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P2 Go Bragh: Emerald Isle
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! For those of us of Irish descent (and those who pretend to be Irish, if just for today), I thought it would be appropriate to spend some time considering environmental initiatives in Ireland. Here are a few examples of green activities on the Emerald Isle:
- Wind Power: According to Sustainable Energy Ireland, “wind energy provides electricity to the equivalent of 40 million European citizens, and wind farms in Ireland supply enough clean green power to support over 146,000 users.” Their web site provides an interactive map of existing wind farms in Ireland (as of April 2007). A recent post on the Green Tech Blog (“Ireland: Where Wind Power is King” by Michael Kanellos) discusses the great potential for further wind farm development on the island, both on and offshore.
- Cultivate Living and Learning Centre: The Cultivate Centre in Dublin serves as a hub for environmental activities and ideas. Their web site provides a green map of Dublin; environmental workshop listing; a directory of schools, businesses and other organizations in Ireland that are teaching or training and have principles of sustainability rooted in their mission and strategies; information on energy issues and climate change; and a host of other resources. The themes addressed in their educational programs include green building, permaculture and organic gardening, renewable energy, energy conservation, and rethinking urban design and planning.
- Cleaner Greener Production Programme (CGPP): This program of Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency encourages Irish business and industry to produce goods and services in more environmentally friendly ways. That agency defines “Cleaner Greener Production” as “the application of integrated preventive environmental strategies to processes, products and services to increase overall efficiency and reduce risks to humans and the environment, for example: (1) Production processes: conserving raw materials and energy, eliminating toxic raw materials and reducing the quantity and toxicity of all emissions and wastes (2) Products: reducing negative impacts along the life cycle of a product, from raw materials extraction to its ultimate disposal (3) Services: encouraging and supporting the development of higher environmental performance in the service sector, by incorporating environmental concerns into designing and delivering services.”
New York State DEC to host REACH workshop
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) recently announced that it will host a workshop on the European Union’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemical Substances (REACH). REACH is a recently adopted overhaul of the chemicals management system in the EU. REACH has important implications for United States firms exporting to EU member states and the rules became effective on June 1, 2007. The training session will take place on September 26, 2007 at DEC headquarters in Albany, NY.
An earlier post described a similar workshop that will be held in Lansing, MI on September 27.
For more upcoming events, check the GLRPPR online calendar and Sector Resources.
More Sites Added to GLRPPR’s P2 Search
In May, GLRPPR announced the new P2 Search tool, designed to search several different pollution prevention (P2) related web sites simultaneously. Now we’re pleased to report that the total number of sites currently included in this search engine is 45. GLRPPR Help Desk Librarian Laura Barnes has added the “GreenBiz” family of web sites (www.greenbiz.com, www.greenerbuildings.com, www.climatebiz.com and www.greenercomputing.com), as well as OSHA, CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to this customized Google search tool. The complete list of sites included in P2 Search is available at http://www.glrppr.org/search/p2_search_list.cfm. If you have suggestions for other web sites you think should be included in P2 Search, contact Laura Barnes.
We appreciate feedback on P2 Search. Our thanks go out to Harmony Madill of Environment Canada’s Canadian Pollution Prevention Information Clearinghouse (CPPIC), who contacted us recently after trying out P2 Search and noticing that some documents available on CPPIC weren’t showing up in the search results, even though they were showing up in the results of a standard Google search. Laura Barnes did some investigating and discovered that P2 Search was looking at the index of the English version of the CPPIC site (it’s available in English and French, of course), rather than the more generic http://www.ec.gc.ca/cppic (sometimes you can be too specific). Laura remedied the situation by broadening P2 Search to include the entire Environment Canada domain. Nice catch, Harmony!
You can add P2 Search to your own web site or to your customized Google homepage (iGoogle) by following the links and instructions available in the lower right hand corner of the P2 Search homepage. Code is provided for adding the tool to your web site, so if you’re not technically savvy or not authorized to alter your organization’s web site, you’ll need to provide this to your webmaster. If you do this, tell us about it to help us get a feel for how many people are using this option. Happy searching!
Lowell Center, MI DEQ Offer REACH Training
The Chemicals Policy Initiative of the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) are offering a training on the REACH (Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals) legislation in September 2007. The training, entitled Turning REACH into an Opportunity: A Training on Implementing The European Union’s New REACH Legislation, will be held September 27 at the Lansing Community College West Campus in Lansing, MI. The following press release from the DEQ describes the training:
“REACH— Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals— is the recently
adopted overhaul of the chemicals management system in the European Union (EU). Entered into force June 1, 2007, REACH has important implications for US firms exporting to European Member States.
Attend this one-day training to learn from one of the few REACH authors and other experts about what you need to know to comply with REACH, stay competitive, and advance more sustainable chemicals management in your firm.
Why Should I Attend?
The new REACH system puts much more responsibility on companies to collect data on most chemicals on the market, assess the risk of these chemicals, and define safe use down the supply chain. It also requires companies to justify continued use of chemicals of very high concern. Any company exporting chemicals or chemical mixtures into the EU; competes in Europe, the US or elsewhere with products meeting European standards; or exports finished products to Europe has been effected by REACH.
This training session will help US companies prepare for REACH and turn it from a challenge into an opportunity. European companies have been preparing for the challenges and opportunities of REACH for several years— US companies must be prepared to remain competitive. Attendees will receive a database of tools and resources to help them make informed decisions about chemicals alternatives.
Complete conference agenda and registration information will be available on the Web by late July at www.chemicalspolicy.org. Registration fee is $100 and includes continental breakfast, lunch, and conference materials. Pre-registration and pre-payment is required. Registration and Information Contact: Yve Torrie, Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, 978-934-3121.”
Note that this event has been posted to the GLRPPR calendar, and an electronic version of the registration brochure will be linked to that event record when it becomes available. As part of Michigan DEQ’s Green Meetings Initiative, all marketing of this training will be done electronically. For more information on DEQ trainings, see the Trainings and Workshops section of the DEQ web site.
Thanks to Jennifer Acevedo of Michigan DEQ for providing this information.