Posted by: johnny_a
in MyBlog on Feb 20, 2009
Last week, I twice watched inventor Saul Griffith's lecture on "Climate Change Recalculated". For about an hour and a half, Griffith speaks in concise, non-political terms on the amount of energy that is required for us to continue to live at the 'quality of life' that we enjoy today, and how we cannot sustain this existence through the burning of fossil fuels. If we continue on our current course, we'll head dangerously past acceptable limits of carbon in the atmosphere in about 40 years. His talk includes a monologue on the staggering amount of non-carbon emitting energy sources we must manufacture over the next 25 years in order to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Griffith's seminar is a product of his desire to calculate his own personal energy consumption in extreme detail, which he did for the full year of 2007. We see a pie chart that shows how much energy is used to fulfill every aspect of his 2007 life, including the embodied energy in his "stuff", his dietary habits, and his auto and jet travel. Wishing to trim down from an 18,000 to a 2,200 watt (the world average) lifestyle, we see the impact of the 200 or so watts that are used to produce the plastic bottle that holds his 20 ounces of flavored water.
Posted by: johnny_a
in MyBlog on Oct 29, 2008
BSI British Standards, the UK's National Standards Body,has launched a new standard that allows businesses to assess the carbon footprint of their goods and services throughout their entire life cycle. This standard, called PAS 2050, is a consistent way of counting the greenhouse gas emissions embedded in goods and services throughout their entire life cycle - from sourcing raw materials, through to manufacture, distribution, use and disposal. and play a greater part in fighting climate change, thanks to a new standard launched by BSI British Standards, the Carbon Trust and Defra.
The aim of the new standard is to help businesses move beyond managing the emissions their own processes create and to look at the opportunities for reducing emissions in the design, making and supplying of products. This will then help businesses make goods or services which are less carbon intensive and ultimately develop new products with lower carbon footprints.
