Search Results for: Australia

BY PACIFICA GODDARD AND JONATHAN DYSON, IN LIMA

SOME of world’s most coveted fibres, Vicuña, Guanaco, Alpaca and Llama, all hail from rugged Andean region in South America. Vicuña fibre, known locally and in the trade as the "gold of the Andes" and "the fabric of the gods" is a key part of the global high-end luxury market for rare and superfine fibres.…

BY LEAH GERMAIN AND MARTIN FOSTER, IN TOKYO

MOLYCORP Inc, the key United States rare earths producer, has welcomed a new partnership between the US and the Japanese government that seeks to diversify the global supply for rare earth metals. On April 30, President Obama met with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to discuss the development of a joint critical minerals and development project – an alliance between the two countries, where they will share new technology used in the production and recycling of rare earths.…

BY MARK ROWE

WHEN the European Union (EU) set up the world’s first carbon trading market in 2001, the Emissions Trading System (ETS), advocates heralded a new dawn: carbon pollution could be brought under control in a way that benefited the environment while not damaging industrial interests.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

ALGAE have been heralded as the universal raw material of the future for biofuels, agricultural feed, nutritional supplements, biochemicals and cosmetics. They gobble up CO2, can clean up waste water, and many will thrive in seawater when the fresh variety is usually limited to the sunnier climes where algae can be grown more cheaply.…

BY KARRYN MILLER, MJ DESCHAMPS, LEAH GERMAIN AND KEITH NUTHALL

THE BYELECTION victories in Myanmar/Burma by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her political allies have loosened the tough trade sanctions that have thus far hampered efforts to develop the country as a new sourcing hub for knitwear and other clothing products.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

ALGAE have been heralded as the universal raw material of the future for biofuels, agricultural feed, nutritional supplements, biochemicals and cosmetics. They gobble up CO2, can clean up waste water, and many will thrive in seawater when the fresh variety is usually limited to the sunnier climes where algae can be grown more cheaply.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

PLASTICS companies in the European Union (EU) storing potentially dangerous chemicals on their premises will have to by 2015 abide by tougher management standards preventing industrial accidents. This is because the European Parliament, the European Commission and the EU Council of Ministers have struck an agreement on the contents of a new law – the Seveso III directive – that will include new safety rules for chemical-using businesses.…

BY MARK ROWE

THERE is a scenario that environmentalists, climate change experts and the renewable oils industry have quietly dreaded for some time: what if – as you painstakingly push for a shift away from fossil fuels – another source of fossil fuels, a new kid on the carbon block, fronts up?…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a high level industry-public sector advisory group tasked with increasing innovation and research boosting Europe’s raw material production. This ‘European Innovation Partnership’ (EIP) on raw materials will be established this year and will organise raw material research and development projects, drawing on existing research funding budgets.…

BY LEAH GERMAIN

THE USA’s Under-Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Francisco Sánchez has told just-style he is optimistic about the impact on the American textile and clothing sector of new bilateral trade deals struck by the Obama administration with South Korea, Panama and Columbia.…