin is produced as a byproduct so the impacts of biodiesel are reduced by attributing some by accepted rules to glycerin.
Avoided impacts: When some stage of the produce generates a positive outcome, the impacts saved serve as a credit from the impacts at other stages. For example, the impacts of energy generated if the product is incinerated at an energy-from-waste plant is deducted from the total energy impacts.
Regional or geographic variations/temporal variations: Data may vary by area or over time and is often criticized for being too old. Some countries may use more renewable energy rather than fossil fuels to generate electricity which would reduce greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions.
Technology variations: Some companies may have installed state of the art technology such as closed loop water systems so their impacts, say on aquatic toxicology, could be less than others.
Extremes: Sometimes a product seems to be very environmentally good in many categories but extreme results in very few factors yields a result which may eliminate it from being environmentally preferable. Different LCA researchers may have different opinions about this, for example, nuclear power where the long term waste and dangers of nuclear proliferation represents serious hazards. The limiting factor may depend on what the function and use of the product is: a laundry detergent should not have ingredients which though otherwise benign kill fish. Although this is sometimes taken in account in the weighting factors, it does complicate choices of environmentally preferable products.
Inadvertent omissions and double-counting: Because some processes are confidential business secrets, the researcher may miss some key stages, inputs or outputs. Double-counting happens if the impacts of the, say aluminum, have already been included but are also included when the impacts are calculated for the aluminum frame of a car.
Data Gaps: Just because data, say of a chemical substance, is unknown, should not make the product using that chemical more environmentally preferable than another one where data is available. As companies brand their chemical mixtures and make material safety data sheets and other technical information available only to a limited set of customers, it is becoming increasingly difficult for researchers to inventory some products.
All these variations, uncertainties and interpretations are the reason why there are disagreements about the conclusions of an LCA. But even though there are disagreements often LCAs can provide valuable insight into more informed decision-making not only at the policy levels of government but also in identifying opportunities for moving in the direction of sustainability by corporations and even by consumers.
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AN EXAMPLE: BIODEGRADABLE PLASTIC SHOPPING BAGS
At the risk of being criticised for over simplification, we have picked on biodegradable shopping bags as an example of how LCA can help us make more environmentally responsible decisions. For simplicity, let us assume that the product of interest is a conventional plastic shopping bag made from natural gas, as many plastics are, and treated with an additive which causes the bag to breakdown in a landfill.
If our concern is the amount of waste which people are generating, a bag which is identical to an ordinary shopping bag but which breaks down to 'nothing' when buried in a landfill would seem like a very good thing.
LCA shows us otherwise. The breaks down to 'nothing' is not nothing but is in fact mostly carbon dioxide and water. The water does not have much environmental impact, but the carbon dioxide certainly does: it is the major cause of climate change. The last thing the world needs is yet more carbon dioxide from fossil fuels such as natural gas being released to the atmosphere. In a very simplistic sense, non-biodegradable shopping bags in landfills are actually sequestering the carbon and keeping it out of the atmosphere, something of which we need more.
But no one would realistically argue for landfills as a way to reduce climate change and products and substances other than non-degradable plastics cause landfills to have more environmental impact than they would if they contained nothing but used non-degradable shopping bags. So two alternative approaches for plastic shopping bags come under LCA scrutiny: recycling and reuse. As all those who remember the 3 Rs would expect, LCA studies show us that reuse generally has lower life cycle environmental impact than recycling. Even so, recycling at the end of a shopping bag's life has less environmental impact than disposal because it allows for manufacture of a new product without use of virgin raw material. Introduction of biodegradable plastic into the recycling stream often introduces the biodegradability feature into all of the recycled products, potentially reducing reusability and affecting the ability to recycle the product again and again.
Without LCA we might well have though that biodegradability is the way to eliminate our garbage problem. With LCA we discover that biodegradability of fossil derived plastics is likely to contribute to further acceleration of climate change.
Paid subscribers see links to original documents and references here.
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HOW IS LCA USED?
LCA can be used to make improvements or compare different products or processes. It can provide support for decision-making about how to reduce environmental impacts. For example, buildings usually produce most of their impacts during their use stage. Their long life means if new buildings are still being constructed now with poor energy efficiency, it will be 50 or more years of serious environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions unless expensive retrofits are undertaken. LCA is meant to support life cycle management, which is seen by the United Nations Environment Program as a business practice having the "aim to manage the total life cycle of an organization's products and services towards more sustainable consumption and production."
LCA is used for a wide range of purposes including:
Policy Implementation of LCA
One of the problems with LCA is that it can be very detailed (read costly and complicated), somewhat readily made obsolete by changes in technological processes or geographical locations, requires a lot of data which may be difficult to obtain and is just a small part of factors managers have to take into account in making decisions. It is scientific in the sense that the methods are documented and the approach can be repeated but LCA should not be thought of as a decision but rather a support for decisions. It is one, but only one, of the tools of environmental management.
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TRENDS IN LCA
Trends include:
Paid subscribers see links to original documents and references here.
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HISTORY OF LCA
Life cycle assessment was considered a new discipline in the early 1990s. Much of the early, and current, methodology development work has been carried out by the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, a US-based international organization known as SETAC. [Note that GL's editor is a member of SETAC.] The University of Leiden's Institute of Environmental Sciences CML provided early guidance tools for LCA.
As well as its quantitative approach, LCA was intended also to foster the concept of life-cycle thinking so that environmental problems are approached from a systems or holistic perspective. As well as identifying impacts, LCA should encourage thinking on how to minimize the impacts of technologies, materials, processes, industrial systems, activities or services for pollution prevention and future sustainability.
Following a workshop in August 1990, SETAC published A Technical Framework for Life-Cycle Assessments which defined concepts such as inventory, impact assessment and improvement assessment (changes needed to improve the environmental performance of the product or process). Because LCA is most often comparative it is different from impact assessment or risk assessment which tend to analyze one substance, product or process on a stand-alone basis. The editorial also warns that the value of LCAs will be reduced if too much is expected of them; rather LCAs need to be done on a practical and realistic level so that they can be conducted in a reasonable time frame and cost to improve understanding in how to reduce the environmental impacts from design and development through to ultimate disposal.
GL notes that often people who are not much involved in the business of the environment mistakenly think that what we do, "enviroment", is a small niche but now even just one environmental tool, LCA, has burgeoned far beyond a niche and is the foundation of conferences and workshops, peer reviewed journals such as the International Journal of Lifecycle Assessment, reports, LCA centres with experts all over the world, corporate environmental reporting, and LCA software.
Fava, J.A., Roy F. Weston Inc (West Chester, Pennsylvania). Editorial: Life-Cycle Assessment: A New Way of Thinking. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Vol. 13 No. 6 1994 p853-854. [subscription: membership in SETAC includes access to the journals - see below]
Paid subscribers see links to original documents and references here.
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SETAC
Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, SETAC's flagship journal (mentioned above) celebrated its quarter of a century anniversary last year. Editor in Chief C Herb Ward writes that "This year, to build on those 25 remarkable years of excellence in scientific publishing, we've made it even easier for you to get the information you need. That's why I'm proud to announce that you can now access the entire legacy of ET&C online at http://www.setacjournals.org. I'm thrilled to expand your use of this scientific institution to the online world where you have full, indexed access to search, read, and print the entire text of more than 270 issues."
To all those who are interested in the field, GL suggests that the inclusion of access to ET&C, as well as the journal Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, makes SETAC membership very good value indeed.
SETAC Membership Dues. http://www.setac.org/htdocs/join_dues.html
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THE NIAGARA INSTITUTE: EARLY ADOPTER OF LCA METHODS IN CANADA
The Niagara Institute was an independent Niagara-on-the-Lake-based not-for-profit organization. It was established in 1971 to offer concentrated and focussed training to enhance leadership in business, governments and NGOs. By the mid-1980's the Institute had become seriously engaged in conflict resolution and multistakeholder planning around a range of environmental issues. For example, in the mid-1980's a multistakeholder consultative process involving industry, environmental groups, and organized labour as well as governments laid the groundwork for what was to become the chemical industry's Responsible Care program. After participating in the Responsible Care precursor consultations, GL's editor participated in Niagara Institute facilitator training and subsequently, with Bill Wilton, led what must have been one of the first multistakeholder consultations on lifecycle assessment of competing products. The consultation, under the auspices of the Niagara Institute and with funding support by Procter & Gamble and others, took place over 19 months from January 1992 to August 1993. Participants included members of government, industry and non-government organizations.
The report remains unpublished but the final draft for participant review and approval February 16, 1994 was titled Environmental Assessment of Products using Diapers as a Model. The consultation's objective was to "develop and demonstrate a strategy for resolving environmental and social conflicts, based upon an analysis of agreed upon data by a multistakeholder group." Four lifecycle inventory analyses were reviewed and two were selected for in depth review (Franklin 1990 and Lehrburger 1991). Although at the beginning, many members of the group came in with firmly held views on which diaper system was best, when they examined the available data, they came to the conclusion that "one system of diapering could not be proven superior to the other. Most stakeholders were amazed at the limited amount of good data available on diaper systems and the quality of what was available. This reinforced once again, that the heat of the public debate is so often in inverse proportion to what is known about an issue." They also indicated that other issues needed to be considered along with the scientific data on the environment such as 'health consideration related to diaper use and disposal, consumer benefits, values and social conscience and the management of formal and informal sources of public information." Unfortunately, for reasons that were generally unrelated to the success of the project, the draft report was not given final approval for publication.
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THE CURRENT SITUATION: LCA OF DISPOSABLE AND REUSABLE DIAPERS
Sometimes it seems easy to say what is environmentally preferable. For example, reusable diapers must be better than disposables because they produce less waste. However, when the entire lifecycles of the products are examined, the conclusions may be different.
In 2005, the UK Environment Agency published a life cycle assessment study on these products. Disposable "nappies" acount for 95% of the market in the UK with about 2.5 billion disposable diapers sold each year. The Environment Agency commissioned an independent environmental consultancy, Environment Resources Management Limited, to conduct the life cycle assessment of nappy use in the UK; the study is said to comply with the ISO 14040 standard for LCA. Three different diaper types were assessed: 1. disposable 2. home laundered flat cloth and 3. commercially laundered prefolded cloth delivered to the home. The environmental impacts were assessed based on an average child wearing diapers for the first two and a half years of life.
For each type, all the materials, chemicals and energy consumed during diaper manufacture, use and disposal and all emissions to the environment were identified. All the flows were quantified and traced back to extraction of raw materials needed to supply them. For example, plastic materials were linked back to impacts of crude oil extraction and fluff pulp was traced back to paper and forest growth. For cloth, the flows were traced back to cotton and production. The categories assessed were: climate change; ozone depletion; human toxicity; acidification; fresh-water aquatic toxicity; terrestrial toxicity; photochemical oxidant formation (low level smog) and nutrification of fresh water (eutrophication). Excluded were categories such as noise, biodiversity and the amount of land used by each diaper system.
Then for all the flows of each substance at each stage of the life cycle, the environmental impacts were assessed e.g. the total greenhouse gases such as methane, carbon dioxide and other were added together for each diaper system using an internationally agreed equivalent to quantify the total global warming impact. Data was provided by manufacturers, commercial laundries, "published excreta data was used for the contents of used nappies" [GL: Perhaps we should thank the somebody who must have had to do a messy measuring job!], survey data provided estimates of number of different diapers in use and how they are washed.
Data in LCA can be uncertain. For example, the researchers did not know how to estimate what proportion of a number of drying methods was used for reusable diapers such as tumble drying vs hanging out on a line outside. Sensitivity analysis is conducted to determine how important that uncertainty might be to the quality of the overall data. Often this takes the form of scenarios using different stated assumptions.
After all the number crunching, the conclusion was: "There is no significant difference between any of the environmental impacts of the disposable, home use reusable and commercial laundry systems that were assessed. None of the systems studied is more or less environmentally preferable." However, the impacts of diapering are significant. In the UK, diapers worn by children for one year produces global warming and non-renewable resource depletion impact the same as the consumption and emissions of 98,600 cars each driven an average of 12,000 miles.
Although the impacts overall were similar for all three systems, the sources of the environmental impacts are different for each diaper system. For disposable diapers, the main source of environmental impact was raw material production and conversion to the parts of the diaper such as fluff pulp and super absorbent polymer. For home laundered diaper system, the main environmental impact was energy use for washing and drying. For commercial, the main environment impacts were fuels and electricity for commercial laundry. Impacts from waste management was not that large for any of the systems but proportionately greater for disposables. GL suggests that one needs to read the details and the assumptions to determine why these were the conclusions.
Does that mean it doesn't matter what we do about diapers: business as usual is ok? No because changes can be made and it depends on which environmental impact is seen to be the most harmful and which are caused by different players along the lifecycle. The authors suggest that based on the results of this study, reusable diaper systems should focus on reducing energy for washing and drying. Manufacturers of diapers should seek weight reductions and improvements in materials manufacturing.
Paid subscribers see links to original documents and references here.
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LCA OF BIODIESEL
When Environment Canada was preparing to launch biodiesel initiatives as part of a renewable fuels strategy, GL's parent company and partners were contracted to prepare a draft environmental and sustainability criteria manual for facilities producing biodiesel from biomass sources. Dillon Consulting was retained to prepare a similar document for bioethanol facilities.
In developing sustainability criteria for biodiesel production an LCA on biodiesel prepared by the National Research Council of Canada was invaluable because it brought together scientific data from Canada as well as from other sources and summarized the types of assumptions made for quantifying the various impacts of biodiesel. The science was essential. However, for policy development, regulators also need to know how to apply the science, including what are other regulators doing, what are the actual environmental impacts, how are the public affected by existing biodiesel plants with these regulations applied, what is the language used in permitting these types of facilities, what are the best available technologies now and under development, what kind of enforcement actions have been taken on what causes, and so on.
Paid subscribers see links to original documents and references here.
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NEW INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRIAL CHAIR IN LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT
A number of companies will each invest $450,000 to fund the International Industrial Chair in Life Cycle Assessment Methodology at the École Polytechnique de Montréal. The multidisciplinary chair will be at the Interuniversity Research Centre for the Life Cycle of Products, Processes and Services (CIRAIG) and the chairholders are Professors Réjean Samson and Louise Deschênes of the Chemical Engineering Department. Among the companies are Alcan, Bell Canada, Cascades, Le Mouvement des Caisses Desjardins, Hydro-Québec, Johnson and Johnson, Arcelor-Mittal, Électricité de France / Gaz de France, Total and Veolia Environnement. About 30 students will be trained to the master's and doctoral level, a workforce which is expected to work with the Life Cycle Initiative of the United Nations Environmental Program and the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry UNEP-SETAC.
The research which will be conducted with industry partners is said to "support the sustainable efforts of industries in Canada and abroad." One of the case studies evaluates environmental options of full-time and part-time work as well as telecommuting. Bell sees an opportunity in providing technologies and services to companies with telecommuting staff and other companies can benefit from improved decision-making about employee work-hours and location. An LCA would show what resources are used for the person to work from home, whether there are duplication of materials, savings in energy or vacant space at the office during the employee's absence.
Paid subscribers see links to original documents and references here.
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30-SECOND SUMMARIES
Here are some brief notes about information sent to us by GL readers.
Charles Caccia, former federal Minister of the Environment and now a senior fellow at the Institute of the Environment at the University of Ottawa says the announcement of federal Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn to bury nuclear in a yet-to-be-found place will expose Canadians to excessive risk by ongoing transportation of nuclear waste through communities. Keep the waste at the nuclear power plants, he suggests.
Caccia, Charles. Keep nuclear waste where it is: The federal government's plan to ship spent reactor fuel to a yet-to-be-determined location melts down quickly. Ottawa Citizen. June 25, 2007. http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=bf35a282-c1a8-
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An op-ed piece by Richard Paton, President of the Canadian Chemical Producers of Canada says that the government may make "unfulfilled lofty announcements" about climate change but if "real serious progress in emissions reductions" is to be achieved, the government has to stop preventing the industry from making technological changes. Barriers include long permitting times for green technologies, unsupportive tax regimes for capital investment, duplication and conflicting regulations at different levels of government. A plan is needed and must "have these four key elements: a commitment to reduce emissions; harmonious federal and provincial government policies; capital stock turnover; and a partnership between regulators and industry."
Paton, Richard. Emission Roadblocks. National Post. June 27, 2007. FP17
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/comment/story.html?id=2e6aa7d9-a90b-40aa-b6c5-c327f04fe313&p=2 [subscription required or google "National Post" "June 27, 2007" Paton, Find Roadblocks and click on Cached]
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Clive Doucet, Ottawa Councillor and winner of the first Gallon Environment Letter's EcoCouncillor Award in 2004 has written a book which is keeping him very busy and generating reviews and commentary. Author of about a dozen other books including novels, plays and poetry, he has written this one on the environment and cities. It is called Urban Meltdown: Cities, Climate Change and Politics As Usual and concludes that climate change action requires an active role of cities.
Check out the table of contents and excerpt at http://www.urban-meltdown.com/um_inside.htm
and book info at the web site of New Society Press http://www.newsociety.com/bookid/3944. Available at bookstores. One review is Tanner, Sean. Hot Town: A new book says that the fight against climate change must start in the cities. Plenty Magazine. New York, NY: May 24, 2007. http://www.plentymag.com/features/2007/05/hot_town.php
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CANADIAN CHEMICAL INDUSTRY - WHAT'S THE SECTOR'S BIGGEST SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGE?
Brian Wastle, Vice President, Responsible Care of the Canadian Chemical Producers' Association CCPA has indicated that the association is looking to revamp or replace the Responsible Care(R) program, which CCPA developed for the Canadian chemical industry and which was later adopted by companies around the world. He wrote to GL, "After launching Responsible Care(R) in 1985, aimed at cleaning up the act of the industrial chemical industry, and watching its adoption in over 50 countries, our greatest danger may well be complacency or self-congratulations. We know all too well that an improved track record simply raises public expectations, and the public's concerns for the sustainability of our planet are currently sky-high. In light of this, there's a growing feeling amongst many of our industry leaders that perhaps the time is ripe for a new concept for the future of chemistry - one as radical as Responsible Care itself was 25 years ago." He wrote that the association is open to others to "to suggest ideas, challenges and advice on significant changes - even about-turns - our industry might undertake to truly be part of the sustainability solution." Contact: Brian Wastle Vice President, Responsible Care Canadian Chemical Producers' Association Suite 805, 350 Sparks Street Ottawa, Ontario K1R 7S8 Tel: (613) 237-6215 x 232 fax: (613) 237-4061 e-mail: bwastle@ccpa.ca CCPA. Responsible Care web site. http://www.ccpa.ca/ResponsibleCare/
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ON GL'S READERS' BOOKSHELVES
Do you have a favourite or inspirational environment book (fiction or non-fiction) or magazine or have you written a book, report or article you would like to draw attention to? Let us know what it is and in 50 words or less why it appeals to you from an environmental point of view and a few words on who you are. We'll select one for printing in each issue over time in the next year or so. Send email to editor@gallonletter.ca with subject line: Fav Env Book.
This issue's (some virtual, some physical) books recommended by:
Rick Findlay, Director, Water Programme
Pollution Probe
63 Sparks Street, Suite 101 Ottawa, ON K1P 5A6
tel 613-237-8666
Hi Colin - I appreciated the focus on water and the Great Lakes in the Vol.12 #6, June 18, 2007 edition of the Gallon Environment Letter. During 2006, Pollution Probe held 5 workshops across Canada that explored water issues from a policy point of view. Our report "Towards a Vision and Strategy for Water Management in Canada" was released recently and I encourage you to check it out at http://www.pollutionprobe.org/Reports/WPWS%20Final%20Report%202007.pdf This report will be followed soon by one that will present a vision and strategy for water policy, for Canada so stay tuned!
Also, we have produced a Source Water Protection Primer that people are requesting in large numbers; you can find it at
http://www.pollutionprobe.org/Publications/swpprimerdwnldpage.htm .
Finally, as you know the Great Lakes are a great passion of mine and I been working with a group of individuals from both Canada and the U.S. (the Great Lakes Futures Roundtable) to develop a new, shared vision for the sustainability of the Great Lakes region. You can see it at http://www.pollutionprobe.org/Reports/greatlakesvision.pdf . Fortunately, with upcoming discussions on a new Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and an evolving Canada Ontario Agreement, we should hopefully have an opportunity to see progress made in the directions indicated in these documents! Best wishes, Colin and keep up the good work with the Gallon Environment Letter. Rick
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EKOTOPFILM 2007
GL received the following email:
Dear Sir,
I am sending you information about "ekotopfilm 2007" in Slovakia. Thanks to those who have sent films already. Following is a call for entries for the international competitions. The 34. International Festival of Sustainable Development Films - ekotopfilm 2007 will be held in October 22 - 26, 2007 in the capital city of Bratislava, Slovak Republic.
The films and videoprograms are evaluated in the following categories (suggested entry length is given in the brackets):
A. Popular -scientific - science and technology (60 minutes)
B. Nature, natural science (60 minutes)
C. Documentaries (60 minutes)
D. Educational, instructive (30 minutes)
E. Current affairs (30 minutes)
F. Video clips, short feature, advertisement, promotion (15 minutes)
G. Children and youth (30 minutes)
The festival organizers have also opened the contest to independent filmmakers. The length of these productions shall not exceed 30 minutes.
Participation Conditions
- Only entries produced after January 1st, 2006 shall be accepted for the international contest.
- There is no entry fee for the submission of entries or personal participation.
- All entries must be submitted either on DVD or VHS. All video tapes and DVDs must be in PAL or NTSC format without coding in order to be used for translating purposes.
- Each entry must include a copy of the final script (dialogue list, audio transcription).
- How to submit a film: The website http://www.ekotopfilm.sk [find english and click] displays the information and entry form for films. DEADLINE - 1st AUGUST 2007
For any kind of information about the competitions and the festival, please write to ekotopfilm@ekotopfilm.sk
Robert Broek, project manager tel.: +421 2 6353 0095 tel./fax: +421 2 63530333, 36 mobil: +421 903 737 385
http://www.ekotopfilm.sk
GL: It seems this is a long running event. In October 5, 1998 a Slovak stamp celebrated the 25th anniversary of Ekotopfilm which is described as "a specialist international festival of films and video programsmes devoted to ecological concerns. The oldest event of its kind in the world (and one in many ways unique), it provides a forum in which specialists in various fields can come together and share their views." From 1974-1998, Ekotopfilm showed 3,379 films from sixty-nine countries. Thousands of people attend. In 2006, there were 11 prizes many of them awarded by the Government and Ministries of the Slovak Republic as well as sponsoring companies such as U.S. Steel Košice, Ltd, Matador, INC., and VSE, INC. as well as industry associations such as the Association of Industrial Ecology in Slovakia. Films covered topics such as renewable energy, nature and the wilderness, toxics in New Orleans, tallgrass prairies, hunger, and Chernobyl from the US, Germany, Slovak Republic, India, France and others. The grand prize winner in 2006 was from the US called Nature: the Dolphin Defender.
Paid subscribers see links to original documents and references here.
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STRATOS: JOB OPPORTUNITY
Ottawa-based consultancy Stratos is seeking a Manager for their Evaluation Practice. Clients include those at the national and international levels including government departments, crown corporations, corporations in the energy, resources, manufacturing and service sectors, industry associations, international organizations and NGOs. The evaluation practice conducts evaluations and reviews of policies, plans and programs related to environmental, natural resource, and sustainability management. As well as providing service to existing clients, the Manager will develop new business opportunities in the public sector, market to federal departments and agencies, and manage projects of various sizes as well as teams of consultants and support staff. Located in Ottawa. Closing Date: September 15, 2007 Send your resume to: jobs ( at ) stratos-sts.com.
Paid subscribers see links to original documents and references here.
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KEEPERS OF THE WATER
Chris Paci of Deep Consulting in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories read the last GL issue with its water theme and sent notice of a water event. It is called the "Keepers of Water II: Keeping the Peace" to be held September 27-September 29, 2007 in Fort St. John, British Columbia. Paci was the conference organizer last year for Dehcho First Nations and this year is assisting the West Moberly First Nations and their coordinating team, primarily in fund raising for the event. Hosted by the West Moberly First Nations, Peace Valley Environment Association and Saulteau First Nations, the event will feature light entertainment, cultural activities, family events and feasts for people of all ages and backgrounds. The conference will also focus on building the foundation for a stewardship strategy to protect the Peace River sub-basin, the southern part of the Arctic Ocean Basin, a watershed covering one-fifth of the Canada's land mass and one of the largest and pristine freshwater basin in the world. Norine Wark RR1 S6 C5 Dawson Creek, BC V1G 4E7 fax (250) 785-6378 info@keepersofthewater.ca http://keepersofthewater.ca [The web site contains the invitation but was still being developed when GL accessed it.]
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EVEN THE CROOKS ARE ADOPTING THE ENVIRONMENT
Once upon a time environmental groups would pine for government to take their issues seriously. When governments at all levels established environment departments whose main mission seemed to be to protect business from environmentalists, the environmental community thought that things might get better when business started to take the environment more seriously. However, the real answer may have been found in a New Hampshire bank: the green bank robber.
Last week, in Manchester, a man walked into a branch of the Citizens Bank on Elm Street disguised as a tree. Apparently the robber, who had tree branches attached to his head and body with duct tape, did not know that the trees on Elm Street, Manchester, have all been removed. [GL: If the robber had worn the brand name Duck tape, we could have said there would be no wood ducks, either.]
The robber demanded money and, although he did not appear to be armed, it is reported that a staff member gave him 'an undisclosed amount'. Unfortunately for the robber, his disguise was not sufficiently complete to prevent him being recognized on the bank's security video. Police have now arrested the human tree and it seems unlikely that his apparent commitment to the environment will be sufficient to keep him out of jail.
Paid subscribers see links to original documents and references here.
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Organizational subscribers receive our Sustainable Technology & Services Supplement with this issue. Articles in the STSS include:
Alcan: LCA in Product Stewardship
LCA Template: Oil Sands
LCA of Services
ISO LCA Standard Changes
Applying LCA in Eco-design in the Steel Industry
Green Asphalt
Tobacco Case: Potential to Relate to Environmental Product Issues
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All rights reserved. Readers are advised to check all facts for themselves before taking any action. The Gallon Environment Letter (GL for short) presents information for general interest and does not endorse products, companies or practices. Advertising or sponsorship of one or more issues consistent with sustainable development goals is welcome and identified as separate from editorial content. Subscriptions for organizations $184 + GST = $195.04 includes monthly Sustainable Technologies and Services Supplement STSS ; for individuals (non-organizational emails and paid with non-org funds please-does not include monthly STSS): $30 includes GST. Issues about fifteen times a year with supplements. http://www.cialgroup.com/subscription
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