So the World Bank, in line with the United Nation’s Millenium Development Goals has the twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared properity. More recently this has included a stronger focus on environmental and social sustainability, which has resulted in a newly released set of global reporting indicators to assist in reading their 2014 Sustainability Review. Continue reading World Bank ups the stakes on Sustainability Reporting
As a way of kickstarting the year, Tony Boyd and Michael Smith of the Australian Financial Review decided to survey some of Australia’s top CEO’s from banking, resources, media, property, insurance, infrastructure and retail to find out their predictions for 2015. The questions asked are Continue reading What our top CEO’s think about sustainability, energy and women in the workplace.
Mining companies are the scapegoats of many eco-warriors and sustainability supporters, but Newmont Mining is one example of a resources giant that is making a difference environmentally, and in our Asia Pacific region. From 1996, the US company operated a gold asset under the local entity PT Newmont Minahasa Raya (PTNMT) on the Minahassa Peninsula on the northern Sulawesi island of Indonesia. The mineable gold deposit depleted and the asset subsequently closed in 2010, with the remediated land handed over to the Indonesian Government in January 2011. Continue reading Newmont’s Indonesian gold mine to become a botanical garden
There are three articles that have come out in the last fortnight, written by our friends at the Australian Financial Review. Whilst there are always numerous articles on various markets, employment law discrepancies and the like, these three articles all focus quite heavily on the changing nature of work not just in Australia, but around the world. More and more we are seeing transitions from labour intensity to automation; hardware to software; cubicles to flexible workspaces. Continue reading Uber, Phocas & 99Designs: Forging a new path for Aussie business.
A new TED Talk just released (above) brings us the story of Brazil’s fight against deforestation, and shows us how the lessons learned can be applied to global climate change mitigation. Filmed late last year, the talk is presented by Tasso Azevedo, the man responsible for spearheading Brazil’s anti-deforestation operations, who now works internationally on global climate change and reforestation efforts. Continue reading TED Talks: Five climate change lessons from the Amazon
Earlier this week we talked about Australia’s energy mix in the context of the global renewables market, but it’s important in this conversation to understand our own energy market. Currently our renewable electricity generation stands at 14.76% of total output, and the breakdown of that mix is below:
Australia’s total electricity consumption stands at 213,500 Gigawatt hours (GWh). Renewable energy accounts for 34,750 GWh of this, producing enough power for 4.9 million households for a year (2013 figures). Hydro, wind and solar PV will be the focus of our discussion as they make up 93% of our current renewable output. Continue reading What you need to know about Australia’s clean energy
The beginning of a new year is as good a time as any to take stock of where we are as a nation and see how our fledgeling renewable energy industry stacks up against other countries’ markets. This is a difficult comparison to make, given the vast differences in geography, population, development and technological capability that we find across our globe. To paint a more rounded picture, we will look at the general state of renewable energy amongst the top 20 nations, ranked by Nominal GDP
(for this discussion we are using nominal GDP as it doesn’t take into account inflation – something that would have a volatile effect if we were reviewing GDP over a period of time rather than at just its current value).
In this ranking from the World Bank, Australia’s GDP is ranked 12th, making us relatively on par with Canada and Spain, who are, as it turns out, model bedfellows. Renewables (particularly hydro power) contribute 16.9% of Canada’s total energy supply, whilst accounting for a whopping 59% of its electricity generation. Spain paints a similar picture, with around 50% of its electricity coming from renewables, predominantly hydro and wind power (2013 figures).
So how does Australia sit comparative to its global neighbours? Continue reading Global Renewable Energy: How does Australia stack up?
2014 is almost over, and here at SustainingPeople we’ve been absolutely humbled by a following of over 500 people in 59 countries around the world! Thank you all for your support – we truly appreciate your interest, and your comments throughout the year have enabled us to bring higher quality information for your digestion. And, given that 500 followers is somewhat of a milestone, we’ve decided to give our little corner of the internet a small facelift – more of nice spa treatment really – some touch ups here and there, with the most noticeable being a new logo and feature image. The photo was taken by a local artist, and friend of SustainingPeople, Tom Rodgers. It depicts the Stirling Ranges in Western Australia in all their glory, and you can see more of his fantastic work at the Tom Rodgers Photography website. Continue reading SustainingPeople’s year in review
This time of year is Christmas time for many of us, and here at SustainingPeople, we love nothing more than sitting back with our loved ones, and eating all manner of delicious treats. We understand that it’s now after Christmas and that we should’ve stopped eating, however that is no fun at all so we are still inhaling turkey and fruit mince pies. It is in this food induced delirium, that we have decided to take a break from our normal content to bring you something rather silly and completely unrelated: Dogs at a christmas Dinner Party.
So in the name of the festive season and in giving our poor writers a break, please enjoy the above short christmassy film about 12 dogs, and one cat enjoying all the trappings of a lovely Christmas Dinner.
Enjoy!
Wikepedia is a wonderful tool that most of us have come across in our day to day lives. It is the new information tool of the masses, regulated and edited by the Wikemedia Foundation staff, and society at large. We use it for research and more often than not, to settle arguments – confounding friends and enemies with unbelievable facts and weird wisdom. Continue reading Why Wikipedia isn’t just for winning arguments and last minute reports
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