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View Inc. aims to improve B.C. hotel guests’ health

3 years ago

The Versante hotel in Richmond, B.C. has installed View Inc.’s smart windows in hopes of improving the health and wellbeing of its occupants. As the hospitality industry recovers from COVID-19, hoteliers are implementing more health and safety measures.

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After more than two years since its adoption, the first national sustainability standard for the $2.5 trillion-a-year professional services sector is moving a step closer to embracing a formal certification process with the launch of a pilot program.

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The pace of climate change has not been slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Nations said. The virus-related economic downturn caused only a temporary decrease in CO2 emissions, which was not enough to reverse rising GHG levels.

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A joint report by BloombergNEF and Schneider Electric entitled Realizing the Potential of Customer-Sited Solar found 167 million households and 23 million businesses worldwide could host their own clean power generation, exceeding 2,000 gigawatts of solar and 1,000 gigawatt-hours of energy storage, by 2050.

Energy Profiles

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Amazon has hired Twitter executive, Candi Castleberry Singleton, as vice president of global diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), according to a staff memo it shared with Reuters. Singleton’s responsibilities will include increasing women in senior tech roles by 30 per cent.

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Climate Action Network International petitioned organizers of the COP26 Climate Change Conference to postpone the summit because many of the countries most affected by climate change have the least access to the COVID-19 vaccine.

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The Pembina Institute has launched the Women in the Energy Transition program, which will investigate the barriers and opportunities for women in energy, kicking off with a dialogue in partnership with GLOBE Series called Women in Energy Transformation.

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Desjardins Group, North America’s largest financial services co-operative, is considering a sale of sustainable bonds in the U.S. after its debut ESG debt sale in Canada priced at lower interest rates than its conventional debt.

Sustainable Biz Canada

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Several companies plan to launch IPOs this fall. However, investors who pay attention to certain media outlets might have gotten the impression these stock-selling charlatans — with their eco sneakers and their hippie yogurt — are out to hoodwink them.

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Global reporting standardization could help mitigate investor concerns about ESG greenwashing in relation to green bonds, according to S&P Global. The financial information provider believes sustainable bond issuance, including green, social, sustainability and sustainability-linked bonds, could exceed $1 trillion in 2021.

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Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, the committee’s chairwoman and Representative Ro Khanna, who leads the subcommittee on the environment, sent letters to major oil companies regarding having potentially mislead the public on the role of fossil fuels in causing global warming.

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Incumbent energy providers are cleverly focusing on the upfront expense of clean technologies, playing into a meme that climate tech options are luxuries of the elite. Meanwhile, they are locking consumers into appliances that require their inefficient, volatile fuels forever.

RealREIT

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PepsiCo will cut back on the use of virgin plastic and expand its SodaStream sparkling-water business to more markets amid growing calls from consumers, clients and climate change advocates to combat plastic waste.

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SC Johnson has teamed up with Liverpool Football Club to create a closed-loop recycling model for the more than 500,000 plastic bottles used at the team’s Anfield Stadium each season. SCJ will recycle the plastic into new Mr. Muscle bottles.

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Ocean Cleanup hopes to clear 90 per cent of plastic from the world’s oceans by 2040. But it anticipates removing only 20,000 tonnes a year from the North Pacific, a small fraction of the 11 million tonnes of plastic flowing annually into the oceans.

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In the U.K., “producer responsibility regulations” are in place for items including electronics, batteries and vehicles. Manufacturers pass the clean-up cost to customers. So why don’t we have similar laws for managing carbon-dioxide discharge? Oxford University thinks we should.

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Global industrial heat production accounts for 29 per cent of all energy consumed by end users like homes, industries, and agriculture. Almost one-third of human energy consumption goes to making things hot, on an industrial scale.

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The total amount of oil produced in the first half of 2021 was lower than in the first half of 2020, according to new data from the International Energy Agency. Legacy firms now want to forge partnerships to achieve net-zero goals.

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A new standard has been established to outline what credible net-zero strategies looks like for the oil and gas sector, in a bid to help investors benchmark fossil fuel firms’ climate plans and assess which to include in net-zero portfolios.

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Chevron Corp. pledged to triple its investments to $10 billion to reduce its carbon emissions footprint through 2028, while saying it was not yet ready to commit to a 2050 net-zero emissions target. Half of Chevron’s spending will curb fossil fuel project emissions.

Industry Events