Inspired by mountainous Chinese landscapes and the traditional villages built their hillsides, MAD Architects has unveiled plans to create a towering vertical Urban Forest. Designed for Chongqing, China, the projects consists of a stacked vertical forest set in the heart of the city, designed to bring more nature and open space in a dense and compact way. MAD Architects is becoming more known for their sustainable designs, and hopefully the green design aspects of this new tower extend beyond the garden spaces on each floor.

Urban Forest is a commercial high-rise building that takes the form of an urban mountain with over 70 floors, each one different and unique. Each floor is an abstract curved shape, layered slightly off-center to give the facade an organic look as it rises up into the sky. A central cylindrical core structure supports all the floors and hosts the mechanical systems and elevators.

Each floor is also covered in floor-to-ceiling glass windows, providing expansive views of the city. A walk-around balcony of differing widths hosts the green garden space, as well as pools, trees, and courtyards. Some floors are nothing but open space, while others contain offices or residential space. Each floor is seen as a separate and unique level of the urban forest and is meant to combine both nature and the urban

[inhabitat]

Kraft Foods recently announced it is launching a type of chocolate derived from sustainable cocoa farming.   The premium dark chocolate, Cote d’Or, contains cocoa from farms that meets Rainforest Alliance Certified standards. 
Cote d’Or chocolate will first launch in France and Belgium.   The sweet treat will then roll out in Germany, Spain, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Netherlands, Canada, UK and the US.   The special seal will be added to Kraft’s Marabou chocolate brand in Sweden, Denmark and Finland.  And finally, the sustainable chocolate will be available in Switzerland and Austria under Kraft’s Suchard brand.

Cocoa, Theobroma cacao, is farmed on more than 18 million acres of tropical land.  About 3 million tons of cocoa is produced each year, with about 70 percent coming from West Africa.




Partnering with various businesses, organizations and associations, the Rainforest Alliance encourages the use of sustainable cocoa farming practices which not only help the environment, but help with working conditions. Certification is awarded by an independent international company based on 10 specific ecological, social and economic criteria.

More than 3,000 cocoa farmers in six communities have learned sustainable agricultural practices.  By using such measures, the farmers have healthier crops and higher productivity,  resulting in a higher income and better living condition for families.  Other benefits in using long-term sustainable ag practices include the fair treatment and good working conditions for workers, protection of wildlife, water conservation and rainforest conservation.  A win-win for all!

Kraft has been working with the Rainforest Alliance since 2005.   The company, committed to using beans derived from certified farms, has agreed to purchase 30,000 tons of the Rainforest Alliance Certified sustainable cocoa beans by the end of 2012.  Now, that’s a lot of chocolate!

And Kraft isn’t the only company to jump on the sustainable cocoa band-wagon.  Earlier this year, Mars announced its chocolate products will be made from sustainable sources by 2020.  The company has partnered with Rainforest Alliance for over 10 years.   Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate bars in Britain and Ireland carry the FAIRTRADE seal.   Fairtrade promotes environmentally and socially responsible business practices, including bans on forced labor, including child labor.  The Dairy Milk brand chocolate bars will be certified in Canada, Australia and New Zealand in 2010.   And Cargill also announced some of its chocolate will carry the  FAIRTRADE certification mark.

[triplepundit]

Water for Business: Initiatives guiding sustainable water management in the private sector




Water for Business: Initiatives Guiding Sustainable Water Management in the Private Sector", jointly developed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) identifies 16 initiatives or tools, driven by business leaders, civil society and governments, which have emerged since 2006.

It includes the WBCSD Global Water Tool, which helps companies map their water use and assess water risks and opportunities across their global operations.

"Water for Business" is not an exhaustive overview; rather, it tries to concisely capture business-relevant initiatives that are addressing the challenge of better defining sustainable water management. These can be through different approaches, including guidelines, tools, measurement methodologies, and communication and stewardship schemes.

The report includes a glossary of water terms separated into broadly used and understood terms, terms linked to specific initiatives and finally terms that are currently not well defined or are controversial.

This guide is aimed at helping business identify which initiatives and approaches will most suit its needs, and to help developers of schemes understand opportunities for increasing impact through consensus building and joint action.

Download PDF Report : http://www.greenbiz.com/sites/default/files/Water4Business.pdf

[greenbiz]

Novomer Inc., a materials company pioneering a family of high-performance plastics, polymers and other chemicals from renewable feedstocks such as carbon dioxide, today announced that it has raised $14 million in a Series B funding.

The round brings total funding in the company to approximately $21 million and will be used to accelerate growth as the company prepares for broad commercialization. OVP Venture Partners led the round, joining all of Novomer’s existing investors: Physic Venture Partners, Flagship Venture Partners and DSM Venturing. OVP Managing Director Carl Weissman will also join the Novomer board.

“Governments and companies around the globe have placed a heavy emphasis on environmental initiatives aimed at reducing carbon levels in the atmosphere,” said Weissman. “We believe that Novomer technologies enabling the use of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide as inexpensive raw materials are truly innovative and economically efficient ways to transform pollution into high performance materials that address huge global markets.”

“Novomer is bringing to market low cost, environmentally sustainable materials that are produced using existing chemical manufacturing infrastructure,” said Novomer CEO Jim Mahoney. “Our investors have recognized the world class science that has produced such practical, yet powerful innovations. We value their support as we ramp up efforts to commercialize a series of materials aimed at the packaging, coatings and chemicals markets.”

• Burns out rapidly and uniformly into carbon dioxide and water without violent gas formation
• Extremely low ash residue compared to existing sacrificial materials and binders
• Decomposes completely at temperatures significantly lower than that of other binders
• Soluble in many common, inexpensive solvents excluding water
• Produced in customizable viscosities and molecular weights to meet specific application requirements

About Novomer

Novomer (www.novomer.com) is a revolutionary new materials company pioneering a family of low-cost, high-performance, sustainable plastics, polymers and other chemicals. Based on the pioneering catalyst work of Prof. Geoff Coates at Cornell University, Novomer’s groundbreaking technology allows carbon dioxide and other renewable feedstocks to be cost-effectively transformed into polymers, plastics and other chemicals for a wide variety of industrial markets. The company is partnered with equity investors Physic Venture Partners, Flagship Venture Partners, OVP Venture Partners and DSM Venturing and has received support from the Department of Energy, National Science Foundation and the State of New York.

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