AGENDA: What the Frack? How Your Investments Can Impact the Fracking Industry

Sustainable Impact Investment Advisors, a professional association of investment advisors whose practices focus on sustainable and socially responsible investing, sponsored a panel conversation on hydraulic fracking. A panel of experts, including industry representatives and grass roots opponents, discussed the pros and cons of fracking. The panel provided an overview of fracking, and food for thought about whether you choose to include this industry in your investments, or influence companies to use this technology with only the utmost care

AGENDA: What the Frack? How Your Investments Can Impact the Fracking Industry

Sustainable Impact Investment Advisors, a professional association of investment advisors whose practices focus on sustainable and socially responsible investing, sponsored a panel conversation on hydraulic fracking. A panel of experts, including industry representatives and grass roots opponents, discussed the pros and cons of fracking. The panel provided an overview of fracking, and food for thought about whether you choose to include this industry in your investments, or influence companies to use this technology with only the utmost care

Strategies for Transitioning to Low-Carbon Emission Trucks in the United States

DTRT13-G-UTC29This white paper reviews previous studies on prospects for reducing CO2 emissions from trucks. It provides a new investigation into the feasibility of achieving an 80% reduction in CO2-equivalent (CO2e) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States and California from trucks by 2050. The authors assess the technological and economic potential of achieving deep market penetrations of low-carbon vehicles and fuels, including vehicles operating on electricity, hydrogen, and biofuels. Achieving such a target for trucks will be very challenging and, if focused on hydrogen and electric zero emission vehicle (ZEV) technologies, will require strong sales growth beginning no later than 2025

Considerations for Climate Change and Variability Adaptation on the Navajo Nation

[6], 204 p. : color illustrations, color mapshttps://scholar.law.colorado.edu/books_reports_studies/1002/thumbnail.jp

Considerations for Climate Change and Variability Adaptation on the Navajo Nation

[6], 204 p. : color illustrations, color mapshttps://scholar.law.colorado.edu/books_reports_studies/1002/thumbnail.jp

Evaluating the Use of a Carbon Footprint Calculator : Communicating Impacts of Consumption at Household Level and Exploring Mitigation Options

Through an increasingly globalized supply chain, local consumption of goods and services has impacts around the world. The carbon footprint can be used to link local consumption to global greenhouse gas emissions. This study describes the development and use of REAP Petite, a household-level footprint calculator. We describe how the tool integrates geodemographic information with user-inputted data; allows users to compare their footprint with others in their community; and presents them with targeted pledges to help them reduce their impact. Such tools can help individuals to see the impact their consumption has on emissions and help promote alternative behaviors. Based on the lessons learned during tool development and through using the tool with individuals in the UK and Sweden, we make recommendations for the development of new footprinting tools for use in the public domain. We highlight the benefits of using bottom-up methods for calculating footprints; recommend that designers consider future-proofing their tools; discuss the trade-off between complexity and usability; and recommend that designers consider going “beyond carbon” to increase the appeal of tools to a wider audience. We also highlight the importance of providing opportunity for users to compare their footprints with those of others and of monitoring and evaluating user engagement with the tool

Considerations for reducing food system energy demand while scaling up urban agriculture

There is an increasing global interest in scaling up urban agriculture (UA) in its various forms, from private gardens to sophisticated commercial operations. Much of this interest is in the spirit of environmental protection, with reduced waste and transportation energy highlighted as some of the proposed benefits of UA; however, explicit consideration of energy and resource requirements needs to be made in order to realize these anticipated environmental benefits. A literature review is undertaken here to provide new insight into the energy implications of scaling up UA in cities in high-income countries, considering UA classification, direct/indirect energy pressures, and interactions with other components of the food–energy–water nexus. This is followed by an exploration of ways in which these cities can plan for the exploitation of waste flows for resource-efficient UA. Given that it is estimated that the food system contributes nearly 15% of total US energy demand, optimization of resource use in food production, distribution, consumption, and waste systems may have a significant energy impact. There are limited data available that quantify resource demand implications directly associated with UA systems, highlighting that the literature is not yet sufficiently robust to make universal claims on benefits. This letter explores energy demand from conventional resource inputs, various production systems, water/energy trade-offs, alternative irrigation, packaging materials, and transportation/supply chains to shed light on UA-focused research needs. By analyzing data and cases from the existing literature, we propose that gains in energy efficiency could be realized through the co-location of UA operations with waste streams (e.g. heat, CO2, greywater, wastewater, compost), potentially increasing yields and offsetting life cycle energy demands relative to conventional approaches. This begs a number of energy-focused UA research questions that explore the opportunities for integrating the variety of UA structures and technologies, so that they are better able to exploit these urban waste flows and achieve whole-system reductions in energy demand. Any planning approach to implement these must, as always, assess how context will influence the viability and value added from the promotion of UA