Class on Friday focused heavily on the idea of creating some sort of "sustainability standards" and how we would go about doing that. In some research, I came across some interesting articles on Green Globe International. The now multi-national company specializes only in Travel & Tourism - which moves in the direction of the idea we were talking about in regards to "bucketing" industries. Furthermore, they just entered into a joint venture with EC3, a wholly owned subsidiary of Australia's Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre (STCRC), the world's largest tourism research organization.
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0402742.htm
The company offers a 2 tiered certification program: Bronze Benchmarking & Silver Certificate. Unlike other certification programs that are external analyses, Green Globe's joint venture with EC3 gives companies access to sustainability consulting, sustainable suppliers and a host of other resources. Also, they do not conduct a one time evaluation. The program lists expected time frames for the progress from Bronze through Silver, and offers software tools to help the companies manage their sustainability efforts.
It is a good example of one model for approaching and qualifying sustainability. 1)They are focused: environmental sustainability in the travel and tourism sector, 2) they create a community and a two-way relationship, 3) they are international, currently operating in 42 countries, to provide global standards.
The web-site link is:
http://www.ec3global.com/products-programs/green-globe/Default.aspx#
Shaun
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Since I can't post to the blog but can post comments, I am leaving my post in the following manner.
I check up occasionally on autobloggreen.com to see the most recent developments in the green auto space; this is relevant as I'll be working on the Prius over the summer. I'd like to share two recent developments:
1. BMW sticks with liquid Hydrogen in its hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Like all major manufacturers, BMW has a fuel cell vehicle, but what is different is that they have tried to use liquid hydrogen. The problem with liquid h2 is that it boils off and is very hard to keep in liquid form, thus, you can fill up your tank and quickly find it empty without even driving it. Beyond BMW, I have serious misgivings about hydrogen as a fuel source in general until we have a nationwide grid capable of creating hydrogen fuel cells in a sustainable manner via electrolysis.
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/06/02/bmw-develops-lighter-smaller-liquid-hydrogen-tank/
2. Toyota and Honda lower battery replacement costs, but chances are that won't matter to you. Both manufacturers lowered their replacement costs for their batteries by a couple thousand dollars. The even better news, however, is that 200 of Honda's hybrid batteries have failed post-warranty, despite over 100,000 vehicles on the road. How about Toyota? Its post-warranty battery replacement rate sits at just 0.003 percent.
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/06/02/honda-and-toyota-to-lower-hybrid-battery-replacement-costs/
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