Embryos containing human and animal material have been created in Britain for the first time, a month before the House of Commons votes on new laws to regulate the research.
A team at Newcastle University announced yesterday that it had successfully generated “admixed embryos” by adding human DNA to empty cow eggs in the first experiment of its kind in Britain.
Source: timesonline.co.uk
Sixty-six university dairy and veterinary scientists launched a broad attack Monday against milk processors and retail marketers who increasingly seek to advertise and label milk produced by cows not treated with Monsanto’s recombinant bovine somatotropin. A letter from professors at nearly every major land grant university asserted there was no difference between conventional and “rBST-free” or organic milk but that consumers were being misled by emotional advertising claims to pay higher prices.
“Organic and ‘rBST-free’ milk are routinely advertised as being somehow healthier, less risky, more environmentally friendly, and produced by ‘happier’ cows than conventional milk,” the scientists’ letter said. “Consumers are led to believe that organic milk is better, or that ‘rbST-free’ milk is safer. The truth is quite different, but behind these claims are very powerful corporate interests that know that they can sell the same product at a higher price if they can create doubt or spread fear about conventional milk.”
Source: blogs.das.psu.edu
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) isn’t just a PR move for businesses, states a new survey conducted for IBM entitled, “Attaining Sustainable Growth Through Corporate Social Responsibility.” CSR is a way for businesses to be more competitive and create more opportunities, leading to growth. Sixty-eight percent of businesses surveyed said that focusing on CSR issues generates revenue, while 54% of businesses said that CSR helps give them a competitive edge.
Consumers, armed with the information found on the Internet, are the driving force behind companies increased attention to CSR activities the study suggests. However, it reports that 76% of responding businesses said that they “don’t truly understand their customers’ CSR concerns.”
The number of advocacy groups reporting on companies CSR activities has grown substantially in the last three years, 75% of businesses noted, as has the amount of information businesses are providing about the environmental and social impact of their manufacturing, supply chain, and products.
source: socialfunds.com
The British Standards Institute today published the first publicly available extensive guide to safe handling of nanomaterials. PD 6699-2:2007 Nanotechnologies - Part 2: Guide to safe handling and disposal of manufactured nanomaterials provides step-by-step guidance through the general approach to management of risks, information needs, hazard assessment, measurement of exposure, methods of control and disposal. It is intended to help manufacturers and users work with nanomaterials in a safe and responsible way.
The guide was drafted by the SAFENANO team and approved by BSI Committee NTI/1, Nanotechnologies.
SAFENANO Director Rob Aitken, who led the team appointed to draft the guide said “Publication of this guide provides an important step forward in the information available to manufacturers and users of nanomaterials. It is intended to be a pragmatic document which provides users with a practical way to deal with nanomaterial risk issues”.
The guide provides an innovative approach to hazard classification and suggests benchmark exposure levels for four classes of nanomaterials and an encouragement to collect exposure information. The benchmark levels are intended to provide reasonably cautions levels, but should not be considered as rigorously developed Workplace Exposure Limits. Control approaches for various scenarios such as deliberate aerosolization and transferring/mixing of dry materials, again with the encouragement that these are supported by measurement.
“Given the current state of knowledge about nanoparticle toxicology and risk it will be some time before formal workplace exposure limits can be developed. Our view is that this guide, and the benchmark levels suggested provides the best basis for progress at this stage.” said Aitken.
‘If you are developing, producing, handling, or otherwise working with engineered nanomaterials, READ THIS GUIDE!’ said Andrew Maynard, Chief Scientific Advisor to the
source: safenano.org
Michael Mandiberg and Brooke Singer are two wizards of eco-data visualization.
Eyebeam alum. Brooke Singer is behind Area´s Immediate Reading and the Superfund 365, A Site-A-Day. Superfund 365 is probably my favourite project from 2007. Each day for a year, this online data visualization application visits one toxic site active in the Superfund program run by the
Michael Mandiberg is a 2007-08 Fellow in the R&D OpenLab and the author of two eye-opening dataviz plug-ins: Oil Standard converts all prices from U.S. Dollars into the equivalent value in barrels of crude oil and Real Costs inserts emissions data into travel related e-commerce websites. Think of it like the nutritional information labeling on the back of food… except for emissions.
As members of the Eyebeam Sustainability Research Group (which began in July 2006 as a forum for residents, fellows, and staff to engage in a critical dialog about environmental sustainability) the two of them have launched Eco-Vis Challenge, a competition which was previously mentioned on the blog (Eyebeam’s Ecovisualiz Design Challenge panel, part 1 and part 2).
Based on the idea that being aware of the current environmental crisis doesn’t mean that it is easy to recognize its extent and complexity, the “Eco-Vis Challenge” invited artists and designers to submit projects which make meaningful patterns emerge from the mass of environmental data.
source: we-make-money-not-art.com
Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) President and Chief Executive Officer Jim Greenwood today issued the following statement in response to a draft scientific opinion published by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) regarding the safety of milk and meat products from animal clones and their offspring:
“BIO supports the EFSA’s draft scientific opinion which concludes that meat and milk products from clones of cattle and pigs and their offspring are safe for human consumption, and are no different from foods from livestock produced through conventional breeding. EFSA’s findings are consistent with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) draft risk assessment on animal cloning, as well as numerous studies world wide.”
“Livestock cloning is a new assisted reproductive technology which can help livestock producers deliver high-quality, safe, abundant, and nutritious foods in a consistent manner. The biotechnology industry applauds EFSA for its timely and comprehensive scientific review of this new technology. The draft conclusions support the strong scientific consensus worldwide on the safety of livestock cloning.”
“With EFSA’s draft opinion reaffirming the safety of meat and milk products from animal clones and their offspring, BIO strongly encourages a timely release by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the final risk assessment on the safety of foods from animal cloning.”
source: businesswire.com
ONAMI and SNNI (Safer Nanomaterials and Nanomanufacting Initiative) present the Greener Nano 2008 Conference: Nanoscience for a Sustainable Future, 10-11 March 2008 at the Hewlett-Packard Company Corvallis, OR site. As nanotechnology advances, many questions arise regarding putative effects of engineered nanomaterials on the environment and health. How do we make the right decisions in the face of these uncertainties? This conference focuses on cutting edge research in nanotechnology, potential biological and environmental impacts of nanomaterials and how to use this new knowledge to develop greener nanomaterials. We are especially pleased to present “A Conversation with Dave Chen” (founding partner, Equilibrium Capital Group, and Chair of the Oregon Innovation Council) to engage discussion in this important area. SNNI will also present its latest research advances in developing greener nanomaterials and nanomanufacturing processes.
source: greennano.org
Innovators in the green information-technology movement reap good publicity from their ever-higher standards of energy efficiency. The real goody two-shoes, however, inflict those standards on their competitors.
Sun Microsystems has taken the second approach. At the annual meeting of the Carbon Disclosure Project–a non-profit investor organization devoted to greater transparency in greenhouse gas emission statistics–Sun released a set of open-source software tools that companies can use to track carbon emissions. The software will be hosted at OpenEco.org, a sort of social-networking site for businesses designed to foster communication about measuring and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“Our goal is to lower the barriers for companies to measure and report their environmental footprint,” says Sun’s vice president of eco-responsibility, Dave Douglas. “For a company like Sun, figuring out how much energy you’re burning is pretty complex. So we’re trying to use open-source software development ideas to take the tools we’ve developed internally and make them publicly available.”
The Carbon Disclosure Project, a consortium of 315 investment groups with a gargantuan $41 trillion in assets, has worked since 2000 to encourage companies to share their environmental statistics and develop universal standards of environmental accounting. At this year’s annual meeting, former President Bill Clinton emphasized the power of transparency and data collection in mobilizing the fight against climate change.
“I think the evidence of this decade is clear, that if we organize properly, addressing the problem of climate change will provide the biggest economic boom since we mobilized for World War II,”
Accounting for energy use isn’t easy. Just determining the carbon emissions per watt of electricity used in each of the company’s various zip codes is a daunting task, says Sun’s
According its own tally, Sun has plenty to be proud of.
source: Forbes.com
The “Business of Green” and “Green is Gold” are among the phrases finding their way onto the nation’s business pages and into the advertisements of major corporations.
After years of corporate greenwashing, is this wave of corporate greenmania for real? Is it more than hype when the New York Times marks a recent article with the sidebar “The market tells producers: It’s go green or goodbye”?
Well, not if the impetus has to come from stronger regulation or environmentally driven government purchases. Those two pressure points have largely been kept dormant or are de minimis.
When business sees environmental management as saving it money, increasing productivity, becoming more competitive and attracting young talent, the prospect of sustainable policies taking root becomes more likely.
Obviously, it was not always viewed this way by corporate bosses who, not long ago, saw our air, water and soil as their toxic sewers.
There is still a long way to go to “green” the entire supply chain from the mines to the markets.
No corporation illustrates this broad continuum better than the Atlanta-based Interface Corporation — the country’s largest commercial carpet tile manufacturer. In 1994, founder Ray Anderson started his company on its goal as a “restorative enterprise,” which he described as zero net pollution and 100% recycling by 2020. The company is 45 percent there, he estimates.
“Sustainability,”
Since even a stodgy company like General Electric is moving quickly into selling “green” technology as the next profit center, why are the aggregate figures on hydro-carbon use, greenhouse gases still increasing? Because there are no national missions to take these successful examples–these best practices–and make them a mandatory floor for all companies.
I refer to mandatory performance standards by the federal government–not specific design standards–backed up by specifications set by Uncle Sam, who is the buyer of so many products we all use, for its departments and agencies. These include vehicles, building construction, paper and many other goods and services that could be purchased only from solid “green companies.” (See:
Mandatory federal standards and government purchasing specifications brought the people safer cars, higher recycled paper content and greater fuel efficiency for their vehicles and appliances. The deregulation craze of the past twenty-five years ended most of this forward progress.
Moreover, the retarding corporate powers are still going anti-green. They oppose a carbon tax and long overdue upgrades of fuel efficiency and pollution control standards. They want to build dozens of costly, unnecessary, unsafe atomic power plants with no less than 100% federal government loan guarantees.
This overall persistence of corporate intransigence needs to be kept in mind as the blizzard of green announcements by companies continues.
source: AlterNet.org
While some companies may be moving cautiously toward greener business practices for fear of adding costs, a new survey shows going green can save companies money. A recent UK-based survey found that green initiatives are not affecting supply chain efficiency in 66 percent of companies, and in 27 percent the changes are actually making supply chains more efficient. Other greening efforts include partnering with logistics providers to help green business processes (28 percent), improving energy efficiency (59 percent), redesigning warehousing and distribution center networks (42 percent), and measuring and/or reducing emissions (39 percent).
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