The 25 Hottest Sustainability Professionals Marks & Spencer’s Plan A is Hot Hottest lists, are well, hot. So I thought I would start April with a list of the hottest 25 sustainability professionals. Full disclosure: this is actually a list of 26. Elaine Cohen: Elaine’s knowledge and analysis of corporate social responsibility and sustainability reports ranks among the top leaders within this space. Mary Capozzi: Best Buy’s Senior Director of CSR has been instrumental in pushing other retailers and manufacturers to follow her company’s lead and improve the recycling of electronics. Adam Elman: No retailer has an aggressive sustainability plan matching Marks & Spencer’s Plan A, and Mr. Peter Graf: Integrated reporting is taking a big step forward, due in part because of SAP and its CSO. Jim Hanna: Starbucks’ Director of Environmental Impact and Global Responsiblity is pushing the world’s largest company into a more ecological direction. Susan McPherson: Running the CSR practice for Fenton, Ms. Marcy Murninghan: Dr.
The Neuroscience Behind Stress and Learning The realities of standardized tests and increasingly structured, if not synchronized, curriculum continue to build classroom stress levels. Neuroimaging research reveals the disturbances in the brain's learning circuits and neurotransmitters that accompany stressful learning environments. The neuroscientific research about learning has revealed the negative impact of stress and anxiety and the qualitative improvement of the brain circuitry involved in memory and executive function that accompanies positive motivation and engagement. The Proven Effects of Positive Motivation Thankfully, this information has led to the development of brain-compatible strategies to help students through the bleak terrain created by some of the current trends imposed by the Common Core State Standards and similar mandates. In the past two decades, neuroimaging and brain-mapping research have provided objective support to the student-centered educational model. Neuroimaging and EEG Studies
Upcycling Recycling waste into products of higher quality Upcycling, also known as creative reuse, is the process of transforming by-products, waste materials, useless, or unwanted products into new materials or products perceived to be of greater quality, such as artistic value or environmental value. Description[edit] Upcycling is the opposite of downcycling, which is the other part of the recycling process. Downcycling involves converting materials and products into new materials, sometimes of lesser quality. The terms upcycling and downcycling were first used in print in an article in SalvoNEWS by Thornton Kay quoting Reiner Pilz and published in 1994.[2] We talked about the impending EU Demolition Waste Streams directive. Upsizing was the title of the German edition of a book about upcycling first published in English in 1998 by Gunter Pauli and given the revised title of Upcycling in 1999. Upcycling has shown significant growth across the United States and the World. Applications[edit]
Opower Opower connects with utilities Opower connects with energy companies to automagically pull in your usage so that you can easily compare, compete, and discover. Currently participating utilities include: Austin Utilities (Minnesota) Burbank Water & Power Chugach Electric Association Clark Public Utilities Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) Connexus Energy Consumers Energy Direct Energy Glendale Water & Power Hawaii Energy Loveland Water and Power National Grid Owatonna Public Utilities Pacific Gas and Electric Company City of Palo Alto Utilities PPL Electric Utilities Rochester Public Utilities Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO) What the heck is Opower? Opower works with utilities around the world to help their customers make smarter decisions about their energy use. Together, we've already helped people save tens of millions of dollars on their energy bills and in the process stopped more than a billion tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.
Common Misconceptions | Plastic Pollution Coalition The Recycling Myth Collecting plastics at curbside fosters the belief that, like aluminum and glass, these will be converted into new similar objects. This is not the case with plastic. This is not recycling, but down-cycling. But not even down-cycling is happening. How big is the problem? Artist Chris Jordan offers the following visualizations. Please visit Plastic Free Times for great resources on recycling. Ocean Clean-ups By most estimates, hundreds of millions of metric tons of plastic debris currently floats in the ocean. Bioplastics Bioplastics are just plastics made from plants. derived from non-food, non-GMO graincompostable and biodegradablefree of toxins during the manufacturing and recycling processmanufactured in a sustainable way (water, land and chemical use are considerations)recyclable in a cradle-to-cradle cycle