Feb 2, 2018  -  Dassault Systèmes has been ranked first by Corporate Knights in the 2018 Top 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World (Global 100) index.  The Corporate Knights Global 100 index is recognised globally as the gold standard for corporate sustainability analysis.

Jan 24, 2018  - The electric vehicle race shows no signs of slowing, with Swedish truck manufacturer, Volvo Trucks, announcing it will start selling electric trucks as early as 2019.  According to Volvo Trucks, the first units will be medium-duty vehicles that will be placed into fleets in European urban environments.

Jan 24, 2018  -  Amcor has revealed ambitious plans to make all its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025.The company, which manufactures a wide range of packaging including PET bottles and films, has claimed that it’s the first global packaging firm to make such a pledge.

Jan 24, 2018  -  Unilever is the latest big name to weigh in on the plastics packaging debate calling for the consumer goods industry to step-up its efforts to tackle ocean pollution.

The company also called for a circular economy for plastics. Unilever’s chief executive Paul Polman urged more companies to pledge to make its plastic packaging 100% reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025. Unilever made this commitment last year.

Jan 20, 2018  -  Tetra Pak has pledged to support the European Commission’s Plastics Strategy, announced this week as part of the EU Action Plan for a Circular Economy.  The carton giant said it will work with industry partners to ensure that by 2030, recycling solutions are in place for all components of beverage cartons so they can be fully recycled across Europe.

Jan 19, 2018  -  33 Customhouse Quay in Wellington has been accredited by the New Zealand Green Building Council (NZGBC) with a 6 star NABERSNZ rating for energy performance – the first New Zealand building to achieve the top 6 star rating.

Jan 18, 2018  -  Our future selves might look back and wonder how we ever handled having just plain old glass in our windows. Curtains or blinds might get the flick in favor of a variety of smart windows that can tint themselves or turn opaque on command, and now a team of German engineers has demonstrated a new design. Dubbed Large-Area Fluidic Windows (LaWin), the system uses iron particles suspended in liquid to block sunlight at different levels and harvest heat energy from the Sun.

Jan 9, 2018  -  The government could introduce a charge on single use plastic packaging such as plastic drink bottles, the Prime Minster has said.  Appearing on BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show, the Theresa May spoke of the success of the 5p carrier bag charge introduced a few years ago and said a similar levy could be slapped on plastic bottles, as well as bubble wrap, cutlery, and polystyrene takeaway boxes in a bid to reduce single use plastic packaging and reduce pollution in the world’s oceans.

Dec 22, 2017  -  The former heads of the UK’s biggest retailers have called for the introduction of a plastic free aisle at supermarkets.  Plastic free aisle Former chiefs of Asda, Tesco, Marks and Spencer, and Argos, along with current bosses at Debenhams and Weleda said in an open letter that while aluminium and glass can be reused easily, plastic packaging cannot be recycled ad infinitum.

“Most plastic packaging items can only be recycled twice before becoming unusable,” they insisted.

“Regardless of how much is invested in Britain’s recycling infrastructure, virtually all plastic packaging will reach landfill or the bottom of the ocean sooner or later.

“It is therefore essential that retailers and packaging manufacturers work together to turn off the tap of throwaway packaging. Retailers should take advantage of the raft of zero-plastic packaging solutions that provide a real alternative to conventional plastic.”

The group said a plastic free aisle would be good for business, as research showed at least a third of consumers base their purchasing decisions on the social and environmental impact of the products they buy.

This is not the first time there have been calls for plastic free aisles, and such views have been met with scepticism by packaging industry bodies and manufacturers.

The British Plastics Federation (BPF) has previously criticised the idea, saying that such a campaign deflected from the important role plastic packaging provides.

The material, according to the BPF, increases the hygiene of food while the Co-Op has warned that packaging-free food can increase food waste.

Iain Ferguson, Co-Op’s environment manager, told Sky News this week: “The packaging actually helps to increase the shelf life, for example on cucumbers, we used to sell them unwrapped. We did a full-scale trial in 2012 measuring the waste of wrapped and unwrapped cucumbers and we found that by wrapping the cucumbers we reduced the waste by two thirds.”

The UK’s retailers combined revenues exceed £380bn, and the sector employs 4.6 million people nationwide.

The signatories are:

Andy Clarke - Former CEO, ASDA

Sir Ian Cheshire - Chairman, Debenhams

The Lord Rose of Monewden - Former CEO, Argos, former Chairman and CEO, Marks and Spencer

The Lord MacLaurin of Knebworth DL - Former Chairman, Tesco

The Lord Stone of Blackheath - Former Managing Director, Marks and Spencer

The Lord Jones of Birmingham - Business Leader

The Lord Hayward OBE - Former Chief Executive of the British Soft Drinks Association

The Lord Cameron of Dillington - Former National President of the Country Land and Business Association

The Baroness Scott of Needham Market - Former Board Member, Lloyds Register, Party President, Liberal Democrats

The Lord Clement-Jones CBE - Former Co-Secretary and Legal Director, Kingfisher

The Rt Hon. Lord Foster of Bath - Associate, Global Partners Governance

The Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts CBE - Former Director, Marston’s PLC

Brent Hoberman CBE - Founder, Lastminute.com

The Rt Hon. The Lord Goldsmith QC, PC - Former Attorney General

The Lord Judd - Former Director Oxfam

The Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer - Unicef Board Member

The Lord Rees of Ludlow OM - Astronomer Royal

The Baroness Lister of Burtersett CBE - Author and Professor

Jayn Sterland - Managing Director, Weleda UK

| Source: PackagingNews    ||  December 21, 2017   |||

Dec 20, 2017  -  Victoria University of Wellington geologist Dr Rob Mckay is leading an international expedition to Antarctic waters in January to discover how warming oceans will affect the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and what that could mean for rising sea levels, global weather systems and marine life. An associate professor at Victoria’s Antarctic Research Centre, Dr McKay will head a 30-strong team of scientists from the International Ocean Discovery Programme (IODP) on the JOIDES Resolution, a 140m long scientific research ship operated by the IODP. “We plan to spend nine and a half weeks down in the outer Ross Sea to drill six geological drill sites—each of which could be up to a kilometre below the sea floor,” says Dr McKay. “We want to understand how the ocean and the ice sheets interact. So what happens when you put warm water next to the ice sheets? Do they melt? If so, how quickly do they melt? And what’s the impact of that melt on the oceans?” By drilling down so deeply into the sea floor, the team will be able to get a glimpse into the past—up to 20 million years ago—and “greenhouse worlds” that contained the same level of carbon dioxide currently in our atmosphere. "Using these geological records to see what the planetary response was to the current carbon dioxide levels means we can better understand what the scale of change could be for us, and what the earth is capable of in a warmer world,” says Dr Mckay. “Antarctica today acts as a giant heat-sink that keeps the planet cold. If you change that, you’re changing a major part of the global climate system. We’re trying to understand what happened the last time that was changed.” If the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were to melt—as it has in the past—Dr McKay says the global sea level would rise about 3 metres. The impact from the collapse of the Eastern Antarctic Ice Sheet would be even more dramatic, as it contains enough ice to cause an estimated 20-metre rise in sea levels. “The consequences of that for coastal living, globally, are obvious, but we’re also trying to understand the implications for the biosphere in the Southern Ocean. This is one of the largest biological habitats on the planet and we don’t know how it will respond to these changes,” says Dr McKay. An important difference between then and now is also the fact that the increase in carbon dioxide levels that took many thousands of years to occur as part of natural cycles, has happened in just a couple of centuries due to human emissions and is continuing. No stranger to the coldest, driest, windiest continent on earth, Dr McKay travelled to Antarctica when he was just 20 years old for his first-ever overseas trip—which he describes as a “complete sensory overload”. Two decades later, and the five years he has spent planning the current expedition are about to pay off, as he will follow in the footsteps of a number of pioneering Victoria University researchers. “One of the reasons I was invited to be the co-chief scientist on this expedition is that we have a very strong link with records of previous drillings, led by Victoria,” says Dr McKay. “It’s been almost 50 years since the first drilling in Antarctica, which was carried out by scientists that included Victoria University Emeritus Professor Peter Barrett—former director of the Antarctic Research Centre. He revolutionised the way we view Antarctica, in terms of its geological record, and really pioneered core sample drilling on the continent.” “He developed a record that is absolutely fundamental to interpreting Antarctica’s role in global climate change.” After a hiatus of almost eight years, Dr McKay is looking forward to returning to Antarctica and drawing on this wealth of existing research to gather material that is “likely to inform global research for many years to come”. Dr McKay will be joined by two other New Zealanders on the expedition: Giuseppe Cortese, a microfossil expert from GNS Science who will be exploring how plankton communities will be affected by global warming, and Western Springs College teacher Rosa Hughes-Currie. Ms Hughes-Currie will be the first New Zealand high school teacher to take part in an IODP expedition.

| A Victoria University release  ||  December 20,  2017   |||