Cal Baier-Anderson, Ph.D., is a Health Scientist.

An article recently published in the journal Macromolecules reports on the development of a new process that the authors claim can prevent the migration of phthalates from PVC plastic. This “breakthrough” will undoubtedly be used to argue that industry should be allowed to continue to use a retinue of toxic chemicals in the manufacture of PVC destined for use in a broad variety of applications. 

Concern for consumer exposures is often the main argument made against the use of toxic chemicals in consumer applications. With evidence of exposure to chemicals like phthalates in nearly everyone who has been tested, including pregnant women, this is understandable. 

But even if the new claims are proven to be true, there are many other reasons we need to find safer substitutes for such chemicals: worker exposures, environmental releases and end-of-life recycling and disposal issues, to name a few. The potential impacts from continued use of toxic chemicals must be examined across their entire lifecycle.

PVC lifecycle concerns extend beyond phthalates

Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic is a prime example of a material that should be reserved for use in only critical applications that have no available substitutes. PVC is made from vinyl chloride, a known human carcinogen. To protect workers, exposures must be tightly controlled, as in the past there have been documented worker exposures resulting in cancer. Both accidental and incidental releases to the environment are an ongoing concern and there have instances of groundwater contamination at some production sites (for example, see here and here). 

When it comes to consumer products and medical uses, exposure to vinyl chloride itself has been less of a concern than exposure to the plasticizing agents used to soften the PVC, such as phthalates. These have proven problematic due to migration out of the plastics and into humans. And then there are the end-of-life recycling and disposal issues. Unfortunately, PVC plastic is not readily recyclable and most plastic winds up in incinerators (which can generate ultra-toxic dioxins), in landfills (which must be monitored for leakage in perpetuity), or in water bodies (case in point is the vast floating island of plastic debris in the North Pacific). 

While we can and should take steps to reduce consumer exposures to chemicals of concern, such as phthalates, we need to do so by broadly evaluating the materials we use, including how they are made and how they are managed after use. In short, we need to find ways to reduce both the use of toxic chemicals and their impacts throughout the entire lifecycle. And while it may not be feasible to eliminate all uses of such chemicals, we can and should reserve them for critical applications that have no safer substitutes.

The article is from the Environmental Defense Fund. Read the original article here.

Environmental Defense Fund’s Green Returns team is just back from the Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst Outlook 2010 conference in New York, where we sponsored, exhibited and presented. There is no doubt that EDF is the first environment group to do all three at a Dow Jones conference. It was a great chance for us to connect with executives from a number of leading private equity and venture capital firms, including 3i, Apollo Management, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, Huntsman Gay Global Capital, THL Partners and others.

Our message at the conference and for the private equity sector in the future is straightforward:

Environmental management and innovation should be one of private equity’s key strategies now and for the future.

A changing world and challenging economy is forcing companies in all industries – including private equity – to transform to remain competitive. As a result, private equity firms are looking for new ways to lead and create value. Taken to scale across portfolios, a creative approach to environmental issues can create value by improving due diligence, boosting portfolio company performance, presenting new growth and investment opportunities and building stronger relationships with LPs and other stakeholders.

Today’s announcement [PDF] by private equity leader Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) is proof that environmental management can help drive value creation at scale. In fact, the release includes a quote from KKR Co-founder Henry Kravis stating that “The business case for environmental management has never been stronger.”

That’s why KKR has expanded the Green Portfolio program that we co-developed and tested at three companies in 2008 (U.S. Foodservice, PRIMEDIA and Sealy) to include twenty percent of its global private equity portfolio today.

In 2008, EDF and KKR worked with U.S. Foodservice, PRIMEDIA and Sealy to measure and improve business and environmental performance. These pilots helped EDF to develop our Green Returns approach and the three companies to capture over $16M in annual cost savings and reduce 25,000 tons of CO2 pollution. Based on these results KKR expanded the Green Portfolio Program in 2009 to include Accellent Inc., Biomet Inc., Dollar General Corp., SunGard Data Systems Inc. and HCA Inc. Today’s announcement adds four additional companies: First Data, Lehigh Phoenix (a division of Visant), Oriental Brewery and Tarkett.

EDF believes that this is just the beginning. Environmental management can play a much larger role in value creation across the broader private equity industry. That’s why we recently released our Green Returns approach, resources and case studies to help industry leaders take advantage of this opportunity.

Green Returns is a tested and flexible approach for private equity firms to measure and improve business and environmental performance across their portfolios. It is tailored to the strengths of the private equity sector and has quickly proven to yield significant business and environmental results, including millions of dollars in annual cost savings and thousands of tons of pollution.

Visit http://edf.org/GreenReturns to learn more and get started today.

The article is from the Environmental Defense Fund. Read the original article here.

The only question that counts is the one that the Chilcot inquiry won’t address: was the war with Iraq illegal? If the answer is yes, everything changes. The war is no longer a political matter, but a criminal one, and those who commissioned it should be committed for trial for what the Nuremberg Tribunal called “the supreme international crime”(1): the crime of aggression.

But there’s a problem with official inquiries in the United Kingdom: the government appoints their members and sets their terms of reference. It’s the equivalent of a criminal suspect being allowed to choose …

Read the full article here.

On January 25, 2010 we talked with Charlotte Hess, Jesse Ribot and Ruth Meinzen-Dick about recent insights on governing the commons and our emerging understanding of the "New Commons."

Hess described those New Commons as shared resources for which there are no pre-existing rules or norms. Often a new commons emerges because of erosion of public goods or new opportunities brought about by technology, such as the Internet and data about the human genome. The New Commons are less about "property" than they are about the question, "how do we share and protect these resources?"

Many interesting points came up, such as the importance of visibility and the lack of one best governance model. On visibility, the starting quote was "trees are easier to manage than fish or water quality." Ironically, making a resource like water visible in a reservoir might be considerably less efficient than storing it in the aquifer, where much of it wouldn't evaporate, but it would be easier to monitor (rogue wells are hard to detect).

On governance models, the consensus is that there is no one best way. Generally, people local to a commons are the best informed to design its governance. Participation really matters, as do known rules. Our conversation continued, touching on:

• the distinction between "good" and "goods" and the need for better language to discuss these topics.
• Elinor Ostrom's Nobel Prize
• the need to establish property rights for groups or the public (not just individuals and organizations),
• lessons we can learn from the study of traditional commons and open-source projects, and
• the threat of the anti-commons and enclosure.

Resources we discussed include:

• The Struggle to Govern the Commons in Science Magazine's 
• The International Association for the Study of the Commons
• Digital Library Of The Commons Repository
• Polycentricity
• The Tragedy of the Anticommons

Listen to the full podcast to learn more.

Please join us for our next EDFix call on February 8, at 9am Pacific, on the recently announced GreenXchange.

You can also:

• Listen to or download the podcast of the full discussion (56 min)
• Get a taste by listening to or downloading Jerry Michalski's brief summary of the call (13 min)
• Find out how to participate in upcoming EDFix Conference Calls.

The article is from the Environmental Defense Fund. Read the original article here.