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With less than a month until the start of the second annual 2012 Atlantic Cup presented by 11th Hour Racing, Manuka Sports Event Management, is pleased to announce their ecological plans to run the first carbon neutral sailing race in the United States during its three legs of competition; Charleston, S.C. (May 11) to New York Harbor (May 14-19) to Newport, R.I. (May 26-27). The Atlantic Cup's carbon neutrality initiatives will be supported by Green Mountain Energy Company, the nation's longest serving green power retailer. The race features an international fleet of 13 competitors, with teams from France, England, United States and Germany all slated to be on the start line for what will be the largest fleet of Class 40s ever to race in the United States. The 2012 Atlantic Cup carbon footprint will be calculated prior to the race start by Green Mountain. Based on these calculations and a post-race assessment, carbon offsets and renewable energy certificates (RECs) will be retired in order to offset emissions associated with the event, such as staff air travel, ground and water transportation, staff hotel stays, and event electricity usage. "It's been a challenging endeavor to organize and run a carbon neutral sailing race, and it's possible in large part to the continued support and guidance from 11th Hour Racing and partnership with Green Mountain," said Hugh Piggin, Manuka Sports Event Management Founder and Atlantic Cup Race Director.

April 15, 2012 (Los Angeles, CA) – At the CicLAvia event in downtown Los Angeles today, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced plans for a bike sharing demonstration project in the City. In the spirit of Mayor Villaraigosa's invitation for "Angelenos to get out of their cars and on to the streets," Bike Nation, the only Southern California-based bike share company, plans to install 400 kiosks with a total of 4,000 bikes throughout the City of Los Angeles, with the first kiosks expected to be in operation during the fourth quarter of 2012. "Bike share programs have proven successful in urban areas around the world and in major cities in the United States," stated Navin Narang, Founder, Bike Nation. "We are excited to work with the City of Los Angeles to implement this demonstration project and provide healthy, low-cost transit options and connectivity between transit connections, business centers and regional destinations." The bicycle sharing demonstration will be a service in which bicycles are made available for public use and are checked-out and returned to self service kiosks. The usage fees for the bicycle share system are incentivized for turnover and trips of less than 30 minutes in duration. Bike Nation will create a system that is safe, efficient and dependable and will provide well-trained, supervised staff and maintenance crew to operate the system.

The European Commission has announced a new multi-million Euro initiative to support developing countries in their drive towards sustainable energy generation. The green aid programme will prove specialists from across Europe to help poorer nations develop low-carbon sources of energy. And the scheme will provide hundreds of millions of Euros to underwrite the roll-out, which has the goal of providing sustainable energy to 50 million people by 2030. Speaking at the EU Sustainable Energy For all Summit in Brussels today, José Manuel Durão Barroso, President of the European Commission, announced details of the plan. He said: "We have now clear scientific evidence that we need to embrace new ways of producing energy to avoid damaging global climate; we need to act upon this advice. The EU is therefore ready to help those countries that demonstrate such commitment, and to increase its efforts. To that end, I am delighted to announce today the launch of a new Commission initiative: Energising Development. Firstly, we will create a world-leading EU Technical Assistance Facility, initially in excess of 50 million euro over the next two years, to stand behind and support those countries that "opt in" to the initiative and commit to the necessary reforms. We will draw on the best EU experts in the field and promote the development and growth of expertise in developing countries themselves. I mentioned before that the Commission is already spending over 600 million euro per year in supporting energy; collectively EU Member States are spending even more than this, as we will no doubt hear later today. This is a strong base and, with our Agenda for Change and the mainstreaming of "green aid", we can confidently expect this figure to significantly increase from 2014 onwards, concentrating on sustainable and inclusive energy investments."

The electric industry is good at building things. That's how it solves problems. Is there a threat of blackouts? Develop a new natural gas-fired plant. Worried about climate change? Build wind and solar power. Does electricity cost too much? Install a transmission line to import cheaper power. But build-to-solve represents only half of the equation in the new world of smart grid. The other half, the part that stumps the industry, is solve-without-building. Rather than adding more energy, smart grid tries to wring maximum efficiency out of the system by changing the way we consume electricity. But it turns out, trying to direct human energy behavior makes cat herding look easy. To get people to pay attention to their energy use, utilities and private companies are experimenting with alluring gadgets and social motivators. So far, success has been minimal. Thomas Edison's light bulb has been such a smashing success for the last 100 years, none of us want to turn it off. So what will it take? The Edison Foundation recently looked outside the industry for some answers, inviting Dan Pink, best-selling author of "DRIVE: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" to speak at last month's Power the People 2.0 conference in Washington D.C. Consumer motivation has become a common conference topic. But Pink's talk was different. He stepped back and took a broader view and asked: How do we motivate the people who are trying motivate the consumer? Pink calls this "the science of how people do extraordinary things."

Climate change could mean unusually high temperatures occurring much more often in most parts of the world by the end of the century, according to a special report on extreme weather events from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). "A hottest day that occurs once in 20 years is likely to become a one-in-two year event, except in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere, where it is likely to be one-in-five years," according to Sonia Seneviratne, a climate expert at ETH Zurich, which is part of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Seneviratne was speaking at the Planet Under Pressure conference, which is being held in London this week (26–29 March). She was a member of an IPCC group set up in 2009 to compile the Special report on managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation (SREX), which was published today (28 March). Contributors to the report include experts on disaster recovery and risk management, together with members of the physical sciences and climate change mitigation and adaptation disciplines. The report marks the first time that the scientific literature on extreme events has been synthesised by a single team, Seneviratne told the conference. It assesses observations and predicts changes in temperature extremes, heavy rainfall and drought for 26 regions. According to the IPCC, it offers "an unprecedented level of detail regarding observed and expected changes in weather and climate extremes, based on a comprehensive assessment of over 1,000 scientific publications."

Leaders of the aviation industry have sent a reminder to governments of the vital role the sector plays in economic growth, providing jobs whilst taking its environmental responsibilities seriously. At a meeting in Geneva today, chief executives and directors from 16 global aviation companies and organisations signed the Aviation & Environment Summit's Declaration as a joint message to world governments due to meet at Rio de Janeiro for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in June. The industry leaders, representing airports, airlines, air navigation service providers and the makers of aircraft and engines, signed the declaration in a show of unity on the issue of sustainable development. Paul Steele, Executive Director of the Air Transport Action Group (ATAG), the organisation coordinating the Summit, said that the declaration shows that aviation takes its role in sustainable development seriously. "Sustainable development – and the Rio+20 process – is about finding ways to balance the needs of growing economies and higher standards of living across society with the need to more carefully manage the resources we are using and the impact that we have on the world. I am pleased to say that aviation is committed to doing just that. In 2008, we were the first global sector to commit to global cross-industry action on climate change. That declaration set the agenda for cooperative action across the aviation industry to reduce fuel use and emissions. The cooperation between industry partners and the projects underway are impressive."

Edinburgh has won the competition to be the home city of the headquarters of the world's first Green Investment Bank, the UK Government confirmed today. The Scottish capital beat off 31 rival bids to be announced the HQ location, with the GIB's main transaction team based in London. Business Secretary Vince Cable said locating the bank across the two cities will enable the GIB to become a world leader, playing to the strengths of both capitals. He added: "Harnessing the strengths of Edinburgh and London will support the Green Investment Bank's ambition to become a world leader. Edinburgh has a thriving green sector and respected expertise in areas such as asset management. London, as the world's leading financial centre, will ensure that the GIB's transaction team can hit the ground running. This decision will allow the GIB to operate effectively and achieve its mission of mobilising the additional investment needed to accelerate the UK's transition to a green economy." Scottish Secretary Michael Moore welcomed the news, and added: "I am delighted that the Green Investment Bank will be headquartered in Edinburgh. Scotland has enormous green energy potential and its capital is the UK's second biggest financial centre. The size and scale of the UK's single energy market ensures the level of investment that will unlock Scotland's renewables future, providing sustainable and affordable green energy across the UK. It makes perfect sense to have a GIB presence there."

Abu Dhabi is teaming up with a global electronics company to develop better coatings for solar panels to make them cheaper and easier to keep clean in desert conditions. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region stands to benefit from concentrated solar power (CSP) — a technology that uses lenses or mirrors to focus large amounts of sunlight onto a small area. This light is converted to heat, which generates electricity. In 2009, a joint study by the International Energy Agency's SolarPACES group, the European Solar Thermal Electricity Association and Greenpeace International concluded that CSP could generate up to a quarter of the world's energy needs by 2050. But harsh desert conditions in parts of the MENA region generate large amounts of airborne dust which collects on the solar panels used in CSP systems, reducing their efficiency. They need regular cleaning, which consumes large amounts of water. Bodo Becker, operations manager at Flagsol, which developed Egypt's first solar-thermal plant, Kuraymat, said this is a serious issue at his facility. "If we leave dust to accumulate for just one month, the output of the solar panels decreases by about 35 per cent," he said, adding that the facility uses nearly 40,000 litres of water every day.

"Is the emergence of shale gas a positive or negative development with respect to sustainability?" This was one of the most interesting questions discussed on one of the panels at KPMG's Global Summit last week in New York. Given the growth of both interest and dispute around shale gas, is shale gas is a bridge to a sustainable future or a bridge to nowhere? It'’s not that we lack controversial sources of energy, from nuclear energy to ethanol, but none of these resources has the potential to become a substantial resource like shale gas has for better and worse. With so much at stake when it comes to how sustainable the future of energy is going to be, it's no wonder that even at the KPMG summit, shale gas became such a hot topic that the panelists and the crowd seemed to be very passionate about and at the same time split about the answer to the question. First let's look at why this question matters at all. According to KPMG's Energy Survey 2011 there's a growing interest in shale gas and oil: 44 percent of respondents believe these to be the energy sources that will see the most future investment (the corresponding figure was less than 1 percent in 2010). Shale gas will represent 65 percent of US gas production by the 2030s, up from an estimated 43 percent by 2015 according to the survey.

In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama called upon an America built to last, "an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values." Today, the Heat is Power Association is ready to answer this call in this country and beyond. A coalition focused on the wide-scale development of a robust Waste Heat to Power (WH2P) market re-launched today as the Heat is Power Association to bring together everyone with a stake in clean energy and industry to capture an opportunity we're wasting every day—waste heat. And we're not alone. From the White House to the campaign trail to state houses across the country, almost everyone can agree on two things: that the way to spur the global economy is through manufacturing, and we must shore up clean energy supplies to power and protect cities and towns everywhere. Alongside President Obama's call for a renewed manufacturing sector, he touted the thousands of jobs that have been created at the hands of clean energy investments. By expanding our focus on the output of energy resources – emission-free electricity – we can grow those numbers exponentially.

Amid all the negative publicity that Solyndra's failure has brought to the Administration's cleantech efforts, one cleantech program has received broad bipartisan support: DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-e). In 2012, ARPA-e will receive $275 million, a 53% increase from the prior year with both the House and the Senate supporting significant funding for the agency's third year of operations. ARPA-e is modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which for over 50 years has funded early-stage research projects that show the potential to develop technologies that could yield disruptive advances for the military. DARPA's projects have resulted in major leaps including, but definitely not limited to, the Internet, stealth technology and the Global Positioning System. Both agencies operate by soliciting proposals from companies, universities, and labs within broad thematic areas and select the most promising proposals for grant awards. Readers of my blog know that I am not a big fan of some of the Administration's cleantech efforts. ARPA-e is at least one exception. Authorized in the last year of the Bush Administration and initially funded through the Obama Administration's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the ARPA-e program may be one government program that can help seed the disruptive advances needed in our energy economy.

The UK has topped the annual global league table that measures and ranks the world's largest sustainable corporations. The Global 100 is an extensive data-driven corporate sustainability assessment and inclusion is limited to a select group of the top 100 large-cap companies in the world. Companies are selected based on their performance against 11 indicators covering environmental performance and corporate citizenship such as leadership diversity, greenhouse gas emissions and payment of corporate taxes. The list includes companies from 22 countries encompassing all sectors of the economy, with collective annual sales in excess of $3.02 trillion, and 5,285,645 million employees. Among the 22 countries, the United Kingdom led the way with 16 Global 100 companies, an increase of five from the year before. Japan followed with 11 (down from 19 in 2011).France and the United States tied for third place with each claiming the headquarters of eight Global 100 companies. Rounding out the top ten scoring countries with at least three Global 100 companies were: Australia (seven), Canada (six), Germany (five) Switzerland (five), Denmark (four), Netherlands (four), Norway (four), Sweden (four), and Brazil (three). Sixty-eight per cent of the 2011 companies remained on the list in 2012.