Mooi hoor, alweer een grote stap voor Lemnis Lighting.
Dankzij een financiële injectie van 26,2 miljoen euro kan Lemnis Lighting starten met het veroveren van de Afrikaanse markt met de Pharox LED-lampen.
Met het nieuwe kapitaal is Lemnis Lighting in staat om de portfolio van LED-verlichting verder uit te breiden. Voor de uitrol in Afrika werkt Lemnis Lighting samen met Afrikaanse partijen die zich richten op het investeren in winstgevende distributie van duurzame producten en diensten die het leven van mensen op het continent verbeteren.
Lemnis Lighting is inmiddels actief in Europa, de Verenigde Staten, India en China. Met meer dan 2,5 miljoen verkochte Pharox-lampen in 2009 is Lemnis uitgegroeid tot één van de grootste spelers in LED-verlichting op de consumentenmarkt.
Geschreven op 9-3-2010 - Erik van Erne.
Geplaatst in Cradle to Cradle
Do you have an idea how disused shirts could be transformed into coffee filters? Maybe you know the formula to the 100-percent recycling of shoe soles? If so, apply now for the I:CO Award – the international Research Prize in the field of shoe and textile recycling!
The I:CO AWARD is being awarded by I:COllect AG and EPEA International Environmental Research GmbH. As of 2010, this prize will be awarded every two years in honor of excellent, experimental and innovative scientific work, with the aim or result of keeping textiles and shoes in a continuous cycle of circulation.
For the first time ever, the I:CO AWARD will be awarded in November 2010 at the Nutec trade show. The best recycling ideas in the categories, Product Idea (biological and/or technical) and concept Idea (system and services), will be awarded.
Candidacy for the I:CO AWARD can be fashioned freely from your own ideas. It is important that the idea you submit relates to textiles or shoes. Apply now for the 2010 I:CO AWARD! Applications will be accepted until July 31, 2010. We welcome your suggestion on recycling ideas for shoes and/or textiles! Simply send the signed and completed registration form (PDF) with your application include a maximum two-page summary in German and/or English showing the current state of research on the topic, the participant´s research approach and the results achieved.
In maart start de BNO met de nieuwe serie spreekuren rond duurzaam ontwerpen.
Hou je in je ontwerppraktijk rekening met duurzaamheid – kort gezegd de gevolgen van je ontwerpkeuzes voor mens en milieu – dan loop je ongetwijfeld regelmatig tegen vragen aan.
Welke productietechnieken en materialen kan ik het beste toepassen? Hoe kan ik levenscyclusanalyses (LCA’s) en ecodesignstrategieën of Cradle to Cradle op een goede manier inzetten? Hoe zit het met de inkoopvoorwaarden van de overheid?
Met deze en andere vragen kunt u terecht bij de spreekuren duurzaam ontwerpen bij BNO, voor leden gratis te bezoeken. Het eerste spreekuur, op 16 maart, gaat over drukken en inkt.
Drie specialisten geven een korte introductie en kun je daarna bestoken met vragen over op specifieke ontwerpoplossingen of meer algemene vragen zoals: “hoe gedraagt inkt zich in het recyclingproces? Bestaan er voor inkt net zulke certificaten als voor papier? Is het beter om voor recycling papier te kiezen dan voor gecertificeerd? Wat houdt ‘ontinkten’ in?”.
Op 6 april 2010 staat Cradle to Cradle op de agenda met als specialist Niels van Marle, Cradle to Cradle design-consultant bij ontwerpbureau Pezy. Om blijvend gebruik te kunnen maken van de beschikbare grondstoffen, moeten we productontwikkeling slimmer aanpakken. Door de juiste materialen te kiezen en een goed ontwerp, blijven toegepaste materialen in een product eeuwig van waarde! “Waste equals Food”; “Reuse of Solar Income” en “Celebrate Diversity” zijn de drie uitgangspunten die ontwerpers inspireren tot “producten met toekomst”.
Samen met de deelnemers wordt gekeken naar de praktische toepassing van C2C in het ontwerpproces. Waar loop je zoal tegenaan in de praktijk? Hoe verandert C2C je ontwerpproces? Wat zijn de verschillen met sustainability? De aanwezige specialisten komen van Pezy Product Innovation en We Are Perspective (beiden onderdeel van de Pezy group). Deze twee bureaus hebben, als een van de eerste ontwerpbureaus ter wereld, samen elf Cradle to Cradle design consultants in huis die zijn geaccrediteerd door EPEA (Environmental Protection and Encouragement Agency, opgericht door Michael Braungart). U kunt zich hier aanmelden voor het Spreekuur Cradle to Cradle. Zie ook: William McDonough on Cradle to Cradle design TED Talks - Video Cradle To Cradle Explained
Op 4 mei kunt u terecht bij Sander Hegger (BECO), die alles weet van LCA’s om de milieubelasting is van een product te meten. Op 18 mei kunt u alles vragen over papier, aan Cia Franssens, directeur van Drukkerij Raddraaier), Fred Brink, manager technische afdeling van Proost en Brandt en Jan van Eerd, Business Developer bij Arctic Paper.
Als u wilt werken met biopolymeren, maar u afvraagt wat de voor en nadelen zijn, kunt u op 21 september terecht bij biopolymerenspecialist Paul Eilbracht. De serie wordt nog uitgebreid met onderwerpen als de richtlijnen duurzaam inkopen van de overheid en de EU-richtlijnen voor ecodesign, recycling van kunststoffen, bamboe. Hou het in de gaten! Bron: BNO
YikeBike is the world’s lightest electric folding bicycle that is small enough to fit inside a backpack when not in use.
Powered by 1.2 kW electric motor, this bike has a top speed of 20 km/h, weighs less than 10 kg (22 lb), folds in less than 15 seconds, and can travel a distance of 10 km on a single charge.
Geschreven op 8-3-2010 - Erik van Erne.
Geplaatst in Design, Vakantie
At the “Dag van Maarssen”, an innovation day hosted by the government, Dutch Docklands presented their newest concept: The Floating Beach®.
A floating artificial beach offers an alternative for areas/cities where there are no beaches, where land is sinking or where sand shortages present drawbacks for traditional land reclamation. The beach is completely floating and just as comfortable as a normal beach, ecologically justified and erosion free.
Creating Dutch Docklands Floating Beaches will leave the dynamic caused by tides, waves and current intact while creating comfortable new places to recreate. The unique world-wide patented system makes it possible to produce miles of new beaches and can also serve as a permanent coastal expansion.
Where land is sinking…Where sand is short…Innovation Solves!Dutch Docklands
The “Hexicon Concept” offers easy installation solutions of energy producing platforms at any seaside location with patented assembly and hull-system applications.
“The Hexicon” provides many options as to where it can be located, how it can be equipped, assembled and provide different solutions to produce and then distribute energy.
It can produce energy from Wind turbines and optional Wave generator installations and when available excellent for ocean-current applications as well as “wave-traps”, which can bring oxygen rich surface water down to the ocean floor, when deemed applicable in specific areas. And don’t forget some solar panels.
There are additional possible applications to be researched, developed & tested live on board future platforms including non energy applications. Floating platform to harvest wind energy to generate up to 40MW of renewable power.
With nations pledging to reduce the carbon footprint to counter global warming, the need for systems that generate renewable energy has been on a rise. While most energy companies are trying to find locations for renewable energy power plants, Sweden’s Hexicon has developed a new solution for offshore wind power. Source: Ecofriend
Thinking of plastic packaging in a different way can bring many benefits. The problem with packaging is that after its original role has been fulfilled it is considered to be without any value.
Creative and innovative solutions can be found however, that can add value to this seemingly valueless material and at the same time prolong its life by incorporating it into other products.
One such solution is to collect the discarded plastic drink sachets that are found in abundance in Ghana, West Africa, and without expending much energy (unlike some recycling solutions) patch them together and use them as the material for bags and other products. This is how Trashy Bags are made.
By encouraging people around Ghana to collect millions of discarded plastic sachets and paying them a collection fee for each batch of a thousand that they collect we are not only helping to clean up the environment but also providing casual and supplementary employment to people who otherwise would be out of a job or below the poverty threshold. In addition we are teaching people that the sachets can have an inherent value of their own and should be saved rather than discarded indiscriminately.
Once received we wash the sachets three times before disinfecting and drying them and sorting them into different types before storage, ready for sewing together and assembling into unique and useful bag designs such as brief cases, backpacks and tote bags. Source: Trashy Bags
Philanthropist George Soros and prominent British academic Nicholas Stern are among the 19 members of the high-level advisory group set up by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon seeking to mobilize financing to help developing countries combat climate change.
The Advisory Group is slated to hold its first meeting on 29 March in London and is expected to submit its final report to Mr. Ban before the next conference of parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Mexico later this year.
The Copenhagen Accord reached at December’s UN conference in the Danish capital aims to jump-start immediate action on climate change and guide negotiations on long-term action, with developing countries to be given $30 billion until 2012 and then $100 billion a year until 2020. Source: UN
Geschreven op 8-3-2010 - Erik van Erne.
Geplaatst in Milieu
For over three decades, Chevron chose profit over people. While drilling in the Ecuadorian Amazon from 1964 to 1990, Texaco – which merged with Chevron in 2001 – deliberately dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater, spilled roughly 17 million gallons of crude oil, and left hazardous waste in hundreds of open pits dug out of the forest floor.
To save money, Texaco chose to use environmental practices that were obsolete, did not meet industry standards, and were illegal in Ecuador and the United States.
The result was, and continues to be, one of the worst environmental disasters on the planet. Contamination of soil, groundwater, and surface streams has caused local indigenous and campesino people to suffer a wave of mouth, stomach and uterine cancer, birth defects, and spontaneous miscarriages. Chevron has never cleaned up the mess it inherited, and its oil wastes continue to poison the rainforest ecosystem.
Today, 30,000 Ecuadorians are demanding justice in a landmark class action lawsuit. Despite Chevron’s repeated efforts to sabotage the trial, an independent court-appointed expert recently deemed Chevron responsible for up to $27 billion in damage.
It is time for shareholders, consumers, and the public to hold Chevron accountable for its actions. Learn more about the history of Chevron’s “Rainforest Chernobyl” , or Take Action in the fight for justice in the Amazon! See this video message from Ecuador to Chevron CEO John Watson.