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Egg-cellent News Everyone!

Greetings folks,

This week’s topic is on something that is rather quite interesting that regards some good sustainability news. We all know that the world’s oceans are grossly polluted, and I have talked about initiatives that people are undertaking to remove waste from the waters, but there is something that is trickier to get rid of and that is micro-plastics. Micro-plastics are tiny plastic particles that come from larger plastic waste breaking down and the development of commercial products. These plastics are harmful to animal life in the water and all other forms of life.

But you may be asking yourself, what can be done about these micro plastics? Well, scientists at Princeton have potentially found a way to deal with this issue and it involves the least likely of materials, and that is eggs, specifically egg whites. In euronews.green’s article discussing this new breakthrough, they mention that according to the research, freeze dried and super-heated egg whites can remove salt and micro-plastics from seawater with 98 per cent and 99 per cent efficiency respectively. The way it works is when the eggs are freeze dried and then heated to 900 degrees Celsius in an environment without oxygen they form a series of strands and sheets, this serves as a sieve that can sift out micro-plastics or salt from the water (Elton, 2022).

Credit: Shaharyar Wani / Princeton

Now this will not solve the pollution crisis that the ocean is dealing with, but it is a good start. Being able to remove these micro-plastics on a large scale is the next step that needs to be taken. However, scientists are taking other steps to ensure this breakthrough can eventually be used more effectively by trying to develop synthetic proteins that offer the same filtering qualities (Elton, 2022). With so much attention being brought to the pollution crisis I have hope that we will start to make a difference in the world and give future generations more hope for the world.

References

Elton, C. (September 11, 2022). Good eggs: Eggs can be used to filter microplastics and salt out of water, research finds. euronews.green.https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/11/09/good-eggs-eggs-can-be-used-to-filter-microplastics-and-salt-out-of-water-research-finds

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Greenwashing - Not what it seems.

Greetings folks,

This week’s post we will be looking into a problem that has been occurring more regularly with the influx of ‘green’ products and companies, and that is greenwashing. The act of deceiving a consumer into believing that a product, service or company is sustainable or green despite it actually be false or harmful. A particular case of greenwashing that I will be going into is regarding HSBC Holding, a British universal banking and holding company.

HSBC posted two ads that focused on a new greening initiative, one of the ads featured an image of waves crashing on a beach with text that stated, “Climate change doesn’t do borders. Neither do rising sea levels. That’s why HSBC is aiming to provide up to $1 trillion in financing and investment globally to help our clients transition to net zero” (TinA. 2022). On the surface this is a great message, HSBC was planning on investing in their clients while they switch over to more sustainable methods of doing business and they themselves planning to go zero emission by 2030. The big issue with all of this is, while they were investing in sustainability they were also continuing to financially support industries like oil and gas that produce high levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Photo by: Adfree Cities, 2021

To me this feels very underhanded, it is great that they wanted to make a change, or at least that is what they made it look like it is quite clear they do not actually care about being environmentally friendly and were just posting these adverts to look good in the modern green world. This feels like they were simply trying to either save a buck with a ‘green’ write-off or improve their image, if they wanted to make actual change then they would no longer fund oil companies and such.

In our course we were introduced to the ‘7 Greening Sins’ a fun little reference to the seven deadly sins that the Christian religion teaches, cardinal rules that people must follow in order to lead good lives. The greening sins following a similar line and lay out the 7 most common greenwashing faults. In this case HSBC is committing a few of the sins at once like Sin of Irrelevance, Hidden Trade-off, and Vagueness. The act they are promoting was nearly pointless in terms of sustainability as they were still supporting major GHG creators. This also incorporates the hidden trade-off, consumers would have thought that working with HSBC was good for the environment but in turn they were also supporting big oil. In the resolution of this case HSBC’s ads were banned, and HSBC was told that that future ads featuring environmental claims must acknowledge the company’s role in the climate crisis so they can no longer be vague in the future.

Photo by: Lynette Carmichael

References

Truth in Advertising. (October 20, 2022). https://truthinadvertising.org/articles/hsbcs-environmental-claims/

Veronica. (October 26, 2021). take action against HSBC’s greenwash-by-omission “Sustainability ads.” Adfree Cities. https://adfreecities.org.uk/2021/10/hsbc-accused-of-greenwash-by-omission-with-new-sustainability-ads/

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Business Greening Initiative

Greetings folks,

Today I will be going over a greening product initiative that Adidas has embarked on in the last year. Now, you may not know this, but Adidas has been a fairly active participant when it comes to greening practices. Back in 2015 they partnered with Parley for Oceans to help reduce plastic waste and reuse the material for their own products (Adidas, 2022). They have been striving for sustainability since then with a current eco plan extending to 2030 aiming to reduce their green house gas emissions by 30% (Adidas, n.a). But we are not here to discuss their past or future plans, we want to look at what they are doing right now, and that is their new Choose to Give Back program.

(Adidas, 2021)

Choose to Give Back is a program created in partnership with the world’s largest second-hand platform thredUP (Adidas, 2022), the program allows consumers to resend used products back to Adidas via their Creators Club app to be reused or resold. How it works is the customer opts to send an item back and receives a shipping label, they return the item and receive rewards to use for new items. Once the item arrives it is determined whether or not it is able to be resold or if the condition of the item is less then desirable it goes through thredUP’s network of textile reuse. This allows clothing or sports gear a second chance at life either being purchased by someone else who could give it a loving home or turned into something new and exciting.

As someone who works for a textile recycler I love this initiative, so much textile waste ends up dumps when it can easily be reused or resold so seeing such a big company like Adidas strive to prevent this gives me a bit of hope for a greener future.

References

Adidas. (March 9, 2022). our sustainability initiatives. https://report.adidas-group.com/2021/en/at-a-glance/2021-stories/our-sustainability-initiatives.html

Adidas. (n.a) sustainability our targets. https://www.adidas-group.com/en/sustainability/focus-sustainability/our-targets/

Adidas. (October 7, 2021). launching ‘choose to give back’, a resale program enabled by thredUP. https://news.adidas.com/made-with-recycled-materials/launching--choose-to-give-back---a-resale-program-enabled-by-thredup/s/ffbe00bd-0507-4262-8457-1c6f2ac9de08

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Sustainable Transportation

Greetings folks,

This week’s topic is all about a sustainable transportation business practice, particularly one that has cropped up in recent years. My choice for the topic is drone delivery systems that have become more popular since COVID and all the lock-downs we had to face. Drones present a unique opportunity to deliver packages while maintaining a zero-contact system while also saving on gas cost therefore reducing emissions overall while still getting the job done effectively. According to a recent study it is shown that using quadcopter drones to deliver small, lightweight packages could reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by up to 94 and 84 percent, respectively, per package delivered (Delgado, 2022).

Drones are a great alternative to ground delivery systems for last-mile deliveries, being able to quickly reach their targets and avoiding streets. This also lowers congestion on the roads and prevents cars being stuck and idling. With the high demand of delivery people due to COVID, drones have become a go to alternative that allows for last minute deliveries to be handled quickly. Although, there are always issues that eventually need to be worked and drone delivery is no different, they face limitations that prevent their use in certain situations. A main issue is the limited capacity in terms of mass and volume of the parcels that the drone can transport without a problem. Certain air spaces are also restricted to this flying delivery devices, such as areas around airports, schools, stadiums, and government buildings (Delgado, 2022). Companies like Amazon are working to allow air spaces to be opened to drone delivery and are in contact with the Federal Aviation Administration to ensure everything goes according to laws and restrictions.

It is exciting to see what opportunities drones could open up beyond delivery and transportation, some are already being utilized for medical emergencies and seeing great success.

References

Delgado, C. (Aug 26, 2022). are drone the future of sustainable deliveries? Popular Science. https://www.popsci.com/environment/drones-delivery-greenhouse-gas-energy/

Kreier, F (Aug 5, 2022). drones bearing parcels deliver big carbon savings. Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02101-3

[go-green-2022]

Reuse, Repurpose, and Upcycle

Greetings folks,

We will be looking at everyday items that you may not think to reuse or upcycle them to save them from getting thrown into the trash. There are many things that we use on an everyday basis that have uses outside their initial intention, one that comes to mind is plastic bottles. The main use after you’re done with them is often to refill them with another beverage, which is great but depending on the material it can result in plastic leeching and release harmful chemicals into whatever you are drinking. So, how do we avoid this? That is simple, use them for dry ingredient storage instead. Larger juice jugs are great for storing things like dried pasta, beans, or anything that you don’t want to keep in a bulky box in the cupboard.

Another item that might just hit the bin once you are done with it, is your toothbrush, but you can repurpose this for everyday household tasks instead. An older toothbrush can be great for cleaning hard-to-reach spots around the house like your shower taps. Personally, I use an old toothbrush for cleaning up my shoes, it is great for scrubbing deep in the soles.

On top of household items there are also items around the office that can be reused and even save you or your business some money. A great practice is to use old papers as packaging material, so many offices produce tons of paper waste, but they can reduce this by shredding it up and using it as bulk in packages that are being shipped out, saves on packaging material, and ensures the paper is not getting thrown out straight away.

The last thing that I want to bring up that could help people in an office or artists, is saving alcohol-based markers with a simple trick. If the marker is drying up or just not working as great as it used to simply remove the back nib or tip from the back of the marker and deposit a few drops of isopropyl “rubbing” alcohol onto the felt material inside. Replace the back nib and shake well to ensure that the alcohol is absorbed (Green Office, 2020).

References

Sanusi, T. (March 21, 2022). 10 household items you didn't know you could reuse to help the environment. Global Citizen. https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/climate-friendly-ways-to-reuse-household-items/

Green Office. (June 17, 2020). top 10 items that can be reused, repurposed and recycled at the office. https://greenoffice.co.za/top-10-items-that-can-be-reused-repurposed-and-recycled-at-the-office/

[go-green-2022]

Turtles for the Turtle Club!

Greetings folks,

We are back with another weekly post, and today we will be looking into sea turtles and their crawl ever closer to extinction. Unfortunately, these are just one of the thousands of animals that have faced endangerment or extinction due to human intervention and less then ecological practices. Sea turtles as a species are integral to maintaining biodiversity in reefs and promoting growth in other species such as shrimp, lobster, and tuna (WWF, n.a). They are a species that has been around for over 100 million years and are a key player in the balance of marine life, so they cannot be allowed to be lost due to human ignorance and greed.  

With the interference of fishing waste being left in the oceans, sea turtles have become endangered and are pushing towards being critically endangered in the wild. The main cause of the loss of these turtles is from pollution in our oceans, many of these turtles’ main diet is jellyfish so they often eat plastic bags thinking they are food which often ends with the turtle suffocating and dying, image featured below. They also get caught in abandoned fishing nets and trawls and since sea turtles need oxygen to breath, they are unable to surface and end up drowning.

Thankfully we have organizations like the World Wildlife Fund, WWF, who are actively fighting to protect animals like the sea turtle by working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to develop lights to reduce the by-catch of turtles in gill nets (WWF, n.a). We need to focus on the clean up of our oceans to not only protect sea turtles but a myriad of ocean life that is being affected by the fishing industry and water pollution. Initiatives like Team Seas, 4Ocean, and The One Movement are all great projects working to remove plastic from the water and processing it into jewelry, bottles, and other unique designs. This is a great start to help our turtle-y friends, but we have to keep it up and try to make lasting change within the fishing industry.

References

WWF. (n.a). green turtle. World Wildlife Fund. https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/sea-turtle

[go-green-2022]

Is it Really Green?

Greetings folks,

Today we are going to discuss something that has been growing in popularity lately, promoted by companies and social media influencers alike. Now, on the surface what I am talking about seems like a good thing, and in theory it is; but most companies and groups are doing it the wrong way, and that is Reforestation. The replanting of existing forests and woodlands that have been depleted, usually through deforestation, but also after clear-cutting. Popular You-tubers such as Mr. Beast and Mark Rober have started initiatives such as Team Trees to try and combat deforestation.

Theoretically this is a great practice, humans have devastated so much of this world by cutting down countless forests and so much of the Amazon so this should be a good practice to keep up; and it is, but unfortunately you cannot just plant a handful of trees and call it a day. The biggest issue that comes up when reforesting an area is factoring in biodiversity, being able to contain various species of plants, animals, fungi, and microorganisms and allowing them to thrive is especially important when building an ecosystem.

Trees are necessary to life, and it is great that people are trying to replenish what has been destroyed but they are not always doing it in the right way and end up causing more harm instead of helping. As Catrin Einhorn mentions in their article that planting the wrong trees in the wrong places can reduce biodiversity, speeding extinctions and making ecosystems far less resilient (Einhorn, 2022).

Shown above is how things like peat in the ground can help slow down or even prevent wildfires but with human intervention and the wrong trees taking root it can cause catastrophic events such as the wildfire in April 2016 that nearly wiped out the Canadian oil town of Fort McMurray, destroying 2,400 houses and forcing almost a hundred thousand people from their homes (Elbein, 2019). Caused by an attempt at turning bogs into timber producing forests in the 1980s that gorged themselves on the water in the soil creating the perfect recipe for a destructive fire.

Reforestation is a great practice and something that society needs to continue doing to reverse the harm caused already but need to make sure that it is done correctly. Ensuring other plants and animals can thrive and create a proper ecosystem for all to enjoy.

References

Einhorn, C. (March 14, 2022). tree planting is booming. here’s how that could help, or harm, the planet. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/14/climate/tree-planting-reforestation-climate.html

Elbein, S. (April 28, 2019). tree-planting programs can do more harm than good. National Geographic. https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/tree-planting-programs-can-do-more-harm-good

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A New Greening Practice!

Greetings Folks,

We are back, and this time we are looking into greening practices. No not the usual stuff like eco-friendly light bulbs and stuff you have heard about a hundred times before. Today we are talking about biodegradable seed sculptures. These come from a local artist (local to me at least), under the title of “Project: Plant Based,” an initiative that focuses on the spread of local wildflowers to help pollinators do their job while spreading beauty to the area.

This project is run by Angelina the Artist, a new upcoming artist who is trying to bring the beauty of nature together with the art world where people can get involved and have fun with it. Each sculpture is made from a mix of water, biodegradable cardboard (no glue), and a healthy dose of wildflower seeds. Once the blend has been made it is strained through cheese cloth and placed into a mold where it then dries and takes the shape of various flowers and bugs, primarily succulents.

Project Plant Based is something I care about because I am involved in taking it around to local events and festivals where we have people get their hands dirty making sculptures and then giving them pre-made sculptures to place somewhere and spread the flowers throughout local walking trails or even in their own home garden.

In this post I have attached a link to the artist’s site where you can view their previous events and how the sculptures are made along with a downloadable PDF of a step-by-step guide on how to make these delightful like figures at home.

Statement from the artist:

“The purpose of this project is to set up at a festival and create stations where festival goers can help mix and cast a happy little tree. While the mix will need to set, we de-mold a previously set tree sculpture and give them to the festival goers with a list/map of local hiking paths (to leave tree sculpture when they go check out local scenery).”

https://angelinatheartist.com/festivals-and-event

References

Turner, A. (2022) projects and passions. Angelina the Artist. https://angelinatheartist.com/projects-and-passions

These are some of the results after casting the mix into the molds, beautiful little succulents that will soon grow into wildflowers and support the ecosystem.

References

Turner, A. (2022) projects and passions. Angelina the Artist. https://angelinatheartist.com/projects-and-passions

[go-green-2022]

An Influential Individual

Greetings folks,

I am back for the third time and today we are going to be discussing an influential figure from the last 2 years. Some of you may know who they are from their acting career, or some may already be aware of their current endeavors. Either way they are making changes for the better throughout the world.

Petrice Jones, a relatively new actor from out of England who is most notable know for his role in Netflix’s ‘Locke and Key’ as Scot Cavendish. Jones has had other roles such as ‘Play the Devil’ in 2016, ‘iBoy’ in 2017 and ‘Step Up’ in 2018 (IMDb, 2022). During his time acting he noticed garbage bins full of single use plastic bottles and knew something had to change (Jones, 2020). In November of 2020 Petrice Jones launched his Indiegogo campaign for The One Bottle under his company The One Movement. Now this is where things start to get interesting, and Petrice makes strives in sustainability.

The One Bottle is a great idea overall and utilizes recycled plastics to make it and aims to help its consumers save money on no longer having to purchase single use bottles. (Jones, 2020). From here though Petrice went a step further and partnered with a company by the name of Plastics for Change, an Indian based company dedicated to dealing with plastic waste that ends up overseas. The One Movement and Plastics for Change developed a Highly Compressed LDPE, or a simply a plastic brick (Jones, 2020). With this innovation of utilizing plastic waste the two companies were able to design and build homes in impoverished parts of India using these plastic bricks. An amazing feat, starting the Namma Mane Project, they were able to build a fully functioning home out of these plastic bricks, watch the attached video to see this process.

After The One Movement was successful in building their first functional house in February 2021, they decided that they can do more and started with a reasonable goal of 15 more homes (Jones, 2021). From there it has only grown with their current goal being 100 homes, The One Movement and Petrice Jones are helping not only the poor and homeless of India but also pulling thousands of pounds of plastic waste out of the sea. Today they are currently sitting at 44,982lbs of waste which is over 2million single use water bottles (The One Movement, 2022). With people like this trying to make changes all over the world it gives me a little bit more hope for the future.

So next time you go to purchase a water bottle from your local shop, maybe consider picking up a re-usable bottle to help save our oceans and save yourself some money in the long run.

References

Plastics for Change. (2022). https://www.plasticsforchange.org/ 

Jones, P. (2022). about us. The One Movement. https://theonemovement.co/pages/about-us 

The One Movement. (2022). https://theonemovement.co/ 

 Fandom. (2022). the locke and key wiki. Fandom. https://lockekey.fandom.com/wiki/Petrice_Jones

IMDb. (2022). https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5597834/

[go-green-2022]

Climate Change.

Greetings folks,

I am back with my first official entry, I will be talking about something we are all faced with and that is climate change and what we as a people are doing about it.

Climate change, we’ve all heard about it, many of us grew up with it being called ‘Global Warming’ but now we are more aware to how serious it is and what effects it is having on the planet. Climate change is natural to an extent but has been rapidly sped up by the involvement of humans and how we live our lives. Greenhouse gases are the cause of climate change and come from things like driving cars, coal burning for fuel, garbage dumps to name a few (United Nations, n.a). Unfortunately, with climate change becoming such a prominent threat we are seeing bigger issues besides things getting hotter or colder when they shouldn’t. We are experiencing intense droughts, water scarcity, severe fires, rising sea levels, flooding, melting polar ice, catastrophic storms and declining biodiversity (United Nations, n.a). There are countries that are taking a stand against climate change and trying to give us the best possible future they can, but how is Canada and Trudeau’s government doing to stem the tides of change?

As of right now the Canadian government has not done much to make any notable changes, plans have been put into place that were not overly useful, making no change and increasing our emissions (Ballingall, 2021). In my opinion this is unacceptable, there are other countries striving to make changes and when our country who is viewed as a major world power is failing to improve, it makes us all look bad. Especially with the governments decision to purchase the Trans Mountain Pipeline, funneling more money into an industry that is actively destroying our world, not to mention the destruction it will cause on the land to install it. It is utterly disgraceful we can allow this to continue to happen.

If we are to make changes that are lasting, then we need to look to countries that are doing things right. Switzerland has been a leader in sustainability for years, actively educating their citizens on being ecological and focusing on sustainable power. With 75% of their power coming from renewable resources such as hydropower (Gregory, 2022). Canada needs to take a page from Switzerland’s book and start to focus on educating its citizens and begin to implement more sustainable energy sources, utilize the wind, water and the Sun, with these we can hope to make a difference and give future generations the chance they deserve.

References

United Nations (n.a). what is climate change? https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change

Ballingall, A (Nov 25, 2021). environment watchdog slams Canada’s — and Justin Trudeau’s — record fighting climate change. The Star. https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/11/25/we-cant-continue-to-go-from-failure-to-failure-environment-watchdog-slams-liberals-oil-and-gas-sector-program.html

Gregory, M (May 5, 2022). what we can learn from Switzerland’s sustainability. Discover. https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/what-we-can-learn-from-switzerlands-sustainability

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Introduction

Greetings,

You may call me Bee and I am here to post about the greening of businesses and what going green really means to me. Each week I will be posting a different topic in regards to this.

I am looking forward to see the evolution of this blog and whether it can make an impact on how people view the ecological changes needed to improve our world and what companies can do to make that happen.

Stay tuned for more and feel free to interact as the weeks go on, my inbox is always open!