Fiber testing reveals dirty secrets of office paper

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

At WRI, we are working to understand and minimize our environmental impacts. Using research and expertise from around the Institute to guide us, WRI is committed to limiting the resources we use and purchasing products that reflect our environmental and social mission.

Our guidelines at our Washington, D.C. office require paper products to be certified and have high recycled fiber content. However, we had not identified other requirements beyond product certification, nor had we effectively communicated these guidelines or any paper purchasing standards with our non-D.C. offices. We also found that we were not maintaining records on all our offices’ paper purchases.

Considering our ongoing work to help companies comply with U.S. Lacey Act requirements, we decided it was time to examine the paper products in our own offices. We wanted to better understand our supply chains and use fiber analysis to test the paper content.

 

Better by Design: Evolving EPR fees call for better design choices.

Read the full story in Recycling Today.

Does establishing fees in EPR systems effect whether producers choose to manufacture their products using materials that have a smaller environmental impact?

 

Samsung Galaxy S4 Scores First Smartphone Sustainability Certification

Read the full story at Triple Pundit.

Last week, TCO Development granted Samsung’s Galaxy S4 the organization’s first ever sustainability certification for smartphones.

The certification is important for Samsung and the overall smartphone market for several reasons. First, as smartphones proliferate and accomplish everything from reducing usage of laptops to helping alleviate poverty in emerging markets, the world’s resources necessary to manufacture them, from rare earth metals to petroleum, will become more constrained and difficult to procure. Furthermore, consumers are becoming aware of the social cost resulting from their assembly, as last year’s Apple-Foxconn saga clearly demonstrated.

 

Better Appliances: An Analysis of Performance, Features, and Price as Efficiency Has Improved

Download the document.

Efficiency standards have played a major role in saving energy and water and reducing utility bills. This report analyzes how the choices available to consumers have changed over time as efficiency standards have taken effect for ten residential, commercial, and lighting products. The report compares the performance, features, and price of products available before and after each standard was implemented. As products have become more efficient, product performance generally stayed the same or improved, and manufacturers offered new features to consumers. Prices declined or stayed the same for five of the nine products for which price data were available, and for the other four products, observed price increases are outweighed by electricity bill savings.

 

McGill launches tool to make green building easier

Read the full story in the McGill Reporter.

McGill has launched an online tool to help in the selection of more environmentally friendly materials for new construction and renovation projects. The Material Analysis Tool (MAT) is an online ranking system that distills manufacturer information to assist users in the selection of building products that are healthy and environmentally responsible. Designed to help McGill staff and contractors, the MAT is also available to the public.

 

In an Overhaul, Clorox Aims to Get Green Works Out of Its Niche

Read the full story in the New York Times.

A marketing overhaul for the environmentally friendly housecleaning product leads to lower prices and a new promotion strategy.

 

The best tools for using healthier materials in your products

Read the full story in GreenBiz.

This article is the first in a three-part series exploring the challenges manufacturers face to design healthier products and the resources available to help them avoid chemicals of concern. Each post will focus one of the three phases in the Cradle to Cradle framework: inventory, assessment and optimization.

 

Green Seal Publishes Standard On Laundry Products

Read the full post from Today’s Facility Manager.

This past January, Green Seal, a nonprofit certification organization founded in 1989, announced the publication of GS-51: Laundry Care Products for Industrial and Institutional Use.

Designed to address the life cycle impacts of laundry care products used in institutional and industrial settings, GS-51 specifies performance, environmental, and health requirements such as concentration, reduced toxicity, biodegradability, and reduced and recyclable packaging.

The standard covers more than 20 product categories for conventional laundry and dry cleaning, including detergents, prewash products, spot removers, laundry additives, and fabric care products.

 

How genuine are ‘natural’ labeled products?

Read the full story in the Dominion Post. Focus on New Zealand products, but the same principle applies in the United States.

But with the proliferation of eco products has come a surge in vague green claims. The problem is distinguishing the genuine from the dodgy. And can a cleaning product ever really be environmentally kind? Earthwise’s “naturally powerful, environmentally kind” dishwasher powder was last year found to have an illegally high, corrosive pH.

To answer that question it helps to borrow a scientist. Auckland University of Technology environmental chemist John Robertson selects an eco all- purpose cleaner, scans the ingredients and looks up the material safety data sheets…

 

Sustainable Living in Your Headphones

Read the full post at New York Times Gadgetwise.

The new collection of headphones from the House of Marley incorporates materials like canvas and bamboo fiber over a frame of aluminum and steel so you can feel better about yourself while listening to music.