home
> News
> News Archives
News Archives
July 20, 2021
The International Green Purchasing Network launches the Survey on Environmentally friendly product/service and Green Purchasing to Tackle Climate Change, please submit your response until March 30th,2022!
The survey aims to share knowledge among IGPN members and partners, provide suggestion for the implementation by using climate action and sustainable consumption and production in an integrated and coherent approach, through the collection, comparation and analyzation, evaluation and summarization of the real practical practices of environmentally friendly products/services (and/or) green purchasing in addressing the climate change issue.
Climate change presents the global significant challenge people faced at present. As it directly influences the natural resources and ecological system, pursuing climate action and sustainable development in an integrated and coherent approach have steadily emerged into the implementation, in order to enable countries to achieve their objectives efficiently and quickly. So far, regulations and policies include tackle climate change, GHG emission control, low carbon green development and carbon tax etc. are issued in about 20 countries and areas. Along with the development of technology, new materials, new production methods, automation methods, new energy and other products/services are constantly aroused and generated, it could be foreseen that the approach to tackle the climate change has gradually expanded from energy conversion to all aspects for production and consumption and life style of human beings.
In order to better understand how and what green purchasing will play its role to tackle the climate change, by promoting sustainable consumption and production based on its applied scenario varies in private, business, market and public sectors.
The scope of the survey is Including, but not limited to, members of the International Green Purchasing Network-IGPN; technically any actual practical practice will be included:
Sector: including producing and manufacturing; energy and transportation; planting and breeding; cooling and heating
Environmentally friendly products/services: including adopt new energy sources, new materials, new production methods and automation methods;
Green Purchasing: including policies, measures, methods and real practical practices relevant to use green procurement tools to address climate change.
The expected output will be a research report, conducted to summarize the inner characteristics and logic though all kind actual practices collection, comparison, evaluation.
The Deadline to reply is March 30th, 2022, please download the document learn more in detail, share your any actual practical approach addressing the climate change. One or more items preferably could be highly encouraged to provided based on the actual background by each organization.
Download file
For further information, please contact igpn.secretariat@igpn.org.
...continue to read
category : Topics
July 19, 2021
The new Global Tourism Plastics Initiative newsletter was unveiled at the beginning of June for World Oceans Day.
Signatories will now regularly receive relevant information on the Initiative and will have the opportunity to showcase their contribution in reducing their plastic footprint.
The newsletter is organized around five sections. The first section, called “featured” will be dedicated to interviews conducted with signatories in partnership with Sustainable First. The June Newsletter notably featured interviews with CHAO Hotel, Tiger Mountain Pokhara Lodge and Jade Mountain Resort. These interviews are the occasion for signatories to gain in visibility but also to share best practices and advice so that they learn from one another. These interviews aim to celebrate the diversity of the signatories by featuring in each edition different regions and different types of organization.
The following section of the newsletter will allow to share the “latest news”. The GTPI coordination team is proud to announce that new signatories will officially join the 61 current signatories of the Initiative on the 8th of July. This will be the fourth public announcement of new signatories since the launch of the GTPI in January 2020. If you are interested to be part of the Initiative and become signatory, please consult this page.
If you wish to participate to the fourth public announcement, please follow this link to register to the event.
The newsletter also provides access to “useful materials” such as webinars, toolkits, reports to help the signatories in the implementation of their commitments. Additionally, the “focus on” section complements the repository of tools and resources that has been curated by the GTPI team by highlighting the key messages of one of the reports.
Finally, “building back better” section provides information and recommendations to continue reducing the use of plastics during the pandemic and help implementing the objectives.
Learn more at the One Planet Network.
...continue to read
category : Topics
July 15, 2021
BBC News, 24 June 2021 By: Tom Espiner
Lego makes about 3,500 different bricks and shapes, but faces the challenge of coming up with a sustainable product that can last years - decades, even.
The goal is to find a product good enough that people don't notice the difference, said Lego's Tim Brooks.
He did not specify how many of its bricks will contain recycled material, adding: "It's too soon to say."
But he added that Lego wants to start using the bottle-made ones "as soon as possible".
Mr Brooks, Lego's vice president of sustainability, said the two types of blocks should fit together and be interchangeable like any Lego product.
The next stage will be to add colours to the prototype bricks, and test them with children and adult fans,.
Lego said it would initially get soft drinks bottles from the US to make its new plastic toy parts. It said plastic recovered from the oceans would not be suitable as it is typically too degraded.
Plastics crisis
Libby Peake, head of resource policy at the thinktank, Green Alliance said the recycled plastic plan is "certainly preferable to using virgin plastic" but she "hopes the supply of single use plastic bottles falls in future as people embrace reuse".
A number of firms are making products from recycled plastic as sustainability becomes more important to customers.
Lego said that many customers, both children and adult, were asking for more sustainability when buying products in general, and had contacted the firm to say so.
But Friends of the Earth plastics campaigner Camilla Zerr said that "it's really important that recycling isn't hailed as the default solution to the plastics crisis."
"Manufacturers must ensure toys are made to endure many years of use, so they can be handed down and reused from generation to generation," she adds.
In 2018, Lego set a goal to make all of its core products from sustainable materials by 2030.
As part of these efforts, Mr Brooks said the company had developed prototype bricks made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, with some other chemicals added.
At present, the company makes many of its bricks using acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), a virgin plastic made from crude oil.
Using PET will also allow the firm to make different shaped Lego pieces.
'Clutch' test
Typically, Lego is durable enough to last for two to three generations of humans playing with it, and that is what the firm is aiming for with its PET blocks, Mr Brooks said.
In trying to make its products more sustainable, Lego decided to carry on making them durable, rather than biodegradable, and is banking on people saving the blocks and not throwing them away, he said.
The biggest challenge with the new blocks is getting the "clutch" right, he said.
That is, children being able to stick them together and pull them apart with their fingers, regardless of the ambient temperature.
Some materials they tested couldn't even be prised apart with pliers, he said.The firm has a temperature test, a butter test, and a test to mimic children putting them in their mouths.
"Cleaning it up and getting it to turn into Hogwarts Castle is a challenge," he said, referring to Harry Potter merchandise. "A super-fun challenge."
Lego makes between 110 and 120 billion plastic pieces per year, and about 80% are currently made from ABS.
About 5% are made from a polymer that comes from sugar cane from which Lego makes its plastic plants.
The firm emits about 1.2 million tonnes of carbon per year, and about a third of that is from making its materials.
Using recycled plastic will help to cut those emissions, and the firm also wants to use more renewable energy in its processes, Mr Brooks said.
Learn more at here.
...continue to read
category : Topics
July 5, 2021
The SDG 12 Hub is built to support Member States in the achievement of SDG 12, and is the central location for accessing official government reporting against SDG 12 indicators and thus includes all information needed for the official monitoring and reporting on these. The Hub consolidates and visualizes the results of national reporting on SDG 12 indicators, making these publicly available, allowing Member States to browse progress on SDG 12 by country or by individual targets at global and regional level.
Additionally, the Hub provides governments, businesses, civil society and the public with linkages to existing knowledge platforms, databases, networks and communities of practice through which stakeholders can engage, become inspired and share their own progress, knowledge and solutions for sustainable consumption and production.
As part of a broader inter-agency collaboration to streamline methodologies and processes, the UN custodian agencies of SDG 12 have developed The SDG 12 Hub. Through this collaboration the custodian agencies aim to make SDG 12 and SCP accessible and transparent to governments and others, in terms of measuring progress on the SDGs, nationally tracking SCP progress and accessing solutions to deliver on the 2030 Agenda.
The official virtual launch event for the SDG 12 Hub is scheduled for July 7th at 1:45-3:00 PM (New York time). The event will focus presenting the SDG 12 Hub as a key effort in making progress on SDG 12 transparent and accessible, promoting its implementation through existing communities of practice, and informing voluntary national reviews, international programming, and national policy processes.
What can you find on the SDG 12 Hub?
For government officials, the SDG 12 Hub is your central location for reporting on SDG 12. It allows you to:
· view progress in your country and others;
· report directly on your indicators through the official reporting systems;
· find methodologies, guidance, and resources to support your reporting and implementation efforts; and
· learn from others through exploring resources on policies, solutions, technical tools and best practices.
For businesses, civil society, the public and others, the SDG 12 Hub offers a window to the national progress on SCP and linkages to platforms and initiatives to inform and support your contributions toward SDG 12. From here, you can:
· explore official Member State reporting on SDG 12 indicators by target,
· explore official Member State reporting on SDG 12 by country,
· access national SCP policies reported under SDG 12.1.1
Lear more at here.
...continue to read
category : Topics
