In this issue: June 1-15, 2012 e 2011

Issue 17 • June 19, 2012

Latest sustainability & environmental management developments

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EL Trends: June 1-15, 2012

Contents: ENERGY MANAGEMENT 3 COMPLIANCE & STANDARDS 6 ENVIRONMENTAL & ENERGY SOFTWARE 9 CORPORATE REPORTS 10 POLICY & ENFORCEMENT 10 FLEETS & TRANSPORTATION 19 GREEN BUILDING 23 PACKAGING & PAPER 23 WATER MANAGEMENT 24 WASTE & RECYCLING 25 RENEWABLE ENERGY 26 CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY 27 RANKINGS 29

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Energy Management

Digital Lumens announced LightRules 2.0, an intelligent LED lighting system with expanded capabilities that give facility managers a broader set of tools for managing lighting resources, and greater fixture flexibility when replacing aging HID and HIF lights, or specifying LEDs for new construction, according to the company.

Energy management system provider Panoramic Power has partnered with AtSite, which will use Panoramic Power’s P3E to provide its clients — including the US Green Building Council’s headquarters in Washington, DC — with real-time energy usage feedback.

Dow Chemical Co. and General Motors are among several recipients to receive $54 million in Energy Department grants aimed at improving the energy efficiency of advanced manufacturing technologies.

ABB’s installed base of electric drives saved about 310 million MWh of electricity in 2011, a 19 percent increase from the previous year, according to the power and automation giant’s annual savings estimate.

Total revenue from smart energy and smart energy storage reached $222.35 billion in 2011, according to a report by Pike Research. By 2015, the cleantech market intelligence firm forecasts, total market value will be $420 billion — an increase of 90 percent in just four years.

The installation of Telkonet’s EcoSmart suite of energy management products cut Lewiston, Maine, Ramada Conference Center’s HVAC runtime costs by 40 percent.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company will provide energy efficiency programs that will reach 30 million square feet of its commercial customers by 2015 as a Better Buildings Challenge Utility Ally.

The US could reduce its energy use by up to 22 percent by using a systems-based approach to increase efficiency, according to a report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).

The share of electricity generated from coal-fired power plants dropped to 34 percent in March, the lowest level in at least 39 years, the US Energy Information Administration said.

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The Manufacturers’ Association of South Central Pennsylvania signed a three-year agreement choosing Constellation as its endorsed energy supplier. Constellation can now supply energy products and services to member companies of MASCPA, a regional employers’ organization.

SmartGrid CIS will support a prepay pilot program for residential customers in the Town of Wake Forest in North Carolina. Wake Forest Power, the electric utilities division of Wake Forest, will use the SmartGrid CIS Express platform for the pilot. SmartGrid CIS Express will be deployed as a standalone prepay billing/CIS solution and will provide the Wake Forest customer service team with account management, customer notifications, automated meter control and meter data retrieval and real-time payment processing services.

Calpine Energy Services signed a power purchase agreement to provide Southwestern Public Services Co., a subsidiary of Xcel Energy, with an additional 200 megawatts of capacity and energy from its Oneta Energy Center in Oklahoma. The PPA with SPS will be from June 2014 to May 2019. Calpine already supplies 200 megawatts of capacity and energy from the Oneta Energy Center, a combined cycle power plant capable, to SPS under a separate seven-year PPA that began in January 2012.

Ameresco was awarded an energy performance contract with Miami-Dade County through the Public Housing and Community Development Department. Ameresco will perform a facility-wide audit of energy and water use and then provide recommendations on how to reduce the $8.6 million that Miami-Dade spends on utilities each year in public housing.

Energy conversation technologies installed at the Nashville House, a 150,000-square-foot office building in Tennessee, helped property management firm Freeman-Webb achieve 22 percent in annual energy savings. The energy savings reduced the payback period for the system to less than 32 months.

Xcel Energy filed its proposed Conservation Improvement Program, a three-year plan that includes an energy efficiency program targeted to commercial customers.

OC Transpo, the transit service provider for Ottawa and Carleton, Canada, cut its lighting costs by 43 percent at its St. Laurent garage, following an LED retrofit by Energy Ottawa.

Dialysis provider DaVita Inc. plans to cut its energy consumption 15 percent per treatment by 2015 as part of a larger environmental initiative.

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Florida A&M University awarded Siemens a $12.2 million contract expected to save the university about $1.2 million in equivalent guaranteed annual energy savings. The 18-month project, which began in May, includes a partially decentralized steam plant heating system, a solar-thermal heating system for the swimming pool, building automation improvements, and ventilation and dehumidification improvements for the library.

Seven space heaters using Cambridge LEED-Ready heating technology will heat General Mills’ 1.5 million-square-foot distribution center near Atlanta, Ga., the largest LEED-Gold certified industrial building in the US. According to the company, Cambridge space heaters combined with efficient lighting, exhaust fans and occupant sensors account for a 50.2 percent energy savings over a typical large warehouse or distribution center.

Retailer New Look has chosen Rexel UK to supply energy efficient lighting to its 600 UK stores. Rexel will upgrade the existing halogen lamps to LED lighting; the electrical supplier estimates sales of £650,000 throughout the life of the project, which it expects to deliver return on investment in 15 months.

Recycled Energy Development acquired the combined heat and power projects located at Dean Foods’ facilities in City of Industry, Calif., and Franklin, Mass. Each project will produce approximately 2 MW of electricity and 4.5 MMBtu/hr of thermal energy from clean natural gas. By recycling waste heat, the units will help Dean Foods achieve its targeted goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent from its 2008 baseline.

Large-scale energy systems integration has become an important component of financial performance for a number of public and private sectors, including grocery retail, telecom, real estate development, data centers, manufacturing and electricity networks, according to a six-month study conducted by Verdantix.

Swiss power company ABB and IT firm Green recently unveiled a data center expansion in Zurich that uses direct current technology, not the more common alternating current, for electric transmission.

Indirect non-residential electric sales will exceed 50 percent for the first time in retail power market history, according to an annual study by DNV KEMA Energy & Sustainability.

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Compliance & Standards

The IEEE 1680 draft standards that will form the basis of EPEAT Imaging Equipment and Television environmental ratings – which will cover printers, copiers and TVs – have been approved by more than 75 percent of IEEE voters. The approval is an important step toward publication and implementation expected later in 2012, EPEAT said.

The European Commission adopted the recast of the WEEE directive, the legislation restricting the use of hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment and promoting recycling. The European Parliament had adopted a compromise text in January 2012. The next step is now publication in the Official Journal, which is expected to take place this summer, the commission said.

The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, CSA Group, and UL Environment released AHAM 7001-2012/CSA SPE-7001-12/UL 7001, Sustainability Standard for Household Refrigeration Appliances, the first voluntary sustainability standard for home appliances.

Ten standards developed by ASTM International Committee D19 on Water have been included in a final published EPA rule to approve methods for measuring regulated pollutants in wastewater – “Guidelines Establishing Test Procedures for the Analysis of Pollutants Under the Clean Water Act Analysis and Sampling Procedures.” Most of the standards in the rule deal with analysis of cyanides in water, the organization said.

Hudson, Ohio-based electronics recyclers E-Waste obtained its R2 and ISO 14001 certifications. The company said the certifications are in response to customer demand for verified industry recycling and environmental standards that mitigate e-waste disposal risks, writes Recycling Today.

Milan headquartered plant extract specialist, Indena, was granted ISO 14001 certification for a production site in France, marking the second certification for its five production sites, writes Nutra Ingredients.

Itron has two new ZigBee Smart Energy certified products – the EM425 meter, an IEC-certified electric smart meter for the UK market, and the M2 Gateway, a communications module for third-party meters. Itron’s ZigBee adoption covers the ANSI-certified meters domestically and IEC-certified meters internationally, writes Energy Business Review.

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Health care and surgical products manufacturer Medline Industries received ISO 14001 certification for four facilities. The company said it achieved the standard for its world headquarters in Mundelein, Ill., its sterile procedure tray assembly facilities in Waukegan, Ill., and Chateaubriant, France, and its ReadyCare division, also located in Waukegan.

UL Environment has awarded UL Environmentcertification to three tile product manufacturers – Dal-Tile Corporation, Mexican-based ceramic tile manufacturer Porcelanite-Lamosa, and Florida Tile – as part of a new collaboration with the Tile Council of North America.

Subaru of Indiana Automotive is the first US car manufacturing plant to become certified for ISO 50001 energy management, with the audit conducted by DEKRA Certification. The car manufacturer intends to improve the painting and trimming processes, which account for more than 40 percent of the plant’s total energy consumption, the Journal & Courier said.

A new Courtyard Scottsdale Salt River hotel in Arizona is the first Marriott-branded hotel to be meet its LEED green building standards through USBGC’s volume program. The program is designed for large companies wanting LEED status on at least 25 new or remodeled buildings through the certification of a protoype, Arizona Central writes.

The Thomas M. Cooley Law School, in Auburn Hills, Mich., earned LEED Silver certification for renovations to an existing 68,000-sq.-ft. structure and a 64,500-sq.-ft. addition to its Auburn Hills campus. The design and construction of buildings use VOC interior materials, the addition of a green roof, low-flow toilet and plumbing fixtures, and water-efficient landscaping.

The DOE announced that Daikin McQuay’s Rebel rooftop unit system is the first to meet its Rooftop Unit Challenge. Five manufacturers – Daikin McQuay, Carrier, Lennox, 7AC Technologies, and Rhee – are working to commercialize highly efficient commercial air conditioners that satisfy a DOE-issued specification to reduce energy use by as much as 50 percent, the department said.

The City of Chicago partnered with the Obama administration’s Better Buildings Challenge, part of the program launched last year to increase investment in commercial and industrial building energy upgrades. As a partner, Chicago is committing to reduce energy use by 20 percent in nearly 24 million square feet of public and private building space within the next five years, the DOE said.

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Office furniture manufacturer Keilhauer’s products have been certified to carry Level 1 and Level 2 Designations on its office chairs and tables. Level is the Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturer Association’s BIFMA sustainability standard – ANSI/BIFMA e3-2011, the company said.

ASTM released ASTM D7794 – 12 Standard Practice for Blending Mid-Level Ethanol Fuel Blends for Flexible-Fuel Vehicles with Automotive Spark-Ignition Engines, which applies to the blending of engine fuels with ethanol concentrations greater than those suitable for conventional-fuel vehicles and less than the minimum ethanol content specification limits of its specification D5798.

USGBC will delay ballot on its rating system LEED 2012 until June 1, 2013, and run a fifth public comment period from October 2 until December 10, 2012. As a result, the council has renamed LEED 2012 to LEED v4. LEED 2009 also will remain available for registration for three years.

Nearly all – 206 of 211 – power plants subject to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative requirements met program compliance obligations, meaning entities hold one tradable CO2 allowance issued by a RGGI state for each short ton of CO2 emitted during the three-year period. Average annual CO2 emissions across the ten-state region from 2009-2011 were 126 million short tons, a 23 percent reduction compared to 2006-2008, RGGI said.

Danish hearing aid manufacturer Widex is the first company to receive the WindMade label – a new global consumer label for companies that use wind energy. The label requires that at least 25 percent of a company’s electricity comes from wind power, covered in this case by a wind turbine at the manufacturer’s global headquarters, the company said.

The Department of Energy has issued a final determination that the 2012 IECC would achieve greater energy efficiency in low-rise residential buildings than the previous editions of the IECC, and filed notice to update state residential building energy efficiency codes. All states have two years to adopt the 2012 IECC or upgrade their existing residential building codes to meet or exceed its requirements.

British mine action and risk management company MAT Mondial, based in Guernsey, British Channel Islands, has been certified to compliance to ISO 14001 environmental management, after an independent assessment conducted by the British Assessment Bureau, the company said.

IEEE said it is working to expand the IEEE 1547 series of interconnection standards in order to cover more energy generation systems such as photovoltaic, wind, and micro-turbines. The association has released the

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draft P1547.8 “Recommended Practice for Establishing Methods and Procedures that Provide Supplemental Support for Implementation Strategies for Expanded Use of IEEE Standard 1547.”

Eco Building Products has successfully completed a series of studies for microbial contamination on the dry film surface of the Eco Red Shield and Eco Blue Shield series of coatings. Siva Microbiological Solutions conducted the testing according to industry standard mold test ASTM D3273 and fungal test ASTM D5590.

The Nuclear Energy Standards Coordination Collaborative, a joint initiative of ANSI and NIST, will holds its next meeting on July 17 at ANSI headquarters in Washington, DC. The meeting, which is open is all interested US and international stakeholders, will focus on responding to current needs of nuclear industry and standards to ensure its growth and development.

UK-based manufacturer of steel office storage units Bisley Office Furniture received certification for membership in FIRA’s Furniture Industry Sustainability Program joining 60 other furniture makers worldwide. An FISP audit reviews a company’s EMS, waste management, energy management, procurement, sustainable purchasing, transport management and corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices, FIRA said.

Environmental & Energy Software

CLEAResult will use building efficiency software company Retroficiency‘s automated energy audit to reduce the time required to audit hundreds of buildings, as part of a multi-year agreement between the two companies. Retroficiency developed customized reports to allow CLEAResult to make detailed calculations of efficiency and retrofit measures for submission to utilities for commercial efficiency rebate programs.

Emerson Network Power, a business of Emerson, announced the global availability of four software applications for data center infrastructure management (DCIM), all within the Trellis platform.

Scrap metal recycling company Jack Engle & Co. selected Locus Technologies to manage its permitting, compliance and environmental activities, using Locus’ cloud-based Environmental Information Management and ePortal software. Locus will aggregate the data from multiple Jack Engle sites in the Western US; the company expects ePortal will lower its costs.

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Public transport provider National Express will implement Ecometrica software Our Impacts, a cloud-based greenhouse gas accounting platform, across its UK divisions later this year, starting in Spain. National Express is Our Impacts’ 200th client. The platform launched 18 month ago.

Schneider Electric introduced EnergySTEP Data Center Assessment, which it says can improve a data center’s power usage effectiveness by 20 percent with a payback period of less than 12 months, into its line of energy management services.

Corporate Reports

AMR Corporation, the parent company of American Airlines and its regional affiliate American Eagle, is behind schedule to meet its 2025 carbon intensity goal of a 30 percent drop from 2005 levels, according to the company’s 2011 corporate sustainability report. Aircraft manufacturer Boeing’s revenue adjusted CO2 emissions decreased 4 percent from 2010 to 2011, according to the company’s 2011 corporate sustainability report. Health, hygiene and home products manufacturer Reckitt Benckiser achieved a 21 percent improvement on its normalized greenhouse gas emissions per dose since 2007 – beating its 20 percent target eight years ahead of time, according to the company’s 2011 corporate sustainability report. Nokia’s water intake dropped by just over 9 percent from 2010 to 2011, from 1.4 million cubic meters to 1.3 million cubic meters, according to the company’s 2011 sustainability report. The communications company said 95 percent of its water comes from municipal supplies and 5 percent come from ground water – a ratio that has been roughly the same for the last five years.

Policy & Enforcement

The CEO of Duke Energy, the third-largest electric utility in the US, said nationwide carbon pricing is “inevitable,” Point Carbon reports. Jim Rogers also told attendees of a Hamilton Project-Stanford University

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energy policy forum that natural gas expansion should not come at the expense of solar and wind development.

The EU agreed on text of an energy efficiency law targeting governments and utilities for 15 percent energy savings by 2020, which is less aggressive than an initial roadmap target of 20 percent set in the Energy Efficiency Directive of 2007. The text will now move to an approval stage by the 27 member states, Reuters said.

Singapore’s newly published national climate strategy includes plans to reduce emissions across sectors, including manufacturing, refining and chemicals, along with measures for energy efficiency in buildings, and sustainable business development models, writes Eco-Business.

The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works announced that a Senate vote on its resolution to block the EPA’s MATS rule will be on June 20. The measure has some bipartisan and private sector support.

A federal court granted the national NAACP permission to intervene in a lawsuit and help defend the EPA’s MATS rules. The NAACP, represented in the intervention by Earthjustice, joins a coalition of 17 national and state public health and environmental groups and will argue the civil rights issues related to clean air, Earthjustice said.

Australia will create a 3-million-sq.-km. network of marine parks, protecting about a third of its national waters with a ban on oil and gas exploration and a limit on commercial fishing in some of the most sensitive areas. A focus of the plan is the protection of the Coral Sea area that surrounds the Great Barrier Reef, Reuters said.

BP faces a new lawsuit over a 2010 emissions event at its Texas City refinery that sent 500,000+ pounds of chemicals into the air. More than 50,000 people have sued, claiming ill health effects. A state investigation found BP’s decision to keep operating the unit and flare was a violation of air quality laws;; the company paid a $50 million fine, writes The Galveston County Daily News.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo may allow hydraulic fracturing in five counties – Broome, Chemung, Chenango, Steuben and Tioga – along the Marcellus Shale formation. Drilling would be allowed only if local governments agree to it, and permits would be issued only where residents support drilling.

A New York state court dismissed a lawsuit that tried to block the state’s participation in RGGI, saying the plaintiffs had no grounds. Two business executives backed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and

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Americans for Prosperity filed the suit, arguing that in 2005 then-governor George Pataki signed on to RGGI without the support of the state legislature, Reuters said.

Republicans said they will use amendments to a Senate farm bill, the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012, to target federal regulations – for example, with a measure that would prevent the EPA from issuing any new rule that regulates agriculture dust. The EPA has previously said it does not intend to regulate farm dust, The Hill said.

An IEA report says that clean-energy technology investments of about $36 trillion through 2050 are required to halve carbon emissions compared to 2005 levels and hold the global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius. However, the return on investment is estimated at $100 trillion through long-term energy savings, writes EurActiv.

The IMF called on European lawmakers to consider the benefits of carbon taxes while looking to solve the continent’s financial crisis. Speaking ahead of the June 20-22 Rio+20 sustainability summit, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said such instruments could generate revenues for governments at a time when they are looking to cut budgets, Reuters reported.

New York, Los Angeles, and Houston mayors are among the 90 city leaders who have given support to the MATS regulations to reduce toxic emissions from coal-fired power plants, in a letter to the EPA. The comments come as the Senate prepares to vote on a proposal to abandon the rule, The Hill said.

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said in remarks on the Senate floor that bipartisan support for his effort to block the EPA’s MATS rule, and support the domestic coal industry, is growing.

The House Natural Resources Committee co-led an effort to collect 166 signatures on a bicameral, bipartisan letter to the Department of Energy reflecting concern over changes to Power Marketing Administrations. According to the letter, DOE directives on PMAs will affect regional electric reliability and costs, and impact rural economies.

Environmental justice and civil rights groups representing minority communities have filed a complaint alleging that the California Air Resources Board’s cap-and-trade provisions are racially biased. The activists refer to studies that show that people of color make up 66 percent of the state’s population most heavily hit by pollution, the San Francisco Chronicle said.

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Federal energy regulators properly approved a 39-mile natural gas pipeline through three Pennsylvania counties, the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, ending a bid by the Sierra Club and others to block the construction of the MARC 1 pipeline in northern Pennsylvania’s Endless Mountains, the Associated Press said.

A research institute at the State University of New York at Buffalo is reporting favorably on the safety of fracking regulations, but has ties to the oil and gas industry, watchdog groups said. The SUNY Buffalo drilling research arm, the Shale Resources and Society Institute, is seeking start-up funds of about $1.14 million from the oil and gas industry and other sources, the New York Times said.

A DC federal appeals court ruled that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission acted hastily with its decision that spent nuclear fuel can be stored safely at plants for the next century while a permanent repository is established. The court ordered that the NRC review its analysis and decision, the New York Times said.

The International Air Transport Association said the EU must ease international tensions caused by its mandatory inclusion of global airlines to its ETS, and that all parties tended to agree that a global, multilateral agreement could be a solution. The association also said that a trade war would damage airline profits, Reuters said.

China could be off in its carbon emissions estimates by more than 20 percent. An international team of scientists from China, Britain and the United States, led by the University of Leeds, studied two sets of energy data, national and provincial, from China’s National Bureau of Statistics and found a 1.4-billion ton emission gap for 2010 data, Reuters said.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda made an appeal to the Japanese public to support the restart of the country’s idled nuclear plants, warning of blackouts and economic consequences. The majority of Japanese do not believe it is safe to turn the plants back on, the New York Times said.

Conservative advocacy group American Commitment is running a $1-million TV, radio and online advertising campaign in Tennessee, West Virginia, New Hampshire and Maine that is critical of the Obama administration’s position on coal. The campaign is timed to build support for an upcoming Senate vote to overturn EPA rules that require cuts in toxic emissions from coal-fired power plants, The Hill said.

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The DOE says that 28 e-mails between the White House and other officials during the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are privileged and off-limits. BP wants 21 government e- mails reviewed to determine if the company can use them to defend itself in the pollution lawsuit brought by the US, Bloomberg said.

The House rejected a proposal to block spending appropriated money on polystyrene foam packaging in its cafeterias. The amendment is one of several efforts to bring sustainable containers back to House dining areas, which resurfaced after mid-term elections, The Hill said.

The United Nations environment agency warned that the world continues on its unsustainable path in spite of hundreds of agreed-upon environmental goals in its fifth Global Environmental Outlook report. UNEP assessed 90 of the most important environmental goals and objectives and found that significant progress had only been made in four.

Members of the Senate Commerce Committee and the administration’s top transportation official said the EU law requiring airlines to participate in emissions trading scheme is likely unworkable under international law.

The European Commission is expected to propose tougher carbon emissions standards for new EU automobiles in the coming month. The proposal is expected to create a binding 2020 goal to lower carbon dioxide emissions to an average of 95 grams per kilometer – currently only a provisional, non-binding target. The existing, binding target is 130 g/km, Reuters said.

The House approved a $32 billion Energy and Water spending bill that increases spending in 2013 by $87.5 million above current levels with the inclusion of policy riders including an additional $10 million for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The administration opposes the spending increase for the cuts that will be required elsewhere.

The Obama administration announced a $26 million multi-agency, public-private investment fund – the Advanced Manufacturing Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge. About 12 projects are expected to successfully complete a competitive inter-agency grant process that evaluates the potential for regional economic development, increased exports, development of small businesses, advanced manufacturing assets, and other criteria, the DOE said.

The EPA has released its proposal to approve revisions submitted by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to the state’s permitting program for major air pollution sources under the Clean Air

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Act’s New Source Review program. The state’s clean air plan is consistent with federal permitting requirements and meets clean air goals for existing major facilities, the agency said.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and Environment New Jersey sued New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s administration for its departure from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. The groups said the governor failed to provide advance public notice and an opportunity to comment on the decision before it is finalized, Bloomberg said.

The Center for Biological Diversity and six other conservation groups sued the EPA in order to gain federal regulation of lead in ammunition which threatens wildlife and poses a risk to human health. The EPA said it does not have authority to regulate lead ammunition under the Toxic Substances Control Act, Reuters reports.

The Department of Agriculture proposed 12 additional biobased product categories that when finalized will include more than 2,300 additional biobased products for preferred purchasing consideration by all federal government agencies and contractors. The proposed rule, which is out for public comment for 60 days, includes biobased products such as agricultural spray adjuvants, animal cleaning products, fuel conditioners, wastewater systems coatings, water clarifying agents and specialty precision cleaners and solvents.

Leaked documents show that UK government officials have repeatedly made efforts to thwart adoption of EU energy efficiency, pursuing a voluntary status rather than a mandatory one. Also the papers show that the UK has tried to block new targets for renewable energy generation, The Guardian said.

A Chinese official said foreign embassies should stop issuing air pollution readings because was against the law and diplomatic conventions to interfere in internal affairs. The US embassy monitors air quality from its rooftop and releases hourly air-quality data, Reuters said.

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington group requested an investigation into whether large natural gas producers, for example Chesapeake Energy and ConocoPhillips, have made efforts to limit the production in order to raise prices. The group alleges that these companies have curtailed their production to raise demand and increase prices, and asked the Department of Justice to look into violation of antitrust laws.

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The Sierra Club plans a new “Wind Works” campaign to increase pressure on lawmakers to extend wind-energy tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year. The campaign will address lawmakers with wind-related jobs in their district, The Hill said.

Industry groups say that the EPA overestimated their assessment of methane release during hydraulic fracturing. The report from the American Petroleum Institute and the America’s Natural Gas Alliance, which reviewed a greater number of wells than the EPA assessment, found that the gas is only half the agency estimate, The Hill said.

The House moved to block enforcement of federal light bulb standards, approving two amendments for Energy and Water spending bill for 2013. The amendments prevent the Department of Energy from spending money to enforce the 2007 law that sets bulb efficiency standards, The Hill said.

The House rejected amendments that aimed to reduce the 2013 Energy and Water spending bill. One sought to end all nuclear energy research subsidies to private companies, for a $514 million saving, and another would cut fossil energy research subsidies, and save $554 million, The Hill said.

The EPA issued updated standards for new flares and process heaters at petroleum refineries. The final rule will reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and VOCs; CO2 emissions, though not directly addressed in the rule, are expected to drop by as much as 2 million tons per year. Overall, the rule is expected to save the refining industry about $80 million annually, the agency said.

The WTO said that nations in dispute over the inclusion of airlines in the EU ETS would have a difficult time bringing a trade dispute case to the global body. The European Court of Justice ruled in favor of the EU law last year, Reuters said.

European environment ministers are expected to reopen a debate at a June 11 environment council on emissions policy beyond 2020, its current roadmap which includes a 20 percent cut in emissions. The draft text in circulation currently stops short of setting any defined targets for 2050, a move that proponents say would support the EU carbon market.

A World Bank official said that plans for emissions trading in 14 emerging nations lend evidence that emissions trading may “take off.” The organization said that carbon trading rose 11 percent to $176 billion last year, Bloomberg reports.

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A UN study on environmental job growth foresees growth of 15 million to 60 million jobs in the next 20 years related to the global pursuit of environmental and sustainable policies worldwide. Though some jobs would be lost in a transition, a net gains of 0.5 percent to 2 percent in total global employment are possible with increased renewable and efficient energy use, the Associated Press reports.

Two Republican legislators have requested communication records from the Department of the Interior to review whether certain energy companies have received preferential treatment on renewable or alternative energy projects that received taxpayer loan guarantees. The request involves Abengoa Solar, BrightSource Energy, First Solar, Nevada Geothermal Power, NextEra Energy Resources and SolarReserve and a number of agency officials, The Hill said.

The EPA has released a draft IRIS health assessment for ammonia, available for public comment for 60 days and under independent expert peer review. The draft assessment includes an estimate of the amount of ammonia a person can inhale daily throughout a lifetime without harmful health effects, which is less stringent than the current value for ammonia on IRIS.

The House rejected a series of amendments to a 2013 Energy and Water spending bill that would have cut $1.5 billion from the bill with savings moved to deficit reduction. The vote cut out an amendment from Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) that would have reduced the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy account by $74 million as well as one to eliminate the EERE account altogether, The Hill said.

The House Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Water and Power will conduct an oversight field hearing today in Phoenix, Ariz., on “Evaporating Prosperity: How Federal Actions Are Driving Up Water and Power Costs, Threatening Jobs and Leaving Arizonans High and Dry.” The hearing reviews federal actions and regulations involving water supplies and electricity rates in Arizona.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee, Subcommittee on Energy and Power has a hearing Wednesday, June 6, discussing “EPA Priorities and Practices.” The primary witness for the hearing is former EPA Region 6 administrator Al Armendariz.

The California Senate narrowly voted down a bill, 17-18, that would have required oil companies to give 30 days notice to land owners whose property line or residence is within 300 feet of a fracking operation. The companies would also have been required to notify local governments and water boards for posting on agency websites; California currently does not require disclosure of fracking chemicals or procedures, the Los Angeles Times said.

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The New Hampshire attorney general has fined Concord Hospital $205,000 for the improper disposal of pharmaceutical wastes. The state’s Department of Environmental Services discovered in inspections that the hospital sent waste to facilities that were not authorized to accept it, Waste & Recycling News reports.

Wind energy towers produced in and exported from China have received production subsidies of about 14 to 26 percent and warrant US tariffs in the same range, the Commerce Department said in response to a petition from US wind tower manufacturers. The preliminary subsidy determination covers utility-scale steel towers that support wind turbines with electric power generation capacity greater than 100 kW, The Hill said.

The California Energy Commission approved building codes that are projected to achieve a 25 percent cut in energy use at homes and businesses, versus 2008 levels. The new code includes standards for windows, insulation, air conditioning and lighting, and will apply to new buildings, major additions and retrofits starting January 1, 2014.

House Republicans and Democrats criticized the Obama administration’s plan to close the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal site in Nevada, and indicated they would try to approve $25 million to keep the site active through a bill called the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.

SABIC Innovative Plastics US, and its subsidiary, SABIC Innovative Plastics Mt. Vernon, agreed to pay a $1 million civil penalty, reduce fugitive emissions and improve leak detection and repairs. The settlement relates to alleged emissions of hazardous air pollutants at chemical manufacturing facilities in Mt. Vernon, Ind. and Burkville, Ala., in violation of the Clean Air Act.

The EPA will conduct a cleanup to remove PCB oils from old leaking electrical transformers stored at the Guam Power Authority’s Apra Heights and Talofofo Substation facilities, and package the PCB waste for shipment and transport to the US mainland for disposal.

The EPA allocated $69.3 million in grants for communities to clean and redevelop contaminated properties for new investments. The 245 grantees include tribes and communities in 39 states across the country, funded by EPA’s Brownfields Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund, and Cleanup grants, and Revolving Loan Fund Supplemental grants.

The Energy Department’s Small Business Innovation Research program awarded $11 million in research and technology grants of up to $150,000 to 67 small businesses. The grants are for developing new energy

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technologies, and the businesses will be eligible to compete for a second phase of the program for awards up to $1 million over two years, the DOE said.

The Energy Department made $500,000 available to test the technical readiness of technologies that harness energy from waves and supply renewable power to coastal regions. The funding will support a project to deploy and test a conversion device for one year at the Department of Navy’s Wave Energy Test Site off of the Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe Bay, Oahu.

The House Natural Resources Committee requested information on how much the federal government spends on Endangered Species Act-related litigation and settlement costs, in a series of letters sent to the Obama Administration. The Department of the Interior and the NOAA are actively involved in more than 200 lawsuits and legal actions related to the ESA.

EU greenhouse gases emitted in 2010 were up 2.4 percent, or 111 million metric tons of carbon, over 2009 levels. Factors contributing to the increase, which ended a multi-year pattern of emissions declines, were a cold winter, economic recovery and the collapsed carbon price. Overall, EU emissions were down 15.4 percent below 1990 levels, Reuters said.

Fleets & Transportation

Wrightspeed has unveiled Route, a retrofit electric drive powertrain with an on-board generator engineered for the surprisingly large medium-duty commercial fleet market.

Shell will supply liquefied natural gas at about 100 TravelCenters of America sites and Petro Shopping Centers in the US beginning in 2013.

Nissan has launched the Nissan Zero Emission Fund for EV owners in Japan. Under the program, Nissan converts Leaf owners’ driving distance to a credit that recognizes the CO2 emissions offset by driving the all-electric car. Total annual CO2 credits will then be sold to the Green Innovation Promotion Organization, and profits earned by the sale of the credits will be used to install quick-charging facilities and fund forest conservation.

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Nissan lowered the Leaf lease price to as low as $289 a month and is issuing refunds for unused deposits, AutoblogGreen reports. Originally, Nissan set the Leaf lease prices at $349 a month for 36 months. It now costs $289 a month for SV trim or $319 for the upscale SL model.

Heavy-duty transit bus manufacturer New Flyer delivered 20 compressed natural gas public transit buses using the new Xcelsior platform to southern California’s Culver City Bus. The CNG buses, which cost about $11 million, have all-electric HVAC systems and all-electric engine cooling systems. Culver City Bus currently operates 52 transit buses, all of them CNG-powered and manufactured by New Flyer.

Toyota will introduce an ultracompact two-seater electric vehicle in Japan priced at less than ¥1 million, or $12,600, Green Car Congress reports. The new COMS EV is based on Toyota’s COMS single-seater EV, which was sold from 2000 to 2011.

A $6 gallon of gas would make most Americans reconsider gas-guzzling cars, according to a video posted by Honda. The automaker polled 1,000 Americans and found that while 30 percent of respondents would actively seek out a more fuel-efficient car if gas hit $5 a gallon, 62 percent would do the same if gas hit $6 a gallon.

The city of Schiermonnikoog in the province of Friesland, Netherlands, will launch six long-range, all-electric BYD buses in early 2013. BYD says its electric bus has a range of more than 180 miles per charge. The bus manufacturer also scored a 15-year maintenance contract with the city.

Governments need to support the development of biofuels if the nascent industry is to become a staple in air travel and help reduce carbon emissions, trade body the International Air Transport Association has said.

The 2013 Honda Fit EV received a combined adjusted EPA mile-per-gallon-equivalency rating of 118 MPGe and a consumption rating of 29 kWh per 100 miles — the best-ever consumption rating awarded by the EPA. The Fit EV battery can be recharged in less than 3 hours from a low-charge indicator illumination point when connected to a 240-volt circuit, Honda says, and its EPA-rated annual fuel cost is $500.

The Nissan DeltaWing completed its first running on the 8.5 mile Circuit de la Sarthe, the home of the 80th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The DeltaWing features half the weight, half the horsepower and half the aerodynamic drag of a typical prototype; Nissan expects it will consume less fuel and fewer tires.

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UQM Technologies has begun supplying the PowerPhase HD 220 electric drive systems to Boulder EV to build delivery vans for FedEx Express. As part of this initiative, Boulder EV will use the PowerPhase HD 220 systems in its composite delivery van designed specifically as an all-electric vehicle.

Westport Innovations signed agreements with Caterpillar to co-develop natural gas technology for off-road equipment, including mining trucks and locomotives. While the agreements initially focus on engines used in mining trucks and locomotives, the companies will also develop natural gas technology for Caterpillar’s off-road engines, which are used in a variety of electric power, industrial, machine, marine and petroleum applications worldwide.

Philadelphia-based PECO launched a new rebate and incentive program, Smart Driver Rebates, for residential and business customers investing in EV technology. The electric and natural gas utility, a subsidiary of Exelon Corporation, will pay residential and business customers $50 per car for letting the company know they have purchased an electric vehicle. For government, institutional and nonprofit customers, PECO will pay $1,000 per unit toward the cost of installing up to two Level 2 public chargers, and will pay local counties up to $3,000 to install a Level 2 public charging station in each of the counties PECO serves.

Audi canceled its all-electric A2 project because the model’s projected €40,000 price-tag was too expensive, Car magazine reports. Audi has reportedly also axed its A1 e-tron.

Mazda Motor Corp. President Takashi Yamanouchi said the carmaker will use its hydrogen-fueled rotary engine technology as a range extender for an electric vehicle it plans to start leasing next year, Nikkei reports.

NEC and GS Yuasa reached an agreement to supply components for the lithium-ion battery field. NEC will provide its lithium-ion battery electrodes to GS Yuasa by the end of October 2012. They companies say they’ll expand their cooperation through areas such as lithium-ion batteries for energy storage systems.

Mazda Motorsports will supply racing versions of its SKYACTIV-D clean diesel engines to customer teams competing in GRAND-AM’s GX Class for advanced/clean technologies, beginning with the 2013 season. The SKYACTIV-D reduces fuel consumption up to 20 percent, reduces internal engine friction by 20 percent and reduces weight by 10 percent compared to Mazda’s current production 2.2L MZR-CD diesel engine.

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Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide delivered the first pilot version of its Plug-In Hybrid Electric F-150 pickup truck to Florida Power & Light Company with Dow Kokam, the lithium-ion battery system supplier for the hybrid pickup. Quantum’s “F-Drive” parallel hybrid drive system powers the pickup—first 35 miles on a series-hybrid electric zero emission mode, followed by a parallel-hybrid drive mode that extends the range up to 600 miles, and yielding a 100+ mpg fuel efficiency.

G&K Services placed hybrid electric diesel step vans into service in its locations in Northern California. The pilot program will test hybrid electric trucks in its fleet of delivery vehicles. G&K obtained the vehicles in partnership with California’s Hybrid Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project.

Biodiesel producer Renewable Energy Group will establish a B100 wholesale terminal at its yet-to-be-completed biodiesel plant near Clovis, N.M, with product available in July. The company says the 15 million gallon per year biodiesel facility, called REG Clovis, is about 40 percent complete.

Audi posted a video of Audi of America employees, or “e-pilots,” testing the battery-electric A3 prototype. It’s part of the company’s e-tron electric vehicle pilot project, launched in February.

The Washington State Department of Transportation and EV-charging station maker AeroVironment have opened 10 new public charging stations in Washington, allowing EV drivers access to charging stations from Seattle to the Canadian border. Eight of the 10 feature AeroVironment’s DC fast chargers, which the company says deliver a full charge in less than 30 minutes; all locations include AeroVironment Level 2 chargers.

Nissan will test peak-shaving services, which will take power from its Leaf electric vehicle and send it for a limited time to a building during periods of peak demand. During the test, the EV battery will supply four percent, or 6 kW, of the peak summer power consumption of a municipal administrative center in Japan.

Nissan installed the first of 400 free fast battery chargers in Europe. A 40-unit network will be installed throughout the Netherlands, leaving most Dutch motorists within 20 miles of its Quick Chargers. Another 40 chargers will be placed in France. The Quick Chargers have a direct current design that conforms to the ChadeMo charging standard.

Aqua America, a US publicly traded water utility that serves nearly 3 million residents, will replace a portion of its fleet with compressed natural gas vehicles. The company’s subsidiary Aqua Pennsylvania has been

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piloting CNG vehicles for more than a year and has plans to build a slow-fill station at its Springfield Operations Center.

Yellow Cab of Pittsburgh, a division of the Pittsburgh Transportation Group, is introducing propane-powered taxi cabs to its fleet. Initially, at least 55 cabs will be converted to use propane fuel. PTG expects to save $1.40 per gallon on fuel and reduce its carbon footprint by about 500 tons a year.

Consumer Reports tested fuel economy packages on small car models to determine whether the annual fuel savings offset the additional cost of the extra feature, and found the Ford Focus SFE was most efficient with 31 miles per gallon. CR tested fuel economy packages on the Ford Focus SFE, Chevrolet Cruze Eco and the Honda Civic HF.

Volvo recently tested its Sarte road train project in Spain, using three vehicles – an XC60, a V60 and a S60 – that drove autonomously, following a truck for 124 miles at 53 miles per hour. The test aims to determine the fuel efficiency and safety benefits of a road train. The following vehicles were equipped with cameras, radar and laser sensors and wireless communication to copy what the lead car was doing.

Green Building

Starbucks, Staples, and The J.R. Simplot Company joined the White House’s Better Buildings Challenge. They pledged to upgrade more than 50 million square feet of combined commercial building space, including 15 manufacturing facilities, as they strive to meet the Better Buildings goal of cutting building energy use at least 20 percent by 2020.

A major upgrade of the Empire State Building has saved $2.4 million in the first full year since the bulk of the work was completed, exceeding efficiency guarantees by 5 percent, the project’s partners said.

A subsidiary of the Babcock & Wilcox Company was awarded contracts valued at about $55 million to design and supply environmental control equipment and engineer a boiler economizer for Consumer Energy’s J.H. Campbell Generating Complex in Michigan. B&W will supply four spray dry absorber systems to controls sulfur dioxide emissions, lime preparation systems and ash handling systems for the plant.

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Energy Focus was awarded several lighting retrofit contracts totaling $2 million including a project to upgrade a Fortune 500 manufacturing facility. Other contracts include lighting retrofits at several locations of a large hospital complex; a project at a school district in the Northeast US; and a community college and state building complex in the Midwest.

Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls has launched a free report designed to help governments improve the air quality and efficiency of commercial buildings, while saving companies money and helping them reduce carbon emissions.

Packaging and Paper

OfficeMax launched a program that reuses and recycles the boxes it uses for deliveries to business customers. The office supply company expects the initiative to reduce box consumption by 80 percent among participating businesses. Sprint Nextel says sending customers bills in “ecoEnvelopes” will save the company just under a half million dollars in operational costs, and the equivalent of 447 tons of paper, in about a year.

NextLife’s post-consumer recycled resins have been approved by Health Canada to be used in the manufacture of plastics products that come in contact with food.

Coca-Cola Co., Ford Motor Co., H.J. Heinz Co., Nike Inc. and Proctor & Gamble have formed a strategic working group to accelerate the development and use of 100 percent plant-based PET materials and fiber in their products. The Plant PET Technology Collaborative builds on Coca-Cola’s PlantBottle packaging technology.

Cosmetics companies Chanel, Coty, Avon, L’Oreal Group, Mast Global and Estee Lauder are inaugural members of an initiative created by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Institute for Sustainability that aims to find ways to work with suppliers, retailers and customers to advance sustainable packaging.

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Water Management

Aging infrastructure is the most pressing concern for the water utility industry, according to research by engineering and consulting company Black & Veatch. Water management products firm Phigenics and program management and engineering company Argo Systems are to provide water management services for seven US Navy bases. H2O Innovation Inc. was recently awarded C$3.7 million in new contracts to provide custom-built water treatment systems and equipment to municipal end-users in the United States and Canada, as well as smaller systems to industrial clients.

Waste & Recycling

Coca-Cola Co. and its Mexican bottlers are investing $34 million to double the capacity of the PetStar SA de CV food-grade PET recycling plant in Toluca, Mexico. The EPA’s Pacific Southwest Region has launched the US’s first waste to biogas mapping tool, aimed at supporting the use of organic waste for energy projects. The tool aims to bridge the gap between large energy generators and restaurants, hotels and other food waste generators, to increase the rate of organic waste that is converted to energy and reduce the amount sent to landfill.

The 2012 Summer Olympics in London will reuse 90 percent of demolition waste, send zero waste to the landfill, and its venues will use 30 to 40 percent less drinkable water than standard, making London the “greenest Games in history,” according to a report by Jones Lang LaSalle.

Clean World Partners and Atlas Disposal Industries have started construction on a commercial-scale organic waste recycling capable of converting 25 tons of food waste per day into renewable gas.

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In an Open Letter to Walmart on Stewardship of Electronic Waste, more than 100 priests, pastors, rabbis, lay leaders, faith-based activists and theologians ask the retail giant to match its competitors’ e-waste recycling programs, back a national policy that would ban exporting e-waste to developing nations, and work with its suppliers to design “greener” electronic products.

IBM is collaborating with resource recovery company Recology to help San Francisco achieve zero waste by 2020. The city’s diversion rate already totals 78 percent, which Recology says is the highest in the US.

Several major brand names including Yoplait, Estee Lauder, Sealed Air, BJ’s Wholesale Club and manufacturer Ampac agreed to adopt the How2Recycle Label, a voluntary recycling label developed by GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition.

Renewable Energy

Microsoft and communications firm Sprint are the latest US firms to petition congressional leaders for an extension of the production tax credit for wind power, which is scheduled to expire this December. Clean World Partners and Atlas Disposal Industries have broken ground on the construction of what the companies say is the US’s largest commercial-scale, high-solids anaerobic digestion system, and on California’s first AD-based renewable natural gas fueling station. The Organic Waste Recycling Center at the South Area Transfer Station in Sacramento will convert 25 tons of food waste per day collected by Atlas Disposal from area food processing companies, restaurants and supermarkets into renewable natural gas. The US still lags far behind many countries in the percentage of its energy that comes from renewable sources, despite the country ramping up production of renewable energy by more than 300 percent in the past decade, according to research by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Europe’s largest solar module producer, Renewable Energy Corporation, launched the REC Peak Energy Plus Series module, the first commercially available multicrystalline product based on cells with backside passivation technology. The module has a nominal power output in watt classes ranging from 240 Wp to 255 Wp with higher watt classes possible in the future.

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Abengoa has been selected to carry out the engineering, construction and start-up of one of the largest photovoltaic plants in the world. The plant will be constructed in the Imperial Valley of south central California and will have a capacity of 200 MW. The contract, worth US$ 360 million, is due to be completed in 18 months and the plant will come into operation progressively during the second half of 2013. IKEA announced plans to install solar energy panels on two distribution centers in the eastern US. Installation will occur this summer on the facilities in Perryville, Md., and Westampton, N.J. Both projects will rank among the largest commercial rooftop solar installations in the US. IKEA also announced that it will install PV panels that will provide 100 percent of electricity needs for its distribution centers in China, and 10 to 15 percent of electricity for its Chinese stores, saving around 6,000 tonnes of CO2 each year. General Electric received contracts to supply 137 wind turbines to DTE Energy for projects in lower Michigan. GE is supplying DTE Energy with 69 1.6-100 wind turbines for its Sigel, Minden and McKinley projects and 68 1.6-100 units for its wind project in Chandler Township, adjacent to the McKinley site. The first of 13 Advanced Energy Industries AE 500 solar inverters planned for installation at projects developed by American Clean Energy is now operational at the Toms River Regional School District in Ocean County, N.J. The 13 solar photovoltaic projects total 4.5MW in power capacity.

IBM partnered with CUNY Ventures, a City University of New York Economic Development Corporation entity, to develop an intelligent operations platform that will help the city analyze and understand key market indicators that can make solar system development more cost competitive.

Nearly half of the world’s largest corporations plan to moderately or significantly increase investment in renewable energy over the next five years, according to Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices research by Ernst & Young.

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Corporate Sustainability

Companies with high ratings for corporate social responsibility and environmental, social and governance factors have a lower cost of capital and are a lower risk to investors, according to a report by Deutsche Bank’s climate change investment research group.

Cemex used 25 percent alternative fuels in its cement production in 2011, an achievement that allowed the company to avoid the use of nearly 2 million tons of coal and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1.8 million tons.

Bank of America says it will reduce energy consumption 25 percent by 2015, compared to 2004 levels, equal to eliminating 1.2 million MWh of annual energy use from its portfolio.

Waste services provider Veolia Environmental Services has pledged to achieve a material recovery rate of 30 percent by 2015 as part of a raft environmental performance targets that cover pollution prevention, conservation of natural resources, protection of biodiversity, combating climate change and environmental awareness.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a carbon credit market of Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states, sold 57 percent of its more than 36.4 million allowances offered for sale at its 16th quarterly auction in June. The clearing price of $1.93 matched the previous auction in March and was up slightly from the $1.89 price yielded at the December auction.

Semiconductor manufacturing plants dramatically reduced their average energy use from 1997 to 2011, according to research by the International Sematech Manufacturing Initiative.

Nike partnered with Random Hacks of Kindness in the Open Challenge for Sustainable Materials, an initiative that asks apparel designers and developers to use sustainable materials listed on the Nike Sustainable Materials Index and build a new database about the suppliers.

All Marks & Spencer-operated stores, offices, warehouse and delivery fleets in the UK have been certified as carbon neutral, a goal reached by significantly cutting emissions and purchasing carbon offsets.

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Trade officials with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation said they are working to finalize a list of green products that will be targeted for tariff cuts over the next three years.

Nearly 77 percent of sustainability experts think a major catastrophe will have to occur for national governments to take action on sustainable development, according to survey released by GlobeScan and SustainAbility.

Supplier Haldor Topsoe selected Honeywell company UOP to install technology at the Antipinsky Refinery in Russia that will recover and purify hydrogen to help produce cleaner fuels more efficiently. Refineries use hydrogen in the hydrofracking process to convert heavy oil to lighter, higher value products such as transportation fuels.

Asia Pulp & Paper has pledged that by 2020 all of its suppliers will be certified under the voluntary Indonesian sustainable forest management scheme.

Manufacturers need more incentives to invest in low-carbon and energy efficient technologies if the UK is going to meet its low-carbon economy goals, according to recent study from the Institute for Public Policy Research.

A recent survey from Harris Interactive, commissioned by Tork, a recycled paper products brand owned by personal hygiene company SCA, found that 69 percent of American adults purchase green products or services, slightly less than previous years, and nearly one third believe such products are the norm and a required expectation.

Rosebud Mining Company selected WSP Digital’s E-Records Information Management System (ERIMS) to handle its environmental data management and compliance reporting. The Pennsylvania-based coal producer will use ERIMS to standardize and streamline processes for meeting permit requirements, managing field and laboratory data, and producing reports for regulatory agencies and internal use.

Intel, Xcel Energy, Alcoa, ING, National Grid, Shell, and Suncor Energy are among the US companies tying executive compensation to sustainability performance, according to a report from The Conference Board that says shareholders are placing more value on corporate sustainability initiatives and are becoming increasingly interested in linking such performance to executives’ compensation.

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The UN’s Rio+20 Earth Summit won’t likely result in any binding agreements for businesses, but it may help reinforce sustainable development, according to a report by KPMG International.

Rankings

Carbon emissions rank third—up from sixth last year—among electric utilities’ top environmental concerns, according to a Black & Veatch Corp report. For the sixth straight year, water supply issues were second only to carbon emissions legislation as the top environmental concern in the industry.