Media Release
by the National Cleaner Production Centre of South Africa
Friday, 22 March 2013

The recent NCPC-SA Industrial Resource Efficiency Conference, hosted by the National Cleaner Production Centre of South Africa (NCPC-SA), has shown that the local manufacturing industry is eager to educate itself on how energy, water, materials and other resource efficiencies can add to competitiveness, sustainability and profitability. The NCPC-SA is an industrial sustainability programme of the dti hosted by the CSIR.

The two-day conference was held at Emperor’s Palace in Gauteng on 11 and 12 March and was attended by some 300 delegates from industry, academia and government. The conference was organised to mark “ten years of resource efficiency and cleaner production” as the NCPC-SA ended off its tenth year, and some of the speakers took a retrospective look at what impact has been made in those ten years.

“We are proud to have unlocked potential savings of around R175 million through our RECP activities in the last ten years,” said Ndivhuho Raphulu, Director of the NCPC SA.

The keynote and opening address of the conference was given by Mr Clem Sunter, business leader and vocal spokesperson on the future of the SA economy.  He lauded the efforts of the NCPC-SA and spoke about the possible scenarios that face South Africa in the next ten years. His message: sustainability has to be a focus in order for South Africa to remain competitive.

Competitiveness occupied a large part of the dialogue at the conference and presentations demonstrated the effectiveness of RECP principles in a declining South African manufacturing economy. Global trends are showing that opportunities exist for businesses and countries that formalise these principles.

Good news for industry is that progressive government policies are providing a platform from which key sectors can be positioned for global competitiveness. These issues were brought to light on day two through the keynote address by Mr Gerhard Fourie, Chief Director: Green Industries at the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti).  He touched on governments plans, including finance models, to assist industry to become more competitive, as well as its efforts in moving towards a greener economy.

“South Africa will require a number of incentives over a period of time to move industries away from energy intensive, carbon intensive industries to less energy and carbon intensive labour absorbing industries,” said Mr Fourie.

Feedback from industry delegates as shown that the content of this conference was relevant and helpful.  As such, the NCPC-SA is making available all the talks and presentations via an online streaming site hosted by the CSIR.  All speaker presentations and the video recording of each speaker will soon be available at http://streaming.csir.co.za and a link to the conference content is available on www.ncpc.co.za

More information can be requested from ncpc@csir.co.za

Issued by: Julie Wells, Media Specialist NCPC-SA 074 8999 819 / jwells@csir.co.za

The following is an overview of the speakers and their topics:

South Africa is taking a continental lead in the integration and implementation of a green economy, as well as in putting initiatives in place to achieve the targets set out in the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to ensure environmental , Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Resource-based Sustainable Development competency area manager Dr Doug Trotter said during a presentation at the CSIR’s fourth biennial Science, Engineering and Technology conference last month.

GREEN ECONOMY South Africa needs to ensure that new initiatives and technologies are in place to improve economic growth and protect the environment

“South Africa was faster off the starting blocks than other countries in Africa in terms of responding to the emergence of a green economy as a concept.

“Initiatives to achieve the environmental sustainability MDG are already in place. This is a new emerging area within the CSIR and within South Africa as a whole,” he said.

Trotter explained that, as a country that was heavily dependent on natural resources for economic development, South Africa had no choice but to take the initiatives geared towards a green economy seriously.

He added that natural resources had ecological limits and the country needed to consider ways of decoupling the meeting of economic growth targets from increasing natural resources extraction.

“A green economy is one that results in improved wellbeing and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities.

“The underlying principle is to reduce the reliance of economic development on the increased consumption of, and damage to, natural resources and the environment, while meeting social needs and understanding inequities.

“To achieve this, we need to try to decouple the use of natural resources from the economy, while still maintaining economic growth,” stated Trotter.

He added that research was being done to find the most appropriate way to reduce the country’s reliance on coal and invest more in renewable-energy sources.

“If we reduce the use of our natural resources, we will reduce the environmental impact on the country,” he said. Trotter further noted that the country needed to ensure that new initiatives and technologies were in place to improve economic growth and environmental protection.“South Africa has started developing strategies to implement a green economy,” he stated. He explained that the transition towards a green economy was seen as a means to drive and implement sustainability; however, both were relatively new concepts and there were significant capacity and knowledge gaps in both these fields.

“Both concepts are complex and require the integration of the complicated relationships between environmental, social and economic considerations.

“The capacity, tools and methods to address these complexities and understand previously unforeseen relationship effects are still in their relative infancy, but are significantly needed now,” he said.

Further, Trotter noted that growing global pressure was driving accelerated research and development in this area.

“The availability of improvements on existing methods and the ongoing development of new approaches, guidelines and decision support tools are helping to unpack the complex issues.

“South Africa, along with the international community, needs to enable legal and regulatory context reform in terms of how to drive and enable funding and investment frameworks moving forward in that domain.

“We also need to enable international partners and global trade conditions
and set up new indicators for monitoring and reporting,” he stated.

Trotter stressed that green growth had to contribute to poverty reduction and socioeconomic development in the short to medium term, if it was going to gain traction in Africa.

“Comprehensive use of integrative review and planning, coupled with appropriately and purpose-designed decision-support tools, are crucial in unpacking the complexity of the path ahead,” he said.

Source: http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/sa-leading-in-implementation-of-green-economy-2012-11-02

This article has been edited by Alive2green

Click here for the Preliminary Agenda 15th IBF Pretoria 2012 

Click here for the IBF Background Paper 

Cabinet on Friday announced that it would lift the moratorium on shale gas drilling by means of hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking”. Exploration permits can now be issued to the petroleum companies interested in going after the Karoo’s potentially vast natural gas reserves. This is good news.

Source: http://dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2012-09-11-fracking-gets-green-light-but-heres-the-risk

Announcing the company’s 2011/12 annual results in Johannesburg on Monday, chief executive officer Geoffrey Qhena said the IDC had approved funding worth R13.5-billion, an increase on the R8.7-billion approved the year before.

The number of funding approvals also increased from 221 in 2010/11 to 293 in 2011/12.

Qhena said the company’s objective was to grow the local economy through the development of industrial capacity, leading to the creation of jobs.

‘Driving investment in economic priorities’

Last year, Economic Minister Ebrahim Patel announced that the IDC would make R102-billion available over the next five years to drive investment in the economic priorities identified in the New Growth Path.

“We expect the IDC to continue ramping up its performance,” Patel said at the release of the annual results.

“As part of the contribution of the IDC to industrial development, we have begun to measure the speed with which it considers and decides on applications. It is making steady progress to improve turnaround times.

“I have asked the IDC to consider the cost of its facilities to ensure that it is affordable and provides real support to manufacturers,” Patel said.

Contributing to the renewable energy sector

A significant part of the IDC’s approvals over the past year have been in the green and renewable energy sector.

The IDC participated in funding for 12 of the projects that received preferred bidder status during the first round of the Renewable Energy Procurement Program (REPP).

It also launched the Green Jobs report, as well as the Green Energy Efficiency Fund (GEEF) to provide-low cost funding to businesses to implement energy-saving technologies. It has launched a Green Bond to raise finance for renewable sector investments.

It has also set aside R25-billion towards the development of green industries over the next five years. “The IDC is emerging as a leader in the development of green industries,” Qhena said.

In April, the Small Enterprise Finance Agency was launched – a result of a merger between Khula, the SA Micro Finance Apex Fund and the IDC’s small business lending portfolio.

The agency focuses on lending up to R3-million to small, micro and medium-sized businesses.

Source: All Africa 

Image: Geoffrey Qhena

Source: http://www.greenbusinessguide.co.za/idc-invests-in-south-african-economy/

Name: Isabelle Duvivier, AIA, LEED AP
Location: Venice – Los Angeles, California
Size: 2,000 square feet
Years lived in: 1 year

Architect Isabelle Duvivier had been living in rentals in Venice for many years when she decided to purchase her own home. She fell in love with a 1912 Craftsman cottage in Venice, although the place was not without its challenges — the house needed major repairs. Keeping historic elements from the home while renovating it to meet and exceed green standards was very important to Isabelle.

Now the remodeled Craftsman cottage is the greenest home in Venice, among the top 10 green homes in the state of California, and in the top 25 in the country. It is 54% more energy efficient than California title 24 or energy standard requirements. Isabelle also collects all water on site. You can definitely tell how passionate she is about conserving materials and the environment.

Apartment Therapy Survey:

My Style: Regional contemporary.

Inspiration: Harmony with the historic, low income neighborhood, respecting the old house while also creating a modern home, and integrating with the outdoor environment.

Favorite Element: The open feeling throughout the house, Finn’s room in the old attic, 100% storm water collection and use, the native garden, and shelves from old 2×4 walls that were removed.

Biggest Challenge: Being the project manager as well as the architect and owner. Being involved in every stage and each method of construction was exhausting. Most subs wanted to do things the “standard” way, but the standard way is often directly at odds with the most environmentally responsible way. For example, getting 30% flyash in the concrete was not hard, but required many phone calls and follow-ups and glares from the subs.

What Friends Say: Love it, so open and airy.

Biggest Embarrassment: Sometimes I am embarrassed by my obsession with an all native plant palette in the back yard. The reason is: there are about 106 species of butterflies in LA. 85 of those species need native plants to survive, based on centuries of co-existing and species cooperation. The same is true for birds and insects. But sometimes I think it is a bit over the top.

Proudest DIY: The wood shelves created from 100-year-old house lumber, the water wheel, and the stormwater collection fountain.

Biggest Indulgence:

1. 600 G cistern, biggish bathtub (only 5.5′ but deep)
2. Bosch dishwasher (most efficient dishwasher on the planet)
3. Awesome downspouts and water mill made by the fabulous sheet metal guy Larry Strickland.

Best Advice: Definitely do a Quality Insulation Installation or QII. The right insulation installer can do it for no extra charge and it guarantees that the insulation is properly installed per Energy Star recommendations. It will greatly improve the overall energy performance of the home.

Dream Sources: Pasadena and Santa Monica airport swap meets.

Resources of Note:

APPLIANCES

• Bosch Dishwasher, oven and induction stove (has magnietic connection – uses induction heating to directly heat a cooking vessel, as opposed to using heat transfer from electrical coils or burning gas as with a traditional cooking stove. To be used on an induction cooktop, a cooking vessel must be made of a ferromagnetic metal, or placed on an interface disk which enables non-induction cookware to be used on induction cooking surfaces.) (we have solar)
• Miele washing machine/dryer

WINDOWS

• Marvin integrity - wood windows with fiberglass cladding – very energy efficient

HARDWARE

• Bathroom fixtures: Hansgrohe - ultra low flow and efficient and lovely
• Cistern: California Rainwater Tanks

FURNITURE

• Pasadena swap meet
• Modernica
• Thrift shops

ACCESSORIES

• Pepe’s thrift shop on Centinela
• Pasadena swap meet
• Graywater: Aqua2use

LIGHTING

• Desk and table lamps from thrift shop and inherited from grandparents
• Ceiling mounted cans are all CREE LED from Alcon Lighting on Robertson

SOLAR

• Martifer Solar

PAINT

• Mythic Paint

FLOORING

• Reused old 100-year-old floors
• Bathroom: porcelain tile from Epoxy green

RUGS & CARPETS

• FLOR

TILES & STONE

• Walker Zanger glass tile

WINDOW TREATMENTS

• Fabric Planet

BEDS

• Mary Cordoro’s bed line

ARTWORK

• Self-made

Source: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/isabelles-greenest-house-in-venicehouse-tour-176611

There are tons of recipes floating around the Internet for homemade green cleaners. I even included a few in the chapter on cleaning in “Happy Homemaking: An LDS Girl’s Guide” (Cedar Fort, 2012). Homemade cleaner is great because when you make it, you know exactly what is in it — just like you do when you cook and bake at home.

However, I’m not going eco-friendly at all costs. As much as I love the idea of saving the Earth, the first thing I’m interested in is saving my sanity. After all, I’ve got a family to feed, a house to clean, and more jobs than I care to count. Oh yes, and a baby to have in just a few weeks.

To be worth my time, a green cleaner has to be cheap, easy and clean well. Enter this recipe for Tub Scrub, which I adapted from a formula available on Marthastewart.com. It tackles soap scum like nobody’s business and does it sans the chemical smell most bathroom products have. It also mixes up in a jiffy and uses items you probably already have on hand. Bottom line? It saves you green while being green. And it’s hard to get more green than that.

Tub Scrub

1 cup baking soda

1 teaspoon liquid dish soap

3 drops of antibacterial lemon essential oil

Mix baking soda, dish soap and essential oil in a small container. Add extra water, drop by drop, to form a paste. Tackle soap scum at will.

Natalie Hollinsghead – Mom Click Blogger

Source: http://www.heraldextra.com/momclick/recipes/go-green-clean-right-at-home/article_09fcaaa8-737d-5366-ac77-8e983092c45c.html

Hopping into the shower or brushing your teeth may seem innocent enough, however the amount of waste and toxicities that occur during bathroom routines can be staggering. By simply shutting off the faucet while brushing your teeth can save approximately five gallons of water per day, per person. However, there is another culprit in the green movement besides water waste that goes down your drain practically every day. Soap, shampoo, conditioner, gels and more pollute our lakes, rivers and other water sources. Although municipal water companies filter as much as they can, many toxic chemicals still make it through, slowly poisoning our drinking water, fish and hydro-vegetation. The power is in the purchase, so you can turn your bathroom into a green hygiene environmentally friendly Mecca!

Body Soap

It seems that the days of a simple bar of soap have passed us by. Now there are body lotion infused formulas, large plastic bottles of body gels and even soap sprays for an all body access experience. Unfortunately, the adverse affects of many of these products can be damaging to our water over time.

Body soap does not even compare to some of the ingredients used in shampoos and conditioners. Take a look at the ingredients in one of your overly priced hair cleaning products and the chances are you will not be able to pronounce some of them. These are the chemicals that slowly find their way into our water sources which eventually circle back into our drinking supply. Also, most ‘natural’ ingredients listed are minimal and are often simply used to coincide with the advertising on the package so you will think you are purchasing something good for you.

You do not have to compromise quality results for an eco-friendly choice. There are plenty of products to choose from that will not only stand up to your favorite salon brand but they will, of course, be embraced by your body as well as the environment. Avoid soaps and shampoos that contain Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Ammonium Chloride and Methylchloroisothiazolinone as all of these have been proven to harm the environment as well as wild animals (and you!). Look for soap that contains things like botanical, plant based ingredients as well as glycerin, a natural by-product that acts as a humectant which draws water from the air to your skin. Use dye free, fragrance free and animal friendly soaps and shampoos that not only create a sound product but often give back a portion of your money to environmental causes.

Green hygiene has the ability to allow your body to work with your products and not against them. Why waste your money on sweet smelling yet potentially harmful shampoos and soaps when you can enjoy the many body-earth friendly choices out there. Plus, many of these choices offer green packaging which makes going green hygiene a win win play.

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by Diane Pham

Fashion and architecture are more than casual acquaintances. Both disciplines entail filling voids with contours, swoops, and planes, albeit on markedly different scales. Sometimes, however, the cross-pollination of concepts is intentional. As fashion terms like “draping,” “weaving,” and “pleating” propagate throughout the architectural world, and methods of building construction incorporate themselves into garment-making, the relationship between the two grows more intimate by the day. From bridge-like pumps to a hat based on the London Zoo’s penguin exhibit, here are nine examples of their love affair.

CROP BY DAVID PECK (MONTELEONE HOTEL)

For “Crescent Rising,” CrOp by David Peck’s Spring/Summer 2012 collection, designer David Peck drew his cues from New Orlean’s vibrant landscape and architecture, including the historicMonteleone Hotel, whose Beaux-Arts friezes inspired one of his prints.

+ CrOp by David Peck

ZAHA HADID (THYSSENKRUPP)

To raise money for the World Wildlife Foundation, British architect Zaha Hadid borrowed a page from her own playbook. Frozen Aura, a flowing mesh dress, evokes the organic dynamism of her world-famous buildings, particularly the ThyssenKrupp headquarters in Germany.

+ Zaha Hadid

MARMOL RADZINER

Marmol Radziner’s line of jewelry isn’t just inspired by architecture, it’s derived from actual construction scrap. The unisex rings and bracelets echo the sleek, fuss-free silhouettes of the design-build firm’s award-winning prefabs, resulting in personal architectural fragments that “evolve in response to [their] wearer,” according to Ron Radziner.

+ Marmol Radziner

LARA MILLER (AQUA)

When Yesterday’s News commissioned Lara Miller to create a tea-dyed frock out of newspaper, the Chicago designer didn’t have to look far for inspiration. Her muse? The Aqua, a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified “post-architectural” skyscraper by award-winning architect Jeanne Gang.

+ Lara Miller

GRETCHEN JONES (GEODESIC DOME)

Project Runway winner Gretchen Jones counts the geodesic structures of Buckminster Fulleramong her myriad influences, particularly with her Fall/Winter 2011 debut collection. Jones had a hand in the jewelry that complements each look, several of which harken to Fuller’s self-bracing triangular forms.

+ Gretchen Jones

GALIA SOLOMONOFF (BIBLIOTECA CENTRAL DEL BICENTENARIO DE LA CIUDAD)

Galia Solomonoff was among the architects who lent their expertise to the 2011 “Scarfitecture” project, a cross-cultural initiative designed to fete the skills and abilities of artisans in Guatemala. Solomonoff based her design on the structural roof she designed for the Biblioteca Central del Bicentenario de la Ciudad in Rosario, Argentina. Reduced to abstract lines, the design morphed into a color-blocked shawl in soothing hues of blue.

+ Solomonoff Architecture Studio

GAETANO PESCE (ORGANIC BUILDING)

It should come as little surprise that Gaetano Pesce’s first foray into footwear follows the same mold as his trademark modular designs. The Italian architect’s “DIY bootie” for Melissa Plastic Dreams shares a thematic synergy with his plant-covered Organic Building in Osaka, Japan. Both feature undulating, interlocking components that can be tweaked individually at will.

+ Gaetano Pesce

FEIX & MERLIN (LONDON ZOO)

For Hat-itecture, a 2010 pop-up exhibit that explored the intersection between hats and architecture, the architects at Feix & Merlin created a one-off topper that recalled the Lubetkin Penguin Pool at the London Zoo. “This city is full of these incidental and fleeting moments, we wanted to capture the complex intertwined lives that Londoners lead and create something that responded to the intertwined relationships we have with each other every day,” say Julia Feix and Tarek Merlin. “Because deep down, we are all just little penguins trying to find our way.”

+ Feix & Merlin

CONTINUUM FASHION (MANHATTAN BRIDGE)

Talk about a shoe fit for a modern-day Cinderella. Made to order from three-dimensionally printed nylon, Continuum Fashion’s “Strvct” features the same triangulated buttressing that gives bridges their strength. Unlike actual bridges, however, the pump is wearable. Lined with a patent-leather inner sole, the shoe includes a coating of synthetic rubber on the bottom for traction.

+ Continuum Fashion

Source: http://inhabitat.com/9-eco-fashions-inspired-by-architecture/

By JOHN HEILPRIN Associated Press

A new global fund on climate change that aims to channel $100 billion a year in aid to poor countries selected officials from South Africa and Australia as its leaders at its first meeting Thursday.

The U.N.’s Green Climate Fund — created as part of a deal struck in December 2011 at the 194-nation climate talks in Durban, South Africa — will be led by Zaheer Fakir, head of international relations for South Africa’s environment agency, and Ewen McDonald, deputy head of Australia’s international development agency, the fund said in a statement.

In what is hoped will serve as a new model of climate financing, the fund would receive and distribute $100 billion that rich nations have pledged annually by 2020 to help poorer countries adapt to changing climate conditions and to move toward low-carbon economic growth.

The commitment to provide those billions in climate aid through the new “green” fund came as part of a hard-fought agreement in Durban that was meant to set a new course for the global fight against climate change for the coming decades.

But the U.N.-brokered climate agreement did not specify how that money would be mobilized, and a series of technical decisions on how and where it should be run and even how it could raise those funds were put off for later.

Meeting in Geneva by invitation of the Swiss government, the fund’s new 24-member board began by organizing itself, setting rules and hearing offers from six nations that would like to host the fund’s operations: Germany, Mexico, Namibia, Poland, South Korea and Switzerland.

Swiss Cabinet member Doris Leuthard, who directs the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications, welcomed the board to Geneva for the fund’s inaugural three-day meeting, which runs through Saturday. She also began pressing the Swiss case for serving as the fund’s long-range hosts.

The initial meeting in Geneva was set back for months by bureaucratic delays. Advocacy groups say the U.N.-administered fund can’t get going fast enough but want to ensure it remains transparent to outside observation and participation.

“The timing really couldn’t be more urgent. In the U.S. alone, we’ve heard all these stories about droughts and massive crop damage and rampant wildfires this summer with concerns over rising food prices,” said Brandon Wu, a senior policy analyst at ActionAid USA. “A lot of scientists have linked the summer’s weather trends to climate change, and it’s only going to get worse by the end of the century. The effects are even more severe in developing countries, where vulnerable smallholder farmers don’t have the protection of things that we have here like crop insurance and social safety nets.”

The fund was created in addition to the $30 billion in “fast-track financing” for poor countries that rich nations agreed to provide at the December 2009 climate talks in Copenhagen. The Green Climate Fund is envisioned as the world’s biggest financier for helping the developing world mitigate and adapt to climate change from 2020 onward.

The board’s members include a Chinese assistant finance minister, a U.S. deputy assistant treasury secretary, a Russian deputy chief in the president’s office, a Danish central banker, a Czech deputy finance minister, a Bangladeshi environment minister, and a Pakistani U.N. ambassador.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=17063623