Category Archives: Resource Based Economy

ByChris Farrell, Next Avenue

An Age Friendly Workplace Initiative workshop for the Logan County Economic Development Corp.

Enjoyed a meal with friends at a restaurant recently? Booked a trip for your summer vacation? You don't need government data to see that the economy is gathering momentum with the Covid-19 vaccine rollout; Wall Street and Corporate America are exuding confidence about it. Yet not everyone shares their optimism, including experienced workers with good reason.

The question that haunts older workers is this: Will employers embrace them as things rebound or willageist stereotypesdeny them job opportunities?

A recent McKinsey & Co. report suggests many fear the latter. The consulting firm surveyed 25,000 Americans this spring and among the most unambiguous findings were that respondents believe age would negatively affect job prospects. Specifically, 61% of those 55 to 64 felt that way, as well as 54% of those 65+. That compares to 19% among those 25 to 34 and 38% for the 35 to 54 cohort.

Colorado offers "a good test market" to gauge employer willingness about hiring and keeping older workers, says Rochelle Salem, executive lead for strategic partnerships at Gavin Heath, a recruitment and talent acquisition services firm based in Denver.

The Rocky Mountain state boasts the nation's second fastest growth rate of people 65 +, a combination of ones aging in place and retirees moving there. One-in-four Coloradans 65 and older were in the labor market before the pandemic.

And Colorado stands out for the infrastructure it built in recent years on the foundation of convincing employers about thevalue of experienced workers. As in many states during the pre-pandemic economic expansion, employers in Colorado back then increasingly complained about the lack of qualified workers. So, private foundations, nonprofits and Governor Jared Polis' office responded by making the business case to employers to retain and hire experienced workers.

This older-worker ecosystem went into suspension during the pandemic, but it remains in place.

"Unlike states that focused more on long-term care and health care and other traditional aging topics, here we had a focus on workforce," says Janine Vanderburg, head of Changing the Narrative, a campaign to alter the way people think, talk and act about aging and ageism. "I am optimistic that despite post-pandemic worries, Colorado will be in the forefront of older workers."

Her optimism reflects insights from a tantalizing moment just before the nation went into Covid-19 lockdown.

On February 27, 2020, the nonprofit Transamerica Institute hosted aconference in Denver showcasing best practices for recruiting and retaining experienced employees. It presented research findings from the Colorado's Above-Fifty Employment Strategies (CAFES) initiative led by Brian Kaskie, a professor in the College of Public Health at the University of Iowa.

Polis opened the event and local human resource professionals, corporate executives and others interested in older workers attended.

At the time, employer interest was largely driven by one economic reality: the state's then low unemployment rate of 2.4%. Employers needed workers.

"They were saying, 'I have jobs, where do I find these older workers?'" recalls Karen Brown, CEO at iAging, a Denver consulting firm. Adds Catherine Collinson, CEO and president of the Transamerica Institute: "I felt we were on the brink of greatness."

Then the pandemic hit, the state's economy pretty much shut down and, naturally, employer interest in hiring experienced workers vaporized.

In addition, the CAFES study found that even before Covid-19, an aging workforce wasn't high on the list of concerns of business leaders and human resource departments. Only about half the organizations surveyed had programs allowing employees to retire and then come back to work part-time; very few offered phased retirement.

"No policy or program has caught fire [among employers]," says Kaskie. "They're dipping their toe in the water."

But there may be an opening now to change employer perspectives about older workers in Colorado and around the country.

Many organizations have been struggling to create a more diverse and welcoming work environment. These efforts gained primacy with the harsh spotlight the pandemic pointed at long-simmering inequities, as well as the social unrest unleashed after the murder of George Floyd by a former Minneapolis police officer.

"We're having a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) moment in the workplace," says Kaskie. "We want to bring age into that too."

Adds Dan Steele, chief operating officer and president of Gavin Heath: "The last couple of years, the push with DEI has been helpful."

Stories matter. Amplifying the positive business impact of older workers can help persuade other employers to see the potential from having older workers on the payroll.

Collinson highlights the example of Home Instead, a global caregiving franchise company headquartered in Omaha, Neb. that's been supportive of efforts to change the older worker narrative. It's built retaining and hiring older workers into the firm's business model and strategic planning.

About one-third of Home Instead's caregiving workforce is 60 and older. (Five generations work at corporate headquarters in Omaha.)

"We're employing very diverse people, including older adults," says Jisella Dolan, global chief advocacy officer for Home Instead. "Ageism is the last frontier of diversity, equity and inclusion that has to be eradicated."

Along these lines, Kaskie and Collinson and her team took advantage of the pandemic slowdown to work on a new online employer platform highlighting the business case for hiring experienced employees and showcasing age-inclusive management strategies employers can use to compete for talent. Its Age Inclusive Management Strategies in Colorado conference is on June 17, 2021. (Bonus alert: author and Next Avenue columnist Kerry Hannon is the keynote speaker.)

Still, the value of Colorado's older-worker infrastructure in making a genuine difference going forward largely depends on employment growth. With a low unemployment rate, management will likely realize it can either lose business or embrace experienced workers.

That was certainly the case in early 2020, when Colorado employers became increasingly receptive to arguments about the value of experienced workers as a way to help solve their labor shortage worries.

Despite the uncertainty inherent in any economic forecast, odds are that employment growth will be strong in 2021 and next year (if not longer) in Colorado and around the country.

"I believe the economy will come roaring back," says Collinson. "To fill positions, employers will embrace the business opportunity of the older worker and the power of the multigenerational workforce."

We'll see. Many employers still haven't adjusted to the aging of the population and the workforce and ageism remains powerful.

Fingers crossed that the learning curve during the economic expansion will be shorter in Colorado, thanks to the older-worker ecosystem. Success in Colorado could then help change the experienced worker dynamic elsewhere and fast.

Original post:

How Colorado Is Tackling Age Diversity In The Workforce - Forbes

Shamsul Alam | Published: June 04, 2021 20:13:07

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, were set by the United Nations in 2015. SDGs are considered the universal calls for ensuring that each person in every corner of the world relishes the benefit of development and lives in peace and prosperity. UN member states have adopted the SDGs and recognised the need for a balance among social, economic, and environmental sustainability. The countries have pledged to "Leave No One Behind" and fast-track progress for those furthest behind first. SDGs are intended to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all, address the challenges our world and the people in it face every day. These goals bring the world to several life-changing zeros, including zero poverty, hunger, discrimination against women and girls etc. There is no doubt that these are ambitious targets in every context and thus, the creativity, know-how, technology, and financial resources from all of society will be necessitated to achieve them.

Bangladesh, as a signatory of the Global Agenda for Sustainable Development, is committed to achieving the SDGs by 2030. The country, as an active contributor to the global discourse for implementing SDGs, is continuously putting efforts into achieving its sustainable development aspirations. It has taken two important steps towards implementing the SDGs. First, the Government of Bangladesh (GoB), for better policy guidance, has completed all the preparatory works such as integration of SDGs in the national plan, mapping of ministries and divisions, SDGs M&E framework, SDGs financing strategy, SDGs action plan, and 39+1 national priority indicators. Second, the country is working on disseminating the produced knowledge among the relevant stakeholders and implementing SDGs at the local level. These are expected to be the important building blocks for achieving the SDGs.

Nevertheless, there are two major challenges in achieving SDGs in Bangladesh. One is to engage related stakeholders in the process of materialising SDGs. To overcome this challenge and recognising the fact that SDGs are overarching, the GoB has adopted the "whole of society" approach and involved the private sector, NGOs, CSOs, think-tanks, academia, and the media in the implementation of SDGs. Besides, the General Economics Division (GED) of Bangladesh Planning Commission has developed an SDG Localisation Framework. The primary aspiration of SDGs, Leave No One Behind, remains at the core of this framework. The framework offers a set of strategies that will enable the local government institutions to take part in the process of local implementation of SDGs in Bangladesh. It also provides an opportunity for the local people to participate in the accomplishment of the SDGs at the grassroots level. At the same time, the localisation process also relates to how the SDGs can provide a framework for local development policy.

Another notable challenge for Bangladesh is to mobilise resources to finance SDG implementation. Lack of resources can burden realising the SDGs in Bangladesh. The "SDG Financing Strategy: Bangladesh Perspective" prepared by the General Economic Division (GED) of the Planning Commission estimates that Bangladesh will need an additional USD 928.48 billion for attaining the SDGs during the implementation period. According to the same report, on average, 85.1 per cent of the financing should come from domestic sources where 42.1 per cent will be financed by the private sector. The public sector will require to contribute 33.5 per cent to the total financing.

The effectual implementation of the 'whole of society' approach with a special focus on private sector investment by the government and expansion of the economy's tax base will play a critical role in reducing financial gap for SDGs implementation. However, as the implementation of SDGs goes forward, just stimulating growth in private investment will not be enough. Bangladesh will need to learn from the successful experiences of other countries and put efforts into designing innovative financing strategies for managing and mobilising required resources from public and private sources.

Bangladesh has lately introduced some innovative solutions to create incentives, especially for the private sector, to promote financing for inclusive development. For example, the country has introduced the Shariah-based bond "Sukuk" in December 2020 as a new investment tool to promote Islamic finance and attract local and foreign direct investment. The purpose of the Sukuk is to raise BDT 80 billion to implement a safe water supply project titled "Safe Water Supply for the Whole Country".

Bangladesh has also approved its first green bond to finance environment-friendly projects including renewables. Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) has already approved a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) named Sajida Foundation to raise money from the capital market by issuing green bonds. The bond will be issued to institutional investors, insurance companies, corporate entities, and prosperous individuals through private placement. The value of the bond is BDT 1 billion for a tenure of two years. The fund raised from the green bond will be used to enhance the micro-credit operations and ensure environmental development.

Though there is still a long way to go, the bond market in Bangladesh is taking a shape. There is an appetite for new types of bonds in the market. A recent example is the introduction of the Sukuk bond in the country which has been oversubscribed by almost 4 times. The excess liquidity in the banking sector, relatively higher rate of return, and risk-free investment as the rate of return is fixed for the next five years have produced huge interest among investors for Sukuk bonds. Despite some apprehensions, introducing Sukuk was a timely initiative by the government. It should encourage the introduction of more bonds of new kinds to meet the long-term financing needs of the country. In a true sense, it is high time for emboldening the private sector, particularly big corporate companies to come forward with the issuance of "sustainable bonds" to raise funds.

Sustainable bonds promote environmental sustainability and the socio-economic development of a country since the funds raised from sustainable bonds are used to support the financing of specific projects related to climate change, environment, or social goals. There has been a surge in sustainable bonds in recent years. Global sustainable investing assets are now valued at more than USD 30 trillion-- an increase of 34 per cent over the last two years. However, the blue bond is the newest member of the sustainable bond family which finances projects related to ocean conservation.

Around 71 per cent of the earth's surface is the ocean. Billions of people rely on the oceans resources for their livings. The annual value of the ocean is estimated to be USD 1.5 trillion per year. Therefore, blue economy is receiving growing importance and gaining momentum amongst policymakers all over the world. In the coming days, innovative financing solutions will be essential to explore the ocean - a significant wealth generator and in this case, blue finance, especially blue bonds, have huge potential. It is anticipated that the success of green bonds in the capital markets will create a blueprint for the nascent blue bond market.

The Republic of Seychelles launched the world's first sovereign blue bond in 2018 to raise a total of USD 15 million to implement the small island state's sustainable blue economy plan. Nordic Investment Bank, the international financial institution of the Nordic and Baltic countries, launched a "Nordic Sea Blue Bond" in January 2019 to raise USD 200 million to protect and rehabilitate the Baltic sea. The fund will be spent on wastewater treatment, prevention of water pollution, and water-related climate change adaptation projects. Moreover, Morgan Stanley, working with the World Bank sold USD 10 million worth of blue bonds in April 2019 intending to solve the challenge of plastic waste pollution in oceans.

Bangladesh has great potentials in respect of the blue economy. The country's coastal and marine ecosystem resources can be used in increasing food security, creating jobs, alleviating poverty, reducing inequality, lifting trade and industrial profiles whilst at the same time conserving biodiversity, protecting the coasts and oceans as well as the health, livelihoods, and welfare of the people in the coastal zone. There are huge scopes for ocean-based economic activities in Bangladesh. Fisheries, shipping, and coastal tourism are the traditional use of coastal and ocean resources in the country while there are also new sectors like offshore gas exploration, salt production, and offshore renewable energy.

Bangladesh has taken initiative for huge industrial expansion in the coastal region including coal power plant, deep-sea port, and LPG-LNG terminal. The blue economy concept features prominently as a policy objective in the country's 8thFive Year Plan and Delta Plan 2100 of Bangladesh to support the country's economic development. To help deliver on the objective, the government established a new department called "Blue Economy Cell" in 2017, with a mandate to coordinate across sectoral ministries to better chart a path toward sustainable development of the ocean resources and answer key questions about the implementation of the medium-term development plans.

The old and new sectors of ocean use have a great prospect for innovation and growth. Nonetheless, estimating the value of the blue economy will be important in realizing its full potential. Unfortunately, there is no accurate estimate on the contribution of ocean-linked economic activities in Bangladesh following the methods prescribed in the System of the National Account (SNA). An estimate shows that the value of the blue economy in Bangladesh was USD 6.2 billion or around 3 per cent of GDP in 2014-15 ((P.G. Patil et al, 2018). This value was derived mainly from tourism and recreation, fisheries and aquaculture, transport, and energy. It seems that the estimate is based on guestimate and as a result, it undervalues the contribution of the blue economy in the country.

Bangladesh will need large investment to promote a sustainable blue economy. Experiences of other countries show that long development financing is served through fixed income securities or bonds. The world has experienced a surge in green or sustainable bonds, in particular, in the last 10 years. With an increase of 34 per cent over the last two years, global sustainable investing assets are now valued at more than USD 30 trillion. However, the country should use blue investments financed through blue bonds -- a relatively new type of sustainable bond at promoting the implementation and achievement of SDGs, specifically SDG 14 (Life below water) and related SDGs (i.e. 1,2, 6, 8, 10, 13, and 15), that contribute to the good governance of the ocean and coastal habitats, deliver long term value to marine and coastal ecosystems, reduce carbon emissions and strengthen resilient livelihoods of people who depend on oceans and their resources in a changing climate. Blue bonds will propound an opportunity to mobilise the private sector capital to support the blue economy.

Recent consultation with the relevant state and non-state stakeholders reveals that Bangladesh will require to emphasise on new innovative financing strategies to engage the private sector in financing the SDGs. In this regard, the blue bond can be an innovative tool to finance public investment in projects related to ocean and marine that will ultimately contribute to environmental sustainability, employment generation, poverty alleviation, and reducing inequality in Bangladesh. Nevertheless, the blue bond is a new concept, and thus, there is a lack of aeareness and expertise in this area. Knowledge products and more discussion will be required to sensitise the relevant stakeholders on this issue to explore the full potential of blue economy in the country.

GED, with support from the "Strengthening Institutional Capacity for SDGs Achievement in Bangladesh (SC4SDG)" project of UNDP Bangladesh and UNEP-PEA4SDGs, has recently conducted an important study on "Assessing the Feasibility of Instituting Blue Bond in the Bond Market of Bangladesh". GED, through this study, has endeavoured to understand the possibility of promoting the blue economy in Bangladesh through the issuance of blue bonds. The blue economy and its prospect, bond market, suitability of bond financing, and likelihood for releasing a blue bond in Bangladesh along with mapping the pathway of releasing such a bond have been evaluated in this study.

The study has attempted to project the value of blue economy in Bangladesh. Since there is no accurate estimate available for Bangladesh and there is a lack of data on the blue economy, it is tough to project the future potentials of blue economy. However, there have been efforts to introduce assessment of the blue economy through developing the "Blue Economy Satellite Account"(BESA) - a method proposed in the SNA. It fits well with the SNA endorsed national account measurements such as the Supply and Use Table (SUT) and Input-Output Table (IOT).

The study has considered three scenarios for the Bangladesh Blue Economy (BBE). They are - BBE will grow at (i) 5 per cent, (ii) 8 per cent, and (iii) 10 per cent rates. Under these three scenarios, projections have been made up to 2035. The calculation shows that the size of BBE can be between USD 12.9 billion to USD 25.9 billion in 2035. The study has also tried to estimate the required investment for the three scenarios since one of the key preconditions of 5 to 10 per cent growth rates of BBE is to invest in the BBE. The results show that Bangladesh will need to invest between USD 2.45 billion to USD 7.22 billion annually during the years 2021-2035.

Harnessing the blue economy is a costly venture and thus, will require a huge investment in projects with time-bound completion and clear outcomes. There is a demand for development financing in Bangladesh. However, the current model of development financing with excessive reliance on the banking sector may not be suitable for long-term investment needs. Thus, Bangladesh must adopt a strategy to mobilise funds through developing fixed-income securities or bonds. In this case, sustainable bonds - for instance blue bonds - should be a priority policy option for Bangladesh.

Several issues need to be addressed to carry forward the plan of a sustainable blue economy through sustainable financing, i.e., blue bonds. Due to the scarcity of data, there should be a comprehensive study on the Bangladesh Blue Economy (BBE) encompassing - setting the BBE vision and goals; defining the scope of the BBE; better valuation of the BBE; firmer projections of the BBE (in conformity with PP 2041 time frame) and additional resource requirements; and exploring financing options including the issuance of the blue bond. There is also a need for awareness and capacity building on the scopes and potentials of blue economy. This is not known to many local investors in Bangladesh. Thus, Bangladesh may conduct a survey on the future of the blue economy covering investors (mainly institutional investors), regulators, policymakers, environmentalists, and researchers. External companies and investors interested in sustainable projects should also be made aware of the potential of the blue economy in Bangladesh. Lastly, Bangladesh should gather first-hand knowledge from Seychelles or Indonesia in the areas of defining the blue economy, assessing the potential, addressing the barriers, and determining the institutional arrangements for promoting the BBE.

(The article is based on a recent study titled "Promoting Sustainable Blue Economy in Bangladesh through Sustainable Blue Bond: Assessing the Feasibility of Instituting Blue Bond in Bangladesh", conducted by GED with the technical and financial support from the SC4SDG project of UNDP Bangladesh and UNEP-PEA.)

Dr Shamsul Alam is Member (Senior Secretary), General Economics Division, Bangladesh Planning Commission.

[emailprotected]

Link:

Blue bond an inventive financing solution for blue economy - The Financial Express

In 2018, the UKs Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) recommended, along with other measures, a producer responsibility charge to pay for better clothing collection and recycling.

The Governments response included a statement about its Resources and Waste Strategy: We commit to take forward policy on EPR, eco-design product standards which could include requirements on micro-fibre shedding, and consumer information such as labelling.

British MPs criticise mountain of clothing waste

Government policy was to review and consult on measures for five new waste streams by the end of 2025. Textiles is one of the waste streams identified for consideration.

However, something has happened to revise this strategy. The new Environment Bill that is going through Parliament has a section on managing and separating waste.

For household collections, the identified recyclable waste streams are as follows: (a) glass; (b) metal; (c) plastic; (d) paper and card; (e) food waste; (f) garden waste. There is no mention of textiles, clothing or apparel.

It cannot be that the Government has forgotten that recycling textiles is a priority as, only recently, the UKs Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centres were launched, including the Textiles Circularity Centre. The other centres, addressing minerals, chemicals and metals, can interface with the household collection strategy but this is not the case for textiles.

Arguably, there is already a textile recycling industry in the UK. Textile banks and charity shops have been sources of textile materials, and several retailers now offer takeback schemes.

GlobalData's TMT Themes 2021 Report tells you everything you need to know about disruptive tech themes and which companies are best placed to help you digitally transform your business.

However, the textile recyclers are almost entirely focused on finding markets for second-hand garments. They collect and sort textile products, and sell them on wherever they can find markets.

Mechanical processing takes some of these textiles, but quantities are small. Other markets exist for wipers, but the profit margin is very low. This is an industry in decline, because barriers confronting exported wastes are increasing, and much of the higher value products are donated directly to charity shops.

Extending the life of a garment can be done in many ways: by repairing faults, by designing with more durable materials and construction techniques, by selling as a second-hand product, by swapping or passing on to others or to a charity shop or textile bank. Some have the skills needed to embellish the garment a form of upcycling. But is this the circular economy?

The key to understanding circularity is that materials are perceived as resources, and not wastes. Extending the life of a product is primarily an action advancing sustainability. To recognise circularity, we should ask what happens to the product when its second owner discards it?

At present, items deemed worthless are placed in a bin for general waste. Textile materials become soiled very easily, and they end up in landfill or in incineration. Consequently, consumers do not recognise unwanted textiles as resources.

There are numerous examples of mechanical processing to recover fibres, which can then be fabricated into new products such as felts to absorb sound and to provide insulation. There are examples of commercial garments that fully or partly incorporate recycled fibres.

However, these are all niche products for specialised markets and they do not have potential for addressing the mountain of textile wastes. They have a second life as alternative products, but are then disposed as wastes. How is it possible to convince consumers that textile materials can be a resource, and are worthy of disposing separately from the general waste?

There are a growing number of projects that have either set out to answer this question, or are intending to demonstrate the circular economy in textiles. There are several pilot plants for chemical processing in the UK, in Europe (Sweden, Finland, Slovenia), in the US and in Hong Kong.

In most of these plants, the goal is fibre-to-fibre recycling. As textile dyes are usually chemically active, progress has been slow. Often, the plant can handle undyed fibres but not consumer-waste textiles. Some work only with cotton; others limit the textile input to cotton and polyester fibres.

I was involved with the EU-funded Resyntex project, which took a much broader brush approach to the challenges facing circularity in textiles. Our target was to find a way of processing cellulosic, protein, polyester and polyamide fibres (over 95% of the waste mountain).

We used enzyme chemistry to depolymerise the fibres but we did not attempt to make new fibres. Rather, the aim was to make commodity feedstock products. This meant that the outputs had a value based on global markets, and as the markets changed with time, so the feedstocks produced could also be changed in response.

This concept leads to industrial symbiosis. The waste materials from one sector can be resources for other industrial sectors, and industries can collaborate to maximise the benefits and achieve commercial viability.

The most successful route involved protein fibres, which could be turned into an adhesive for laminating wood and forming chipboard. The only major problem was one of availability of materials: one which could be greatly helped by utilising household collections of textiles and automated sorting.

During the course of the Resyntex project, it was apparent that apparel retailers and their suppliers were more interested in fibre-to-fibre recycling.

My response to this was to remind them that new fibres have a gestation time longer than the four-year Resyntex project!

But what Resyntex would do was to debut a system that could then implement a fibre-to-fibre project. Recycled cellulosic fibres are of particular interest, as the environmental impact of growing cotton is substantial.

The EU plans to implement household collections of textiles by 2025. At present, there is no clear idea of what to do with these textiles after they are collected.

The Resyntex project has shown that technologies are in place to implement circularity. What we need from governments now is a strategy for launching national collections of the materials and encouragements to invest in the plant needed to mine this mountain.

About the author: David Tyler is Professor of Fashion Technologies at the Manchester Fashion Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Read more:

It's time to be realistic about the circular economy for textiles - just-style.com

At first glance the new stretch of motorway being built in the municipality of La Font de la Figuera near the Spanish city of Valencia looks like any other. But hidden secrets lie beneath its surface.

Thanks to pioneering tech, Spanish contractor Acciona is using paper ash to replace the cement that would normally go into the roads construction to improve durability.

"In road construction, we need the strongest materials. And for that, we usually use cement. This paper ash doesnt just look like cement. It meets all the technical requirements of cement, but its also more environmentally friendly," explains Acciona's R&D Project Manager, Juan Jose Cepria Pamplona.

Acciona believes using paper ash will enable it to significantly cut its carbon footprint.

"The potential impact of the project is enormous. We have calculated that we can save 65-75% of the associated CO2 emissions. And by 'scaling up' we could save up to 18,000 tonnes of cement per year, says Juan Jose.

But the benefit is not only carbon reduction. By using paper ash thats burnt waste paper and pulp that can no longer be recycled the company is turning rubbish, that would most likely end up in landfill, into a resource.

The motorway in La Font de la Figuera is one of three pilot projects, but Juan Jose says Acciona has big plans for the future.

Our intention is to scale up and to extend its [paper ash] use nationally and eventually replicate it internationally," he says.

Figures from 2014 show the sector - the worlds second-biggest had an annual production of 130 million tonnes. 11 million tonnes of that ended up as unrecycled waste.

Johan Elvnert is Secretary-General of the Forest-based Sector Technology Platform. He says Europe's paper and pulp industry is finding new ways to harness this by-product.

New technologies make it possible to reuse and recycle more. One good example is the paperChain project, but we see these kind of developments for everything, textiles, packaging, even non-materials and even fish food from the treatment water of pulp mills. So, the best is not to think of this as waste but a resource.

Elvnert concludes by saying: To get to a zero-waste circular economy we need to work together along the whole value chain. The EUs 2050 targets are very ambitious indeed. In the forest-based value chain, we have looked at how to get to a zero-waste circular society and we will work hard to make this agenda a reality, but support from the European Union is crucial.

European Green Deal

PaperChain Project

Acciona

Here is the original post:

The road to sustainability: the superhighway built from paper waste instead of cement - Euronews

Human capital important to help drive innovation forward, Dr. Tariq Bin Hendi says at Global Investment Forum 2021

The success of a knowledge-based economy lies in how well the entrepreneurial ecosystem allows for risk and experimentation, said Dr. Tariq Bin Hendi, director general of the Abu Dhabi Investment Office.

Speaking at the Global Investment Forum 2021, he briefed attendees on how the UAE had established itself as a leader in attracting highly successful entrepreneurs.

I think when you look at the public sector and its role in helping to drive innovation and technology, you also have to look at how nascent the market is, he said.

We have to de-risk the environment and the ecosystem to make sure that people want to experiment, and that the R&D that occurs as a result can drive innovation so you can ultimately create a knowledge-based economy.

He added: It is important to have capital, but you also have to have the human capital to help drive innovation forward; and the only way to bring that human capital here and to nurture it is to make sure that you keep driving the narrative and the actual delivery on the policies that you have set.

The facts, he said, are very clear. We receive the most amount of FDI in the Arab world. We are ranked number one in the region when it comes to entrepreneurship. As many of you that live here know, the focus has been very much on the balance between lives and livelihoods; how we protect our economy but also make sure that we protect the number one resource that we have, which is the people that call the UAE their home. All of our initiatives revolve around funding, de-risking, how we design the right policies and regulations, how we enable the environment, and how entrepreneurs can use the UAE as a base to grow their ideas, nurture them, and expand into the wider region.

Bin Hendi also stressed that technology is a means to an end, but that it is innovation that will drive the UAEs evolution as a country. He also noted that there are several issues that have to be addressed through partnerships; these include water scarcity, food security, and job creation for the youth.

Our leadership has taken steps to ensure that as we drive the adoption of technology and innovation to create a knowledge-based economy, we are creating new jobs for the new generation of job seekers, he said. A collective direction forward, with a focus on people, and diversifying the economy to make sure that it is robust and resilient is a recipe for success that the UAE has enjoyed. The recent 100 per cent foreign ownership law is a key milestone for our nation and a statement to the world that we are willing to break rules and laws and regulations that we believe will stimulate growth.

rohma@khaleejtimes.com

Read the rest here:

Innovation will drive the UAE's evolution: Top official - Khaleej Times

Just one word, Benjamin: Solar.

Well, actually, one more: Wind.

The sun, the air and the chemistry to bottle their limitless power its looking more and more as if these constitute the worlds next great technological advance, a leap as life-changing for many of us as was aviation, the internet or, of course, plastics.

Faster than many thought possible, and despite long doubt about renewable energys practicality, a momentous transformation is well underway. We are moving from a global economy fueled primarily by climate-warming fossil fuels to one in which we will cleanly pluck most of our energy out of water, wind and the fire in the sky.

People who study energy markets say that economics alone ensures our eventual transition to clean fuels but that policy choices by the governments can speed it up. In October, the International Energy Agency declared solar power to be the cheapest new form of electricity in many places around the world, and in particularly favorable locations, solar is now the cheapest source of electricity in history.

It can be difficult to muster much optimism about humanitys capacity to address climate change, and I have argued before that it is wisest to look to the future with a pessimistic eye, if only to encourage urgent action toward collective problem-solving. (We are more likely to do something to solve our problems if were frank about how bad things might get.)

There are lots of reasons to cast doubt on the clean-energy future. Wind and solar still account for just a tiny fraction of the worlds energy production. Even their most enthusiastic supporters concede that much will need to change to realize the full potential of renewable energy. Over the coming decades consumers and businesses will have to adapt to many novel technologies, while governments will need to build new infrastructure and overhaul energy regulations built around fossil fuels.

Still, amid the general gloom of climate change, the clean-energy boom offers the rare glimmer not just of hope but of something more: excitement. The industrys bold claims are bolstered by bolder trends. Over the last couple of decades experts have consistently underestimated the declines in price, the improvements in performance and the subsequent speed of adoption of renewable power.

Unlike fossil fuels which get more expensive as we pull more of them from the ground, because extracting a dwindling resource requires more and more work renewable energy is based on technologies that get cheaper as we make more. This creates a virtuous flywheel: Because solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and related technologies to produce clean energy keep getting cheaper, we keep using more of them; as we use more of them, manufacturing scale increases, cutting prices further still and on and on.

Jenny Chase, who analyzes the solar power sector at BloombergNEF, an energy research firm, told me that when she started her job in 2005, her most optimistic scenario was that sunlight would eventually generate as much as 1% of the worlds electricity. At the time, solar power contributed essentially nothing to the global energy mix, so even a tiny fraction looked pretty good.

I thought, well, itll be a small thing, but focusing my career on something thats 1% of the worlds electricity, thats all right, she told me.

She was way off, and so were many others, including governmental agencies. Solar power surpassed 1% of global electricity generation in the middle of the last decade. Chase estimates that solar now accounts for at least 3% of the worlds electricity that is, three times as much as she once thought possible.

In a forecast published late last year, Chase and her colleagues at BloombergNEF estimated that by 2050, 56% of the worlds electricity would be produced by wind and solar power. But she says that forecast is already out of date its too low.

Others go further still. The fossil fuel era is over, declares Carbon Tracker Initiative, a nonprofit think tank that studies the economics of clean energy, in a new report. Kingsmill Bond, its energy strategist, told me that the transition to renewable energy will alter geopolitics and global economics on a scale comparable to that of the Industrial Revolution.

He cites one telling example to illustrate how and why. The worlds largest conventional oil field, Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, has the capacity to produce nearly 4 million barrels of oil per day. If you were to convert Ghawars annual oil output into electricity, youd get almost 1 petawatt-hour of power per year. (Thats nearly enough to power Japan for a year; the worlds annual electrical energy demand is 27 petawatt-hours.)

The Ghawar oil field takes up a lot of space about 3,000 square miles, around the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined. But it soon might sound crazy to use that much sunny land for drilling oil. Bond estimates that if you put up solar panels on an area the size of Ghawar, you could generate more than 1 petawatt-hour per year more than youd get from the oil buried under Ghawar.

But the oil will one day run out, while the sun will keep shining over Ghawar and not just there, but everywhere else, too. This is the magic of the sun, as Bond explains: Only Saudi Arabia has a Ghawar, but with solar power almost every country in the world with enough space can generate 1 petawatt-hour of power (and without endangering the planet to boot).

Its important to note that there remain hurdles in the way of a renewable-energy future. The most obvious one is the infrastructure required to take advantage of all this electric power more robust power grids, for instance, and the transformation to electric power of everything from cars to container ships.

These problems are considerable but solvable. In his upcoming book, Electrify, Saul Griffith, an inventor (and MacArthur fellow) who is a co-founder of an organization called Rewiring America, argues that many of the barriers to a clean-energy future are systemic and bureaucratic, not technological.

Griffith says that the transformation will be an economic bonanza many analysts predict huge job creation and savings in energy prices from a switch to renewables. But if we want it in time to avert some of the most catastrophic predictions about a warming climate, we need to push the changes along even faster. Among other things, Griffith calls for a complete overhaul of our energy policies in order to reduce some of the regulatory costs of expanding renewable power.

What kinds of costs? Many small, unforeseen things. For instance, in much of the U.S., installing rooftop solar panels requires an extensive and expensive permitting process that substantially increases the price. Through streamlined rules, other countries have managed to greatly reduce such costs.

This wont be easy; the fossil-fuel industry is actively battling the rise of renewables. But at most, it can only slow things down. A carbon-free energy economy is coming whether oil and coal companies like it or not.

Farhad Manjoo | The New York Times (Earl Wilson/The New York Times)

Farhad Manjoo is a columnist for The New York Times.

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Farhad Manjoo: The wind and solar boom is here - Salt Lake Tribune

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Application programming interfaces (APIs) make the modern digital world go round. They are what bring maps to your fitness-tracking app, login authentication to your banking app, and customer service communications to your favorite ecommerce app. APIs are the glue that holds most software together in 2021.

The benefits of APIs in modern software development are manifold, but at a top level they help power the shift from monolithic on-premises software to the cloud and microservices-based applications. Smaller, function-based components are easier to maintain, with individual developers or teams assuming responsibility for a specific part.

This also gives businesses greater agility in terms of maintaining, upgrading, and scaling their software, and it lets them tap domain-specific expertise why would Uber develop its own resource-intensive infrastructure for real-time in-app messaging when it can use purpose-built APIs instead?

APIs enable companies to more easily build products and services that would otherwise take too long to build, Kong cofounder and CTO Marco Palladino told VentureBeat. Developers can use these APIs to more easily access business-critical information and focus on other priorities instead.

Founded in 2017, freshly minted unicorn Kong develops software and services that connect APIs and microservices between and within clouds, datacenters, and Kubernetes. Customers include Cisco, T-Mobile, Expedia, Samsung, and GSK.

Teams can access a range of open source and paid APIs that accelerate their application development and remove most manual processes, Palladino added. The exchange of these APIs and the systems to manage them is, in a nutshell, the API economy.

Above: Kong cofounder and CTO Marco Palladino (left) with CEO Augusto Marietti

Image Credit: Kong

Some major API deals have happened in the past few years, including Oktas recent $6.5 billion Auth0 acquisition, which consolidated an identity verification market that hinges on APIs.

The billion-dollar API management market has also been thriving, with Salesforce shelling out $6.5 billion for Mulesoft in 2018 and Google acquiring Apigee for $625 million before that. Kong, meanwhile, recently raised $100 million at a $1.4 billion valuation. None of these megadeals would be possible (or necessary) if it werent for the fact that developers need the right tooling in order to create, deploy, control, monitor, analyze, and secure dozens or hundreds of APIs a single application may need to plug into.

All of this has given rise to what is termed the API economy. In the broadest sense of the phrase, the API economy can be defined by how organizations use APIs to improve efficiency and profitability by optimizing resources and opening new revenue opportunities through the wider digital ecosystem.

Palladino drew parallels between modern applications and a Lego building.

Each individual brick is a microservice, which combines with a multitude of other bricks (microservices) to create a building (application), he said. These bricks are combined using the four studs on each brick, which are the equivalent of an API. Without the studs, teams would have to constantly build and rebuild their connections between services. Its incredibly inefficient, and the process could inadvertently expose sensitive company data. The API economy involves the creation of these Lego bricks, either open source or for proprietary use, and the way that teams use these bricks which represent application features and important protections to innovate on their services.

Nylasbuilds APIs that enable developers to embed email, calendar, and contact functionality into their apps. Cofounder and CEO Gleb Polyakov considers APIs to be the backbone of todays digital economy and the tech underlying companies digital transformation efforts. This is particularly pronounced as the pandemic has pushed many companies across the digital divide.

APIs allow businesses to more efficiently unify and structure data from across multiple communication platforms and leverage that data to build more productive workflows, bring products and features to market faster, and create modern user experiences that drive adoption and retention, Polyakov told VentureBeat. APIs allow businesses to achieve all of this without having to commit large amounts of time and resources, allowing product and engineering teams to focus on other critical issues and business goals.

However, Polyakov notes that many of the best APIs are those that handle and transfer lots of rich data, meaning proper security protocols and compliance certifications are vital.

Without proper assessments or an understanding of good design for security, businesses can accidentally expose sensitive information or unintentionally open themselves up to malicious inputs, compliance violations, and more, Polyakov said.

Jyoti Bansal is the serial entrepreneur behind a number of notable enterprise companies, including AppDynamics, which he sold to Cisco for $3.7 billion in 2017. He later launched a startup studio called Big Labs, which has already turned out a billion-dollar DevOps startup called Harness.

Above: Jyoti Bansal: serial entrepreneur behind AppDynamics, Harness, and now Traceable

According to Bansal, APIs have transitioned from being a technical requirement to a linchpin business priority.

The API economy has empowered companies to be more successful whether its through leveraging third-party APIs to improve business processes, attracting and retaining customers, or producing an API as a product, Bansal told VentureBeat.

While APIs have played a sizable part in each of Bansals businesses to date, his most recent venture Traceable shines a light on one of the greatest threats to the burgeoning API economy.

Founded in 2019,Traceable isan AI-powered platform that protects cloud app APIs from cyberattacks. Indeed, a quick peek across the recent cyberattack landscape reveals that APIs are becoming increasingly prominent targets for hackers.

News emerged last month that credit check bureau Experian, which already had a less-than-exemplary record in protecting customer data, was potentially exposing the credit scores of millions of Americans via a porous API. And a few weeks back, fitness hardware and software giant Peloton hit the headlines after a security researcher found an easy conduit to private user data via an API.

This is nothing new, of course, but these incidents point to one of the unavoidable challenges that come with the proliferation of APIs.

Before this explosion of APIs, traditional security practices focused on a network with a perimeter, Bansal explained. That has completely changed now, this traditional perimeter does not exist, especially for organizations using cloud-native infrastructure. Moving data and operations to the cloud obliterates the traditional border, introducing new attack vectors, new opportunities for leaks, new challenges, and a new approach to security.

One of the underlying issues is that its incredibly difficult to keep tabs on all the APIs a company is using internally, or which ones are being actively maintained and monitored for vulnerabilities. This is why a growing array of VC-backed startups including Traceable as well as established players like Apigee and Mulesoft, have emerged to bring API visibility to companies software and networks.

While the API economy is huge, the need to safeguard APIs is leading to a sub-category that could be termed the API security economy.

Security teams need to have a holistic overview of their API ecosystem, which includes each APIs individualized DNA, such as which internal APIs are speaking to external APIs, what kind of data is flowing between them, and who is accessing them, Bansal explained.

APIs are just like any other piece of software they need to be developed, nurtured, and retired when the time is right.

APIs should be treated the same [as other software], but often that doesnt happen, Palladino added. We need a process in place for designing new APIs, for releasing them, for versioning them and decommissioning them. Its really important for companies to create a holistic and standard process for managing APIs through their full lifecycle.

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How the API economy is powering digital transformation - VentureBeat

By Evan Peterson, CME Group

AT A GLANCE

Econ Essentials, a program created in partnership with Futures Fundamentals and Discovery Education, is designed to help high school students learn about core economic principles. Aiming to connect these concepts to current events, a new resource for teachers and students addresses the challenges of sudden supply and demand shocks and what weve learned from the past year.

When airlines were forced to restrict international flights in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it began a shakeup of the industry. Major carriers could no longer offer as many flights and demand for the flights they did offer dried up. In the third quarter of 2020, the average U.S. domestic airfare declined to $245, the lowest level seen since at least 1995 in inflation-adjusted terms. Despite the lower prices, demand remained severely depressed, resulting in nearly empty planes. As the U.S. and other economies slowly emerge out of pandemic-related restrictions, we can still see the lingering effects of the swift change in supply and demand for many goods and services.

Anew learning tool created by Discovery Education in partnership with Futures Fundamentalsuses examples from the current environment to provide students a useful example of what happens when supply and demand changes suddenly and drastically. This resource is available for high school-level classrooms, and it comes at a moment of economic change we are not likely to see again for some time.

Airlines illustrate the sudden supply-demand shocks of the COVID-19 era as much as any industry, but they were by no means the only ones affected.Meat,lumber,industrial metalsandinternational shippingare all industries greatly affected by COVID that weve covered on OpenMarkets. At the onset of the pandemic,CME Group Chief Economist Blu Putnam took questionsfrom students about his thoughts on how COVID-19 was upending industries and our daily routines. We checked in with him again to discuss the supply and demand dynamics of the past year, and what we can learn from the situation. Following is our conversation.

Blu Putnam:The pandemic accelerated a trend toward more flexible work arrangements for office staff. This has allowed people think about living outside city centers, moving to the suburbs or even more rural areas. This people movement has led to a boom in housing prices outside city centers.

Businesses also learned during the pandemic that virtual meetings could replace many in-person meetings. So, post pandemic, many companies are moving to a hybrid model of virtual meetings with fewer in-person meetings, and that means business travel will not return to pre-pandemic levels.

The education sector was heavily impacted by the pandemic shutdowns, with large job losses. In a post-pandemic world, many educational institutions will not return to the old model. Even as students return to classrooms, some learning will remain virtual, and not all the former workers will be rehired.

Blu Putnam:Pent-up demand is most commonly used to refer to the services that people consumed before the pandemic and then were denied during the shutdowns. As the economy reopens, there is pent-up demand for going out to eat, to travel, to go to concerts or sports events, etc. During the pandemic shutdown, consumers shifted spending away from certain services and increased on others such as household goods, home improvements, etc. Spending on formerly denied services is expected to boom in the rebound from the pandemic.

Gasoline prices at the pump are another interesting example. When the shutdown hit in March-April 2020, airlines stopped flying, and people did not drive as much. Gas prices dropped. Now that travel is coming back, both on the road and in the air, gasoline prices have moved considerably higher.

Blu Putnam:The pandemic shutdown was abrupt. There was a certain amount of hoarding and panic buying of essential commodities. That phase ended after several months as supply adjusted.The rebound from the pandemic is not abrupt like the start was. The rebound progresses only at the pace of the economy reopening, related to vaccine distribution and declines in Covid-19 cases. That is, the transition to a post-pandemic world is a much smoother process than the abrupt nature of the pandemics arrival.

Blu Putnam:The best examples of how to analyze abrupt events are actually found in physics in the study of phase transitions. Think about water when it is heated and goes from a liquid to a gas. All the turbulence is at the boundary or the surface of the water as it comes to a boil. The most severe economic turbulence was in the first few months of the virus arrival.

The fast-spreading virus created a type of cascading system failure resulting in part of the economy being shut down immediately a traumatic shock. Recovery from a traumatic shock is a slow process, and one is changed by the experience. That is,the economy does not revert back to its pre-pandemic state, but finds a new dynamic based on the lessons learned.

Blu Putnam:When the shutdown hit, technology allowed for a rapid shift to a higher percentage of online shopping relative to visiting brick and mortar stores. The online shopping pattern was already gaining traction before the pandemic, and COVID-19 accelerated the trend.

Education was an industry that struggled to adapt to the pandemic shutdown. Online learning or distance learning had been slowly gaining some traction, but, all of a sudden, teachers in traditional classrooms had to learn new skills to teach online. Students had to adjust to the spending time in front of a computer instead of being in the classroom. While most office professionals adapted well to virtual meetings and working from home, educational institutions largely struggled to switch to a high-tech delivery system.

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After Sudden Supply and Demand Shocks, What Does A Recovery Look Like? - Institutional Investor

Press Releases

05/14/2021

(HARTFORD, CT) Governor Ned Lamont is applauding the Connecticut State Senate for giving unanimous, final approval early this morning to legislation approving the Long Island Sound Blue Plan in concurrence with the House of Representatives, which approved the plan late last month.

This vote formally places the Blue Plan into effect as a powerful new tool that establishes a framework for identifying and protecting what is cherished about the Sound its many human uses and underlying ecosystem. It dramatically improves the ability to make good decisions, avoid conflicts and address the challenges of the 21st century while supporting economic growth with the latest and best information.

This is just another example of what can be done with teamwork and collaboration in Connecticut, Governor Lamont said. Environmentalists, businesses, legislators, regulators, academics, scientists, and citizens, all pursuing a common vision that balances the protection of our states most vital resource, while ensuring its value as a contributor to Connecticuts economy and quality of life.

Today we see the good that comes through good governance, Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) Commissioner Katie Dykes said. This plan represents the true power of partnerships and is one of the most significant steps taken in Connecticuts rich history of leadership in environmental protection and stewardship of natural resources.

The Blue Plan was called for by the Connecticut General Assembly through Public Act 15-66. Intended to support both water-dependent uses and the marine environment, this pioneering marine spatial planning initiative compiled an inventory of Long Island Sound resources and uses and established siting priorities, standards, and science-based management practices to foster sustainable uses, activities and habitats.

The Blue Plan was prepared by DEEP in partnership with the statutory Blue Plan Advisory Committee, along with extensive input from additional stakeholders and researchers. Built on the best available science and stakeholder expertise, the plan incorporates the contributions of over 2000 individuals including representatives from marine trades, businesses, recreation enthusiasts, state and local public officials, tribes, conservation professionals, and other maritime interests.

Representatives on the Blue Plan Advisory Committee included Connecticut Sea Grant, the electric distribution industry, conservation groups, shellfish/aquaculture industry, coastal municipalities, Connecticut Department of Transportation, Connecticut Department of Agriculture, Connecticut Office of Policy Management, the Siting Council, commercial boating, marine trades, commercial finfish industry, and recreational fishing and hunting communities.

All Blue Plan products, including the final draft plan along with the resource and use inventory and supporting documents and videos, are available at the DEEP website at http://www.ct.gov/deep/lisblueplan.

Those who live along Long Island Sound know that it is a balance of commercialism, environmentalism, fishing ,marinas, ferries and shipping but also of recreation, aquatic life and natural beauty and essential salt water, Senate Chair of the Environment Committee State Senator Christine Cohen said. The way to balance these competing uses going forward is the intent of the Blue Plan. We shouldnt be making development or conservation decisions in the Sound on a case-by-case basis, and then looking back at some point in the future and wondering why we didnt do something differently to prevent exploitation or a missed opportunity there. We need a blueprint, if you will, with resources and parameters to help make those decisions. Thanks to a fantastic, hard-working Blue Plan team, we now have that.

Connecticut adopting this state-of-the-art spatial planning tool means our number one asset, Long Island Sound, will have its knowledge available to protect environmental and human uses, House Chair of the Environment Committee State Representative Joe Gresko said. It was an honor helping lead passage as thanks to the hundreds of people who created the Blue Plan and to my late friend, Terry Backer, the states first Soundkeeper.

Sylvain De Guise, Director of Connecticut Sea Grant noted that, the Blue Plan is an unprecedented compilation of spatial information and understanding of the Sound as a whole. It provides user-friendly tools and maps for improved decision-making within the existing regulatory process.

This is a dream come true for our beloved Long Island Sound, Nathan Frohling, director of external affairs for The Nature Conservancy, said. It is testimony to what we can do when we work together for the common good of people and nature. We salute the leadership in both the House and Senate for getting the job done.

This was a remarkable effort at reaching out to all parties and integrating their interests, as shown by the overwhelming bipartisan support through the General Assembly, Bill Lucey, Long Island Soundkeeper at Save the Sound, said. Its clear that all Connecticut residents care about the Sounds water quality, wildlife, fisheries and sustenance of water-related industries. The Blue Plan is a tool for problem-solvers, plain and simple.

The legislation is House Joint Resolution 53, Resolution Proposing the Adoption of the Long Island Sound Blue Plan.

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Governor Lamont Commends Final Legislative Approval of the Long Island Sound Blue Plan - CT.gov

Consumer packaged goods(CPG) companies have pledged to boost use of recycled content and fallen short to meet their pledges promised time after time as recycled materials are unavailable. The recycling pledges made for 2025 are proving to be, once again, unrealistic and unachievable declarations.

According to Closed Loop Partners, the current supply of recycled plastics would meet just 6% of companies pledged goals. Continuing failed approaches doesnt lead to a path for success. It is time for disruptive transformation to allow these inspirational goals to be met.

Transform All Waste, Not Just Plastics.

Today the packaging industry is finding itself needing to manage fake news and scientifically unwarranted social media hype that plastic is harmful. This situation is causing CPGs and packaging Suppliers to scramble and many industry players are darting in different and short-term directions in the hope of avoiding being a target of negative publicity. Short-term thinking is exacerbating problems with waste and recycling while avoiding the facts that CPGs need to grow and that they will continue to need a variety of packaging materials including plastics. The problem will not be solved through bans and taxes. We need robust and agile solutions that can handle existing and ongoing innovation that leads to growing diversity of packaging materials.

The packaging industry is diverging in approach to the problem with solutions such as:

Improving mechanical recycling

Compostable solutions

Biodegradable materials

Monolayer structures

Conversion to alternates paper/glass/cans

While these approaches can all be valuable, in many cases they can only produce incremental short-term gains for short-lived feel-good headlines. But more often than not, the problem is made worse by substituting a plastic packaging material that can potentially be recycled, with alternative materials that are perceived as environmentally friendly but which have fewer end of life recovery options. A focus on short-term solutions fails to address the larger, more comprehensive environmental problem. The real problem that needs to be addressedhow to deal with all waste, not just plastics.

Birth of a Consortium.

The Consortium For Waste To Syngas Circularity was created from packaging industry visionaries who not only see the need but also voiced the need to stop the self-serving and feel good divergent talk and take action. They also recognize the need for new robust solutions that permit ongoing innovation and material diversity in packaging. These early founders of CWSC believe the packaging industry needs a common goal and science-based technical solutions to solve the problem created from all packaging waste. The recent pandemic accelerated the ecommerce trade. This resulted in more packaging than ever before and brought to light societal dependence on packaging for safety and medical needs. Additionally, the reality of the interconnectedness of land, climate and ground water highlights the importance of a major transformation needed in dealing with all the problems of waste.

After several industry summit meetings of CPG brand owners, printers, packaging suppliers and academia in 2019 and early 2020 it was clear there was a need to change the course. A grass roots movement was born with the formation of the Consortium for Waste to Syngas Circularity (CWSC). Its vision is to transform waste handling over the long-term by adding advanced recycling technologies as the backbone of our waste handling solution in the portfolio mix of the packaging industry.

CWSCs Purpose.

The purpose of CWSC states, We envision a world without waste, in which waste is treated as a valuable resource. We seek to end the practice of landfilling and incineration, favoring processes that support circular economy sustainability. We envision a world where molecules derived from natures precious resources can be used and reused in an endless loop of circularity.

CWSC aims to achieve its purpose by doing the following:

Align the industry toward a total transformation for all waste, not just plastics

Embrace a path of true circularity for waste respecting land, ground water & climate without compromise on quality of recycled materials

Advance green methanol from waste as the primary vehicle for integrating recycled content into products and packages from science-based waste to syngas to methanol process

The purpose of CWSC includes supporting, scientific research, education and outreach creating innovative approaches to promote investment by municipalities in robust advanced recycling infrastructure required for the conversion of consumer waste into valuable recycled content feedstock materials for manufacturers. This results in environmentally friendly, clean, virgin materials useable and affordable for manufactured goods. The packaging industry would follow a route of all waste to syngas to green methanol and back to waste.

The Consortium for Waste to Syngas Circularity image shows how waste can be converted into synthesis gas, methanol, and then back into virgin "recycled-content" packaging.

Converging on a circular solution.

Unless the packaging industry acts together toward a long-term solution for the benefit of present and future generations, we will continue to be stuck with incrementalism that does not move the needle much to improve public health or the environment. CPGs and Packaging Suppliers will continue to be blamed for the problem down the road. The packaging industry needs alignment on a bodacious problem definition of transforming the entire waste management infrastructure. This will address the current issues of landfills, incineration, climate change and risk to ground water contamination while providing green methanol to be used for packaging.

CWSC intends to do for the packaging industry what the airline industry has been keen to do for itself. Airlines have not only committed to being carbon neutral by 2050 but have aligned on a long-term action plan to achieve this goal. Using the worlds most abundant resourcehousehold garbage and converting this waste to syngas and into biofuels will provide green aviation fuel for the airlines. Such facilities are already being built in the US, Canada, UK and Europe by Fulcrum BioEnergy to begin the necessary infrastructure. The airlines are making pledges to use this fuel and in doing so they are pulling on the technology to make this possible. The packaging industry can and should be doing the same. Brands and suppliers should be aligned to convert waste to syngas to green methanol and make pledges against using such a recycled resin, free of fossil fuels.

The production of methanol is a well-established feedstock chemical thats produced globally. Methanol is important and considered a base component in the production of plastics, synthetic fibers, fibers to make clothing, paints, adhesives, pharmaceuticals, agricultural chemicals, and many other products. The use of green methanol will provide a pathway for incorporating increasing amounts of recycled content in virtually all manufacturing and improve the environmental impact of any of these end products.

A registered non-profit, CWSC has recently launched a website explaining the purpose, science, technology and mission.

The CWSC has a Board of Directors in place and is guided by a growing Academic and Public Affairs Committee created to provide scientific guidance by members Dr. Bruce Welt, University of Florida & Dr. Calvin Lakhan, York University. The recently announced Public Affairs Committee is led by Ted S. Yoho, DVM and Former Member of Congress. Additional articles and presentations are available on the website for further perspective and background.

CWSC encourages all companies, CPGs, Package Printers and Packaging Suppliers seriously interested in achieving circular economy sustainability to join and to add their voice. Each new member of the Consortium brings closer the realization of this important transformation.

The CWSC doesnt take away from any of the short-term efforts CPGs and Suppliers are undertaking but to provide an additional long-term approach and vision. A waste to syngas to green methanol process replacing landfills & incineration will ensure a true disruption. All those difficult to recycle products and packages (eg: diapers, multilayer bags, toys, electronics, medical waste, etc.) that are organic are rich in carbon and hydrogen can be extracted and returned for valued reuse. This robust and agile technology approach removes the confusion from consumers caused by todays recycling infrastructure ensuring all waste is processed. The CWSC sustainable approach combines all of the economic, environmental and social benefits to serve the generations to come. We are all in this together to change the current status quo and look forward to a conversation toward collaboration.

Authors

Mike Ferrari completed a successful 32-year career at The Procter & Gamble Co. where he started the Global Printing & Decoration Department. He founded Ferrari Innovation Solutions, a Brand Packaging Consultancy. Through an understanding of end-of-life issues surrounding all packaging materials, Ferrari has dedicated his efforts to the transformation of all waste that creates circularity. Ferrari is President of the Consortium For Waste To Syngas Circularity.

Janice Loppe is the Senior Director of Sustainability for Intertape Polymer Group (IPG), a global leader in packaging and protective solutions. Prior to her current role, she served as the Senior Director of Business Development at IPG where she managed the companys market research team, led the business planning function and supported the commercial aspects of the companys M&A projects. Janice serves on the Board of Directors for the Consortium For Waste To Syngas Circularity.

Jason Vande Loo is the managing Director of New Business Development for Strategic Markets and Products at Belmark Inc. Jason has 20 years experience in the packaging industry and has held senior management positions leading product development and research engineering teams driving new to the world converting technologies and innovative products.He is responsible for new market strategies, commercialization and penetration to drive growth for both Belmark and their customers. Jason serves on the Board of Directors for the Consortium For Waste To Syngas Circularity.

Originally posted here:

'Green Methanol' Is the Packaging Industry's Future - Packaging Digest