·:[ Environmental News Bits ]:·
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Read the full story in Chemical & Engineering News.

To read all the marketing hype, it would seem that the personal care products industry is rushing to label as natural, organic, or sustainable just about every new product coming onto the market.

In part, that is because toiletries and cosmetics carrying a “sustainable” or “natural” moniker are flying off the shelves, according to Gillian S. Morris, chemicals and materials director of consulting firm Kline & Co. Worldwide, manufacturers’ sales of natural products are growing at an average annual rate of 15%, three times faster than the overall market, she says.

However, just what manufacturers mean when they tout their products as natural, organic, or sustainable is anything but clear, Morris notes. And that has opened up an opportunity for industry groups and certification bodies to offer various seals of approval that ingredient makers and formulators can use to authenticate their claims.

The June 2008 issue of Biomass Magazine is now available. Highlights include:

• Biofuels in the Future
• Solar-Powered Biomass Gasification
• The Power of Association
• Pledging Allegiance to Renewable Energy
• Blending Aesthetics & ENERGY
• Assessing the Impact of Mexico’s Biofuels Law
• The Breakdown on Anaerobic Digestion
• Woody biomass grants aim to expand use of forest waste
• Advanced biofuel projects receive DOE funding

Read the full story in Plenty Magazine.

Innovators are building cars fueled by wood chips.

EPA is proposing to reduce air emissions from certain Portland cement plants.  The proposed amendments would require affected new, modified, or reconstructed process units to meet emissions limits for particulate matter, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide.  EPA is also proposing improved monitoring and testing requirements for existing sources, which should result in lower levels of emissions.

Over the next five years, EPA estimates the proposed standards to reduce the combined emissions of particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxide emissions by more than 42,000 tons per year.  EPA will accept comments for 60 days after the notice is published in the Federal Register.

EPA is also announcing that it is developing a dynamic economic model for the cement industry.  This model can analyze emission reduction strategies for multiple pollutants while taking into account plant-level economic and technical factors. The Agency also seeks comments on this model.

For more information on this action: http://www.epa.gov/ttn/oarpg/t3fs.html

EPA has completed a study to better characterize fugitive mercury emissions from chlorine manufactures that use mercury cell technology. There are currently five such facilities nationwide. Study findings show that mercury emissions average about 0.2 tons per year per facility.

EPA is also proposing to require manufacturers of chlorine using mercury cell technology to take additional steps to prevent mercury emissions. EPA would require plants not already monitoring mercury emissions to do so. Also, a plant would be required to perform ‘work practices’ such as implementing an inspection program for equipment problems, leaking equipment, liquid mercury accumulations and spills.

EPA will accept comments for 60 days after the notice is published in the Federal Register.

For more information on this action: http://www.epa.gov/ttn/oarpg/t3fs.html

Read the full story at News.com.

Most Americans live and work in buildings awash in chemicals blamed for asthma, lung cancer, and a host of other maladies.

The best way to clean the air could be with a green thumb, according to Bill Wolverton, a former NASA environmental scientist who has spent more than 30 years studying how plants purify the air. The results of his research could come to market this fall as a household air filter that looks like a potted plant.

For a full-color, graphic version of this newsletter, go to
http://www.greenbiz.com/enewsletters/2008/greenbiz/index.html.

Using Green Materials and Supply Chains to Make Sustainable Products
By Jonathan Bardelline
http://greenerdesign.com/node/24842
Jason Pearson, president and CEO of research and design institute GreenBlue,
joins GreenBiz Radio to talk about how sustainability is being woven into
product ingredients, materials and supply chains.

Nike, Steelcase, Clorox and Herman Miller Leading Charge on Sustainable Design
http://greenbiz.com/node/24848
Nike, Clorox, Steelcase and Herman Miller have infused sustainability into their design processes in ways that have led to innovative products that offer value to consumers. Business for Social Responsibility used the companies as case studies in a new report aimed at educating businesses about processes that can be used to drive sustainable design.

GE Plans 20 Percent Cut in Water Use by 2012
http://greenbiz.com/node/24774
Riding a wave of successes from its multi-billion dollar ecomagination program, GE announced Wednesday a new goal of cutting its global water usage 20 percent by 2012. Revenue from ecomagination products and services topped $14 billion in 2007.

Con Ed to Get the Lead Out
http://greenbiz.com/node/24852
The Con Edison Co. of New York plans to replace thousands of miles of lead underground cables with newer versions made with less hazardous materials as part of a voluntary EPA program.

Napa Winery Basks in Solar Power
http://greenbiz.com/node/24841
Napa-based Far Niente flipped the switch on a solar energy system that will supply all of the winery’s needs. The system relies on a combination of land-mounted and “Floatovoltaic” solar arrays that are expected to generate 400 kilowatts at peak output.

Coca-Cola to Deploy 100K HFC-Free Coolers
http://greenbiz.com/node/24718
The beverage giant plans to use vending machines and refrigerators that use compressed carbon dioxide instead of hydrofluorocarbons.

Heinz Looks to Reuse Potato Peels, Improve Resource Use to Cut Emissions
http://greenbiz.com/node/24717
The company plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent through a variety of efficiency and reduction measures.

Future Supply Chains Will Need Extensive Collaboration: Report
http://greenbiz.com/node/24772
By consolidating many aspects of supply chains, companies can reduce costs and their environmental impact, according to Capgemini.

Dean Foods Explores Turning Cow Waste to Energy
http://greenbiz.com/node/24666
Dairy giant Dean Foods Co. plans to turn animal waste from its thousands of cows into renewable energy for the local power grid. The move will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and generate carbon and renewable energy credits.

Wine Group Swaps Glass Bottles for Bag-in-Box Packaging
http://greenbiz.com/node/24766
The mass-produced Almaden and Inglenook wines will switch from the familiar three- and four-liter glass jugs to lightweight Bag-in-Box (BIB) packaging. The Wine Group said Wednesday that swapping the glass jugs for BIB packaging would reduce the brands? carbon footprint by 60 percent and avoid some 11 million pounds of packaging waste.

USDA Cuts Pesticide-Use Data Reports
http://greenbiz.com/node/24713
Citing budget pressures, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced last week that it had published the last of its annual Agricultural Chemical Usage reports, which track the amount of pesticides applied on farmlands nationwide.

Continental Helps Shippers Offset Cargo Emissions
http://greenbiz.com/node/24660
New calculator shows emissions related to cargo shipments that go through Continental Airlines.

Future Supply Chain 2016
http://www.greenbiz.com/resources/resource/future-supply-chain-2016
This report from Capgemini offers a look at how supply chains will need to change and evolve to take into account issues that were not a priority in the past.

Can Markets Solve the Water Pollution Problem?
By Rob Luke, Ecosystem Marketplace
http://greenbiz.com/feature/2008/06/02/can-markets-solve-water-pollution-problem
Voluntary water quality markets, where businesses pay farmers and others to reduce their water pollution, have great potential for addressing a growing problem — but only if the demand can outpace concerns about hazy regulations and high prices.

Science and the ‘Routes to Truth’
By Brad Allenby
http://greenbiz.com/column/2008/06/02/science-and-routes-truth
The practice of science offers a solution to our many looming crises — climate change among the largest — only if we step back from our drive to analyze details at the smallest possible level and begin examining the bigger picture.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

The difficult bottom line in the negotiations is that dealing with climate change will almost certainly hurt some industries and enrich others.

Read the full story in Technology Review.

A biorefinery built to produce 1.4 million gallons of ethanol a year from cellulosic biomass will open tomorrow in Jennings, LA. Built by Verenium, based in Cambridge, MA, the plant will make ethanol from agricultural waste left over from processing sugarcane.

Read the full story in Technology Review.

A thin membrane made from a web of nanowires might become a promising tool for cleaning up oil spills and removing toxic contaminants from groundwater. When dipped into a mixture of water and oil, the 50-micrometer-thick membrane absorbs the oil, swelling to 20 times its weight.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

Hybrid models of Detroit’s 5,500-pound S.U.V.’s get better mileage, but consumers have been slow to embrace them.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

The value of processed fryer oil has increased, and there have been reports of thefts in multiple states.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

Despite support, plans to take the carbon dioxide that spews from coal-burning power plants and pump it back into the ground have hit roadblocks.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

Green Horizons, a division of property network Blue Horizons, is launching the GREEN Building Standard to allow prospective property buyers anywhere in the world identify whether that development is being built to the highest “green” standards.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

Climate change is fueling forest fires, creating water scarcity, harming animal habitats, and causing other significant changes throughout the United States that will only worsen as global temperatures increase, concludes a new federal government assessment of current and future climate change impacts.

The analysis, prepared by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), an inter-agency structure that coordinates climate research efforts across the federal government, reinforces the need for Congress to take action on climate change, according to officials at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Read the full story in the Christian Science Monitor.

Call this week’s global-warming debate in the Senate a marker in the sea change in public opinion on the issue – and a window on what the next Congress may do to curb carbon emissions.

The top presidential nominees in both parties back a cap-and-trade system to limit US emissions of greenhouse gases. President Bush opposes it, and the White House is expected to detail objections to the 494-page Senate bill on Monday.

While the debate that begins Monday on the Senate floor is unlikely to yield a bill Mr. Bush will sign, it is already realigning prospects for legislating in a new administration.

Read the full story at Environmental Leader.

IT hosting company Rackspace has announced it has completed the conversion of a former warehouse into its new data center that will receive its power from renewable energy sources from the UK’s largest dedicated biomass energy plant. Operated by Scottish and Southern Energy, the plant is a combined heat and power plant that uses wood chips, waste paper and fiber fuel to generate electricity, hot water and steam.

Read the full story at Environmental Leader.

Procter & Gamble’s sustainability initiatives include plans to cut its carbon footprint by as much as 40 percent by 2012, in part by cutting the size of its packaging, BrandWeek reports. The company recently announced plans to generate at least $20 billion in cumulative sales of products with reduced environmental impact over the next five years.

Len Sauers, P&G’s VP of sustainability, says the company can make the greatest contribution to environmental sustainability by developing “sustainable innovation products,” the environmental profiles of which have been improved with no trade-offs.

Read the full story in ComputerWorld.

Like her CIO peers, Washington Mutual’s Deborah Horvath has that unfiltered, end-to-end view of her company’s operations that all IT executives possess.

To her credit (and perhaps as a result of her accumulated experience), Horvath is drawing on every bit of that enterprise-wide visibility to help her in another critical role she plays at Washington Mutual: chairing the bank’s burgeoning environmental council’s efforts to cut its carbon emissions, reduce power costs and become a greener business.

Read the full story at Environmental Leader.

Companies realize that environmental initiatives can create great PR, but they’re also realizing that those initiatives must be profitable in order for them to be sustainable over the long term –especially with the economy threatening CSR budgets.

“Innovation software” companies like Invention Machine and Imaginatik help manufacturing companies develop clever ways to make their products more environmentally friendly without killing their cost structure, CNET reports.

Download the publication.

Green IT has become one of the fastest-growing trends in IT today, across all sectors and levels of government. Examining the ways in which state CIOs can become involved in shaping and promoting green IT practices and policies, this brief explores the critical role that state CIOs play in reducing their state’s carbon footprint. Featuring examples of successful green IT initiatives in state enterprise practices today, this brief highlights the many ways in which states are managing their IT hardware as well as utilizing technology to reduce their carbon footprint. With the states taking the lead in many aspects of green efforts nationwide, state CIOs have an opportunity to move the green benefits of an initiative to the forefront of strategic thinking and project planning, and this brief provides several starting points from which state CIOs can begin on the path to incorporate green IT efforts into their enterprise practices.

For a full-color, graphic version of this newsletter, go to
http://www.climatebiz.com/enewsletters/2008/climatebiz/index.html.

Dean Foods Explores Turning Cow Waste to Energy
http://climatebiz.com/node/24666
Dairy giant Dean Foods Co. plans to turn animal waste from its thousands of cows into renewable energy for the local power grid. The move will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and generate carbon and renewable energy credits.

Bay Area Regulators Approve Carbon Tax For Businesses
http://climatebiz.com/node/24537
Bay Area businesses are set to become some of the first in the nation to pay a tax on the amount of carbon dioxide they produce. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District voted Wednesday to charge businesses 4.4 cents per ton of CO2 emissions in a plan that could help shape the state?s impending greenhouse gas emissions rules.

A.P. Moller-Maersk Aims for Lower Emissions
http://www.climatebiz.com/news/2008/05/28/ap-moller-maersk-aims-lower-emissions
The world’s largest container shipping fleet cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 3 percent in 2007, and plans to slash emissions another 10 percent by 2012.

Legislators Push Forward Bills on Alternative Energy, Cleaner Ships, State Emissions Limits
http://climatebiz.com/node/24572
Members of the U.S. House and Senate have taken action on bills that would extend millions of dollars in alternative energy tax credits, require large ships to use cleaner fuel and allow states to set their own tailpipe emissions limits.

Voluntary Emissions Reporting Program Launches in Brazil
http://climatebiz.com/node/24453
Wal-Mart Brasil is among the 12 companies to initially take part in the Brazilian Greenhouse Gas Protocol Program.

Sustainable Operations Summit Offers High-Level Tools for Green Strategies
http://climatebiz.com/node/24529
Facility management, supply chain evaluations and carbon offset strategies were just some of the topics on offer at the second Sustainable Operations Summit this week, which brought together business and civic leaders with industry experts to share success stories and cutting-edge ideas in reducing businesses’ environmental impacts.

Point Carbon Creates North American Carbon Project Database
http://climatebiz.com/node/24412
Carbon Project Manager North America brings together information on more than 500 greenhouse gas reduction projects.

Southern California Edison Proposes Early Action Climate Projects
http://climatebiz.com/node/24319
Southern California Edison (SCE) has proposed a collection of voluntary greenhouse gas reduction projects ahead of the state’s final climate change rules that are due in 2012. SCE expects the California Air Resources Board will reward the company for the early action under a provision of the state’s climate change bill.

Wine Group Swaps Glass Bottles for Bag-in-Box Packaging
http://www.climatebiz.com/node/24766
The mass-produced Almaden and Inglenook wines will switch from the familiar three- and four-liter glass jugs to lightweight Bag-in-Box (BIB) packaging. The Wine Group said Wednesday that swapping the glass jugs for BIB packaging would reduce the brands’ carbon footprint by 60 percent and avoid some 11 million pounds of packaging waste.

EPS Corp Unveils Tracking System for Facility Energy, Carbon Emissions
http://climatebiz.com/node/24261
The energy and carbon management company’s new monitoring system gives manufacturers a detailed look at emissions from products and facilities.

Patents for Crop Genes Tolerant of Climate Change Tops 530
http://climatebiz.com/node/24247
A report on patents related to “climate-ready” crops looks at which companies are filing the patents and how such crops, while providing food in extreme conditions, could hurt certain countries and people.

Helping Companies Move from a Jog to a Sprint in the Climate Race
By Emma Stewart
http://www.climatebiz.com/node/23636
Hobbled by a lack of ways to navigate the dizzying array of options for taking action and facing geopolitical challenges beyond their influence, the business world faces many hurdles to success, but there are some easy solutions to give companies a boost.

Exxon, the Rockefellers, and the Future of Big Oil
By Joel Makower
http://greenbiz.com/column/2008/05/05/exxon-rockefellers-and-future-big-oil
The Rockefeller family has made an historic challenge to Exxon Mobil Corp., the company founded by John D. Rockefeller in 1870 (as Standard Oil), and in which dozens of family members still hold stock. The challenge came in the form of a shareholder resolution to require an independent chairman of Exxon’s board of directors, so that the company can better maximize long-term shareholder value in a rapidly changing energy environment.

The Search for Clean Coal
From Globe-Net.com
http://climatebiz.com/feature/2008/05/28/the-search-clean-coal
Although progress has been slow up to now, many companies and countries around the world are wholeheartedly pursuing technologies that can make the most abundant fossil fuel more environmentally and socially beneficial, and working to keep “clean coal” from remaining an oxymoron.

Methane Capture and Use — Waste Management Workbook
http://climatebiz.com/node/16514
This online workbook offers extensive information on methane capture and use for those involved in the management of solid waste, municipal wastewater, or industrial wastewater. Appendices feature best practices from Australia and beyond.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

The West Coast’s metropolitan areas had among the lowest carbon emissions per capita in the country in 2005, according to a new ranking of 100 urban areas.

Read the full story at News.com.

General Electric is pledging to lower its water use 20 percent by 2012 and is boosting its revenue target for environmentally oriented products.