Posts Tagged: sustainability

  • Greenwashing —The breakdown of a plastic recycling scheme by Megan Herbert—used with permission

    Greenwashing and wishcycling

    Yesterday (2 March 2023) the ACCC announced it would crack down on ‘greenwashing’. The ACCC stated it would “step up its probe of companies’ environmental claims”  after a survey found more than half the companies they looked at had made misleading statements ranging from overstating climate action to developing their own certification schemes. The ACCC […]

  • Image of solar panel installation. Energy firming is how operators maintain the output from variable and intermittent power sources, such as wind or solar, for a committed period of time.

    Energy firming—what does it mean?

    Overview of energy firming Renewables (wind and solar) were announced as the cheapest technology for producing electricity in Australia in July 2022. Cost details can be found in this CSIRO report. Wind and solar power is also known as variable renewable energy (VRE). Much of the uncertainty around moving to a variable renewable energy system is […]

  • Retro style image--SUSTAINABILITY--Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

    Sustainability—are we really committed to it?

    Who is committed to sustainability? Sustainability is the hottest buzzword in business and government strategy. Every Australian government department is committed to it and the corporate sector is on board. Most organisations have a sustainability policy that they can include in their tenders and on their website. Everyone it seems, is committed to sustainability. But […]

  • Single use from Collins https://www.collinsdictionary.com/woty

    WOTY18—the words of the year 2018

    Many of the English-speaking world’s leading dictionaries have published their Word of the Year for 2018 (WOTY18). The words are not always new, but they have been prominently used in the past year. The WOTY can be a word or a “vocabulary item” (acronyms, phrases, etc). Some organisations have committees to decide their WOTY; others […]

  • Carbon as coal

    Words about carbon

    Carbon is a non-metallic element that makes up less than one per cent of the earth’s crust and, for a long period, 100 per cent of the Australian political debate. Much of the world’s carbon is contained in coal that was created during the Carboniferous Period from 360 to 300 million years ago. We are […]

  • Smoke stacks and carbon pollution

    Is carbon dioxide a pollutant?

    Some argue that carbon dioxide emissions are not pollution because CO2 is a natural substance. This is a misinterpretation of the word pollution.

  • Ecological sustainability development is an important concept in managing our natural world.

    Ecologically sustainable development

    Sustainability is a term bandied about in the speeches of politicians and public servants but do we really understand what they are talking about? There are hundreds of definitions, it seems, which give it a very ambiguous meaning within a broad conceptual framework. Ecologically sustainable development (ESD) is an important concept in policy and legislation. The best-known definition of sustainability or […]