Event - Green Sports Alliance Summit: College Sports Sustainability Summit

PAC-12 will host the first conference wide College Sports Sustainability Summit. It will take place on June 27th 2017 in Sacramento, California. This event is part of the annual Green Sports Alliance Summit.

The College Sports Sustainability Summit is part of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy's (OSTP) call to action to tackle climate through sports. This event is supported by member universities that have pledged to take a leadership position in promoting sustainability through sports.

Green Sports Alliance: Making Athletics more Sustainable

With 344 members, 300 teams, 172 venues and 20 leagues, in 14 different countries the Green Sports Alliance is a major force in sustainable athletics.  The Green Sports Alliance helps sports leagues to be more sustainable.

Sports are an incredibly powerful activity that garner the attention and interest of billions of people around the world. With this is mind the Green Sports Alliance strives to leverage the cultural and market influence of sports to promote healthy, sustainable communities.

They inspire sports leagues, teams, venues, their partners and millions of fans to embrace renewable energy, healthy food, recycling, water efficiency, species preservation, safer chemicals and other environmentally preferable practices.

Energy Solution: Free Electric - Game Changing Stationary Bike (Video)

Free Electric offers a powerful solution to the burgeoning global demand for energy. This energy innovation can radically reduce emissions while increasing access to electricity for poor people all over the world.

Access to electrical power with zero emissions is about more than climate change, it represents an important step towards economic advancement for billions of people living in poverty. Free Electric can light their homes and shops, make food storage possible, and usher them into the 21st century.

Infographic - UN Climate Solutions

Problems and Solutions to the Climate Crisis from the World Economic Forum in Davos

Ahead of the 2015 deadline for a global climate deal the Davos World Economic Forum (WEF) sought action from business, governments and investors. WED took place in Davos Switzerland on January 22-25, 2014. The theme of the summit was "Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business." As the year before we are scheduled to forge an international climate agreement, 2014 is a critical year for the international community.

The Problems

As profound forces transform our world the international community is focused on crisis rather than the long view of a strategically driven approach. With the aim of helping to encourage business to engage the risks associated with climate change, the Davos Summit dedicated an entire day to and 23 sessions to discussing climate change, building resilience, and sustainable development through public-private partnerships.. WEF said that it hopes that this new push will “drive the subjects of economic risk and resilience back to the top of the climate change agenda - where they belong”.

Report on Global Emissions Reduction

A report titled "The Critical Decade: Global Action Building on Climate Change," presents an overview of progress in international action on climate change since August 2012, The report concludes that global momentum to tackle climate change is growing with every major economy setting in place policies to drive down emissions and increase renewable energy investment and renewable energy.

Although there has been significant progress (particularly from the US and China) global emissions keep rising. While coal plants in the US are on the decline, they are on the increase in the developing world. Even China is substantially slowing its building of new coal power plants while radically increasing their dependence on renewable energy.

Here are some of the key findings in the report:

Report on Climate Change Efforts in the US and China

A new report titled "The Critical Decade: Global Action Building on Climate Change," presents an overview of progress in international action on climate change since August 2012, with a particular focus on China and the US. Since the Climate Commission’s international report in August 2012 there has been significant progress in many countries across the globe.

The US and China combined represent more than a third (37%) of global emissions. Both nations are on track to meet their international commitments to tackle climate change and in April they signed an agreement to work together on the pressing issues associated with climate change.

The report indicates that the US and China are starting to move into leadership positions on greenhouse gas reductions, and this could re-energize global efforts and generate momentum to tackle climate change. Efforts are required over and above the 2009 agreement in which the nations agreed on a voluntary goal of limiting global warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit over pre-industrial temperature levels.

Steven Chu is Leaving his Post as Energy Secretary

According to a Bloomberg report, Energy Secretary Steven Chu is going to announce that he is leaving his post in President Barack Obama's cabinet. Chu has worked to advance a low carbon economy in the US. He was the 12th US Secretary of Energy, he is well known for having won the Nobel Prize in 1997 for his research at Bell Labs in cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light.

Chu was a professor of physics at Stanford University and at the time of his appointment as Energy Secretary, Chu was a professor of physics and molecular and cellular biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was also the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where his research was concerned primarily with the study of biological systems at the single molecule level.

2012 Summary of Best Practices in Responsible Management Education (Part 2)

This is the second part of a two part series reviewing the best practices in responsible management for 2012. It was written by Giselle Weybrecht the author of  The Sustainable MBA: The Manager’s Guide to Green Business. The book aims to educate the next generation of business leaders about sustainability issues, whether these be students or business executives. Prior to this she worked for many years with the United Nations internationally in sustainable development. Today she works with government, universities, NGOs, business and with social entrepreneurs in sustainability around the world. She is committed to ensuring that the next generation of business leaders fully understand sustainability by working with business schools and businesses to embed these issues into their programmes. She is a dynamic and sought after speaker in sustainability issues and also writes on sustainability and business issues for a variety of publications including the Economist and Forbes.

2012 Summary of Best Practices in Responsible Management Education (Part 1)

This is the first part of a two part series reviewing the best practices in responsible management. It was written by Giselle Weybrecht the author of  The Sustainable MBA: The Manager’s Guide to Green Business. The book aims to educate the next generation of business leaders about sustainability issues, whether these be students or business executives. Prior to this she worked for many years with the United Nations internationally in sustainable development. Today she works with government, universities, NGOs, business and with social entrepreneurs in sustainability around the world. She is committed to ensuring that the next generation of business leaders fully understand sustainability by working with business schools and businesses to embed these issues into their programmes. She is a dynamic and sought after speaker in sustainability issues and also writes on sustainability and business issues for a variety of publications including the Economist and Forbes.

State of Green Business 2012

The fifth annual edition of the State of Green Business report continues efforts to measure the environmental impacts of the emerging green economy. In addition to documenting what progress companies are making -- if any -- in improving their environmental performance, they track larger trends that will affect corporate America in 2012.

 Click here to read the stories and download the report.

The Growth of Sustainability as Revealed by 3 MIT Reports

According to three reports published in the MIT Sloan Management Review, businesses continue prioritize sustainability to be more competitive, improve their brands and be more profitable. The first study cited indicates that businesses are still investing in sustainability despite a sluggish economy. The second shows they are doing so to gain a competitive advantage and enhance their brands. And the third demonstrates that an increasing number of businesses are deriving a profit from integrating sustainability into their corporate strategies. 

Data Shows that Sustainability Pays

A large amount of data is now available as investors are increasingly demanding more transparency and greater corporate responsibility. A large and growing pool of data indicates that sustainability is a profitable endeavor. According to an article in the Harvard Business Review by Gerrit Heyns, a partner at Osmosis Investment Management in London, England, companies that invest in sustainability do better financially. According to the data cited by Heyns, sustainability focused companies outperform the market.

Climate Protection and Environmental Sustainability (Course)

From Monday September 24 to Sunday December 9, 2012, an online course will take place that involves a systems engineering approach to develop and implement a Strategic Plan for climate protection and sustainable practices. This is an elective course in the Certificate Program in Environmental Management and an elective course in the Certificate Program in Sustainable Business Management.

In the "Climate Protection and Environmental Sustainability" (ENGRCEE X468) course participants will explore the forces driving sustainability change, the application of sustainable practices. They will also be guided through an analysis to develop a vision and plan for implementation.

The New School's Sustainability Initiatives (Video)

The New School is committed to becoming a more sustainable university - The New School is a university in New York City offering distinguished degree, certificate, and continuing education programs in art and design, liberal arts, management and policy, and the performing arts. (for more information click here) In order to reduce the institution's environmental footprint and carbon emissions, the university has established the following goals:

10 Sustainability Initiatives for Small Businesses

Although the constraints of many small business often preclude the grand sustainability gestures of larger corporations, there are many things that these businesses can do to be more sustainable. Here is a summary of ten easy and inexpensive things that small businesses can do from Miratel:

President Obama's Efforts on the Environment and Education

President Obama has done a great deal for the environment since his inauguration in 2009. Although the President has been criticized for not doing enough on the environmental front he has been constrained by Republican obstructionism in Congress. Given the limitations of his executive powers, Obama has done a great deal for the environment, particularly when you consider the level of denialism we see from the GOP and entrenched interests in the old energy economy. Here is a summary of some of his environmental efforts since taking office and prior to his 2013 budget which he released in February 2012. At the end of this list I have included some of his educational initiatives because education is the key to building a new low carbon economy in the coming decades.